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

2nd Italian P Day

Buon giorno!

Yes, I got Mom's letter today. Thanks a ton for writing this week, haha! But anyway, before I forget, Audrey's mission guesses: foreign - England, stateside - Maine. I'm leaning towards Maine, though. And no, we didn't really do anything special for Thanksgiving, and I even almost forgot about it. I only remembered because I was reminded throughout the day, by my companion in the morning and then by this one lady from Colombia in our English Course that we teach here every Tuesday and Thursday. She knew my holidays even better than me, apparently!

But the day's just keep going here. Honestly, something new happens everyday. I love it! And last week, I even got to help with my first baptism here! WOOHOO! Granted, she already had the date set before I came to Italy, and had received all but one part of the lessons, and she's 9 years old, but who cares! My count is up to 1, haha! and it was even better, because the bishop asked me to participate in the confirmation on Sunday, so that was really a cool experience. Not to give it, but stand in the circle (of 3, so more like a triangle).

So that was I guess my "Sunshine moment", according to Kalyn. Actually, there have been quite a few of those this week. On Tuesday, we spent the day with the Vescovo (bishop) driving around to visit some contacts that he gave us. Well, two, but we also visited a less active member. But the 2 contacts seem so awesome and prepared to take the lessons, and they're both really nice old men, I can't wait to meet up with them again! But it's gonna be hard, without a car. But anyway, the 2nd one, a man named Claudio, was really nice and open with us, and appreciative of our visit. But the best part was when the other member who we brought with us, named Sorella Oliveri, told a brief summary of her conversion story. I'm telling you, the Spirit was so strong in that room. You could have cut it with a knife. Maybe. :) But Vescovo is pretty sure that he'll be baptized within a few months. I can easily see that happening.

Another thing that happened last Friday was awesome. We were going to visit Nicole, the 9-year-old who got baptized the next day, and called up to her apartment with that intercom thing. One of her little sisters answered and said Nicole and their Mom weren't home. She sounded a little worried about something, so we kept trying to call them, but they wouldn't answer anymore. We called up to their window (2nd story conveniently over the intercom), and one of them poked out their head and said they were flooding. So we went up to help out. Turns out, something that they used to hold water in the bathroom broke, and it was empty, but most of the kitchen was soaked, and the two girls were huddled on the couch (which was kind of a funny sight, actually). We got it all cleaned up just before their Mom got home. She said it happens, so she didn't get mad. But it was cool to be able to get there just when we're needed!

And goodness, with investigators, this week has been hard. There's only three progressing now, and we even set the date for baptism with them. 2 are a mother and daughter, with a little 7 year old who we aren't really focusing on teaching, and the other one is a friend that I'm pretty sure they met here, and they're all from Sri Lanka. Lessons with them are interesting, because the mother speaks Italian somewhat, the daughter too but is better at English, and the friend speaks English pretty well. But we bring in another Sri Lankan in the ward so we teach in English and he translates to Singhallah. Crazy. But they have all had hard times, and it's nuts what they're going through, but they seem like they're really accepting the gospel and noticing miracles that it brings. And the Vescovo even payed their electric bills when the ex-husband refused to, so they're electricity was cut off. Anyway, I could go on forever about them, but I don't have time. Those are our 3 progressing investigators, but we're trying to get through to about 4 others, and one of them lost a baptismal date because she couldn't come to church 3 weeks in a row at least, and she smokes, and isn't really trying to stop, but it stinks cause she has a testimony, and we had to stop seeing her so frequently cause it's too long of a walk for us to go 2-3 times a week and..... *sigh*. Nutsy.

Language.......bugs. I'm getting there, but the thing I need is practice. The problem is, I'm trying to talk to Italians. Which means that they talk A LOT. All that I heard in the states was an understatement. We've stayed at people's houses for 2 hours longer than we planned on because they were going off. Granted, that was with 2 Italians for a lunch appointment after church, but it's kinda the same thing with everybody else we visit. Gosh. I'm getting there though, SLOWLY.

But at the lunch appointment, I had lasagna (which was great) and horsemeat (which was not so great). I didn't like it because it was cold, tough, tasted funny, and I felt like a jerk. And what stinks, everybody here drinks Coke! Three times now, that's the ONLY drink they've put on the table! Blech. It tastes kinda bad. But other than those two things, food here is AMAZING! We order a pizza a week for dinner, haha! And the toppings are crazy, I had one with something like bacon on it. My friend in Reggio Calabria (from the MTC, I see him every week for District Meetings. He takes a boat over here.) had a pizza with hot dogs and french fries on it. Nuts. But, good.

Anyway, I love hearing from all of you! Have fun this week!

Ci Vediamo!

Anziano Walker

First Letter From Italy

Ciao famiglia!

Ok, before I forget, Mom, your email is blank. Either it didn't send, or I'm just learning how you really feel about me. Gosh, I can't believe it... :P Just kidding!

By the way, kinda jealous that you all got to hear from Elder Cook. We had stake conference in our ward this past week, and we only got a bunch of native Italian speakers. I'm sure they were great, I just had a hard time following along if you get what I mean. But that's awesome for all of you!

So you want to know what it's like in Messina? Basically, picture Californiaish weather in the fall, add a little more rain (it rains for like an hour maybe each day), and then throw in a bunch of chaotic and somewhat dirty streets. That's a pretty decent picture, I think. But it's a great place! As chaotic as the streets are (basically, the only traffic law for cars or pedestrians is don't get hit), we get around rather easily. It's a little tiring, because we don't have a car (there was one here, but my companion doesn't have a legal license here, and I sure as heck ain't driving yet), but we just make sure to plan time for walking to and from appointments.

And goodness, do we have appointments! We have 9 investigators that we try to see on a regular basis (I haven't met like 3 of them yet, because scheduling with them is sometimes rough), and we have a bunch of referrals from members that we still have to contact, but it's hard to find time to do that when we have to meet with our investigators AND there's a bunch of new converts that we try to see sometimes, AND some less-active members who we try to see (the ward is going through a bunch of changes right now, so we're helping to pick up some slack until they can get home and visiting teachers out to meet with people). Sometimes, we have our planners filled for like the next 2 days, because we have so many people we're trying to see. It's great, though, the people are amazing!

Well, from what I understand, at least. The language is, well, difficult, yes, but for different reasons than I expected. One, it's nearly impossible to understand what people are saying, and some are harder than others. At least it was. I'm VERY slowly improving. The funny thing is, my companion speaks just about as fast as everyone here (he's been out for about a year and a half and has the language down pat), and I can clearly pick out every word he says, and understand everything unless there's a word I don't know. So I know I could understand people, it's just their accent and how they sometimes slur words together that gets me. Two, there's a lot of words that are used more frequently here than in the MTC that I'm having a harder time remembering. Usually, with food or something. But that will all come with time, focus, and language study time.

And the food is fantastic! Just about everything is different (such as tiny breakfasts, smaller dinners, and a good size lunch). And it all just tastes so good! The snacks are great, and so different. For example, in Sicily, they have these things called Arancini, which are these large rice balls, with some kind of filling like cheese or some kind of sauce, and then fried. Definitely beats a Snickers! And they also have these things that are like pizza, but not quite, with more veggies, but it's SO GOOD! And the cheese here is great (I didn't even know that could happen!), and the breakfast stuff, and the pasta.....GOSH I'M EXCITED TO BE HERE! And we have yet to eat a meal at a member's house, but that's supposed to be even better!

My companion is great. He comes from a military family, and they actually lived in Sicily before, but now his family is in Germany (in Nathan's mission boundaries). He does a lot in the lessons for now, but he's really supportive of me, and helps me to learn a lot. He doesn't quite have the Italian emotions (whereas we're stuck at people's houses for an hour because they're talking a lot, he's more like me), but he relates to them really well, and is just an all-around fantastic missionary.

Some funny stuff that's happened so far, before I forget: When talking about mission stuff, apparently here they refer to it like a life. So I'm born in Messina, and Anziano Stewart was born in Napoli. I'm his son, and I got to talk to my grandpa the night I got into Catania, where the train dropped me off. It was kind of a shock to hear him talk about missionaries who have died, but I'm used to it now. :) Also, coming here, we took a train from Rome to Catania, which involved the train going on a barge. Pretty interesting idea, huh? OH! At the airport in London, after we went through security (again), this one guy stopped the four of us (from the MTC, remember them?), and told us that, although he has a lot of respect for us missionaries, our religion "teaches a lot of funky stuff" that isn't aligned with normal Christianity, and warned us to look into it. Then walked off. We were too tired and worn-out to say anything but "Ok, thanks." Yeah, not the most spiritual story, but we laughed about it once we got some food in us!

Gosh, there's just too much to say! I want to tell you more about the people and some stuff that's we've done here, but there's not enough time, dang it! And I tried to attach some pictures, but this computer wouldn't recognize the memory card. So either, I can try the computer at the church real quick later, or if that doesn't work, I'll mail home the memory card when it's full. Or something of that nature. Sound good? Hope so, 'cause those are my only options. Oh well. I love you all, and can't wait to hear from you! The church is true, I promise! My response to that guy at the airport (if I had been awake enough to say it, but I thought it loudly at him as he walked away) would have been that we don't profess that we are another Christian church, we go out to bring others the true church of God. I like to imagine that would have been a baptism right there, but whatever.

Ci vediamo!

Anziano Walker

Welcome to the Mission Field

Yes, you are nerds. But, it all works out, I'm a nears too!

 

Anyway, I got my first area just now! I'm going to be serving in Messina, which is a city on the northeast coast of Sicily (Siciglia)! My first companions name is Anziano Stewart, but I don't know a heck of a lot about him yet. My address will be:

 

Via Trento Isolato No 2

(98123), Messina, Italy

 

And the mission president and his wife and the secretaries and the assistants to the president told us to tell you NOT to send packages, because it can get hugely expensive with no guarantee of arrival. So........ I'm passing that onto you. Please just letters, or those padded envelopes that will fit in mails lots. Oh, and could you put the new address on Facebook too? That'll beaheck of a lot easier than me writing a bunch of people.

 

Apparently, the assistant to the president served there for a year, and he has assured me that it's an absolutely beautiful area with fantastic people. I'm so psyched! Plus, I'm gonna ride a train all the way there tomorrow! Literally all the way there. The train goes on a ferry!

 

My p-days are on Wednesdays now, so talk to you in a week! Bye!

Last Thursday P Day

Hi family!

Alrighty, let's see if I can get everything down that I need to:

I'M SO EXCITED FOR CHANDLER AND NATHAN OH MY GOSH!!!!!! That's freakin' awesome that we're all gonna be on a mission at the same time! I can't wait!


Also, OH MY GOSH JEREMY'S GONNA BE A DAD!!!! HOLY COW THAT WAS ONE OF THE WEIRDEST SENTENCES I'VE EVER WRITTEN BUT THAT'S SO COOL!!! That dear Elder was really cool to read, I was really happy! :)

Alright, down to business: I did get my travel plans last week. That was an interesting thing: they didn't come with everyone elses. Turns out, the travel office forgot to print it off. Good thing I checked the next day! I was just happy that I was still going to Rome and not learning Italian for no purpose. But anyway, our flight from Salt Lake leaves at 11 something or other, so if I can I'll call you around 10. If not, we get to Chicago at around 3 (I don't know which time zone), so sometime in the afternoon. Then my next flight is to London, so if I can figure out if you're all awake and I missed the other two times, I'll call then. Then is my flight to Rome. I don't have my address in Rome yet, which is why I haven't said anything about it. Please let Kalyn know that somehow, she seems to be getting antsy about that.


Anyway, nice little week. The new districts are doing great now, it was just crazy the first week. All of them are really fun, and they make gym time a hoot! I've kinda stopped playing basketball because some people started taking it way too seriously, but the new districts pretty much play four-square, and they're so fun! So are the other people who play that. I can't understand why some of the elders in our district are so against it. Whatev. But yeah, that was my outside of class week in a nutshell.


Teaching our investigators this week was awesome! I can't wait to be able to teach actual people! There's this one teacher, Fratello Garvin, who for our companionship has the persona of "Fabio", a fantastic investigator he met on HIS mission to Rome, which he got back from a few months ago. But if everyone in Italy was like Fabio, the work will literally explode with new converts, it's so fantastic to have a great investigator like that! He reads the chapters we give him and a few more, he just about asked to be baptized, and he already made friends with people in the ward, and with the bishop. He even showed us a picture of his two kids on his phone, it was pretty cool. It kinda stinks when I remember it isn't quite real, but give it a week.


WHAT THE HECK, I'm gonna be in Italy in a WEEK! It's gonna be weird not being in the MTC anymore, and actually being in the thick of things. I'm gonna kinda miss having devotionals and firesides every week. And the temple. For over a year. Dang... But it's gonna be great! I'm so excited! That seems to be my theme word for this email, hahaha!


Anyway, I'm sorry that I'm so silly, but I forgot to take notes while reading emails. So.... I kinda forgot what Mom wrote. So I'll reply to Dad's! Let's see: that's an awesome insight into that parable, I've never really thought of it maybe being in the millenium. But where do the kingdoms come in that He was talking about before? And to tell you the truth, I kind of thought the same thing about D&C 130 after reading it a bit. Although, I couldn't have put it so eloquently, "brain dump" haha!


Oh yeah, one thing I remember from Mom's letter: about the letters, you're not sending ALL of them, are you? Cause especially that Conference one was a little personal. I know you have fantastic judgement, I just would like a little confirmation that privacy is being respected, haha! Oh, and thank you so much for the shirts! They may weigh a little much, especially with the ties, but thanks! I'll try to organize the suitcases as best as I can! And the Milk Duds were gone within a few hours, thanks!


Anyway, love you all!
Ci vediamo!
Anziano Walker

The Countdown Is On

Dad, I love you to death! Thank you for helping me to learn and grow as much as I could while growing up at home!

I just feel so bad sometimes that I can't do anything to help you with your back, and I have to say it's hard to imagine what you're going through, since I left before it got too bad. I'll be sure to be praying for you for as long as it takes to get better.

While you're studying the words of the Lord right now though, do you want to do a kind of "tag-team studying"? We had a devotional this Tuesday with Elder Clarke (we've had 4 straight weeks of speakers from General Conference, I love it!), and an idea came to my mind as he was speaking. He said to make sure to write spiritual experiences to our families, and maybe discuss what we've been studying. I think I've been doing that, but I think it would be cool if we could both write to each other what we've learned from the same stuff over the week. And this would help me a lot too, because I don't feel like I have enough time to really dig into the scriptures as much as I want to. But anyway, if you would want to do that, I would absolutely LOVE to work with you in scripture study again! This week, what I've been trying to read and understand was in D&C 88 and 130, both of which I've just come to realize have WAY more than I could understand by myself. D&C 88 I looked at last week in the temple, and it just hit me so powerfully. One thing that I've been trying to understand is that parable about 2 or 3 pages in. I don't know what the Lord was saying when He threw that in there when He was talking about some kingdoms, it sounds so out of place. Do you know anything about it?

The Rome Temple is expected to be finished spring of 2014, so it's very likely that all of us could go through it. I'M SO EXCITED FOR THAT!!! And apparently it's gonna be a really big one too, so that's awesome!

Thank you for being my Dad, and I love you a ton! See you in a few years!
Anziano Walker

Short Email

Hi fam!

Ok, before you get disappointed again: I forgot to bring my memory card for my camera to the computer. Again. Sorry. It's not that bad, I don't think, 'cause the only pictures I've taken thus far are some of my district from the first Sunday here, I don't really carry it around. We're not really supposed to, and when we're allowed to, I don't remember it at all. My bad!

I'm so glad to hear all of you had a fun little week! Mine here has been kind of a let down. It's just been hard, for a lot of reasons. We just had the new Elders and Sister (yeah, just one) come into the zone last week, right? Well, one of them went back home last Friday, another Monday morning, and another yesterday afternoon. So that's been hard on everybody. Plus, the Fireside speaker gave a talk (which I thought was pretty good), but he phrased some stuff in a way that was hard for a lot of people in the district, and made people second-guess whether they could make it through the MTC, let alone the mission. Plus, it's just been super hard mentally here this week, and I'm not sure why it just hit so hard this week. I dunno. Satan is real, and he will take advantage of anything he can, so be ready. That's the best I can say.

But I'm so dang glad that everything is going well at home, and I can't wait to here what you get up to next week! Those were some amazing blessings for you all on the temple trip, it's lucky that you're still able to get there with that old dinosaur! Dang, that van is ancient....

We should be getting our travel plans today in the mail, so hopefully they come! But we are gonna be leaving for Italy probably in two Tuesdays (so not this one, but the next one). Gosh, that's so weird!

Oh, and Elder Holmes said he's related to the Hatches. He's not going to Italy.

Ok, this kinda bugs, but today I went with Elder Johnson (he's the one going to Milan that I knew from my first BYU ward) for those try-outs for Fireside music performances. Apparently, you can't be your own accompanist. Oh well. But he tried out with that song I asked you to get me, and he had the Sorelle in our district do it with him, Sorella Harward on piano, and Sorella Lyman on the violin. Oh my gosh, it was SO AMAZING!!!!!! It's the most BEAUTIFUL song I've heard since coming here, and it was so good with the violin part!

But yeah, nothing else really happened this week. Just studying and working.

I love you all, and thank you for being the best family I can ask for!
Anziano Walker