Happy Almost Birthday

Hi!

 

No time. I'm in Rome (again), this time for a conference for Zone Leaders and Sorella Training Leaders, and we only have about 20 minutes right now. Life is going on as normal (ish) as possible, and we got to tour Rome today a bit. You know, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Colosseum (again). Good stuff. And gelato. Pretty good.

 

Anyway, love you all, and have fun!

Anziano Walker

Hi

Ciao Presidente!

 

This week was pretty good. We started off with a scambio in Sassari, this past Thursday and Friday. Me and Anziano Woolsey got to talk a bit and give our thoughts about our scambi with the other cities, and it sounds like the Anziani in Olbia are doing great. But for the scambio in Sassari, I went with Anziano Eads, and Anziano Woolsey took my companion. There doing good in Sassari, and the work is plugging along. And they work really well together, I'm impressed.

 

In Cagliari, we've been working on trying to briefly see members and really help them boost their faith in their own personal missionary work. That's one idea that we've gotten from 12 Weeks, making sure that in our visits, we're helping them with their missionary work. It's something a little hard, because they seem to expect us to only come over to eat with them. We definitely want to work closer with them, because our doing finding in this time of year is yielding little fruit. But we're still doing it, whenever we can.

 

Thanks President!

Anziano Walker

 

 

Hey Mom and Dad!

 

I am so sorry that I hurt you guys from that letter. That was written right at the end of that rough time, and that was tough. I really really really don't like when I get down, and the only way I've seen to get out of it is to acknowledge it to someone, and explain exactly how I'm feeling. It's funny, each time I've written one of those kinds of letters, or emails, my day or week picks up really quickly. I'm just sorry that it comes with that kind of cost. But I'm thankful for parents who try super hard to make me feel better, even though we're several continents and oceans away. Thank you so much. But this week has been great. I don't know how, but I've really been doing good with attitude and everything. I think exercising every day is really helping. I'm working on being more and more consistent with that. Now just to work on how to look outward... I'll let you know how that goes. But I just want to be sure that you both know that as tough as those hard times are on me, especially that weekend, I have been loving the past week and a half, and that has been kind of the pattern I've seen for me on the mission.

 

I'm betting you can guess that that paragraph probably doesn't need to go on the blog. :)

 

Man, this week seems to have both flown by AND gone pretty slow. Weird. Sunday, we had a lunch at a member's house, to which he also invited a family over who has been in Cagliari for 5 weeks, but they're heading back to America on Thursday. Apparently the wife was baptized in this branch, and then got married and moved to Missouri. They come back every summer. They were super nice, and the dad gave us some good ideas to work with members a bit more. Mainly, we're thinking geneology. Asking people if we can do a bit for them, take their names to the Center here, and then bring them back about 4 generations. We're meeting with a guy tonight to see if he would be cool with that, and how exactly we'd do it. I'm psyched!

 

Let's see, not much else to say. We got transfer calls this past Saturday, and me and Anziano Loertscher are staying here together. I'm staying in a city for more than 3 months! Yay! We're helping out a lot with transfers, though, and hopefully it finishes up smoother than last time. There are 3 people coming in, even though only 1 left the island (another one also left, but they were in 3, so we're not getting them a replacement). There are gonna be 2 new Anziani in Sassari, and I'm psyched 'cause one of them is Anziano Birberg, a Swedish missionary I met in the Rome Zone. He's tight!

 

But yeah, that's kind of all that's new right now. Oh, since I didn't get transferred, feel free to write letters to the Cagliari address on the letter, but only for the next 5 weeks, at most. I miss getting mail in my own mailbox. But you know, however y'all would like.

 

Ciao ciao, and have fun!

Anziano Walker

P-Day

Buon giorno Presidente!

This week, we made it a goal to if not fully accomplish, then give our best shot at seeing all the referrals and assignments we've been given in the past. So over the weekend, we kept going by and calling our referrals at various times, and doing a bit of finding in the area. One especially, which we learned was actually out of the area until September, so that was a little disappointing. But we did it! We have seen, and/or called each of the people we have been given from referrals and assignments, and we have a prospective ex-investigator who seems like he would like to meet with us again, but we have to wait till he gets back from Rome for some sort of political thing. We'll keep talking with everyone that we didn't manage to meet, though.

One of the people we managed to see was a Marco Perra, who's inactive solely because he can't come to church on Sunday due to work. He works at a car-rental service at the airport, and summer is their busiest time, as well as weekends. But he still has a strong testimony, reads and prays consistently, and is trying to bring up his kid in the gospel as much as he can. I'm kind of wondering what might be the best thing to do to help, or if we should just have the branch president help a little more, or what. He has come to church when he can manage it, though, which is cool.

We've also been finding a lot, and have been trying to think of new ways to do that, to find the things that are most effective.

I am totally converted to the 12 Weeks thing, by the way. I love how it teaches, and how it's layed out. I'm learning a ton, especially simplicity and how to teach more by the spirit, as I help Anziano Loertscher learn a bit. We are being really diligent with that, and are starting to now refocus on Language study as well, putting more effort into that to make it more effective for both of us.

Thanks President!

Anziano Walker

Holy snap, a CANOE! =D

I'm pretty excited to come back to that, especially after it's been broken in. :) And before I get to writing about my week, I want to give my thoughts on Mom's question on parties: We're weird. Basta. Although, that's awesome that Cameron is un-weirding. Just do exactly what you did with me last year, and force him to have the best freakin' party of his life, and then he'll open up to it. :)

Anywho, what I wrote to President has kind of been our week. On those times without the car, not a heck of a lot happens. We kind of re-did our whiteboard that has all our investigators and contacts on it, and looking at the redone version........... we realized that we only have contacts, and that old couple in Capoterra are our only investigators. And we won't be able to see them this week, except they promised they would come to church on this Sunday, so hopefully they do! But other than that, the only real "teaching" we've done is finding people. People always say the work slows down to nothing in the summer, but dang........... However, we are working to come up with different finding techniques to get good conversation in, so that the people we talk with feel more comfortable with us and will maybe listen more.

One idea we've tried is a survey. A quick, 2ish question survey, which is perfect (I've found) to get people comfortably talking about religion. Questions like "If you could talk to God and ask Him a question, what would it be?" "If there were a book that was inspired by him that could answer this question, would you read it?" Or on various other subjects. So far, that's the only full survey I've got, but I'm working on one about Family History and Eternal Families. But then, the key I've found with this: go in calm places, like a park.

We found one place to do that, and man, the FIRST day we did it, we found these two people that said they actually WOULD read that book, and sounded like they actually wanted to know the answer to their questions, and they promised to read the Book of Mormon that we gave to them! YES! That was such a good conversation, and I really felt the Spirit guiding the conversation and helping them understand what we said. It was the perfect street contact. Except, they don't live around here. But oh well, they are definitely ready for the gospel, I was psyched after that little conversation!

Other than that, I've really been working hard to help Anziano Loertscher feel comfortable teaching and everything. I sometimes feel, though, like I'm expecting so dang much from him, and maybe get a little irritated when he can't contribute as much as I thought he could. I'm definitely trying to apply patience. It's just so weird, because I have no idea what they took out of his MTC experience of 6 weeks as opposed to my 9 weeks, we're both learning a lot. But we're enjoying working with each other! He's fun!

Love you all!

Ciao!

Anziano Walker

Happy P-Day

Ciao Presidente Waddoups!

This week was pretty good, and I'm happy about that! We've done a lot of finding so far, and have several prospective people in new areas around Cagliari. We're wanting to follow up with them the next few days, so we'll get on that for sure. The couple we found last week, Gianni and Sara, we managed to get another appointment with them yesterday, while we had a scambio with Oristano. Anziano Adams and Loertscher went to that, and said that they are actually pretty good, they just need a repass over the Restoration. But they are reading, and love seeing us, and may even have referrals for us. They also committed to come to church the 21st, so that will be cool!

In Oristano, I went with Anziano Ostler, and we did good work there. It's very different than Cagliari, for sure. But Anziano Ostler kept us working hard with appointments and pass-backs to see, and is a great missionary, showing a ton of love for the people there. They're doing good work in Oristano, the only hardship is the lack of a number of people, apparently. It's a small town. But we found some good contacts for them to see. Even at the train station on the way back to Cagliari.

We're also trying to use our time a little more wisely than we did in the past, and be sure to stay out those extra five to fifteen minutes. Last night, doing that, we even randomly came in contact with a less-active member, and talked with him a good while. Hopefully it helped!

Just to report, we have been completely consistent with the 12 Weeks program since Zone Conference, and that is more helpful than I realized. I'm learning a ton myself, and I hope I'm doing good for Anziano Loertscher. I've also been excercising every day again, and that's doing a lot, I feel like. I'm definitely trying to apply the counsel I received!

Thanks, Presidente!

Anziano Walker

Ciao famiglia!

Man, nutsy week. No, I'm not the only Zone Leader in the Zone, but with organizing rides to get everyone to the house or the church, or from the airport, and then organizing food, and giving an addestramento, and having to work with the Zone Leader across the island on that addestramento AND the Sorelle Training Leaders, AND having to organize District Meeting on Monday,........ it's a lot. But I like it when I'm busy. And it's even better when I look to see how much I've grown to be able to do all that, where 2 transfers ago, I probably would have frozen up trying to organize just the rides and everything. Now I cranked out decent plans in a matter of seconds, and listened to input from others to improve them. I have learned that I am a very good person for thinking logistically. Spiritually, I've been working harder on that end, this week.

But yeah, I'm doing a lot better. I've been drinking more water, like Mom said, really pushing to get 8 hours of sleep a night, and after an interview with President, getting exercise each morning. So far, it's good. Now I just want to work on consistency. I'm hoping well, though!

One thing I want to say about that scambio with Oristano, I learned a LOT from Anziano Ostler. I realize that the District/Zone leader's job is to make sure the missionary is doing well and becoming a good missionary, but MAN, he's awesome! I was thoroughly impressed with how genuine and loving he was. We would occasionally ring on someone's citofono just to compliment them on their garden. Turns out, that's actually pretty effective for starting up conversation. :) And one time, we went into a Pizzer to say we loved their name, "80 fame". I busted up when I read that, because in Italian, that would be "ottanta fame", which sounds exactly like "ho tanta fame", which means "I'm really hungry". Oh man, genius!

But I've been really trying to think lately about two things, almost completely seperate: 1. how to teach more with the Spirit as a third companion (which is where my logistics side of my mind comes as a difficulty). The first one, I've been trying to teach a lot more simply and plainly. Especially after that English Course with that cute little girl a few weeks ago. That really opened my mind to the idea of teaching to THEIR understanding. Also, a "check your progress" self-evaluation from that "First 12 Weeks" program I've been doing with my greeny helped me realize that's something I've been lacking in teaching. If THEY don't understand what's being said, the point of the lesson is lost. All my words are nothing. It may be repetitive to me, but that may mean I just need to keep explaining and re-explaining a certain principle. I feel like this will really help my whole mission.

#2, Regrets. In my interview with President (who is a super amazing man, by the way), he said that he felt I need to think a little more about how to get rid of those, because he saw I have some right now. That kind of shocked me, because everybody always says "Go home with no regrets," and so forth. I thought it was something that you could only avoid, not get rid of entirely. So that's where my studies have been taking me, these past few days. It seems to me very similar to the process of repentance. So much so, that in many cases, it seems to be inseperable. That struck me as somewhat strange, but makes sense. But I'll let you know how that comes out!

Anyway, I love you all, and I'm so glad I got to hear from you! Ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker

Happy P-Day

Buon giorno Presidente Waddoups!

Hi! We've been working really hard over here in Cagliari, me and Anziano Loertscher. We've found a few families this past week that have shown promise, although, they're in a paesino outside of Cagliari called Capoterra, so we can only really see them either with the car every other week, or with very thorough planning. But one family in particular was very accepting of us, Gianni and Sara Murtas. They're an old couple that loved talking with us, and showed some genuine interest in hearing about the Gospel and who we are. He had apparently met missionaries like 40 years ago, and they made a huge impression on him. We're hoping to see them again tomorrow.

Other than finding and a few lessons, we have been trying to think about how to work with the members a little bit more. We've started off making more appointments to meet with them, but we're hoping to also talk with the Branch Mission Leader about it too. We've noticed we've been a little lacking in that area, lessons with members, recently.

That's kind of our work in a nutshell this week. I am really looking forward to Zone Conference this week!

By the way, is there any sort of form you want us to follow in our letters to you?

Ciao!

Anziano Walker

BABIES EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Yeah, I just heard this week, cause videos don't usually work on the computers here, so I've kind of given up trying. I'll see if I can watch them after the mission.

And we FINALLY saw that broadcast on Sunday, after lunch. Yeah, it was inspirational and everything. I'm just surprised no one commented on the fact that we can use Facebook now. Cause you know, that's not a huge change or anything. :) But yeah, I loved the broadcast. It got me thinking, and I realized that I've been thinking about this mission wrong this entire time. I've been worried about how not to look like a salesman or anything, but still feel like it. I mean, that's what this sort of is, right? Wrong, I learned. I really felt the Spirit testify to me that I need to work on it being an act of love, not a way to "do my job" or anything. I've come to think of it as if I'm offering people English Course, if they want it, hey, that's great! If they don't, that stinks, but that doesn't affect my view of it. And talking in lessons, I've thought about a bit as well. I really DO need to feel a little bit more strongly that this is what people need, and that this will help them. I KNOW it can, I just need to feel it a little more. So that's my new focus. At least, the past few days.

Now I want to say, I'm sorry about my last email. I know now that I'm not only subject to mood swings, but for some reason they seem to hit me harder than anybody else I've seen on the mission, on a cycle of a few weeks, sometimes even days, almost regardless of circumstances. Every once in a while, it lands on a P-day, and I'm sorry for when that happens. I just want you to know that I know every single time, the Lord provides a way to get myself out of it. Last week was that very night, at English Course, a family of four came to my Basic course, with 2 little daughters. One of which was trying very hard to learn, and as the lesson progressed, I began, very literally, to imagine I was just teaching to HER level of understanding. And play around while teaching. That did 2 things: The rest of the basic course students understood better as well, and I ended up feeling MUCH MUCH happier. Another blessing on Thursday, we've been having concerts at the church the past 2 weeks on Thursday, and also these next two. These are for very very VERY good music students of one of our less-active members. Last week was one for the organ. Oh my goodness, I have NEVER heard something so....... I don't know how to say it, all-encompassing? Complete? Powerful? from a single instrument. The student apparently also plays for Cathedrals here. But then, after all of his songs on the program, he grabbed one of OUR hymnbooks, and said "I decided to leave you guys with a special treat, and make something of one of your hymns. One that you all know, Sono un figlio di Dio (I am a child of God). I'll take the melody, and add a little, extra." He played that, and oh my gosh. Words cannot describe that. I was thinking, the entire time "I wish Dad could hear this!" Absolutely awe-inspiring.

Kaden, learn the organ. Like a boss.

 

But yeah, various blessings throughout the week. I'm sorry about mood swings, but I'm trying really hard to work on that. Meanwhile, trying to be a good example and good trainer for Anziano Loertscher. And plan for Zone Conference on Friday. Oh yeah, that's on Friday, so that means letters are coming! Yaaaay! Everything since last Zone Conference has built up in Rome. Gosh....

Anyway, ciao ciao!

Anziano Walker