Happy October

Caro Presidente,
This week we managed to see one of our investigators, named Efisio Fadda, and we have a baptismal date set with him! He has been wanting to get baptized for a long time, I remember my first week in church here and I asked him if he met with the missionaries before, he said yes, for 5 years. I was thinking he was another "eternal investigator", and so I decided to ask him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes, for sure. But then the past 5 or so months have just been nuts for him, with difficulties with his house, with family, and lots of things like that. But just recently, after being gone from church for about 2 months, he's been able to come back, and he seems to have figured everything out, so we set a date for him on the 13th of October. But he's super ready and really excited for that.
Other investigators have been difficult to see, but with less active work, we're starting to work together better as missionaries in the city, talking about which members we are visiting and also being more united in our spiritual thoughts with them. We're planning on going almost entirely through the members to set up friendships and appointments with the less actives, and it's great to see some of their reactions to the recent conferences and so on. There's definitely a fire being built here, and we're trying to direct it as best we can. We're trying to work with the Elder's Quorum President as well to help us get ideas for where to go with this, to be more united like that. We've been trying to set up an appointment with him for the past few weeks, but we finally got one in a few days.

Ciao ciao!
Anziano Walker

 

 

 

Ha ha, oh yeah! I heard from Anziano Woolsey that Sorella Waddoups started taking pictures when I started shaking hands, super awesome! He was kind of bummed because he was right before me, buuuuut... :)

 

Anyway, this week has been slow again. Yeah, we are doing a ton about less active work here. In Cagliari, there's about 50 people who regularly come to church, but on the ward list there's about I think 200 names. The last active baptism was from 4 years ago, but now he's even getting to the point of slowing down church attendance (but still has a bomb testimony). The new anziani and sorelle that came in let us know that President specifically told a few of them that a main reason there are 8 missionaries in Cagliari is for the less-active work. Plus, Elder Ballard used that as a huge part of his talk at the stake dividing, and the new stake president came this past weekend and had that as a huge part of his talk as well, saying that in the topical guide in english, there are 98 references to missionary work, while only 3 say "baptism". Pretty cool. Cool side note, the new stake president in the Rome West Stake is the guy who translates for President Monson. So basically, the Italians here got the prophet as their stake president, if you think about it very quickly. :)

 

That's funny, Mom, that you mention finding joy in your calling is a way we show love to the Lord. That's actually something I realized I should work on a little more here. There's a ton of great things that happen in missionary work, and a ton of wonderful experiences and learning opportunities and growth, but for some reason enjoying it takes work. So bit by bit, I'm trying to fix that. My mind sometimes doesn't like working with me, though. I'll get there, though!

 

That's all I have to say at the mo'. Oh, wait:

Love you!

Anziano Walker

Hi!!

Ciao President!
This week was tough on lessons again, and on seeing investigators. Antonio and Fabiana are busy with work and preparing for his english test, Agostino is getting set for his Chemotherapy this week, Cristiano is busy with work (said we should call back in a bit, though), and Salvatore Ibba we've kind of let be for a little bit, and the family of Sorella Pistidda we gave to the Sorelle, in the hopes that they could get appointments set up and actually done easier than we could, on account of difficulties of the husband being home. We're trying to work with less-actives almost completely through members, since many of them have a very difficult time, it seems, wanting to meet with us. We're mainly focusing on fostering member help a bit.
Anyway, thanks for caring President.

Ciao!
Anziano Walker

 

 

 

 

Hi Fam!!!

 

Man, slightly disappointing week, but working through it. Oh, we also met with Gianni and Sara last night. He's recovering from his eye surgery nicely, but now he has another one on October 11 for his other eye. But they were super nice again, and talkative. My gosh, we had a spiritual thought about Joseph Smith planned, just explaining the Restoration, but man, they kept going on and on. It didn't help that I tried to bring a picture book to try to focus the conversation to Joseph Smith, Gianni just took it and went through literally all the pictures, asking about everything. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that it had everything from Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Church History, Ordinances, Prophets...... man. That took a while. But they're super nice!

 

Not a heck of a lot after that to say. Sorry I don't have pictures this week, I forgot to load them onto my flash drive last night and this morning. I'll try to get a better system of that. :) I like sending pictures back, I just never knew how I could before, and I stopped trying to figure out for a few months. But the past few weeks have been fun with that.

 

Cool spiritual thought: I was looking through the scriptures this morning, and came upon 1 Timothy 4. In there, I was reading, and reading, and decided to try to divide out the entire Epistle, to understand what Paul says. Like, "this section is about teaching doctrine and staying in those bounds" "this section on the qualifications for a bishop" "this is his personal testimony", and so on. I eventually found several points that related very specifically to my patriarchal blessing, and was amazed at the connection. So now I can see what people mean when they say a Patriarchal blessing is like personal scripture. As I read in Timothy those parts, it really was like Heavenly Father picked out those parts just for me.

 

So anyway, bye! Have a good week! Love you all!

Ciao Ciao!

Anziano Walker

First Email of Second Year

Hi President!
This week we didn't see a lot of lessons with investigators, unfortunately. However, we did have another lesson with Antonio and Fabiana, and after the english part, we got to talking about Elder Ballard coming to Rome the next day, and they wanted to come see the transmission at the church, but they and their family are currently remodeling the house, so they said if they could finish up early enough that day, they would come. However, they said they would like to come to General Conference.
From what we heard from our ward mission leader at correlation yesterday, the father of the missionary in the ward, who we met with him once (Salvatore Ibba) came to the transmission with his companion. We haven't heard from them, but Fratello Locci met with them afterwards and talked a bit. So that's pretty cool.
This past week with studying, I've continued studying by searching for the Lord being referred to in the scriptures, and then looking into other things. Recently, I've put more emphasis into memorizing the Missionary Handbook. [President had given this as an assignment last conference, but was really cryptic about how much to memorize. Gulp.] At this point I'm mainly focusing on memorizing the sections and the scriptures that go with them, and then seeing how the scripture relates to the section. It's cool to see some correlations that I've never noticed before, how the scriptures apply directly to the mission rules. I feel like it's helping me be able to see more in my personal study from the scriptures.

Thanks President!

Anziano Walker

 

 

Ho dang, there's a lot of stuff to write about here, from questions alone. Where do I start?

 

Let's see, Elder Ballard was really inspirational. He had a meeting with the missionaries at 8 in the morning, and talked about the work specifically in the mission here. One thing he said that the thing that would be best for the work would be to work with the youth, cause we can relate to them easier. I kind of sighed with relief at that one. Sometimes old people here are really,....... angry, let's say. Or just flat out rude. Or they talk a lot but conversation goes nowhere. Oh, old people.

 

But ok, Sunday was nuts. The assistants had bought our tickets to Rome early in the week, but then later in the week they learned Elder Ballard wanted to meet with the missionaries at 8. The tickets they had bought worked, however, because our flight left at 6:30. Arrived at 7:30. Which means we had to get to the airport 5:30. All 18 missionaries on the island. Which meant we start moving people with the 2 cars on the island at 4:00. Which meant we woke up at 3:00. I'm amazed I stayed up the whole day. But then we had a flight back to Sardegna at 4:00 and 5:30 (two different groups). And the planes were delayed by a lot. It was a looooooong day. But really good,  and I'm trying to apply a lot of what I learned.

 

But yeah, we're doing good over here. It's dang hard setting up appointments with people, so basically the only people we're consistently meeting with are Antonio and Fabiana. But they're tight, and really great people! Fabiana even gave a closing prayer last time, so they really are trying too!

 

Sorry, having a hard time thinking about what to write right now. Didn't think about it beforehand. But this week has been good, and we did a lot. Oh! This morning, I found something that I really want to look at in studies. I have never figured out the organization of the 70, or the Area 70's. So I've started looking into that a lot more. D&C 107 is great for that.

 

Well, love you all!

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

 

P.S. - I FINALLY got the package with the ipod. Thank you so much Kaden! You did fantastic! =D

Happy PDay

Ciao Presidente!
This week has been interesting. To start off, the 2 new investigators we got are Antonio Melis and his sister Fabiana, the guy who we were meeting at his house for english and I mentioned that I was feeling iffy about going for too much longer. But, We've had some solid lessons with them, and they realize that we're not teachers of english, just practice. And they both really do have good questions about the church and our spiritual thoughts we give, which always end up with us staying at least a half hour longer to talk some more. They even said they would try to come to church (but not this past week because they already had something planned with someone else). But they are super great!
Also, we are trying really hard to continue to see our investigators we have. Yesterday, we saw Agostino at the hospital (his wife is a less-active, he asked for a blessing for a tumor a while ago), and he was really appreciative of the visit, and we're planning on going back tomorrow. We heard from Gianni that his eye surgery went well, but his eye is bugging him, and we can't come for a bit. He was happy to see we left a note for him though, and a Restoration film. We heard that Gino is also in the hospital, but we don't know which one. But we are giving him to the other Anziani here to teach, so they can have some ground to start on possibly. Monday night we were able to see William and Cristina again (the children of S.lla Pistidda), and had a nice little lesson with them, even though babies were crying and so on. Other ones that we have not been able to see are Salvatore Ibba, Vanessa, and Carlo.
And yesterday was full of miracles as well, a lesson with Efisio (an investigator of 5 years who wants to get baptized but can't due to problems with family and his rest home), which was great because he hasn't been allowed out of his house the past like 2 months, and then we have this lesson (on tithing because of some comments he made in Sunday School), and he tells us that he thinks the Spirit finally found a way into his brain to tell him that tithing is from God. And then we got another investigator, Cristiano, who seems golden. He is really searching for the right path, he has studied a bit about various religions, he's curious to learn more about us, and he was able to recognize the feelings he had as the Spirit when we expained that. It's great!
I'm also in a good mood right now because I recently started a new way of studying the scriptures that is helping me learn a ton. I'm highlighting all the times in the scriptures where it names Christ, whether as a name, pronoun, or title. This is really helping me see a lot of things I didn't expect, like different prophecies and promises, just how much the Book of Mormon and Bible testify of Him, and even how sacred his name is kept in the scriptures. Also, I'm learning a lot of questions I have too, like how to make sense of Mosiah 15, which really confuses me a bit. But I'm thinking a lot about it, and really trying to understand in a way I've never seen before.
Thanks President!

Anziano Walker

 

 

Hey guys!

 

Man, this week has been crazy, and fun! It was cool to be in 8 at church on Sunday, and in 10 at District Meeting Monday. Nuts! Oh, to answer Dad's question about the wards/branches: there are 3 other branches on the island, where each of the missionaries are (Oristano, Sassari, and Olbia), but as far as I know, Cagliari will be the only one that becomes a ward. The others are just way too small to sustain all the callings that come. But we're flying to Rome Sunday morning, and then flying back Sunday evening. All 18 missionaries on the island. Nuts.

 

Let's see, what did I not mention in my letter to President? I took a bit of time to write that because I was so excited about the week and all the work we did, and I knew I was gonna copy that part to you. But yeah, this past week has been nuts. Oh, and that Cristiano guy? We found him Sunday evening, after the Mostra. We had 10 minutes left when we dropped off the Mostra at the appartment, so we decided to do a little bit of finding before planning. We went out, and within 5 minutes we found him, and had a decent conversation with him, and set up an appointment for yesterday. And he was SUPER great in the lesson, even giving a really meaningful prayer at the end. Sweet!

 

But yeah, that's kind of my week. The new Anziani and Sorelle are fun. There's one Italian Sorella, Sorella Caramia, who's fun because she hardly speaks any english, and it's so rewarding to be able to have a full on conversation with a missionary like that. The new Anziani are both really funny and great workers, with an Anziano Davids being an especially good example for myself, I feel. He's one transfer ahead of me (we knew each other briefly in the MTC, which no new groups can say anymore (there's no overlapping time in the MTC)).

 

Well have fun this week, and I love hearing about all that's going on! Cameron, way to go on going to that Order of the Arrow thing, that's super cool! Kaden: I can tell you from experience: you will have less hard conversations with Mom and Dad if you make a goal to finish your eagle project in 2 months, and then focus on beating that goal. Cole: YOU'RE GONNA BE A DEACON, OH MAN THAT'S SO COOL! HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY IN A FEW WEEKS!!!!! =D Mom and Dad: I love you! =D

 

I love you!

Anziano Walker

My First Letter As a 45 yr old

Ciao Presidente!

This week has been hard to meet with investigators (the appointments that we had had to be moved or cancelled), but to make up for that we wrote each family a note with a spiritual thought and letting them know we're thinking about them. It was fun to do, but I might have preferred meeting with them.

With what time we've had free last week, we went around to try to see less-actives in the area, to see if they still live there and/or what's holding them back from coming to church. Unfortunately, not a lot are home when we go, but some have at least responded. And then generally said they're not interested. One, however, I think not this past week but the one before, named Gianluca Picci, said he wants to get back in touch, and will come to english course tonight, so we'll see about that, and then follow up a bit.

A couple cool little things from this week: we have a guy that asked us to help him with his english at his house, to be able to understand better for a test he has coming up. We probably won't keep up these house visits for too long, since he seems to want to learn more of the grammar, but he is ok with us giving a spiritual thought at the end. Ok, thinking about this just now, I'm seeing that it may be turning a little more into an english class than a course, these visits, and not being understood that it's so much a missionary tool. Next time, we'll make sure to try to clear that up.

Last night, we were working in Capoterra (after dropping off a letter to Gianni and Sara), and ended up trying to drive back home after about 8:15 to try to make it in time. But we got going the wrong way on a road, and it was going into countryside, with no way of making a u turn. But anyway, we keep driving, and Anziano Woolsey says jokingly "Ok, next house we see, we stop there and there's gonna be someone ready to hear the Gospel." I decide to do that, and eventually we see a house, I park the car, and we go up. The owners were just walking up to the door, and we stopped them to talk real quick. Turns out, they had met with the missionaries like 3 years ago. And had heard all the lessons. And were super nice. And we have an appointment for next Thursday. So, yeah, that was really cool.

Ciao President!
Anziano Walker

HIYA!

Man I'm in a good mood right now. I love writing family! And friends, but it's always special with family. I love you guys, and love hearing about what's going on at home. Even if it is "same old same old". :)

So those new investigators? Yeah, not a heck of a lot from this week. But we do have an appointment with the William, Cristina, Carlo, Vanessa, and S.lla Pistidda this week, which we have high hopes for. We'll see!

I totally planned to send pictures this week, I got them all set on my flash drive and everything, but then I went and forgot my flash drive on my desk. Yeah, my bad....

We had transfer calls on Saturday, and guess what happened: I'm staying here! 4 in one city, what the heck? And my companion is....... Anziano Loertscher! Yep, 3 transfers in a row with the same companion, which is longer than I stayed in any other city, haha! But then Cagliari is gonna be changing after the new people arrive on the island tomorrow (hopefully): there's gonna be a new companionship of Anziani here! And, not only that, but a new companionship of Sorelle! So yep, we're gonna have 8 missionaries over here in one city, each of which is officially out of greenie stage (except for one that will be trained by a Sorella coming in). Apparently, they want this place to boom in a bit.

Although, I think I know a part of the reason. Last week, I totally forgot to mention this, but Sardegna is no longer gonna be by itself. On the 15th of September, it will be a part of the Rome West Stake, along with the Napoli area, and part of Rome. And Cagliari is gonna be a Ward.

Funnily enough, we haven't been able to talk about this with our Branch Mission Leader. He is currently in America, and has been for the past 2 months. We have been kind of floundering trying to work with the Branch here. It's tough. But ho dang, we've got a lot of news for him when he gets back this week!

******And one last thought: I've been learning a lot this past little bit about how I think and what I need to do to deal with hard times. I'm learning a lot that I just never learned how to deal with anxiety well. But recently, especially after talking with that counselor a few times, I'm seeing that a super easy way I've always had to get over it is to connect with somebody. Whether it's companion, Heavenly Father, or someone in a letter, that's almost always how I've gotten over that. So I'm deciding to put that more into practice, and work on making that a full on help for me. I know that Heavenly Father helps me, cause He helped me see that! :)

Bye everyone, and I love you!

Ciao!

Anziano Walker

Happy Birthday to Alyssa

Caro Presidente,

This week we were able to get a ton of new investigators, and that was really thanks to the members of the branch here. First off, right after Zone Conference on Thursday, we had a lesson with Sorella Pistidda (that we had been trying to set up all last transfer after calling her son-in-law from the Area Book), and her daughter (Cristina), the daughter's husband (William), and S.lla Pistidda's son (Carlo) and his companion (Vanessa, they are not married yet) all became new investigators, 3 of which is for a second time (the companion is new). They were all super receptive, asked good questions, and understood what we were going for. We had an appointment set for Monday, but they had trouble with that, so they said to call for this next Monday, but we just learned that we might be able to see them this Friday, so hopefully that works out.
The next 2 new investigators were referrals from Simone Ibba, a member on a mission right now, who apparently emailed the Sorelle, and they passed on the information to us. The referral was for his dad (Salvatore), and then the companion (we forgot the name) decided to listen too. They're able to see us Sundays, so they told us to call ahead to make sure. They weren't quite as receptive, but that may be because we were beat (we had just got out of a long member lunch literally 1 minute before he took us to his house), and he talked a lot. We're hoping to plan well for this week, though.
The last 3 came from a referral from the Elder's Quorum President on Sunday, who said a less-active member (the wife, Sabrina Leone) had requested a visit for a blessing for her husband (Agostino), who we learned at the visit that night has a tumor, and went in for chemotherapy Monday. After that, we were able to give a spiritual thought to the whole family (which includes two daughters, Francesca and Martina) that the Elder's Quorum President suggested on the Spirit, and how they could feel that more powerfully and consistently in their lives. They were all open to it, and responded they would like to have that, and said they would try to come to church Sunday, although it would be difficult after the therapy. But Sabrina said she wants to get back to reading the Book of Mormon, so we gave that as another commitment as well, and we said we would call to see when we could see eachother again later in the week, and see how the therapy went.
[Rest of letter, didn't copy]

Thanks President!

Anziano Walker

 

 

Hi!

 

Man, last week was full and busy. I loved that. It's so great to have purpose to the day. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Gianni and Sara this past week (we didn't have the car), but we invited them to the activity. They understood it, however, to be the day AFTER it was, which was kind of a bummer. But they wanted to come. We're looking to see if we can find some space this week to go see them and then keep working in Capoterra, which would be good. However, President at Zone Conference emphasized that we should keep work centered in the cities where we're serving, because lately missionaries have been spending too much time driving to and from outlying cities, where they could be finding investigators close to members. So, we'll visit them occasionally, but seeing as they weren't making huge progress, and the other potentials we had dropped us cold a bit ago, we are probably gonna leave Capoterra be somewhat. Maybe have a day or two every time we have the car.

But thanks for letting me know I'm learning something enough to be said in Sacrament meeting! Or at least making it shown in letters. I've been kind of wondering about my letters lately, and how they sometimes make things probably seem worse than they are. I don't like that, and that is a part of my personality I feel like I need to adjust. (****And I'm taking the steps to do that, that counselor has called a few times, and each time I've learned something new and worked on applying it. And felt a lot better. I hope I haven't cast kind of a dark shadow on the mission thus far, I just get so stressed and expect so much of myself a lot that it drives me nuts. But I'm kind of glad it is. When I get back, it'll (hopefully) be cakewalk, the stress that I dealt with in the past! :) )

I'm glad to hear that you're all having fun, and I'm still jealous of the canoe. Oh, and we officially start the English lessons in September (although you guys could check out the site for kicks, www.missioneitaliana.info), although we're gonna do a kind of a practice one this week, to just get started with it. And I have not seen Sorella Rossell or Anziano Cicon in the mission yet, although I've met people who've met them. Anziano Ostler laughed when he said I knew her, last transfer. He thought she was hysterical.

 

Thanks guys, love you!

Anziano Walker

We Are Home

Ciao Presidente!

This week has been pretty good, we've just been making sure to work the best we can. After that call yesterday for Anziano Loertscher, he was doing a lot better, and we got right back out once we learned he would be fine. Although, we made sure to be a little more reliant on buses for the next little bit. He's doing great now.

We had a scambio between us and Oristano last Friday, I went with Anziano Rasmussen, and Anziano Loertscher went with Anziano Adams. They seem to be working very well together, and Anziano Rasmussen is doing very well for his 2nd transfer. He is doing well with his Italian, and is working hard to improve, he bears meaningful and simple testimony in lessons, and is able to work and enjoy himself at the same time. It looks like they're doing a good job in Oristano as well, which is good. 

This week, at church, Gino Mura came, who we haven't seen for a while. Evidently, he was in the hospital for a few weeks, but now that he's out, he's completely willing to meet with us whenever it works out, and he said he's gonna come every week to church. It may be slow going with him (he had a few ideas against the Word of Wisdom lesson in Gospel Principles), but he seems to be willing to try this out for sure. He's also going to be coming to a Branch Activity this Friday, a sort of barbecue, it sounds like. And Gianni and Sara said they would come as well, with their daughter who's visiting, so we're gonna do our best to have members help out with them, make friendships and such.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. Looking forward to Zone Conference tomorrow!

Ciao!

Anziano Walker

Hey, sorry this is late, and it won't be a long letter at all, the place is about to close. The computer place closed on us last time, and our schedule was completely messed up with Zone Conference yesterday. But that went well, and it was a very powerful Zone Conference for me. Pres. Waddoups is an AMAZING mission president, and I learn a lot from him, not just when he teaches, too.

I'm working a lot on trying to be more consistent with good habits I'm trying to make, like excercising every morning (which I got a full 30 minutes almost every day this week!), and how to teach better.

Fun fact, I WOULD have written back yesterday after Zone Conference, but that would have taken us away from a member lesson we had scheduled and had tried to get all last transfer. As a result of that one lesson, we got 4 new investigators here. 2 young families. And the member is the Mom. Super great! We have an appointment this upcoming Monday, too, so they are pretty dang solid, it looks like!

Well, love you all, and hope you have a great week! And yes, Italians DO love Americans. I especially love saying I'm from California, because when that comes out, almost without fail, they say "BELLA California!" (beautiful). Really fun. :)

Ciao, love you!

Anziano Walker

P.S. - We got the new english course, and we're probably gonna start it next week! =D

Oh man, the internet lady here is super nice, and let us stay an extra bit of time so we could finish writing our families. Oh man, I love the little miracles!

One thing that prompted that little bit for Pres. Waddoups was on Wednesday, at English Course. He had just got out of a meeting they had at the church, and we were just finishing up too. So he decides to drop in on our classes real quick, because (he told us later) he had never been to see an english course yet in the mission. He had seen the presentation for the new course several times already from past Zone Conferences, so he wanted to put that into effect with us. He walked into the class Anziano Prete and I were teaching (we were doing a mini scambio because he had the car from Olbia, and I knew where we needed to drive to. We had 10 Anziani in Cagliari that night, at our apartment)(by the way, "Prete" pronounced prehtey, means "priest" in Italian), the intermediate/advanced for the night. He walks in, and the 7 students see him (he's tall, easily Jared height, maybe taller), and you could just feel his presence. He made sure to make the entire exchange in english, and pushed them to say their names in a sentence as he shook their hands. It was crazy, you could just feel the respect they had for him, it was kind of funny! And as I was giving the spiritual thought, I mentioned "prophet", and he stopped me, and asked them if they knew what a prophet was. And then, he taught them a phrase in Italian that he got them to translate to english, one by one (a prophet is a man who talks with God). Great example, AND a wonderful teacher.

And then, I had a personal interview with him right before he got taken back to the airport for his flight, and to open up, he asked me to say the prayer. Realizing the time crunch, I gave a quick prayer, and we got started. Then he gave the closing prayer, and it was exactly like a conversation with some other person. Taking time, not only going through saying thankful's and asking's, but giving thoughts and understanding. That in and of itself was a huge example to me.

Ok, I'm probably gonna go now. We just had weekly planning this morning, and this week is looking to be a solid week, with purpose every day, and I really enjoy that. It's hard to want to get up and out without that kind of goal in mind. We do it, but maybe not as eagerly as possible. Just something I'm learning here. By the way, Dad, in training and talking with Anziano Loertscher, I've been learning a lot how to teach, what to teach towards. I've narrowed it down to what we want them to know, feel and do. Thanks for teaching me that, and I'm just bummed that it took me this long to get it right! -ish. :)

Thanks guys, I'll write on time next week!

Anziano Trey Walker