P-Day Is Great

Hi Fam!

Ok, remember how last week I was all like super pumped for everything, and we had a bunch of lessons at the start of the week? And there were people we were looking to meet with later in the week? Well, after P-day, we had a whole lot of ..... nothing. I got a little tired of going to all the people's houses that we wanted to see, and it wasn't even that they told us "later" or "Non mi interessa (I don't care)", but they didn't even open the doors. We went back to some houses like three times, and still, nothing. Kinda irritating. And one thing that really stunk, did I tell you about that one guy we met who was under house arrest for something? That Anziano Esplin and this other Anziano went to see on a scambio, and they said he was really repentant? Well, he called us yesterday morning, and he said he has no interest. We tried to go see him, but he wasn't there or something. GAH!

Anyway, ranting aside, this week has been interesting enough. The piano lesson was interesting, for several reasons: 1. I only had a conducting course book, which was already at the appartment, so I used that to teach a little bit of reading and beats and whatnot. 2. That and the keyboard course that I ordered are in English, so I learn from the kids there the names of stuff. 3. The parents of the kids thought it would be alright to have a kind of a classroom setting for learning, so that's what they brought the kids in, not like a one at a time lesson, which is definitely necessary. It worked well enough for the first lesson where they learned some of the notes and names, but for every other lesson, it's gonna HAVE to be in one on one settings, which will be interesting to schedule... I dunno, work in progress! There's 3 little girls that came, 1 of which really wants to learn and knows a little bit already, 1 who wants to learn but hasn't learned anything in the past, and 1 who, as far as I can tell, doesn't really seem to want to be there. Boh. Vediamo come va! We'll see how it goes! :) Oh, and the notes on the piano have different names here. All solfeggio (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do, Do being C, always). So it's a good thing I took choir and learned that, thanks Mr. Helm!

One prominent event from this week was English Course last night. I taught the Basic Course for the first time! Which was hard, cause it requires speaking a lot of Italian. But that wasn't the thing I wanted to say.... ANYWAY! We have a spiritual thought before we start, and we had planned this one out for a while: we brought a box of Libri di Mormon, and I explained a bit of what it is, and that if the book is true, then we have a living prophet on the earth today, this church has the authority of God to baptize, and so on. Then I let them know that we simply invite them to try it, to take a copy. A few people did! And then we also invited everyone to a branch activity that's tonight, and it seemed like some of them are thinking of going, we'll see. But yeah, I love doing English Course. I guess I'm kinda like Kalyn, I just love teaching! Honestly, whenever I'm in a bad mood, ANY kind of lesson (getting to know them, piano, English, or doctrinal) picks up my mood like none other! Kinda fun! :)

Ok, Dad: with that training thing, I don't quite understand the question. Usually, it seems like there's no real pattern here. Just time and maturity help decide if you are able to have a leadership position. There's one Italian Anziano who came in with me who's training this transfer, after having just done that "First 12 Weeks" in-field thing, which I guess is that thing you talked about. But yeah, it doesn't seem like anybody's really consistent with doing that here. Everybody kind of collectively feels that experience helps teach the best. Oh, and that Joseph Smith quote is awesome, definitely applicable here! I'm totally putting that in my quote book I got! :)

Mom: Oh my gosh, you went to Disneyland?! Jealous. :P I'm glad it was so fun, and Cole sounds really mature for his age, what the heck?!? He sounds a LOT more mature than a few of the Anziani here, hehe!

Kaden: Oh, hohoho, you sly dog. I'll get you for that. (With the Piano Guys) :P By the way, have you seen their thing they did with the LDS Bible Videos? Oh my gosh, it was great! We ocassionally got the opportunity to see the Bible Videos in Messina.

Cam: I'm glad you're thinking of my safety when you're going to sleep, haha! By the way, you still want to do engineering stuff? If you do, look at going military research when you grow up. Anziano Stewart told me about some of the stuff they have already in use (he comes from a military family), and it's like sci-fi books are real. Like, water cooling systems soldiers wear under 40 lbs. of gear to be able to feel perfectly normal in a desert, little spider-like things that scurry to the middle of a room and then explode, a microphone that ONLY focuses sound waves in one direction, so you talk into it, and can aim it at a person, and they are the ONLY one who hears it, and it's REALLY loud. And then there's the coolio little weapons, like for riot control stuff, so you don't even HAVE to make stuff for war! Honestly, I heard all that and was like "That is SO Cameron." ;)

Cole: Gosh, from the way Mom and Dad talk about you being with Paige and Taylee, you sound like someone super old and mature! What happened to my littlest brother? Nah, just kidding, you keep rocking it! You're awesome, Cole!




Forgot to sign that! Love you all!

Ciao!
Anziano Trey

A Note to Warm Your Heart

Hiya, guys!

 

First off, Dad, Mom, take a chill pill. It's totally cool that you didn't write a day in advance. I didn't know I would be, so it's totally fine. I still love you! =D

 

And I absolutely love hearing about everyone there! I'm glad the campout was fun, and the dog's alright from his impromptu parkour! And WHAT THE HECK, KADEN IS 15!?!?! WHOA! Che cavolo!?! (Hehe, that means "what the cabbage", but they use it for what the heck) ("che" is pronounced "keh"). And he's gonna be DRIVING?!? Oh gosh, this is strange. And I didn't even realize that when I get back it's just gonna be 1 year before he can go on his mission! Dang... that just strikes me as super strange right now.

 

Anyway, here in L'Aquila: my gosh, this place is GREAT! This is apparently the only city in the mission that really gets snow, but it's getting warmer, so it's been melting. We got up to 8 degrees last week! :) And the branch is fabulous, they came up with an idea to hold a Family History activity for the community to try to help things get up and running here, which they're hoping to have in April or May. It'll be sweet! No joke, I really think family history is pretty fun since coming out here. I haven't had much of an opportunity to do it, but learning how... it seems awesome!

 

Oh, and playing piano in the branch is going well. I don't have a ton of practice time each week, but I'm definitely seeing blessings from Heavenly Father like crazy with that. Songs are being learned really quickly, and it's SUPER fun! But that's not all: some of the parents in the ward asked if I could give piano lessons to their kids once a week! At first it was kind of jokingly, but then I was super psyched to do it, and I'll have my first lesson on Friday night! It'll be weird, 'cause I right now only have the hymnbook and the church's conducting course to work with, but I ordered a keyboard course kit, so I can also do that for later wards that I go to. Plus, with this, relations with the branch here can get super good, and hopefully they'll be down to help a little more with missionary work here, which would be absolutely fantastic for us.

 

But this week has been AMAZING! It was a little hard emotionally at first, but Anziano Esplin is honestly a great companion. We're getting along super well, and what teaching appointments we manage to have go fantastic! And plus, he's a great cook, and he's gonna teach me a few of the things he's picked up here and help me out a bit there over the next few weeks for lunch. Sweet... :) By the way, the food here in L'Aquila is actually quite different from down south, it really does taste fantastic down there. But it's still really good here!

 

But ok, L'Aquila has been a really hard city in the past. The last baptism was about a year ago, and he's still going strong. The thing that's been hard is that the people here are just hardened after that earthquake in 2009 that destroyed a lot of homes and demolished centro. A lot of people had to move out to project housing, like Sassa. But that completely hardened people, instead of humbling them like you would think. So I came into the city with 1 iffy investigator, who we're actually gonna probably have to drop (she told us specifically to come and preach to her, but to not leave her anything to do. Yeah... that's not gonna happen. We'll try to go slowly, though. But still go), and then a lot of door to door to look forward to.

 

But these past two weeks have been CHOC FULL of miracles like I've already told you, and we now have FIVE investigators, with something like TWELVE potentials and TWO referrals we've got to contact, one of which is from one of our investigators, another from a missionary from the branch who wants us to see his family! Anziano Esplin also is getting tired of just doing house all day every day, so we took some time to come up with a few other proselyting activities that we can try, I'll let you know how they turn out!

 

But dang, work just EXPLODED here, and we're gonna have to figure out how to visit people as much as we can. I'm so psyched, and SO thankful to the Lord for helping us find all these people! One of which was a guy who lives out in Sassa that we left a biglietino (pass-along card) with him when he said he wasn't interested, and he called us back a few days later saying he was sorry for that, and would love to have us over! He's apparently under house arrest for something, and will be until March. But he apparently seems really sorry for what he did, and actually tried to understand in the lesson that Anziano Esplin and this one other missionary gave him (we had a scambio, an exchange). DANG, IT'S AWESOME!

 

And the Zone Conference was good, Elder Richards is great! He really emphasized clearly teaching, not necessarily going over everything it says in Preach My Gospel, but making sure they understand the basic doctrinal points. We've been applying it as much as we can, and it's been helping a lot, I feel!

 

I love hearing from you, again. The church is true, I promise! :)

 

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Trey

Day Early

Hi family!

 

First off, thank you so much for that video. That was exactly what I needed. I've been feeling so dang far away from everything, almost like I'm completely alone except for my companion and the Lord. Even the prophets and family felt so far away... But the start of that video, with Pres. Monson announcing the age change, hit me like a wall, and even the music was familiar, and just seeing a bunch of things so much like home,... thank you so much! That was probably my favorite moment this week, coupled with reading a bit about Nathan leaving, and everything. Thank you thank you, thank you!!! I'm just over here bawling my eyes out, don't worry about it. :)

 

But first things first, why I'm writing a day early: we have a zone conference tomorrow, which means we're gonna have to stay the night in Rome, so we either got P-day on Tuesday or Thursday this week. Sorry for the short notice! But for zone conference, an elder from the 70 is coming to visit, named Kent F. Richards, and he gave a talk in 2011 in General Conference. We'll see how he is tomorrow!

 

So how is L'Aquila? Oh my gosh, it's GREAT! It's so... normal! No cars on the sidewalks, people talk really clearly, and it's just like a small town, it's amazing! And with the snow, it's absolutely beautiful! You just need to take away the scaffolding and other construction stuff, which is being used to repair the damage from the earthquake. Honestly, it's kinda sad walking through centro, you can tell it looked absolutely wonderful. And apparently, a lot of the people are having a hard time believing there's a God after that. But we're doing our best here!

 

The missionary work here is a LOT different than in Messina. There, we had a hard time doing finding because of appointments. Here, we have a hard time making appointments, so there's a lot of opportunities to do finding. It's hard, sometimes. Especially getting myself to go out of the apartment when I sometimes wonder if there's noone out there. But I've already had some AMAZING experiences here!

 

First: we were going from house to house in an outlying "paesino" (little town), and it was FREEZING! Unfortunately, I had forgot to bring gloves. Great. But after a few whole palazzi with nothing, we got to one door where a lady opened up. She didn't let us in, but she said she was a Jehovah's Witness, and knows how hard it is doing exactly what we were doing. So she gave us some chocolate. :) I count that day as a success!

 

But then, on the way back home from that paesino, we got off at a bus stop, and just started talking to this one guy, African. We talked a bit (he speaks french (from Cameroon), english, and is just learning Italian), and he seemed pretty interested about us saying we have a living prophet, and asked if we were Mormons. Once that was confirmed, we offered to give him a Book of Mormon, and he said sure, but then we realized we only had them in Italian, so we got his number to meet up some other time to give him one in French, after we got it. Back at the apartment, my companion looked, but we didn't have any! However, after church the next day, I looked again, and there was ONE in French way on the end of the line, tucked in the corner. So we called him up, and he was totally down to meet up after class at the bus stop the next day, and we got talking a bit, and he said he would like to hear some more! Of course, after exams, which are this week.

 

Then, Sunday afternoon, we were going to see if we could see this one contact the Anziani before us found, but Anziano Esplin hasn't yet had the pleasure to meet. (He's been here for 1 transfer already). Walking up, we saw a lady walking 2 dogs, and Anziano Esplin recognized one of them, and asked if she was Paola. Turns out, it was her daughter. Also turns out, she had a question for us, and let us in. Also also turns out, the question involved a friend who had seen a Book of Mormon that was left for them, heard of missionaries before, and wanted to meet up! Also also ALSO turns out, we had a full-on lesson with Paola (the mom) and Francesca (the daughter)! SCORE!

 

Next miracle: doing Casa in casa (house to house) last night. After several whole palazzi, we went up to one, and kept calling people to see if we could get in. One lady said she didn't have interest, but was willing to let us in. The first door, niente (nothing). The SECOND, however, we stumbled upon 6 college guys living together, and they let us in! Even better, some of them seem to have a bit of interest, although we're gonna have to come back after exams. We offered to show a little DVD that we carry around a bit (Finding Happiness, 5 min.), but the DVD player didn't work. So we left them a Book of Mormon and went upstairs. After finishing, they called our number, and one of them had a computer that could hook up to the TV, so they wanted to see the movie! And then we went back down, knocked, and one of them opened the door and said "Oh great! You're here! I was looking in the Words of Mormon, and I was wondering who this guy was." He apparently started flipping through as soon as we left!!! AND, they said we could stay for dinner! Which was cooked by someone from Calabria, which is down south, so it was AMAZING food! FANTASTIC NIGHT!!!!!!!

 

So yeah, doing good here. Anziano Esplin's cool too. Definitely very different from Anziano Stewart. Unfortunately, a bit pessimistic at times, which made me somewhat apprehensive to come to L'Aquila at first, based on how he explained it. But I'm learning how to look through that, and he's a great guy! This is his last transfer, too, and he sure is great at this!

 

The branch here is small, but great! The Branch President is an African from the Ivory Coast, and he's absolutely awesome! Oh, and get this: I'm playing piano each Sunday. No exclamation point there, yet. This past one was a 4 on a scale of 1-10, it's been so long since I've practiced for real, and the songs were ones I didn't know. Oh well!

 

Anyway, I love you all, and I'm still super thankful for your emails and everything! By the way, our address is:

 

Via Montorio al Vomano #6

L'Aquila, Italy

67100

 

Just so you know. :) Oh, and just letters here. Packages can go to the Mission office in Rome. I might get them more frequently than every Zone Conference, since I'll be able to visit once in a while.

 

Alyssa: I dunno, I've never really thought about it. I guess it's a lot about the attitude of the people that live there. One thing that might be helpful would be to allow yourself to think of it as a home. But I pretty much understand, I think. It's weird.

 

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Trey

Happy P Day

Buon giorno la mia bravissima famiglia!

 

WOW! That's a lot of cars. And it was crazy seeing that they're all so BIG compared to anything here! That's really sad that the van's going, but hey, they've all gotta get out of the driveway somehow, right? :)

 

Ok, first things first: Transfer calls came in on Saturday. I am going to...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L'Aquila! It's way in the north of the Rome Mission, and is in fact pretty close to Rome, in the mountains NorthEast of there. My new companion is gonna be Anziano Esplin, a missionary who's gonna be dying after next transfer ("dying" here means going home. I was also "born" in Messina, and my "dad" is Anziano Stewart. I don't really like the system, but everybody uses it, so it just unconsciously happens sometimes). Anyway, I'm getting out of really nice, sunny days (spring came early this year) and going to snow and clouds. Woohoo! But I really am SUPER excited. And not just because the name of the city means "Eagle". Cool fact for the day.

 

So with that, most of this week has been kind of getting ready to go. Namely, seeing members and investigators one last time, and packing and so on. Not gonna lie, it was kinda sad saying goodbye to some people. Others, however, I'm almost breathing a sigh of relief. I know that's not very missionary-like, but..... it's not like I don't like them, it's just that it'll be good to NOT get a call EVERY night at any time between 9 and 11. Just saying.

 

But some of the people we saw were really great! Like for lunch after church, we went to Milazzo to see the Buonanotte family (They cooked something for us called Totano, you'll be so proud of me, I ate everything, tentacles and all! It's kinda like squid, but not quite according to them. It was good, but strange that it still looked like the animal. That was the only reason it was a little difficult to eat at first.). Then one of the people gave me a book in Italian, Le Cronache di Narnia (yep. All 7. She asked what I wanted, and I made sure to say only the 6th one.). Yeah, so now I got a giant book that I won't be able to read for a year and a half.... be expecting a package soon, possibly with this and several other things in it.

 

But in between all the goodbyes and whatnot, we actually got to meet someone who we found in the Former Investigator section of our Area Book. We met with him on Monday, he's a Carabinieri (which is like the police that are more respected and effective than the state police here), and super cool! He was really interested to hear that we're still doing English Course, but he said he might be willing to learn a little more about the church too. Sweet! We're getting into positions of power, muahahahaha! :)

 

But yeah, I'm leaving tonight at 9 here, and get into Rome at 6 tomorrow morning. All on bus. Great.... Then I'll meet my companion there and we'll get to L'Aquila somehow, probably bus again. So that's my week in a nutshell!

 

Oh, what lessons we had, we used pictures where we could, and it worked FABULOUSLY! Conversation just naturally flowed back to the subject matter (usually. They're still Italian). Definitely want to keep using this.

 

Well, I love you all, and I love to see pictures of what's going on there, it's fun!

 

Ci vediamo!

 

Anziano Trey (it took me a few trys to type that, haha!)