It’s transfer day! Tràpani to Cosenza:
Tràpani – Week 24
March 14, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Ciao Tutti!!
Hope that everyone is doing well and that you all had an awesome week!! I will start off with transfer calls so you don’t have to dig around for them. So I am leaving Tràpani this week and I am headed to Cosenza which is in Calabria, and my new companion will be Anzinao Borner. It will be hard to leave Tràpani it has become like a second home to me. Speaking Italian better in these past transfers has given me the opportunity to be able to really get to know the members and everyone I have been able to meet well. I have really been able to gain a lot of friends since I have been down here. I am excited to move on to a new city with some new adventures at the same time. I will have the chance to get to know some new people and a new part of Italy where I hear they like really spicy food. So it is a given that I am excited about that. I will miss the people a ton and just the beauty of Sicilia in the countryside and of course in the food as well. I am really grateful for the things that I have been able to learn down here with my companions. I will miss Anziano Spencer a lot!
We have been able to work really well together and I have enjoyed these two transfers that we have had together. I have definitely learned a lot from him and really am thankful for the things that he has taught me and the lessons that we have learned together as well. It has been 4 really awesome transfers down here in Sicilia. So far a perfect track record for 4 cities with 4 transfers apiece. Hope I will be able to continue that as well. I know that Tràpani is in good hands with Anziano Spencer and his new companion will be Anziano Olsen who is coming down from Pozzuoli. Sorella Workman is getting transferred to Rome 1 so that is really sick. So a greenie will be coming in place of her and the new zone leader down here will be Anziano Bellows with Anziano Trejo. So not a ton of changes happening to the district.
This week was really awesome and we were able to have some really good lessons with our investigators. We had one last Monday night where we were able to bring the two move-ins from the recent weeks with us who are both returned missionaries. The lesson went really well and it was cool to see the members and the investigators hit it off. It was really awesome. The lesson went well and we have another one with that family this evening. We had another one with this other family that went well and we really touched on coming to church on Sunday and it went well, but unfortunately they didn’t make it out to church yesterday so we will talk about that with them again this week. We were able to meet our English Course student twice this week which was really nice and the lesson went really well. I hope that he will continue to read in the Book of Mormon and really find his answer as he continues to genuinely search it out. [Read more…]
Tràpani – Week 22
February 29, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Ciao tutti!
Hope that everyone had a great week and that you were all able to accomplish the things that you needed to do! Our week went well for us.
Monday night we were able to go over to that family’s house and were able to have a nice meal together and then share a shorter spiritual thought than we had originally planned, but it went really well! They are super awesome and the mom was able to read in the Book of Mormon which we were really happy about. We hope that she will be able to continue in it and that we will be able to really get the girl to get started in it as well. We will be watching the Restoration film with them tonight so we are excited.
Tuesday we had our DDM, which went really well, and Anziano Brandon and I started our scambio and we stayed in Palermo. It went well, and we were able to do a good amount of finding for the night before English Course. It was really cool to see some small miracles while we were finding. One guy in particular stuck out to me. We were walking and we both made eye contact and I just think that he knew I was going to say something and I had a small feeling that he would stop, but also possibily go on. He stopped and watched the video that we were sharing and it went really well. Hopefully they will be able to see that guy soon. English course went well and then we were back to the house. The environment of a four man house is a lot different. It was really funny because Anziano Trejo is trying to eat better and put on more muscle and of course Anzinao Palazzo knows what he is talking about. He just has to ask every night what he can and can’t eat hahaha. Pasta was a big no no, but he couldn’t find anything else so he let temptation beset him and Anziano Palazzo wasn’t happy with him. His punishment was getting punched in the stomach for his ab workout the next day. It was really funny hahaha.
Wednesday started with a good workout and we were able to finish up our scambio with some more finding after doing some permesso stuff for Anzinano Brandon. We headed back to Tràpani after Anziano Spencer and Anziano Jensen showed up. W finished up our night with some finding in Tràpani.
Thursday we started off with doing our program sheet to keep track of Book of Mormon reading for the members. I really hope they will undertake the challenge to read it within four months. We were really pumped for English Course because afterwards we were able to share the film Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. It went really well and I think that the English Course students definitely enjoyed it and they were able to definitely learn more about the story and history of Joseph Smith. I am definitely thankful for all that he has done for us and all the sacrifices he made to keep doing the will of the Lord. I know that he is a prophet of the Lord and has done so much for us I love these scriptures in D&C 135. [Read more…]
Tràpani – Week 18
February 1, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Ciao Tutti!
I will start off with transfer news!! Anziano Spencer and I will be staying together here in Tràpani for another 5 weeks!! We are both really excited and look forward to be able to work hard together in the city some more! Anziano Trejo and Anziano Palazzo will be staying the same, which is super cool because we will get to continue to work with them and learn all we can from them. Sorella McFarland is headed out to Bari to train again and to be the Sister Training Leader over there. She has been in Palermo for almost a whole year so she was ready for a change. Sorella Workman will be staying here and Sorella McPheters is coming in to be companions with her. Because there is a small influx of Anziani this transfer, we will be receiving two more Anziani in the district. One of them is Anziano Jensen, who is in my MTC group, so that will be super fun and awesome to be able to work with him down here and have him in the district. He is hilarious and I haven’t seen him since the Bednar conference so that will be super fun to see him.
I hope that everyone had a great week! We had a nice week and were able to see some really cool miracles this week. After district meeting on Tuesday we did some study in the park near centro storico and we were finishing up and we both felt like we needed to go talk to this guy sitting on a bench not too far away from us. We headed over there and asked if we could practice the language with him and we got to talking a lot and ended up sharing the whole first lesson with him and he was involved in it and payed attention with asking good questions and everything. He also agreed to meet the next day which was super cool and he is just such a nice guy. We have really high hopes for him and hope that he will be able to meet soon! Another one was when we were able to have a super cool lesson with this really nice guy that we met doing white board finding. It was super awesome and we were able to meet his son before he headed off for work and gave the first lesson with him and his wife. It went really well and they were ready to schedule the next lesson and so we will be heading back over there tomorrow evening. They are super awesome and nice and really have awesome potential. Their son is a super good artist and he has constructed these boats and I got a picture of what he does. It is super cool. [Read more…]
Tràpani – Week 11
December 15, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ciao Tutti!
I forgot to say last week that my zone conference was yesterday so we had to get P-Day switched to today. Well I hope that everyone had an awesome week! We had a nice crazy week. Last Monday we were able to play basketball with some ragazzi [boys] which went pretty well. I still stink as usual, but hey the ball never hit me in the face at all.
Tuesday we were unable to grab a bus to Palermo for DDM because it was a festa [holiday] so we had to stay in Tràpani. There weren’t many people out that day at all. We had a good pranzo [lunch] with our ward mission leader and his wife which went really well. We had 3 people show up to English course and they were all advanced so it was great to be able to have a nice time with them and share our testimonies with a smaller group of people. They are all really awesome and definitely have really good friendships with them.
Wednesday had a fair amount of appointments with people set up. Only one of them fell through and we were able to get to know a member family a lot better which was really nice. We headed out for Palermo that night and then we had to wake up at 4:30 to get to the station in Palermo in time for Anziano Bourne to catch his bus to Bari at 6:15. It was Anziano Bourne, Anziano LaPray and I that headed there together. Anziano Trejo and Anziano Vrska went to drop Anziano Borough off at the airport. We texted Anziano Trejo around 6:00 and asked if there was any faster way to get to the station. He called and Anziano LaPray, in an anxious tone, explained that we just woke up. We were just cracking up thinking of Anziano Trejo’s face. It was a fun little joke. Everything went well though. Everyone made their departures on time.
Anziano Trejo, Anziano Vrska, and I were in a trio for the rest of the day. We had two lessons in the morning after studies and then went to eat at a new convert’s house who is the Italian Stan Lee. He is super funny. We had lunch over there and then headed back to the apartment before heading to a less active’s house. We shared a really good message with him that he received very well and it was awesome to see that we all three had different examples, but they all were able to be applied back to the main message. Anziano Trejo had told us about this guy’s movie collection and it is huge. I was nerding out of course for the 5 minutes he showed us. He just has everything you could imagine. He even has a Back to The Future hover board and that hat Marty wears in the second one. It was insane.
Anziano Spencer got in just fine a little after 7:00 and then we headed to Tràpani and got settled all at home. [Read more…]
Tràpani – Week 10
December 7, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ciao Tutti!
I hope everyone had a wonderful week! We had to email in a cafe today because the Internet is out at the church. Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season back home! It is different here for sure. They have a festa tomorrow so a lot of the shops will be closed because that is the day that they put out their Christmas tree. It’s from the tradition that the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to announce that she would bear Jesus Christ. So tomorrow hopefully will be a good time for finding for us.
This week we were able to see 2 of our investigators and they have been reading in the Book of Mormon which is great. We want to help them progress and really be excited about how much blessings are in store for us as we embrace the gospel. I really know that with the gospel we will be able to have the most joy and happiness not only in this life, but in the life to come.
We were able to have some other really good lessons with some less actives as well as members. It is so nice and amazing to be able to follow promptings on spiritual thoughts and see that it was fit and really needed by the people that we share it with. I am thankful for the people I have the opportunity to know here and the friendships I have made with them. I hope that I will continue to get to meet amazing people and helping them to the best of my abilities.
We got our transfer calls this past Saturday and I will be staying here in Tràpani and Anziano LaPray will be heading up to Terni. It has been awesome to be able to work with him and I am thankful for all that I learned from him. He has showed wonderful examples of love, charity, awareness, and boldness. He is an awesome missionary and he speaks really awesome Italian. He is going to do amazing things. I look forward to being able to see him again later down the road in the mission. My new companion is going to be Anziano Spencer and he is coming down from Terni. We are just switching companions hahaha. It will be awesome though. Anziano Spencer is awesome and this will be his second city. Excited to start work with him Thursday! [Read more…]
Tràpani – Week 6
November 9, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ciao tutti!
I hope that everyone had an amazing week and that all is well back home wherever that may be for you! We had a good week this week and we were able to have some really great lessons. The weather is treating us well here in Tràpani. It is really pretty with all the sunsets and just the beauty of the city. We found USA food in a grocery store. [see photo below] We also got 2 meters of pizza within 24 hours. We did not eat the entire 2nd one thank goodness. That one was shared with 3 others. We had gnocchi yesterday too, which was the first time since home. And more horse.
Tràpani is an amazing city with amazing people and I really look forward to being able to meet more and more of them. We are really having some good success in talking with a ton of people, but are still searching for those that are willing to listen to the message that we bring them.
This week we had an awesome first lesson with a member’s friend and we are really looking forward to continue to meet with her and her family very soon. She has a strong desire to learn more and to grow. She will be super awesome to meet with. We were also able to have two really good lessons with our investigators and last night we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. It was super cool and I always love watching that film. The spirit you can feel when talking about Joseph Smith. I am so grateful for everything he did. I know Jesus Christ truly restored his Church through Joseph Smith. It is amazing to know that God still talks to us today and provided the evidence necessary to know spiritually that this is Christ’s church on the earth once more.
This week for my ponderizing scripture I chose Hebrews 9:11
11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
With Christ even through times of difficulties there will always be good things to come. I love the Mormon Message with the same title. Good Things to Come. I love this quote that from the talk it is based around by Elder Jeffery R. Holland.
Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.
I would invite you all to watch the Mormon Message. It is really good as all of Elder Holland’s talks are.
Anziano LaPray and I will be staying another transfer together here in Tràpani. It will only be 4 weeks long because the Church doesn’t want to be having missionaries travel during the Christmas season. So the transfer after that will be 8 weeks long. I think I will be here for that one as well. We love working together and we are really growing together. We are really hoping to see a lot more investigators as we continue to try our best to talk with everyone we can. I love working with Anziano LaPray. He is super awesome. He is really funny and we are having a great time working with each other.
Everyone else in the district is remaining here other than Sorella Argyle, who is being transferred to Ostia for her last transfer.
Sorry I don’t have much else to report on this week. We are really looking forward to these next 4 weeks. I am loving Italy. It is wonderful getting to meet and love people here. It is an amazing place. I’m so very thankful for the opportunity to be here. I hope that everyone is enjoying life and soon Thanksgiving, which I don’t think exists here… But you all will enjoy it! Hope everyone has a wonderful week and I will hear from you all very soon!
Love,
Anziano Garrett
USA Food in a local Tràpani grocery store. Anziano LaPray has already picked out some pancake syrup.
Tràpani – Week 1
October 5, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Buongiorno!
I made it down to Sicilia safely and made it to Tràpani. We found out Wednesday night I had to be staying in Rome 2 [for the night]so President and Sister Waddoups came and picked us up. We stayed the night there with some others that were parting to different areas. We got picked up by a senior missionary that took us to the airport early in the morning and our flight was supposed to take off at 8:25 but was delayed just a little. The flight didn’t take too long at all, but I was surprised they flew us down instead of putting us on a train. Tràpani is really nice and is a lot different than Roma. It is less busy with people on the streets for sure. When we landed the other missionaries were waiting for us and we got on the bus to go to Palermo and then caught a bus to Tràpani. The ride was very pretty on the way to Tràpani.
Adjusting to a different area is weird. I feel like I was in Rome for so long I just knew my way around everywhere and knew the members super well. It will be an adjustment, but one that will be great for sure. I haven’t had a chance to meet too many members at all. Just a handful of them. Still getting used to the area and how to get around.
I haven’t run into a ton of difficulty with the language down here. The two languages of the bilinguals are Italian and Sicilian, which sound so much different hahaha. I did hear two people speaking it one day while doing some finding and it sounded so much different. I couldn’t really make anything out at all.
So we are in the Palermo 1 district which consists of me, Anziano LaPray, Anziano Kennedy, Anziano Trejo, Sorella McFarland, and Sorella Argyle. So we are going to be doing district meetings in Palermo.
Since it was conference weekend we were able to watch every session except the last one. I really enjoyed conference and look forward to being able to study the talks more here soon. It was really good and the talks given were really good. I especially liked Elder Holland’s, President Eyring’s in priesthood session, President Nelson’s, and President Uchtdorf’s from the general women’s session. It was a really enjoyable conference. One of the most important things with conference is taking the things that we learned and applying them in our lives. We can set goals that will help us be able to do this and I need to sit down and set some goals for how I can improve on the path of discipleship. There are always things that we can work on in our life and like President Eyering said our faith is either increasing or decreasing. There is no middle ground. And we can always look to progress in our lives.
It was also very awesome to see the 3 new apostles called to the Quorum of the Twelve. I look forward to getting to know them more and hear from them in the future conferences. I will miss Elder L. Tom Perry, Elder Richard G. Scott, and President Boyd K. Packer and the beautiful messages they always gave. They have left us with wonderful teachings and things we can still continue to learn from. [Read more…]
Roma 1 – Week 24
September 28, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ciao!
OK, sorry this email will be pretty short this week but I don’t have much time! I hope that everyone is doing well!
OK, so this past week we didn’t see a ton of people, unfortunately. We only got to see one of our investigators, but he brought a friend which was super cool! He hadn’t been answering the phone because he was sick, but then we got ahold of him and were able to meet with him once. He is doing well but hasn’t been answering the phone again. I hope that everything is going well with him though.
We got to see 3 of our less actives which went really well and they are doing well. We are still trying to find new work right now.
Anziano Rasband is doing better now. He had a doctor’s appointment but had been feeling better a little before we went. He is finally eating normally again, which is great.
So today I had no clue what we were doing for pday but the whole district did. We had to go somewhere, but the metro was broken for a fair amount of the A line and we had to take a bus from one stop all the way across Rome which took forever. It was crazy hahaha. We went to this place called Escape Rome where they put you in a room and you have to find clues and try to get out. It was really neat. Definitely made me feel a little dumb for sure. They gave us a lot of help sometimes hahaha. I don’t know if I wasn’t in the right mind set and not knowing how this all was set up or anything. I was a little confused and they didn’t even let me know what the place was when we went in hahaha. It was neat but I wonder if they didn’t help us if would have got out. They only give you an hour to do it. There was like a Vatican themed room and a CSI themed one.
We were in the CSI room with Sorelle Rossi and Nagliati. It was fun and I think that we all felt a little dumb from getting the help and finished with 5 minutes left hahaha. We then went and ate a really nice meal. I had a a mozzarella di bufalo pizza it was super good.
They then gave me some cream puffs with a candle and then we got gelato to finish it all off. It was a super fun day and the whole district had a great time. It was cool to see Sorella Nagliati before she goes home tomorrow.
I am really excited about General Conference and really looking forward to hearing from the prophets, apostles, and other general authorities. I really enjoy hearing the messages that we need to hear in this life. I am really excited to hear from them all.
I like this scripture in D&C 1:38
What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
We are hearing these messages from the Lord and they are all specifically for us and I am really excited to hear the messages and hope to be prepared to receive them. I was sad to hear about Richard G. Scott. Having three vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be really interesting to see if they will all be filled and who the Lord will call to fill them. I am really pumped for this weekend.
Ok and last, but not least transfer news. I am going to be leaving Rome 1 and I am heading down to Trapani in Sicilia! That will be a lot of fun! Anziano LaPray will be my new companion. I am excited to be going down there but also a little sad to be leaving some people here.
I will leave this Thursday and I am excited to head down there. I will be taking a plane so it won’t take as long, but I will have to watch my weight limit which is going to take some skillful packing I think hahaha. I received all the birthday cards and am really thankful for them! I haven’t gotten to read them all, but will be sure to do so tonight! Thank you all! I hope that everyone has an amazing week, and I am sorry I won’t be able to get back to everyone today! Take care!
Vi voglio bene!!
Love,
Anziano Garrett
[Taylor’s new companion in Trapani will be Anziano Lapray. He is just completing his 12 weeks of training. This photo is from Sister Waddoups’ blog]
Anziano Lapray
Roma 1 – Week 18
August 17, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ciao!
We are alive and well and finally were able to return to working normally again. I really am excited to be back and at it. Well I will start with the big news since we received our transfer calls Saturday.
So here is what happened. Usually we get our call sometime during the study hours which are from 8:00-10:00 but this time we didn’t because we had a “deep cleaning” day in the house since it was a holiday and a ton of people leave to go on vacation the same day. So we got our call around 12:00 or so while we were cleaning. It was a super fast call because Anziano Rasband and I are both staying here in Rome 1! And the sisters are all staying here too and we will receive a new sister Thursday. Definitely crazy we are all staying here. I would never have guessed that to happen again. We are excited about the new transfer and really think we can improve on some things together and see some amazing things happen.
Last week we got back into the work and we were able to start seeing people again. A lot of our investigators have been out of town so we haven’t been able to see them for a while. We are really looking to get new investigators and keep pushing to find more, especially referrals. We saw some less actives that I always enjoy seeing and helping them with what the Lord needs us to do. I am excited to see some of the people getting back on vacation soon.
We had English Course as normal this week, which is going well, and we are seeing new faces pop up here and there, which is nice.
The weather has been nice here and I hope it will stay this way. We had a nice day today we went to St.Peter’s Basilica which was really neat and had an amazing view from the top. Before we went there we had an amazing conversation with a younger couple that is on vacation. We were just waiting for the order missionaries and the guy comes up to us and says he was trying to explain about the Mormon church to his girlfriend just earlier that day. Then he said I figured you guys could do it better. It was a really fun time and we shared the restoration with her and I really hope that they will have further exposure to the church down the road. I really really hope so because they were so nice and super awesome!
We had a good time at church yesterday and was great to see the members again. We are looking forward to this coming week and really looking to kill it! I am excited about it and just hope that we can keep pushing forward even when things always don’t work out the way that we expect.
I read in Ether 12 this past week and enjoyed reading about faith. I was feel like there is room to always look to improve our faith. I read this in True to the Faith and it can say it better than I can so I want to share this with you guys. [Read more…]
