Trey Primary Call

When we lived in Glendora we went to a primary activity where we got "called" on a mission and did all sorts of mission stuff, going to the MTC and learning things relating to where we got called. We also took a picture by the map pointing to where we were called. 

Trey was called to "Rome Italy" Coincidence? I think not. =>

-written by his sister.

Hiya

Hiya!

 

Well, Anziano Hoover is helping me get some pictures to you guys, so hopefully it'll go through! The first one is of Anziano Esplin in a cemetery near our home in L'Aquila. We were on the other side of the hill, and we decided to try to cut through to get home quicker. We sort of got lost, but we got there! These are the oldest ones we saw, all the newer graves are in building-sorta things.

The next is of my first district on our P-day at Taormina a while back. If I remember right (I don't have the picture in front of me), the one on the left is Anziano Bennett, then his trainer Anziano Davis, and then Anziano Stewart and me. It was really fun, and a beautiful day!

 

The next one is of my first meeting Anziano Hoover at the train station in Rome (called Termini). He's 6'5", so L'Aquila has some tall Americans in suits running around! He's great, he's a year into his mission, and we both understand pretty well now. Although, there HAVE been some interesting situations already, haha!

 

The last is of me and Anziano Esplin standing in front of the Colosseo (I don't remember how it's spelled in English) from last week. My one day in Rome so far, and it rained. Hahaha! And yes, Mom, that "no biggie" part was, in fact, just to inspire a hint of jealousy. Not very Christlike, I realize, but hey, no one is perfect, right? ;)

 

Not a heck of a lot to report this week. What's really challenging about L'Aquila, I've come to realize, is that yes, there are those awesome experiences I've told you about, but then the other people have a hard time realizing that WE WANT TO MEET AGAIN. A little irritating, but I still love the place. Mostly when I wrote in big letters just then, it was with a sort of chuckle. Oh well. However, there is ONE person that we have high hopes for at this point: yesterday, we were walking to an appointment (ended up being a bidone), but on the way there, a car honks at us and pulls over. Ends up, it was Paola, who we had never met before. She then went on to explain that she was the Mom of Mattia, one of the members in the branch who is on a mission in Portugal or somewhere.

 

That's when I recognized the name. Me and Anziano Esplin have been trying to set up a visit with her for WEEKS with a member, but it just didn't get done. We wanted to go with a member because we weren't sure if she would want us there, but we really felt like we needed to go. But she was SUPER happy to have seen us, and said basically we could set up a time whenever it would work out. THAT was a HUGE blessing, to have that whole thing play out like that.

 

Yeah, that's about it here. Anziano Hoover and I are getting along, and life is going well. Oh, by the way, Nicole emailed me, Mom, and SHE got a mission call to! To Roseville California! Holy dang, that age change is such a blessing, I realized, because I'll be able to come back to the friendships that I had recently worked so hard to set up. I love it! But let's go, 1 1/2 years to go!

 

By the way, this past week, I've been tearing through Liahone (that's how you pluralize stuff that ends in "a" in Italian. It sounds a lot nicer now.) like none other. I was especially hit by one of the Conference issues in 2009, November, I think. It has a lot to do with love, and I've made it a goal to work at that. We'll see how it goes!

 

Anywho, ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

Happy Spring P Day

Hiya folks!

This week has been great, for sure! It was a little strange being at home a little more often so Anziano Esplin could get ready and whatnot, but whatever. It's all good!

Ok, we were at someone's house named Kamil when the new Pope got chosen. People had had their T.V.'s on for basically the entire time the cardinals were together, the day before. Some of the houses we tried to get into used that as the excuse to shut the door in our faces. Oh well. But this Kamil guy, he called us up one day because he had met with the missionaries in the past a little bit, and knew we speak English. He called us up because he needed help with something in English. We thought it was like a school essay, or something. No, he's actually trying to study in Australia, and needed us to translate that. That took forever, and by that time, we were both too fried to try to leave a spiritual thought, which really stunk. But then we went this time, after P-Day. Basically the same thing happened. We DID, however, find a person in Rome he can talk to about that sort of stuff. Hopefully, we won't use up 3 hours there again. That drives me nuts, sometimes. I've learned that my limit thus far is about 2 hours with minimal talking on my part, and 3 hours with friends here. I'm working on it!

Anywho, like Dad guessed, I'm staying in L'Aquila! Woohoo! Oh, and thank you for your extra prayers for me earlier, I've definitely received blessings for them! Anyway, my new companion is Anziano Hoover, who is currently in Bitonto. I don't know anything about him, but I hope he doesn't "suck". Together we're gonna "clean-up" L'Aquila of sin! :)

Enough with the vacuum puns. But yeah, I'm getting somewhat rushed this week again. We've been stuck in the Mission Office forever, waiting for our turns to write family. I had to be all chivalrous and let others go first. Oh well. a vita. That's Italian for se la vi. Which is French for Es la vida. Which is spanish for that's life. :) Don't check my spelling, except in Italian and English, haha!

But Cole, I just got your letter you sent in February. I'll work on that letter as quick as I can!

And Piano lessons go well, I just got that keyboard course kit I ordered a while ago, and lo and behold, it came with a Hymns Made Easy book! I'll be able to play more songs for church! With less mistakes! WOOHOO!

Ok, gotta go. Just, you know, gonna spend the rest of my P-day in Rome. No big deal. I'm also gonna spend the night here. For transfers. You know, same old same old. ;)

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

Hola

Well HI there!

I hit the keys really hard for that "hi", but it didn't make the word that much bigger. Dang.

Just want to start off saying sorry about the brief letter and sudden close to the email last week: I was in Pescara for P-day, cause the Anziani there found a soccer field, and we went to play with them (there's 4 in Pescara). We did email first, but Anziano Fossa and I came in later than them, and so we had a later start, and I'm a slow typer, and they were all waiting, and I thought I was taking forever...... I felt rushed again. Back to the MTC days! Woohoo! But in actuality, I only took 45 min. Dang. could have made it better. Sorry. But soccer was fun!

This week had a bunch of ups and downs. It was hard. We haven't seen the college guys for a while. We'll see next transfer what happens. Which reminds me, transfer calls are this Saturday! Anziano Esplin leaves next week (which maybe he reminds me of a little much, but oh well), which means I am for sure getting a new companion. Speriamo bene!

But anyway, this week we've been doing a little bit more of house than we have the past few weeks, because the people we keep finding say to come back in a few weeks. Managia (That means dang!). But we've found several families that could be really good and seem somewhat interested, especially this one lady who was super curious to know how our church works and whatnot. A funny thing about Italians, is that quite a number of them realize something is messed up about the Catholic church, they recognize the greed and that is so often shown. However, they never care enough to try to find something right. But this lady was REALLY interested, so we'll see what happens (again, in a few weeks).

Last Sunday, I gave my first talk in Italy, woohoo!!! It was on "Perche abbiamo bisogno del sacerdozio sulla terra?" (why do we need the Priesthood on the earth?) That was fun to write, and I really hope it made sense, haha! And THEN, the next day for district meeting in Pescara, I had to give my first Addestramento (training), which is like a lesson for missionaries. The catch, it was also in Italian! We have two natives in our district (Anziano Fossa and his companion Anziano Alessandro), so to make things "easier" on everyone we do it all in Italian. I put the quotation marks because I may have gotten my point across better in English, but I feel like I did pretty well!

Funny story from this week: we were calling old investigators in the Area Book to see if any of them wanted to meet with us again, and the LAST lady, I called. She picked up, and I started to ask, but then she started talking and said that her husband would come pick us up at our house to drive us there! That night at 7! I remembered, however, that we had a dinner appointment with a family in the branch then, so asked for another day. She said Wednesday would be fine, then. So we hung up, and I quickly looked at the phone for some reason. It was the member that we had the appointment with. That night. I had told her Wednesday. Crap... For some reason, THEIR number was written on the paper where the INVESTIGATOR'S number should go. So we called her back real quick to explain the situation and fix it up, haha! But they're great, the Melone family. By the way, their last name means big apple. Just saying. There's also a guy in the branch named Fratello Panone, which means big bread. Hehe, fun names! :)

That's cool to see that you guys are feeling so good about emergency preparedness! That definitely would have helped people here... The earthquake hit everybody super hard. The members are more or less good now, though. But downtown (Centro) is really sad to walk through now, with everything messed up so bad, and so..... empty.

But I digress... Anywho, that's fun for all of you! By the way, Dad, that's an interesting insight about the apostles. I don't know if they would completely leave everybody else be and go to work on the Jews, but that is definitely a valid idea. I dunno, we'll see how it all turns out, right? I love your spiritual thoughts that you throw into each email!

Mom, those are great insights into forgiveness, I hadn't quite thought before that we have to forgive before we love, especially. But that reminded me of one thing I've heard from President Kelly, which I feel is related somewhat. Whenever we're irritated with someone or something, it's because something didn't turn out how we expected or wanted it to turn out. That has helped me a TON while I've been here to avoid some negative situations. Or at least, several of them. :)

Oh, and we got an email from President Kelly last week, and he said there was a change in policy recently: that we can now email friends and leaders from home as well as family! Not that you guys aren't great, but do you think you could put my email address on Facebook? I haven't heard from anybody else in MONTHS.

Love you all, and I'll work my best here, for sure! Oh, and Kaden, don't go against the grain. It gets a closer shave, yes, but you also cut yourself a LOT more often. Other than that, have at it. :)

Ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

Ciao!

Ciao!

 

Ok, first off, I want to address some things you guys wrote before I forget. Yeah, that part of me hasn't been fixed, yet. :)

 

Anyway, Becca's mission call guesses: In-states: Arizona. Foreign: France. And then Esli's: In-state: Virginia. Foreign: I'll get crazy here and even call the mission, Milan, Italy. Mostly because of her last name, Amato, which means "loved". It's totally gonna happen. But DANG, they're going on missions! And Audrey's farewell is this Sunday! People are getting old all at the same time, what the heck! XD

 

And Cameron's birthday sounded awesome, I'm glad it ended well! That slingshot looks pretty dang crazy, careful with that. Only aim it at windows, not at people ;). I'm happy you had a fun time!

 

Oh, and Dad and Mom, y'all (it's easier to say that, there's a word for that in Italian, voi) can say your thoughts without saying that I already know them, or I might be bored, haha! I can PROMISE you that it's pretty near impossible, either way. I love y'all to death, and you know that. ;)

 

Enough emoticons and time to talk about the week: this week ended up being better than the last one, yeah. They really do come in waves! On Sunday, Anziano Esplin and I tried something new: doing a Scambio with some members in the ward to try to find more people AND to get them a little more into missionary work. Sorry, not ward, branch. Anyway, we did that for an hour after lunch, and I got to go with a guy named Gianpiero. He's great! We found this one old lady doing door-to-door, and they hit it off so well, and she was so receptive, we left her a Libro di Mormon and 2 pamphlets (mostly cause they were in the Libro di Mormon already that Gianpiero was carrying around, but she DID want them). It was great!

 

But the story didn't quite end there: these past few days I've been on a Scambio with an Anziano named Anziano Fossa (from Northern Italy, a city called Porteleon or something. He's awesome, too). We went back to the lady's house yesterday, and found out she's read one of the pamphlets already, and taught a nice little lesson. But THEN, we did house afterwards, and at the next palazzo, these people let us in really quick, and were super nice (but again, talked a lot. That doesn't happen as much here as it did in Messina, but it's still Italy). But it was better, I understood more. But after a bit, we found out that the lady was the DAUGHTER of the old lady, Lilliana! And not only that, but the daughter has a daughter who already comes to our English Course! OH MY GOSH! If that's not being guided by the Spirit, I dunno WHAT is! But they had already met with the missionaries before, and were totally down to have us come back.

 

Quite seperately, Monday night (still with Anziano Fossa) we found a family that had already met with the missionaries before, but had to stop because of what happened from the earthquake. But they were so NICE, there was so much LOVE between the parents and the kids, I'm PSYCHED. LET'S GO!

 

But yeah, everything here is good. A little bit of a better week than last time. :)

 

Gotta go. Ciao!

Anziano Walker