It's A Great Day

Ciao!

 

Dang, it's so cool to be able to read about a bunch of the stuff that's going on at home! I really love getting all your emails, thanks!

 

I noticed in Kalyn's letter she talked about her Ausstellung or something, where she does like a street stand. Well, we have something like that here. We have been working on getting the Permesso for it for about a week, and we have it scheduled from Thursday until Sunday. It's called the Mostra here, and each area in the mission is allowed to do it 3 times a year. Most areas do it one day a week for a month or so, but the city of Messina kind of stinks in that all the days have to be right after the other. It works, but it takes out a LOT of our time to be able to visit people during the week, and we have to wait to be able to follow up with the people we meet. But it's gonna be great, so long as it doesn't rain too much, haha! We have the ward choir coming to sing a few Christmas songs, we have a lot of members willing to help all the times we set up. It's gonna be crazy!

 

Ok, CRAZY story this week! The first week I got here, Anz. Stewart told me that the old bishop one time had a dream that there's a future priest who lives on this one street by the church, and we've both wanted to go there, but with so many appointments and without a car, we haven't really done a lot of street contacting or house. But Sunday, when all of our plans fell through, we decided to go down that street and work a bit there. There were a few good prospects, and we're hoping to be able to get back to them next week (on account of the Mostra).

 

But we get down to the ground floor of one of the palazzi (apartment buildings), and at one door, two older women opened the door. We started to talk with them, and the older one started to tell us to go away, she didn't want us here. The other one was just trying to figure out who we were. Finally, Anziano Stewart said fine, but he wanted to leave them a "Joy to the World" pass-along card. Then the older lady said, "Oh wait, I know who you are", or something, and (neither of us are sure how), they were both saying "Oh please, come in, come!" We said we couldn't come in without a man, and at that moment, the older one's husband walks up! So we go in, start explaining a bit, and they start talking, and they seemed super excited to see us! Turns out, they had ocassionally seen the missionaries a few years ago, but nothing came of it. However, for a week, the older lady has been having the same dream every night, that 2 Americans would be coming to her door with a paper in hand. I was thinking "WHOA, WHAT THE...?!?!" It was cool! And then there was a 13 year old boy that came in at some point, so we made an appointment with them for Tuesday at 6.

 

Well, the trams were late, and we got to their house, and nobody was there. We are for SURE going to go back though! But when we were about to walk in, a man outside stopped us and said that he and HIS family met with missionaries a while back, and he wanted to meet with them again! We both walked away from that place, and Anz. Stewart said "Man, that place is like a miracle workshop!" For sure, though. We're gonna try to get a LOT more new people in a bit.

 

But ok, down to business: we arranged with a member here to Skype with our families on Christmas, and it's funny, we were wanting to Skype at the exact same time Kalyn wants to call! Perfect timing, haha! So we'll see how that goes, but if anything comes up, Pres. Kelly said that we can call home to arrange the Skype call if we need to. If something changes, I'll let you know. And the money I took out: almost NONE of the stores here take cards, so I took out 150 in advance for anything. So far, I got a coin purse and gloves. Thanks!

 

Besides that, I don't see any business that needs to be "gotten down to". For P-day today, us and the Reggio missionaries went to Taormina, a city about half an hour away by train. It was cool, there was an old Greek Theatre there, and the view was fantastic! It's a city built all over the mountainous terrain here, and the ocean was such a deep blue, it was great! Except for a bit of rain, but you can't have everything, haha!

 

Anyway, love you all, and I'll see you at Christmas (if the internet here works well enough, hopefully).

 

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

Merry P Day

Ciao famiglia!

Gosh, this week just FLEW by! It's crazy to think how much we've done this past week, 'cause it doesn't always seem like we're doing a heck of a lot in the days. I never knew how often appointments fall through, but at least we've had several back-ups on hand, just in case! So far, we've had ABSOLUTELY no meetings possible only twice, so those times we've proselyted on the street. Both last week. Anz. Stewart is fantastic at street contacting, me........... I need practice, haha! But (thankfully or not) it doesn't look like I'm gonna get a lot here!

And Dad, you weren't kidding about the sneaky tricks to get the Sri Lankans to miss their baptism: last Friday Dilhani called us and said she was offered a job that payed 200 a week, for a month, which would have been awesome. The catch? Not just work on Sundays, but work ONLY Sundays, from guess what times? 9-12, when church goes from 9:30-12:30. Can you say, "Satan"? She called around, including us, to ask what she should do. 200 a week is NOT a small amount, and they are in a really tough situation. But if she took the job, she wouldn't be able to be baptized the 22nd. But Anz. Stewart didn't tell her that, he just said "pray about it and study the scriptures, you'll recognize the answer." Or something to that effect. But everyone she called had that same sort of answer (you know it, you can find it, etc.) We were worrying our heads off until we saw them Saturday evening! But she was smiling and said she didn't take it. Gosh, they are the BEST! Heavenly Father really did prepare them SO DANG WELL!

Yesterday, I had my first Zone Conference! We had to take a bus to Catania, at 7:30 in the morning, but it was so fun and so refreshing! All the missionaries in Sicily came, amounting to about 25ish. Maybe 30ish. But I understood just about everything that was said in Italian, which was about three-fourths of it. Talk about an ego-booster! But yeah, it was great, and there were a lot of good things we heard and learned. As a bonus Pres. Kelly got all the missionaries matching, silk, Italian ties as a Christmas present. It is so SWEET! My FIRST Italian tie! But yeah, it was a great Zone Conference.

Anyway, Mom had some questions about here: yes, I can see the ocean from just about anywhere between buildings. In fact, I can see several cities on the coast of mainland Italy. There are some dang amazing hills that they're on, their pretty! But Messina itself? My companion best describes it whenever we see something strange: "Well, this is Africa." But we talked with a missionary who lived in Africa (Anziano Bandiaky, he came in with us. He's lived in Italy for a while, though), and he responded, "No, Africa isn't this bad." Haha! Basically, the streets are crazy, sidewalks sometimes don't exist, and buildings look a little shabby. I think the correct word is "ghetto". What makes the city beautiful, though, is the people, especially the ward. Everybody here is just so dang animated and fun! Oh, and instead of basketball courts for the churches, here they do foosball (they call it billiardino). They are astonishing with it. I've seen one person dance around the ball, no joke. They kick it when it's in the air. And they ALWAYS hit it SUPER hard and fast, without spinning the players (cause that's against the rules). It's so fun to do!

I'm so glad to hear from you! I'm (slowly) working on that letter that I promised, but I have almost no time on P-days to write. Dang. And that Christmas money, I decided to use some on a coin purse (coins are used a lot here), and then I'll see what's up later. Sales get big around February according to my companion, so I'll probably be a while letting you know. Thank you so much, though! And I'm psyched to hear that everything at home is going so great, and love you all!

Tante belle cose!
Anziano Walker

Ciao Famiglia!

Ciao, famiglia!

Before I start, I just want to say that I'm sorry I'm not gonna get to all of the questions you both had, but I'll get a letter going this week (hopefully). Today's busy. But I just want to let you know that I got the card you sent! Thank you so much! It came on Monday, so now you get timing, I guess.

Anyway, highlights of the week: yesterday, we went to Reggio Calabria, which is the other city that has missionaries in our zone, for district meeting. They usually come to us, but they had someone who needed a baptismal interview, and my companion is the district leader. But anyway, we took a boat, which was cool, cause I felt like such a rebel missionary, what with D&C 61 or whatever it is, haha! But Reggio is nice! I would have loved to see more of it, but I ended up getting a "whirlwind tour". One of the Elders forgot the keys to their church (an appartment), so I ran back with him. Then my companion and I had to run back to the boat to be able to get to a lesson on time. I was tired after running in a suit for half the day! But luckily, Anz. Davis, the Zone leader, had brought packages that were sent to the mission office (he went to Rome last week for a conference), and Kalyn had sent me some German chocolate, which I used as "victory chocolate" on the boat. We made it on as it was leaving, what a blessing!

Last Friday, my companion got pretty sick. He's all better now, but we were stuck in the apartment all day. He was sleeping a lot, so I had an opportunity to study a lot. Man, I was so ready to go out and tell people what I knew! And then I realized, I had to do that in Italian. Dang. Oh well, I'm steadily learning. But it's tiring! Anyway, one thing I really studied was my patriarchial blessing, and I can say now for sure that those blessings are inspired! It really helped me see some things in a new way, it was great!

You know that group of Sri Lankans we're teaching? Well, they're DANG AMAZING. I don't remember if I told you, but they have a baptismal date for the 22nd. So we're meeting with them 3x a week, and trying to help them understand everything as best we can. We were especially worried about tithing, since the mom doesn't have a job anymore, and they're all having a hard time. But after we explained it, she told us (through our interpreter) that she's been doing something similar just about all her life! Whenever she got paid, she went to the church down the street and put in some Euro, or in Sri Lanka, she saved some rice to give to others who needed it. That was just so awesome to us! And they're soaking in the Gospel like sponges, really studying the Book of Mormon, asking the best questions, gosh, I love teaching them! And not just because we speak to them in English, haha!

But I was super excited about them accepting tithing, because we have this one Professor who we meet with who refuses to be baptized until the prophet says it's voluntary. We're trying to work with him, but he's really stubborn, because he thinks about things a lot, whereas this family just accepted the idea readily. It really proves the many scriptures where it says stuff like "when they are learned, they think they are wise"!

That reminds me, on the way to their lesson yesterday, actually (the lesson after the boat), we met this one lady on the tram (which we usually only take to get to the more northern parts of the city, since the city is really long, but skinny). Anyway, she recognized us and said she was baptized something like 25 years ago in Catania, and asked to see if she could start coming to church again, and where and when it was. We'll see if she follows through, but that'd be a cool little blessing!

But that's the main points of my week in a nutshell. I wanted to ask you: how much are you gonna put in my account for Christmas? We take out money from ATM's, since no one here really accepts cards, and I want to know. I'm thinking of buying a few ties and maybe a nice suit (which here get dang cheap with sales, I've heard of some going down to like 30, and ties 2!). But then there's also these amazing cookies which are literally made to be put in milk (they are shaped like teardrops, so you have a little handle), which I would be perfectly fine with as a Christmas present, haha!

I love you all, and am glad to hear from Mom and Dad that everything's going great! See you in a few years!

Ci Vediamo!

Anziano Walker