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