Nov 18 Email and a photo!

Anz. Kinzie is doing great! It was so fun to see and talk with him again! I will get to see him again soon too because Pres. and S.lla Toronto are going to do the Christmas meetings with our districts at the mission home! And also Anz. Shaw's district will be there!!!!!!!! WOO HOO LOL!!

Well this week has been great!!

Wednesday after we finished up email we walked around and I showed Anz. Halverson some of the other sites of Crotone! That was fun! We enjoyed it! Then we just went back to the house to write letters, clean etc. Then of course we went out and worked! We had some great lessons!

Thursday morning we had to come back to the internet point here at the castle so I could finish my letter to President. Well actually start it over lol! There is this thing the myldsmail.com does when you take awhile writing. It logs you out and then you have to put your password and email back in to get back into the account, and you have only one chance to do it right or it deletes your email, and yup I did it wrong lol so I had to come back and do it all over! But it was nice because today I got a reply from Pres., which is rare! So that was nice!

Thursday after that we went and had a great lesson with S.lla Zarfino! We are going around to the members talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon and asking them to choose a question they had or someone will have about really anything and then having them answer this question with the Book of Mormon! So we did that and by then it was time to go back for lunch! After we had an hour or so to do some street before we had a lesson with Magda. So we talked with a few people and made our way over to the church! We had a great lesson with Magda and then after we had English course! I made a fun Jeopardy game about English and random things! It was a blast! They all really enjoyed it!

After that we had a great lesson with a NEW INVESTIGATOR we found through English course! It was great! We taught the first lesson and he really liked it! He was like "yeah we really do need a prophet!" and he said he didn’t believe in infant baptism! Because he thinks that we need to be able to choose! We were like....you are exactly right!! That was cool! It was a great lesson!!

Then Friday we had of course the classic service with Alessandro! That is always a pleasure! I’m sorry you guys hear pretty much the same thing every week lol! Oh well it's what I do! Later in the evening we had a great lesson with S.lla Olga that went really well!

After that we walked to the housing area that Anz. Lewis and I started along time ago to finish it up! And man oh man it was awesome! Anz. Lewis and I right when I got here prayed about which area we needed to do house in and both felt that we needed to do it in the area we are working in. Now the thing about this area is that it is a long way from everything! It takes about an hour to walk out there, but we felt that it was where we needed to go! And now we are seeing fruits from it! You must know too that it is really hard doing house in Italy, mainly because houses don’t exist at ALL! lol! That and people don’t let us in really ever! Anyway we were in the last little section that we needed to do before we finished up this area that we started months and months ago. We hadn’t had any success really at all. But for this last little section, and it is a golden section of apartments! (pallatzi)! We got into three houses in a ROW!! It was awesome!! They are all so great/prepared!! It is awesome! One of the houses was a little scary because there were three theologist ladies that wanted to know about our Church. So we taught the Restoration and it went really well! Another was this evangelist lady and her daughter that were really interested! It was awesome! Really cool!! We were so excited! We taught many lessons, found new investigators etc. It was a great day! We loved it!! I know it may be a little redundant but man it was awesome!!

Saturday morning we went to the church to type up a survey of Christ that we want to use as a new finding technique! We met Pres. Sarcone there and talked with him a little and asked if there was any service we could do with him or for him or at the hospital here in Crotone. (He is an administrator there)

The only other highlight of the evening was we had another lesson with Magda. Well it was really more of a party-ish kind of thing. We bought a pizza and ate it and talked and had a short lesson. We did it this way because she decided to go back to Romania for good. This was our last chance to do something like that with her! It was really fun! We all enjoyed it!

Sunday we had church! I love church!! I love our members! It is great!!

Monday the Anziani from Catanzaro came up to do splits with us! That was a blast!! I really liked it! I went with our district leader Anz. Adams and Anz. Halverson went with Alvarado! We had a lot of fun! It was a bittersweet day though because we went to say good bye to Magda! She will be fine though!

Tuesday was really interesting! We have a new service activity that I LOVE! We went to this house with Pres. Sarcone and met a really nice man that is disabled. He is paralyzed. He has a sweet wife that takes care of him but is older as well so she can’t do everything for him. So now Tuesday mornings we go over lift him out of his bed, put him in a wheel chair, take him down stairs and then switch wheel chairs (the normal one won’t fit in the elevator) and then we take him for a walk! It was really fun! He is a great guy and really enjoyed being outside! I can’t wait for next week!! It was a blast!!

Well that pretty much covers the week for me! It was a blast! Packed with tons of great stuff! Fun and adventure! I loved it! I am happy, healthy, and doing great! I love it here!! Have a great week!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

[an additional email we received the next day…]

Here we are yet again with something we forgot to do lol! We write lists and lists of things to remember and still there is always something we forget lol! Today I thought I would send some pics while I wait for Anz. Halverson!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

P.S. yup you can believe it, I use and love lists lol! SHOCKER!

Me with Sorella Olga! She is a member here! She is awesome!

Nov 11 Email – Surfing as a missionary tool and Conference with a GA!

Thank you for your excitement for Tuni! We are so excited about it!!!!!! I can't wait! In fact after this today we have an appointment with him! We are super excited to talk more with him!! It is going to be great!

Go forward with faith is a great great mantra!!! It really works!

Offerta means offer like as in a deal. We just call it the offerta because it’s shorter and we know which pizza we want exactly lol! It also comes with fries and a drink! It’s really good!!

Oh yeah Hawaiian pizza! I miss that! It is completely un-kosher to put fruit on pizza here in Italy lol!

[The “advice” from] Alessandro is that he always says something like or similar to, "tomorrow is another day," or "Be happy!" he says he is a sage! lol! He's great!

Yeah it is so great to have so many people to teach! I LOVE IT!! Teaching is like really my favorite thing to do! I mean finding work is great and all, but for missionaries, we are happy teaching! It is so fun! I get so pumped after a great lesson! I’m skipping and hopping all over the place lol!

As I have been reading the BoM my testimony has increased SO FREAKIN MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW the POWER in that BOOK!!! IT IS SO TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to share it with everyone!! I love the description Elder Kerr gave us....it’s a treasure! Literally! It’s awesome!

Our week has been, well, lets just say, AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after email last week we went back to the house and just kinda chilled again, listened to so music, wrote some letters, just relaxed! We went and got a few things we needed as well! It was really fun!!
Also Wednesday we tried to get a hair cut for Anz. Halverson...he likes to have "professionals" do it but they were all closed.

Thursday we came back to the castle to finish email (we got kicked off early since they wanted to close). We also went and bought water and some other stuff and did some finding work in the morning. Then in the evening we went and found a place where Anz. Halverson could get his hair cut. After we were going to have a great lesson with Nerina but she called and said that she and her family were a little sick! We wished them well and said we would stop by soon! After that was just English course. It was good!

Friday we had the usual service. Got a bucket o' tangerines again! That was great! We eat SO many of those! They taste so good! just like Mikan tangerines! It’s awesome!

After that we had planning. I don’t know if I have ever told you this but service and planning take the whole morning, then lunch. So usually Friday we don’t have any work.

After lunch we went down to Lungomare "boardwalk" to see if we could find Annita! The last time we went she wasn’t there. On the way you are never going to believe what I saw......................now you are going to have to prepare your self for this....................................I could barely handle it............................I SAW....................................... SOMEONE......... SURFING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID I actually did! There were waves I wanted to look at really quickly and there in the water was one guy surfing! I saw his wife over on the pier calling to him, so I ran, literally over and started talking to her! I was like, do you know him!?!?!?!?! and she said yeah, and I told her that I surf! and for the first time I was able to use surfing to teach the gospel! Not only that, it was the coolest thing in the world! We made immediate friends!! It was awesome! Then he came back in and well, he is awesome!!! He speaks English too! Man the surfing connection is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could describe how immediately we were able to connect over our love of the ocean! AND when we talked about the gospel he (Mirko is his name-o!) was like I LOVE Mormons!! You see he lived in California for awhile to surf!! Man he is awesome!! It was THE funnest thing ever! You should have seen how excited I was! I took a picture with him after too! Man it was so cool! I was able to use tons of surfing analogies that they could connect with! It was great!! I invited him to come surfing with me in Japan after the mission and he invited me to come stay with him here in Italy and go surfing! Which would be AWESOME!!!!! I would love it! It was great!!!! You know me!! It was great for me lol!!!

Ok so the next super awesome thing was when we went to Cosenza for the conference with Elder Kerr!!!! We got up at around 5:00 to get on the bus to Cosenza and got there about 8.

We went to the church and started to greet all the other anziani on the "mainland" That was awesome!!! We got to see everyone!! Shaw, Benson, Sponseller, Rappleye, Hansen, everyone! It was such a blast!!!

And then Elder Kerr....HOLY.....COW!!! He is so awesome!!!! Not only does he have the sweetest Scottish accent and attitude! But WOW! It was probably THE greatest conference ever!!! I learned A LOT!!! It was so great!!! The Spirit was so strong! He joked, he cried, he bore testimony; he held our attention for an entire 5 hours! It was incredible! We learned SO SO MUCH!

Then the great thing was that later in the night he was doing a fireside for the members and any investigators that were there. We got to stay for that because we were going to be going to the Stake (really district) meeting with him on Sunday! And as a part of that I got to see Anz. Kinzie again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was awesome!!!!!!!!!! [Anz. Kinzie was his MTC companion!]

The Lord hears and answers prayers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNOW IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After the conference we got a ride with the Harris couple back to Crotone and had a good talk with them! Also the drive through the mountains was great! The leaves are turning! We took a scenic detour and I tried to take some pics from the car, it was really pretty!!

Then yesterday Anz. Shaw came back to do his permesso! SO it's been fun to see him!!

And Anz. Halverson and I will be going to Bari to do his permesso!! lol!! Still the permesso guy!! Mine is ready to be picked up!!

Also pretty much the mission is sick from the conference, I already had it so I am fine, but Anz. Halverson and Shaw got hit pretty bad, and so did a lot of others. They are doing a lot better now! So it’s all good!

Well everything is going great here for me! I am happy healthy and well!!! Have a great week!!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

Nov 4 Email and a Baptism scheduled!!

We are having a maxi conference this week for this transfer, and then there should be one more next transfer, but Christmas is halfway through the transfer. However I heard that last year President invited the MTC districts to the mission home to spend the night there and have a good Christmas dinner! And I have heard that he might do that this year! SO hopefully! That would be really fun! either way there will be two [transfers] before Christmas I think!

Sometimes I will walk around and realize that "whoa! I live in Italy!!" it is really cool!!

Its great being here! I can really see that this is where the Lord wants me to be!!

Man there have been so many miracles with this move!! That is so awesome!! I LOVE seeing the Lord's hand in our lives!

Every day (which Anz. Shaw and I did this every night) think of at least one way you have seen the Lord's hand in your life! It's awesome!!

We hope Magda's twin one day will want to hear the gospel, but for now no. Magda is working on that though!

A dedica is like a book thing that we write for our companions [when they get transferred] with pics etc. to remember them by!

Speaking of Elder Hicks, he married my comp’s cousin lol! Small world huh!!?? It’s pretty cool! [Elder Hicks was a companion to Ryler in Japan!]

Little Italy!! I LOVE IT!!! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! !!
[we think this is “fun to say”! Try it, and I bet you’ll agree! lol]

We do do daylight savings here!

Well my week has been pretty much FLIPPIN awesome!!!

Let me tell you why, I wanted to tell you the first thing because I don’t think I could contain it any longer!!

How's that for getting you all curious!? lol!

Now you are thinking "oh come on! just say it!" lol!

Alright I will!

TUNI IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We talked to him, actually this morning and asked him and he said yes!! Then he bore a really great testimony!! It was so awesome!! He will be baptized on December 5, one day after his birthday, and one day before transfers! The only thing that is making it so he has to wait more is he needs to come to church, which he hasn’t been able to do! But now we have a plan and are "going forward with faith!" which is our mantra with him! We are so excited! It is awesome!!! It was really great!!

Ok now for the usual weekly run down!

Wednesday after we finished email we went and walked around the city a bit to get Anz. Halverson oriented. I have to keep reminding myself, I have been here since June, and he has been here a week lol! It's going great though! We have TONS of fun!

After that we went and got the Offerta....which is.....: the great deal on pizza that we get from the store where we are "usuals"!

Thursday we did the regular work! We did a lot of street and more city orienting as well and going to tons of different stores trying to find a little thing to fix our kitchen sink which was leaking really bad! lol! We got that fixed now and it’s good to go! Then in the evening we had a great lesson with Magda and then English course!

Friday was Anz. Halverson's first time doing service with Alessandro and it was pretty fun! We did all the usual stuff and he gave us some of his "advice" and a TON of fruit! We got tons of tangerines and clementines which are great! Also it was fun because even though Italians don’t really celebrate Halloween they have some stuff and Alessandro had some, not carved, but painted pumpkins! It was fun!

After that we had planning and got some great stuff figured out for the branch, our investigators, and even some new finding ideas!

Saturday we finally had some money so we jumped on the bus to Cutro to go to Lidl to get food! We got some great stuff...oh and get this....are you ready....they had CHEDDAR CHEESE!! ha ha! We were pretty excited about that! Cheddar pretty much doesn't exist here, and this even is just a few days thing. Lidl every once and awhile has things from other countries like America, England etc... This cheese is from England! It’s really good! While we were there a lady came up to us randomly and asked if we are "Mormons" we told her yes and she asked us for "our book" so we gave it to her and she was really excited about it! After that she just walked away before we could do anything...it has our number inside so hopefully she will call!

When we got back we did normal missionary stuff until around 7:00 when we met Magda at the church to have a Halloween party! She brought us some candy which was really nice! She said “I know you Americans like candy today so I got you some!" it was really nice! We had some pizza and watched The Restoration video! It was a fun little party for us lol! :)

Sunday was great!!! Oh man I love Sundays!! First off it was great fun introducing everyone to Anz. Halverson. Then Pres. Sarcone gave a great talk about temples and their importance. Then S.lla D'oppido gave a great testimony. THEN Magda gave a really fantastic testimony. THEEEN we had had a lesson with Magda about praying in public and we told her to pray about it. Well she got her answer lol! Pres. Sarcone called on her to give the closing prayer! It was totally inspired!! It was awesome!!

THEEEEN later that night as we were doing street we had 3 GREAT lessons in a row! One was with THEE most down to earth teenager ever in Italy! He told us he would LOVE to talk to us because as he put it he is "very curious about religion!!!!!!!!!" Then we were walking along and a great lady called us over from her window, her name is Annita! We had a great lesson with her and a return appointment! It was a great day!

Then Monday we jumped on the train to go to Catanzaro for district meeting, which was great! On the way I did some more reading from the BoM. Pres. challenged us to finish it before the end of the year, and I have a ways to go! I read from Jacob to Alma! It was awesome! I've always known but I love to reaffirm the awesomeness that comes from reading from the scriptures every day and studying them! Also Pres. challenged us to, as we read, note:
The names of Christ
The Attributes of Christ
The Atonement of Christ
And how the BoM proves the restoration!
SO I have been writing down all those in my little "surf journal" and it’s been great!

After we got back from district meeting our house owner called to tell us that he was bringing us a new shower! So they came and installed that! And let me tell you IT IS AWESOME!! We have (and I may have told you) been using what we call the "shath" because you have to sit down in the tub and use a little hose to get wet. Now we have a normal stand up shower! It’s awesome!

Oh yeah funny story on that! Here at our house they don’t use a water heater. It’s called a caldeie. It heats it really well but well it breaks a lot lol! It's fixed now, but for a couple of weeks what we had to do was: we first hurry and wash our hair just standing outside the shath, then we would hurry and restart the caldeie to get soapy, this whole time too we have water boiling on the stove, then we would hurry and use what little hot water there was to get wet and soapy then finish with the boiled water lol! It was quite an adventure!

Ok so Tuesday we had a follow up appointment with Annita. But it turned out that she wasn't there because she was having leg problems and will be back later in the week!

Later we were supposed to have a branch council but Pres. Sarcone never showed up lol! He finally did after English course and took us and Magda out to dinner at his son's restaurant! It was a really fun treat! We watched a soccer game with him and his family there! It was fun! Then we talked about some great stuff! He also asked us to come by in the morning to give his son a blessing!

SO this morning we stopped by the restaurant to give him a blessing but it turns out he wanted a blessing or a dedication on the store itself. SO we just ended up saying a prayer for it. It was a good tool though because this son isn't a member and it was cool that he recognized the power of the priesthood! So that was good! He told us to stop by anytime!

After that we did a little "Giro" while we waited to meet Tuni! We actually found him a little early and had a great lesson! and well as you know HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!

It’s been a great week so far! I am excited about the rest too! We have an appointment with Nerina tomorrow, then on Friday we have an appointment with Roberto and Catarina and then on Saturday we have the maxi conference with Elder Kerr!! We are excited for that because well he is a GA and there is mail and we get to see all the Anziani from Calabria, and Puglia! It will be great!

It’s going to be awesome!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

Nov 4 bonus email with a photo!

anz. shaw and i at the bus stop

before he went to Foggia (transferred)

Oct 28 Email

One thing I forgot to mention that I really love is the Life is Good magnet! Oh man that is awesome!! Life is good!

The traveling is really fun! I love it!

The mafia thing was actually kind of exciting! I’m sorry it happened to those people but it was yeah kind of exciting...

Street is totally awesome now! I am pretty much comfortable with it for sure! In fact I love it! It is getting way easier!! rejections are nothing! we get so many of them in a day its really just nothing now! we have got some crazy ones too! not to talk myself up or anything I'm just used to it now I guess lol!! We hand out what we call opuscoli or pamphlets (sp?) to read!

Oh yeah I remembered along time ago you asked me what the Italian equivalent is to "ne" and its "no" like you had a good day no? lol I was excited to tell you that one cause I remembered you had asked!

We do splits with the district leader so they can see how we are doing, same for DL's with the ZL’s and ZL’s with the assistants. Other splits are just done out of need!

Still don’t know the branch mission plan! lol! Working on that though!

Happy Halloween!!!

So the last period of time that has passed in which we have not had the opportunity to write seeing how there are rules in place in order that we are being the best we can be has been awesome, nerve-racking, stressful, and exciting....all in all a very good week lol!!

Ok so the usual day to day run down that is becoming more and more of a habit for me to do so you know what I have been up to is as follows: :)

Wednesday after we did email, we ended up going....no-where...lol we went back to the house, well first we went to Magda's house to get a really good Romanian salad that she made for us and then we went and got the offerta...we love the offerta lol!...then we went back to the house, cleaned and got stuff put back in order, wrote letters and ate the food! It was a fun p-day to just kind of relax for once!

Both Anz. Shaw and I were nervous because the next day, Thursday, was transfer calls so it was nice just to hang out together and talk!

Ok so Thursday, the morning was pretty normal, we did the usual stuff, street, house, got some food, etc... the main thing of the day is that we got transfer calls!

Ok so here is how it went down:
We were sitting in an appointment with Magda (new member lessons) when the phone rang...Anz. Shaw talked with pres. first and then handed me the phone. The cool thing is, I was really nervous at first but then the second I heard his voice I was completely calm! I LOVE pres. Toronto!

Anyway he told me that Anz. Shaw was getting transferred and I would stay in Crotone! As you know lol! I like how you found that our before I told you lol! Anyway Anz. Shaw got transferred to Foggia, it’s in the very northern part of the Puglia. I found out after that, that my new comp would be Anz. Halverson! he is AWESOME!! I will get to that though lol!

Ok so after the calls, we had English course and then just went home.

On Friday we had planning and we tried to have service with Alessandro but there was a CRAZY storm again! So we just did planning and get stuff ready and the house. Anz. Shaw started to pack etc... after that we started all the activities that we do when a missionary is leaving the city, i.e. we went and saw tons of people, did some street etc....oh we went and got the offerta one last time too!

Saturday was more of that stuff, we had a lot of running around to do! It was really busy! Not to mention in the evening we had a dinner with English course students, and we met Magda's twin sister and her boyfriend from London! he was really really funny with that British dry wit lol! it was really fun! The students took us to this really good restaurant for pizza! It was cool because it had this garden on the sea with a giant pirate ship so that was fun to see, and they even had some fireworks so that was great! it was all really sad though, because it was all for Anz. Shaw who was leaving!

I feel bad that I didn’t really talk that much about him, but I LOVE Anz. Shaw! He is awesome! We are like brothers! It was really hard for me to see him go! really hard!! I miss him, but Anz. Halverson is awesome too!

So Sunday we said all the good-bye's with the branch etc... and then in the evening finished packing and getting everything ready for Anz. Shaw to go... i.e. finish dedica's and stuff!

Monday morning we woke up really early to catch the bus to Cosenza where he would meet up with another Anz. that was going close to his city. That was a sad bus ride too!

We dropped him off at the bus station at 10:00 and then he was gone! that good-bye at the bus station was hard too...dang transfers are hard...but we learn and grow from them and we do what the Lord wants us to do!

After that Anz. Alvarado and I did splits for most of the day until our new comps showed up around five. I had a lesson with the ZL's in Cosenza and then I met my new comp! Anz. Halverson from Las Vegas!!!! he is AWESOME!!!!! We already get along really well!! It’s awesome!! We have had a lot of fun so far!! We jumped on a bus, after having family home evening in Cosenza, to Crotone! We got to know each other better along the way and had a good time!

Yesterday we did a lot of unpacking and stuff helping Anz. Halverson get used to the city so that was fun!

This morning we had a great lesson with a guy on the street that was really excited about the Book of Mormon! So that is awesome!! I am excited to follow up on that!! and now here we are at the castle writing! I am really excited for this transfer it should be really fun!!

I'm not sure what we will do for Halloween since it doesn’t really exist that much here, and our branch is well too...old....to do a party. We may go to Cosenza and join their party, though I don’t know for sure! We'll see! either way I am excited for the holiday! lol! :)

Also coming up we are going to have a conference with Elder Kerr (a GA) from Switzerland so that is REALLY exciting! I am really looking forward to that!

Well that has been it for the week so far! It’s been really fun! Stressful but fun! I am excited to get to know Anz. Halverson better! He is a great guy! I like him already! I am sure we will get along great!

Have a great week!

Love,
Anz. Nielsen

Oct 21 Email (part 2)

[for some reason blogger isn't letting me post this email all at once so I had to split it up...]


Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting since all the weeks after conference we couldn’t, it was good! Pres. Sarcone was really the only one who spoke lol. The way church goes here is we have, at 9, priesthood and the women have relief society, then at ten we have sacrament meeting, which goes for about 40 minutes, then after that we have the missionary spiritual thought, where we talk about the work, share a message, ask for referrals and try and get the members excited to do missionary work! It was really good!

After Church we went back to the house and had lunch, studied, read the scriptures, wrote some letters etc… After that we took the sacrament to some members from another city (that live here at the moment) to visit a sick family m ember in the hospital. They couldn’t come to Church because the visiting hours at the hospital are right when Church is. So we took them the Sacrament and had a short lesson and got to know them a little.

On the way back to the house we were both really really hungry and wanted warm food but we didn’t have anything. We managed to gather everything we needed to make pasta except for the sauce, the most crucial part! That was hard so I said a prayer and felt that we would be able to get sauce (we call it pasata) with out breaking the Sabbath. When we got home I felt like we should go ask our neighbor, so we did and she was really really nice! We were willing to pay but she was like "do you want to offend me!?" it was an awesome answer to prayer!! Some may say it is a coincidence but I know it was a direct answer to my prayer!

Monday the Anziani from Catanzaro came to do splits (since Anz. Pelfry is our district leader) so that was a blast! Their train was late though so when they got here we did a quick district meeting, then went and had lunch! I was cooking and was nervous because as a companionship we get used to the way each other cooks, and I didn’t know if the other Anziani would like my pasta. But they all seemed to, they even had seconds and thirds so that was good!

After lunch we did the splits, for about an hour lol! Their return train was leaving soon and they had an appointment with a new investigator! I went with Anziano Alvarado (he is from Peru, but lived in Rome for 3 years so he only speaks Italian with us!) He is AWESOME! We went and had a lesson with S.lla Olga and it was great! I found out that he is a convert as of six years! It went really well! He is such a funny guy too! It was a blast! After that Anz. Shaw and did some street and talked with some more people and then went home!

Yesterday Tuesday, we did our usual stuff in the morning and talked with a lot of people! We also went and got some groceries since we were running low. We had a few good lessons! Then at night we had English course. That was as usual very fun! It was hard though because Pres. Sarcone scheduled a meeting to figure out the branch mission plan and we couldn’t be there because of class. SO as the missionaries for the Crotone branch we don’t even know their mission plan lol! It was a crazy night! But fun!

And today, well we’re not sure exactly what we want to do, maybe we will go see a castle or something, I don’t know!

Tomorrow is Transfer calls!! Dun dun dun! lol!! It will be interesting to see what happens! I may be leaving Crotone, I don’t know! I will let you know as soon as possible! Wish me luck! Transfer call days are always nerve racking days lol!!

Well that has been pretty much it for the week! It was a blast! I LOVE being a missionary! It rocks my socks! The church is true, the book is blue and Moroni is always on the ball! Have a great week and I will talk to you later!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

[P.S.] I didn’t even realize!! I had totally forgotten!! Thank you for wishing me a happy anniversary!! [Oct 22 was 6 months on a mission, 4 in the field!]

Oct 21 Email (part 1)

Yeah it’s pretty crazy how Tuni got hurt! It’s not too crazy when we get off the buses, they usually are pretty laid back, sometimes though you gotta get off quick! It’s all good though!

The sweet thing about all the members going to Switzerland is they brought Anz. Shaw and I a bunch of stuff, mostly chocolate from there it was really sweet!

Gnocchi of potato is a very very popular dish here. Gnocchi means little ears, there is pasta that looks like them and these little potato versions are awesome! You should try them!

I loved the off the wall that was in the questions of the thumb drive too lol!! Anz. Shaw and I play that a lot! He' pretty good! we got along so great he is really pretty much just like me!

Oh yeah, uhh if I could, could I ask you to send me my jacket, the MTC one, it’s getting pretty cold! And the one for the suit too! thanks!

Speaking of french fries and pizza, here in Italy if you ask for an "American pizza" you will get a pizza with hot dogs and french fries for the toppings! lol! They think that’s all we eat in America! we told some of our English course students about that and they were like "what the!" "you don’t put hot dogs on your pizza in America!?" so we explain that we put sausage (pepperoni) we say sausage because in Italian pepperoni means literally peppers, like bell peppers!

Well this week has been awesome!

Thursday we had of course the usual English course, and the classic missionary work! In the morning we finally sent off our viaggios so we could get the money back for all the travel we have done, (we do TONS of traveling in this mission!) so that will be nice when it comes in!

Friday in the morning we went to do our service with Alessandro. It was a crazy situation this particular morning because the night before the mafia had set fire to a car across the street, so the president of Crotone and all his "people" came to the house to apologize to the people. So we talked with them a little because they all know Alessandro. Alessandro was really stressed because all these important people were around. After that we went back to the house and did our weekly planning. In the evening we did street and talked with a ton of people.

Saturday we got up early in the morning and went to Catanzaro to have the adestramento (training) with the zone leaders. Anz. Connel was feeling sick so it was really short. We jut practiced how to answer hard questions about the church. Ours was “what teachings of Jesus are in the Book of Mormon that aren’t in the Bible?” So we used the example of how Jesus Christ tells us how to perform baptism, the words and actions in the BoM, and also He tells us how to do the sacrament exactly and what it represents! It was a great!

After that the zone leaders had to go really quick to catch their train, so while we waited for ours we went with the Anziani of Catanzaro to an ice cream place to get, and I kid you not...they won a trophy for it, the World’s Best hazelnut ice cream!...it was ok lol! But I'm happy for them!

In the evening, nobody would listen to us, we talked to tons of people, but no one wanted to listen. Finally however a lady stopped and listened! And now she is a new investigator!....Lesson learned....even when no one listens just keep trying, the Lord will place people in our path!

to be continued...

Oct 14 Email

(the first few lines are Elder Parker's answers to questions or comments from our letters, I left them on here this time so you would get that info too)

HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will for sure tell Tuni about my bro and the sympathy he has! Tuni broke his when he was getting out of the bus and it drove away before he was all the way out, they do that here, you gotta go quick! He is doing much better now!
I will just pull the tooth my self!
haha yeah thanks for taking my surf board lol! :D that’s a REALLY good idea!!
our mission does have a rule about toys sadly...its a no no! but thanks anyway!

So this week has, as usual, been awesome!!!!

After email last week we went to Catanzaro, it’s a city in our zone, about a 45 minute train ride, to see some of the stuff and go to a store there for some contact stuff for Anz. Shaw. It was a blast!!! We had a great time! There is also a McD's there so we had a quick bite to eat! It was really fun!

Also while we were there we went into this little store to get a notebook for writing letters, and I found one with a picture not only a surfer getting barreled but jack Johnson getting barreled lol! It was a great find! And only 50 cents! So I got it and now am writing my letters from it lol!!!!

On Thursday the highlight of the day was English course, but no one in my class came lol! It was because the next day was a festa (a party) for some random saint in the Catholic Church. So I joined with Anz. Shaw’s class! It was fun. After that we went and got a pizza from this little shop that we like with an offerta....deal.....of a whole giant pizza (I mean HUGE) plus fries and a 2l drink for 10 euro! The people at the shop really like us and finally dream of my life is coming true! lol! We walk into the shop and they say hey all excited and then say...the usual! ha ha I have always wanted that! I don’t know why but I have, and now it’s a reality! It’s such good pizza too! And the best part is they are starting to ask questions about the church! as well as the other usual customers that know us now too! It’s great!

You see that’s a large way that missionary work goes here. We do do a lot of housing, street etc...but we also like to make friends with people its a really good tool here!

Friday was the usual, we got up and did our usual routine and then went out to do service with Alessandro! That is always fun! When we get there he always gives us money and tells us to go get graffe from this little bar on the corner! Graffe are SO GOOD!! It’s like a doughnut kind of bread that has sugar on it and then inside there is a great cream filling! They rock! We only eat them once a week though! Oh and so you know a bar in Italy isn’t at ALL like a bar in America! Its just the name they use here, its just a place where you go get sweets and maybe a sandwich, its more like a café they just call it a bar!

After that we had planning, which is always great!

Saturday we did the usual...missionary work! We were doing street in the evening and this lady heard us practicing Italian (like pres. told us to do all day when we are outside) and we started talking to her! When we talked about the gospel she had some great questions and here is the best part...SHE WANTS TO LEARN MORE!! She has seen us walk by her house everyday (she lives up on our hill) and has been curious and she really wants to learn! it is AWESOME!!! The family name is fortunati which means the fortunates! lol! They are pretty well off! :)

Sunday was really interesting! Most of our branch including Pres. Sarcone went up to Switzerland to go to the temple because Giovanni is leaving on his mission next week, so it was just the two of us! Anz. Shaw conducted, we both passed and blessed the sacrament, and we both gave talks, and led the music, for the three ladies that came! It was great though! It was awesome!!

Monday we did the same ole same ole lol! Nothing much interesting from Monday!

Tuesday again the high light was English course! I taught my students (they came yay lol!) about reductions and contractions in English! For example instead of saying is he, we tie it together and say izzy, or for going to we say gonna! lol! It was really fun! The class really liked it! They had fun talking like Americans! It was great!

And then that’s it!! It’s been a great week so far! We don’t know for sure what we are going to do today but we are excited about it!

I hope you have a great week! I hope all goes well for you! Good luck with everything!! Talk to you later!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

Oct 7, 2009 photos!!

Anziano Nielsen, Magda, Anziano Shaw

After the baptism, we had to bail the water out of the font with buckets lol!

General Conference!

This is puppy!

Oct 7, 2009 Magda's Baptism!!!

Man I love Wednesday because I get emails from YOU!!! Yay!!

I LOVE SERVING!!!!!

Conference was awesome! I got to see some of it and I loved what I did!!!

We had a few investigators come on Saturday but only us missionaries and Magda were there on Sunday.

I will tell you all about the Baptism is a second!!!

Scapato means escaped lol! Sorry I forgot I just threw that in there. Here is a fun note for an Italian lesson. If any word ends in "ato" "ito" or "uto" it is in the past or in other words it means that it ends with "ed" we escaped abbiamo Scap"ato"! See there you go, random Italian lesson #22 lol! :)

Tuni actually broke his wrist and had to get that taken care of so we haven’t seen him for awhile! But we have talked to him on the phone and hope to meet with him soon. His wrist is ok, and he feels great, he just has to take it easy for awhile.

My tootsies are doing fantastic!!! They feel SOOOOO Great!!!!

My tooth is about out now, I just don’t have much time or means to take care of it, but it doesn’t hurt or cause problems or anything like that! SO it’s all good!

I can’t believe that its a reality! [that we are moving to Okinawa] Its so crazy!!! >But SOOOOOOOOOO exciting!!!!!!! Man I cant believe it!!!!!!!!!

I’m so glad that the Lord has helped you so much with all of this!! I LOVE Him! and I love YOU!

Oh yeah the waves were so awesome!! You should have seen me jumping around and yelling, I was like Anziano!!! LOOK!! and then I would hop and laugh lol! It was very good for me!

That is the other really really exciting thing! I WILL GET TO SURF AGAIN!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ha ha!!!

Translations are fun, but hard lol! [That lady we did the translations for] is studying sports medicine!

Thanks for the congrats on English course! It was fun! And my students rock!! I usually have about 6 students!

Puppy is so cute! Lol! I love him! When we come down the hill we yell to him and he comes galloping up in his awkward way and licks us and rolls over and looks at us with his big eyes! lol! He doesn’t ever speak though, but his eyes speak volumes! He really loves us!!

Man six months blew by so fast!!

While we were in Catania we got mail!!!
For my week, well it has been awesome!!

Conference, Zone Conference, A Baptism! "Can life get better than this? I submit that it can NOT!" lol!

Ok so first off, after we emailed last week, things were pretty normal. We just had a few more lessons with Magda to answer all the questions and make sure she understood!

Then on Monday we had our District leader Anz. Pelfry and his comp Anz. Alvarado (from Peru) came down to do district meeting and to do her baptismal interview! That went really great! District meeting was great as well!

OK so the crazy stuff started about Friday. We found out that not only was president coming to the baptism, but the Harris couple as well. Not only that but we found out that we would have about 40 people there. Also Anziano Benson who helped teach her was able to come back.

So we had to get everything ready for that. Not only that but we had to get out little font ready to go, and we had to make programs, and prepare a musical number, etc., anyway we were pretty stressed lol! but it turned out great!

SO on Saturday we woke up early to get things ready. We headed down to the church and on the way ran into this HUGE protest! We don’t know what it was for but it was huge!! Anyway we were trying to help president Sarcone get the satellite working for conference. It actually never worked.

We went and got the font filling up (we cleaned it on Friday) and then got the programs figured out, and printed. Then we practiced our musical number a lot! We arranged the baptism song (I like to look for rainbows) and I love to see the temple. Anz. Shaw played the piano and we both sang. It turned out really well. Pres. and S.lla Toronto liked it so much they asked us to perform it at zone conference.

So anyway, everyone showed up for conference and we ended up listening to it on Anz. Harris' laptop, in Italian, so I don’t really know much of what went on, mostly because I was taking care of stuff for the baptism that was going to be immediately after.

SO right after conference we started.

Magda was really really excited! SO we had the talks and everything etc. and took the pictures. Then we sang, and actually even though we sang in English (For Magda) everyone was crying because the Spirit was so strong! It was great! Then right after that was the baptism! That went really well as well!
While they were changing Anz. Adams (Anz. Benson’s comp) did a little talk, and I taught a lesson.
Right after that was the confirmation! I was really nervous to do it, but it went well!

It was a great night! One that Magda said she will remember for ever!! It was so spiritual! and uplifting!! After everything she got up and bore an incredible testimony! It was fantastic!!! Wonderful!! Best Saturday ever!!

Then on Sunday we watched the second half on the Saturday session, then the first half of the Sunday session live, (time difference) Next Sunday we will finish conference! It was really great what we heard! My favorite was Pres. Monson's talk on service! It was fantastic!!

Then on Monday we went down to Cosenza for Zone Conference! That was a blast! The cool part was that for a long time it was in Italian and I understood it! It was great!

Also Pres. hasn’t ever really heard me speak Italian, there just hasn’t been the situation where he can hear. So when we shared our success story, in Italian, I watched his facial expressions and he was surprised, lol it was fun for me to see that!

We learned a lot of great stuff!! I love ZC!! After we just got on the bus and came back to Crotone, no Zone pday this time! Which is alright with me.

Anyway life is great things went really well! I love being a missionary! Have a great week!!!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

Sep 30, 2009 Email

[Sorry for neglecting the blog, I'll try to catch up asap!]

Can you believe it I am in Italy!!!!!! It’s crazy

For part of the talent show we actually scapato to burger king lol! Pres. Oliverio's song was awesome! He has a really good voice! It was fun to see all the members doing stuff too! It was great!

Man the lightning has been awesome!

Magda's Baptism is on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Anz. Shaw will be baptizing her and I will be confirming her! She is really excited and so are we! She has made incredible progress! It is awesome!!

We haven’t been able to meet with Tuni yet darn it! It’s really hard for him to get a ride recently from the camp...but he is reading every day and knows that it’s true! We have an appointment with him tomorrow so we want to challenge him! The thing is that he will be leaving soon since he got his documents and is no longer allowed to live in the camp so unless he finds a job here he will have to move. So we just want to prepare him for baptism so that wherever he goes he will be ready, unless he stays...we just don’t know......it’s all good though the Lord will provide!

Oh man! It’s totally legit now, we are moving to Okinawa!!! Wow! That is so crazy!! But WAY awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe it!!! Good luck with telling all the friends and family! The Lord will help you!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoo HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we are goin to OKI!!! Wow good luck with all the moving stuff!! Sorry that I'm not there to help! The Lord will bless you as you do His will though!

That is such a sweet tender mercy that the Lord led you to those comforting songs! I love that He will communicate with us in the exact way we need! He knew at that moment that you would be receptive to music and would be comforted by it! Man I love it! I love the Lord, and I love YOU!!

Oh yeah for the Christmas packages that is perfect! It is actually recommended by the mission that they are sent earlier so that (because Italian mail is crazy, and transfers are right before Christmas) packages are sure to get there for us before the giant rush!

Thanks for the awesome pictures! It is so fun for me to see everything that is going on!

Oh yeah guess what I saw.........WAVES!!!!!!! Oh man it was so cool! Because of the recent storms a huge sand bar was created and the waves were awesome! We walked out on the pier and took pictures! It did my soul good!!

After email last time we just went back out and did some work!

Oh yeah we are working on these CRAZY translations for this lady, they are nuts!!! I have translated 11 pages so far and that is about half of the booklet! lol! and the topic is really boring too, its about obvious stuff! Over training in exercise. If you work out to hard with out good enough rest then you will hurt, its tons of pages about this just over and over but hopefully something will come of that! We hope to start teaching her soon!

So lets see what else....I have been saving this tidbit.....MAGDA IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The crazy thing is that Pres. Toronto is coming! Which he never does so we are pretty nervous but excited at the same time! I will be great! She is so ready! It is awesome! So awesome!

Sorry there isn’t much to tell this week since it’s been so short that we have written!

I taught English course last night by myself for the first time and that was kind of scary but it worked out really well! It was fun!

Also there is a little puppy at the bottom of our hill that we named puppy, he is a little black Labrador, he is so cute! We went and got some food for him (he is without family) and gave it to him and he loves us now! He is a great dog!

Happy October too! Can you believe that!? Wow already it’s October! I hit my five months on the mission this month, and now in October I will have been on my mission for 6 months! That is half a year!!! Man it is going by so fast!

We finally had district meeting this week, (last week we missed the train lol :) and that was great! We did it in Crotone this week since Anz. Pelfry our district leader had to interview Magda for baptism!

Man things have been going great! I love life! I am happy healthy and well! All is good! The sun shines, the sky is blue, I live in Italy! Life is great! My comp is fantastic! We get along really well!!

There have been some changes in the mission too, we no longer hand write president letters we now do them with email and there are no more pct's which is just weird, but we will follow pres. any direction! We are excited to see next week at ZC what the changes are all about!

Good luck with everything! I can’t wait for next week!!! I will talk to you then!!! Have a great day!! and week!
Love,

Anziano Nielsen!!

I will tell you all about the baptism next week! And I will try and send pics!

Sep 26 Email

Hey everyone!!
Bouna sera a tutti!! (Good evening to all!)

Hey, sorry it’s late, yet again this week.

We had to go to Catania for Anz. Shaw’s permesso di sogiorno this time lol! But hopefully that will take care of his! We left Tuesday afternoon and got back last night around 2 am! It’s all good though, it was a fun viaggio! (trip)

Because of the viaggio this week email is going to be a little shorter than usual...sorry! :) I will try and answer everything that I can as well as tell you what’s up!

We were able to make it to the priesthood meeting on Saturday and it was blast! it was really up lifting! We also had a really good talk with Pres. Sarcone as we drove home! It was great!

Also it was the first day of the rainy season! WOO HOO! lol! It has finally cooled off! it has rained constantly since then, the schools are actually closed due to flooding! But down worry it’s all good, in fact its really fun!

The cool thing about Crotone is that during these storms they are also lightning storms. In fact...irony...Sunday morning we were woken up by a HUGE clap of thunder...I mean HUGE! (the irony is the very same thing happened here in Clearfield! On our Sunday!) We talked to a ton of people later in the night that said it woke them up too! Anyway I thought that was cool. it woke us up around 5 so I went out and got some pics and upon review of them we discovered that the lightning was pretty dang close, man there was so much of it! lol! It was and has been pretty fun!

Dang they are closing soon! I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry I didn’t get to everything I just want to hurry and let you know what has been up for the week and then hopefully I can reply more next week! Sorry again!

Ok so Tuesday we found out that we had and I mean HAD to go to Catania to work with S.lla Nudo who works in the office to help the Anziani and Sorelle get their permsso's.

So we left Tuesday afternoon and got to Cosenza around 7 and then did a little pros. and spent the night there with the ZL. Then the next day we took the bus to Catania.

We stayed with the assistants, that was really fun! They are awesome! Anz. Roach is really cool; I actually did splits with him for a day, and Anz. Hurvey is really cool too. He is actually from Myrtle Beach and is a BIG time surfer so we had a good time talking about that together!

It was really fun, we did [missionary] work with them, hung out at the mission home, talked with president etc..

The high light of the trip was that we got a call from Magda our investigator that said that she wanted to move her date up for baptism!! So we should be having that this week or the next week! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO it is so exciting!! We can’t wait! It is going to be great!!
Man this work is awesome!

Also this week we feel that Tuni is ready for baptism so we are going to challenge him! Wish us luck!!

Other than that things have been going great! Life is good, I am happy healthy and really having fun serving the Lord!! This church is true I love it!!!

Have a great week!!!!
Sorry again its so short!
Talk to you later

Love,
Anz. Nielsen!!!

Sep 16 Email - Transfer week!

Wow I am actually on time this week lol!

Tuni wasn’t able to come to church there are no buses that run from the camp on Sunday! We are looking at other options!

It is really cool feeling the love that the Lord has for His children through you!

We found this place here called Lidel, its a German store that has tons of stuff from Germany so pretty close to American stuff, so we go there every once and awhile to get food lol! It’s nice!

We have one zone conference a transfer, it depends on the [MP’s] schedule when we have ours.

Transfer [calls] always come on the last Thursday of the transfer so you can say goodbye to your English course.

Actual transferring comes the following Monday.

Oh man there was just a huge clap of thunder right now! It has been raining a lot lately and I LOVE it! It is finally cooling off! Yesterday as we were going home there was this giant cloud that had tons of lightning shooting through it and around it, it was really cool! The crazy thing is it wasn't stopping at all! the lightning was constant and the cloud was HUGE!!! it was crazy!! I actually got some cool pictures of it from our deck! It was pretty neat! Anyway...tangent...

Ok so after email on Thursday we did a giro and talked with a few people trying to kill time until transfer calls.

President likes to do them personally so he can talk with us about them etc. so it takes awhile, and [we] up here in the Calabria are usually the last ones to know. We sensed a change in the wind and knew something was going to happen, just not what....

We also had a great lesson with Roberto! It was awesome!! He gave us these really hot peppers, they tasted really good!

So after our Giro we went to the church where the other Anziani were, they had already received their call, and told us that pres. had tried to call us, but we hadn't heard anything!

Finally we got our call........and here is the news.......!

Crotone is officially a two man city now!

Anziano Lewis got transferred to Agrigento in Sicily to be a zone leader and Anziano Benson got transferred to Bitonto in the Puglia.

My new companion is Anziano Shaw! HE IS AWESOME!!!! We get along GREAT! We have a lot of fun together and we have only been together for about 3 days!!

It’s been crazy trying to get all the work of four Anziani down to two Anziani but it’s been great! We are working hard!!

Anziano Shaw is from Sandy Utah, he loves the guitar and is actually in a really good band, he loves pretty much everything that I love, man we are pretty much best friends already...at least I think so I don’t know what he thinks about that yet lol! Anyway we get along really great and have a ton of fun!"

For example last night while we were at our desks (which we re-arranged the entire house for ourselves and it ROCKS!! It is such a nice house for two Anziani!!) he had gabbed one of those cans of silly string that you sent mom, and when I sat down he sprayed me, afterwards we had a pretty intense battle of the silly string lol! It was really funny! We have a blast together! This is going to be a great transfer!

So I have a new investigator that the other Anziani had been teaching! Her name is Magda. She is from Romania! SHE IS AWESOME!! She is so excited about the gospel! The thing is too she has had a really really hard life, a really hard life and she is still this really bubbly happy person! She is so awesome! She also will be getting BAPTIZED!!! We are really excited about that!! And so is she!! It’s been great getting to know her!!

So this week we haven’t really done much, just getting all the work figured out. There is a lot, I mean we are opening this city to a two man city now!

Also all the cities in the Calabria are down to two man cities. Our zone is only 8 Anziani! Our district leader lives is Catanzaro so we will be going there fairly often...every week! lol! SO that should be fun!!

Oh yeah there is a district priesthood meeting down in Cosenza this Saturday that we are excited to go to! It is also accompanied with a talent show! So that should be fun! We have been invited to participate but don’t know if we will yet or not, since we have to take a bus to get down and back the show might be a little too late for our return bus! But still it is exciting! You never know!

Also because of that we are going to Pres. Oliverio's house tonight to help translate a song into Italian so he can perform it at the show! He said he would get a pizza and we could "hang out" with him tonight lol! He is a really cool down to earth Italian! Very American! lol! He is fun!

I also finished all the stuff to send the thumb drive with the pictures etc... so I will be sending that on Saturday! SO look for it soon!

Well that has been pretty much it!!!!! Have a great week!!! I will talk to you soon!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen

(Fun fact - this is Elder Nielsen's 3rd Transfer, 2nd companion (in the field) and he is still in his 1st area)

Another Mission call!

Elder Nielsen's good friend Kameron got his mission call! Here's Elder N's response:

In your letter you mentioned something about Kam Kam and it reminded me (you may already know) I got a letter from him at ZC and he told me he got his MISSION CALL!!!!!!! And he is SOOOOOOOOOO excited to go!!! He will be serving in the Tempe Arizona Mission, Spanish Speaking!! He is so excited and I am WAY WAY EXCITED FOR HIM!!!!!!!

Kameron and Elder Nielsen CHS graduation May 2008

Here's a fun website for learning conversational Spanish:

http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/conversational_spanish

and here's the wikipedia link to learn more about Tempe Arizona:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempe,_Arizona

We love you Kameron and we're so happy for you!!

Sept 10 Email - Zone Conference

Sorry this week’s [email] is late too; we had Zone conference in Cosenza and decided to do a zone p-day down there. That was a blast!!

In answer to questions about our investigators:

Monica is doing well; we haven’t had a chance to meet with her for awhile (Dang August)
Same with Ruperto
The referral we are meeting with this Friday!!!!!!!!!!
Tuni is fantastic!!!! After our lesson with him on Monday he said that he really wanted to come to church with us!! He realized that it was the right thing to do!! It was awesome!!

Oh darn sorry I forgot about the recipe, I will send that as soon as I can!

For lunches I have made (I will send recipes later)

Pesto lemon beef pasta
Red sauce varieties pasta
and Dad's famous burger/onion/gravy meal! That one was a hit!

The Italian term for English course is Courso Di Inglese

The pictures were awesome as well! I love seeing what you guys are up too! ha ha! I was just looking at the one with me at the table on Ry’s last Sunday din din and one of our English course students who works here at the castle walked by and started to laugh! She thought it was awesome!! :)

Last Sunday dinner with the fam b4 Ry moved to BYU

Ok so my week, as always, has been fantastico!!!

On Friday we had another lesson with TUNI!! And it went really really really well!! We taught him the second lesson and he understood everything! It was great! We didn’t have to explain anything to him! In fact he explained things to us!! I was a great lesson!!!

Saturday we had a little branch party at the church since the bon fire that we were going to have on the beach got canceled. It was really fun and really good food! Pres. Sarcone bought hamburgers and hot dogs and had Anz. Lewis and I cook them since they don’t really know how here lol! :) It was fun!

Speaking of Pres. Sarcone (he is the branch pres. here) I have really come to admire that man! He comes to church and fulfills his calling very well in spite of a family that is inactive/non members. He is such a humble man! I learn a lot from him! And he is really patient with me too as I am learning the language! I really like that!

Ok on Sunday it was pretty much a normal day, church then work.

Same with Monday, good day none the less!

Tuesday we got up at about 4:30 in the morning to get ready to go to zone conference!!! Our bus left around 6:15 and we had to be at the station which is about a 30 min walk so we had to leave early! The bus ride from Crotone to Cosenza is about 2 hrs though so we caught up a little on our sleep! lol! :)

When we got to the church most of the other, actually all the other Anziani were already there so we were just waiting to start!

The first speaker was Pres. Toronto! And oh man it was FANTASTIC!!!!!!! He and S.lla Toronto had gone to England for the European mission president’s conference with Elder Perry!! And while there they received the "game plan" or "playbook" for all the European missions! We also received a copy at ZC! It is awesome!! It basically is PMG and the scriptures, just focused down into specifics that the Apostle Perry says are the most important for our missions! We learned a ton of great stuff from it! And we will continue to study it! Pres. Toronto said that the game plan will be our play book for the rest of our mission so we need to study it always and learn and apply it! I am really excited about that because it is direct from the Lord! This is what He wants for our mission! So I know it will be effective! I am so excited to learn more from it! Pres. Toronto told us to place it at the front of PMG as another chapter that we should study! Its that important! He also talked about other things that happened and went on and talked on a few other subjects that we need to be mindful of! it was fantastic! He is such an awesome mission president! You can feel his love just by looking at him! We all really love him!!

After his talk we went and had lunch, just some sandwiches alla calabrese! In other words really hard bread with a slice of cheese and a piece of meat! It was really good but really hard to chew lol! Also S.lla Harris (Senior couple in Cosenza) baked some brownies and some rice crispy treats that tasted fantastic!!

After lunch we had what we call an adestramento (I can’t remember what it is in English, I think it’s like a lesson publicly lol!) from the Zone Leaders about extending good commitments! It went really well! We learned a lot from it!

After them we heard from S.lla Toronto, who taught us how to be happy and learn from the scriptures how to be happy when we are in the hard times of our missions! It was really great! She "commanded" that we write down one tender mercy of the Lord before next zone conference! I am way excited about that because there are so many!!!

During part of her talk though I went and had my interview with Pres. Toronto! MAN I LOVE INTERVIEWS WITH HIM!!! He makes you feel so good! He is always like, "Anziano you are doing so great, you’re such a great guy etc..." it really uplifts you!

We talked about transfers too (we get transfer call today! so we will see) from what he said I am pretty much positive that I will be staying here in Crotone (but you never know!) its just whether Anz. Lewis will stay. Also there is the possibility that Crotone will be dropped down to a 2 man city and pres. told our district leader who also lives in our house (Anz. Shaw) that it would be me and him if that were to happen, so this transfer should be very interesting! But I’m "up" with whatever!! So it’s all good!!

After all that we talked a little more and then finished ZC!

The fun part about that is we got MAIL!! I got more too!! I got the camera card! (THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!) And two post cards from Nauvoo!!! and a tape of Ry's [mission homecoming] talk!! That was awesome! I listened to it last night!!! I LOVED IT!!! You did such a great job RY!!! It was awesome!!!!! I also got an awesome sponge bob card! ha ha ha ha ha!! I loved that too!!!

After all that as a zone we did splits and did some pros. until bed since we decided to do the zone pday!

In the morning we had French toast, pancakes, and hash browns...with Heinz ketchup!! Thanks to S.lla Harris!! It was so good!!! [Elder Nielsen is a HUGE ketchup fan!]

Before that we ran down to this basketball court and played a game of zone b ball!! Oh man that was great!! It was very fun!!

Then later we went to this awesome indoor soccer field and played a really fun game of soccer! I scored two goals!! :) so that was fun! It was a really good game!

Then we came home! It was a great conference and a great pday!

Love,

Anziano Nielsen!!

Sept 3 Email (only a day late)

Sorry this week’s email is once again late, I'm not very good at getting these sent on a normal schedule! Lol sorry to make ya wait!

We went down to Gela again, hence the late email!

Ok so you asked what stipulations there were in officially having a new investigator.

1. taught a lesson
2. interested
3. return appointment.

That’s pretty much it. :)

The ZL visit was fantastic! They are very fun! And man I got a STACK of mail!! 8 letters and a package!!

Ok this week has been awesome! (I say that a lot huh, well it’s the truth!)

After email last week we went to this new park we found to do some more romping and this whole group of Italian kids came and were doing it too! We made friends with them and were playing around on the urban jungle! They thought it was cool to do parkour with Americans and we thought it was cool to do [that] with Italians! Anyway they are all really great! We hope to get some investigators this way! We are invited to go parkour with them every Wednesday now! So that’s fun! It was a blast!!

After that we stopped and got some calzone (like hot pockets but WAY better!) then went back to the house!

Sunday was great as well! I love Sundays! I actually gave one of the talks, it was on charity (Carità) and it went well! Another blessing from the Lord!

CAN YOU BELIEVE I SPEAK ITALIAN!!!! Holy cow! That hit me the other day! I can actually speak a foreign language! COOL!! But it is only possible through the Lord! There is no way I could have done this with out Him!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE I'M IN ITALY!!! I am actually living in Southern Italy!! Holy cow that is so cool!!! I love it here!!!

I.E. doing email in a castle! That is so cool!!! We actually will be doing email here at the castle from now on because it’s free after paying 1 euro! sweet deal!!! Love it!!

Ok after church on Sunday, Anz. Lewis and I headed out to Gela again! yippee...lol!

We went down and waited for the bus that was supposed to come at 5:30 to take us to Cosenza (a city about 1 hr away from us) but it never showed up. So we ended taking a bus to the train station and taking the train to Cosenza. The train takes about 4 hrs and the bus would have taken 1 hr, but it’s all good it was fun! When we got to Cosenza we called the Harris couple to pick us up and they very nicely did! They took us to the Anziani's house there (the ZL’s) for the night.

We did this because we had found a bus that takes us all the way from the Calabria into Sicily, that leaves at 7:40 am (the section of the boot that I am in right now is called Calabria), then from Catania to Gela.

We got to Gela on Monday, in the afternoon, so we did a little giro (a walk) and got some pizza! It was really good! Sicilian pizza is very different than Calabrian pizza! But I like them both!!

Tuesday we went to the quest'ura early in the morning to make sure we could get first in line, but they told us to come back in the afternoon around four! It’s all good though because after that we went to the street market and found a whole mess of gorgeous ties for 50 cents!! 50 CENTS!!! It was the last ones that the guy had and he wanted to get rid of them! I found one that used to be 70 euro, and I got it for 50 cents! It was sweet! I bought 10 ties for 5 euro when it would have cost about that for one tie! I love the street market!!

After that we went back to the house to make lunch! Since one of the Anziani in the Gela house died (as in the mission, [aka] he went home after finishing) he left a ton of food, we had hamburger helper! It was awesome! The only thing that was hard is the water in Gela was off! So we couldn’t clean up for a few days, we tried with a water bottle but well that can’t get you that clean lol!!

After lunch we went to the place again and guess what...go ahead guess...WE ACTUALLY GOT IT DONE!!!!!!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!!!! We were successful this time!! YESSS!!! So hopefully all he has to do now is go back and pick up the card, but who knows when that will be lol! :)

After that we met Anz. Sponseller’s new companion and went to bed!

Wednesday we got on the bus to come home!

We went from Gela to Catania, had Granita in Catania (its tradition now) and then got on the bus from Catania to Cosenza (6 hours).

When we got to Cosenza we went to BURGER KING!!!!!!! I found out they have one there!!! COOL HUH!?! lol! It was really really good!! And funny to see all the menu items in Italian!! It was great though!!

After that we got back, and well here I am now writing you!!!!

So this week has been great!!! I've loved it!!!! It’s been fun!! But it’s great to be back here in Crotone!

Love,

Anz, Nielsen!!!

No news is good news???

Well the blog is now up to date! Thank you for your patience! At least its up to date with all the emails sent from Italy, but I'll still be adding photos and snail mail from the first tape/pix package he recently sent so you can look forward to that in the near future!

Meanwhile we didn't get this week's email so he must be on another journey to Gela or maybe there just wasn't any place with email access that was open today.

Also, now that his bro is officially home and attending college we can officially refer to Elder Parker as Elder Nielsen without confusion! However, we'll probably also continue saying Elder Parker because its a habit now! lol We'll probably also say Anziano Nielsen because that's the Italian version and the way he refers to himself. So FYI any and all titles like that now refer to our missionary faithfully serving in Italy.

Thanks for reading this blog and please leave your comments so we can share those with Elder Nielsen too. =o)

~MM

Aug 26 Email

Holy cow! I can’t believe that Ry has been home for a month already!! That is crazy! That went so fast!! Especially for me! I can believe how fast that went!!

I can’t believe how long I have been here already! But at the same time it feels like it’s been a really long time! It feels like I have been doing this my whole life! lol!! I love it!!

Thanks for the congrats on losing weight too! It has been great! I actually don’t really fit my pants anymore but there is a tailor here that said he could take care of that easy! So I am going to have him do that for me! so don’t worry! :)

My advice is go where and when the Lord wants you too. I was thinking about that the other day, in that I came on my mission early because I felt that was what I was supposed to do right, and it was hard because I missed seeing Ry but the blessings have been awesome!! It will be worth all the difficulty of it to do what the Lord wants!

That quote is fantastic too, and it is Elder Eyring, here in this mission it is our mission quote, we are supposed to memorize it! I LOVE IT!!

[here is the quote by Elder Eyring I had sent him]

I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The dye has been cast! I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made; I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, small talking, colorless dreams, tainted visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, positions, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power. My face is set, my gait is fast, and my goal is Heaven. My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear! I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, shut up, or let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the cause of Christ. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops me. And when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My banner will be clear. ~Henry B. Eyring

The concerts, we are allowed too, if not too late, to go to on pday or just walk by, we don’t really go though, while there are many to talk to, it’s too loud, and [not always a good atmosphere], so we can go but we don’t really.

I love all the fresh fruit!! It is so good here! Southern Italy is known for it!

Ok so for my week it has been pretty much awesome!!

Wednesday after email we did some more stuff at that park, we really like it there, mostly because no one else is there and we have a lot of fun! We're still not sure what we want to do today, either go to another castle, or just do some stuff here.

Speaking of castles I am doing my email right now inside of the Crotone castle! COOL HUH!?!?! I am sitting in a real castle doing email!!

Ok back to last week lol "I digress"! on Thursday we contacted a referral from Pres. Oliverio (the district president here) and she was so down with wanting to meet with us!! We didn’t even have to ask her! We walked in and she said hi etc... then she was just like when can you come over and teach my family! BAH!! COOL!!!! We are meeting with her tomorrow! I am excited to see how it goes!

Friday was planning, it went well, we got a lot of stuff figured out for investigators. In the evening we went and did some house and met another African from Nigeria, his name is Tuni! And he is officially an investigator now!! He is awesome!! He is so down with the gospel!! We taught him lesson one on Monday, and today we had another lesson with him where we watched the restoration movie, right before this. And after we asked him again to pray to know about it, and he said and I quote "After watching this movie, and after what you told me last time, I know this is true! But I still want to ask God to make sure it is right!" HOLY COW!!!!! IT WENT SO WELL!!!!!!!!! It was awesome!! He is really progressing well!!! It is so fun watching him learn and grow in the gospel!! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he really wanted to read it! It was awesome!! Oh man it was great!! lol!! :) :) :)

Ok lets see also this week there is an art exhibit here at the castle that is pretty cool, and since one of our English course students works here at the castle we got to go in and look around at all the stuff for free, there is a lot of neat stuff, but also a lot of really weird stuff lol! But not my kind of weird art, just straight up weird lol!

It’s also been really hot this week! August is the hottest month of course and we get this wind up from Africa that just bakes everything! It’s all good though! Everyone...and I mean everyone is sweaty so its normal! lol!!

Oh yeah speaking of African this is how you say hey how are you in Nigerian........Voyeh (Pronounced voh-yeah, you have to say it very deep and in the back of your throat. then you reply with....Oh Yeh Si! So there is your African lesson for the week lol! They really like it when you speak their language!

Well it’s been a great week!! I am super happy healthy and well!! And loving the missionary life!!

The ZL’s are coming this week which means that I will get mail! so that’s exciting!

Well that's it for this week! I love it here!!!! Have a great week!!!

Love,
Anziano Nielsen.

Aug 19 Email

Well this week has been fantastic!!!!

Last week after e-mail Anz. Lewis and I went to that Pythagoras park to play around and had a BLAST!! It was awesome!! Very releasing if you will! We were running around jumping off of stuff lol! It was a blast!!

We have both been feeling great! We are helping each other loose weight, as well as being exercise partners! It’s going great!! We run every other day and lift on the other days!! It’s really fun!! I have already lost a lot of weight!

After the romp in the park, we were walking home and we stumbled upon a tribute band playing down on lungo mare! SO we stopped and listened for a second! The guy was actually pretty good! It was fun!!

There have been tons of concerts here in Crotone since its the vacation month, basically there have been concerts every single night!

Friday morning we had service with Alessandro! He hooked us up with some awesome fruit! Fresh pears and grapes! They are in season now and are so HUGE and DELICIOUS!!! It was fun! During service Anz. Lewis and I both thought that we should turn him into an investigator again! So we will see what comes of that!!

Saturday was the actual holiday of the month of august called "Feragosto!" it is basically like our labor day. But here in Italy NO ONE is open...and I mean NO ONE!!! Italy is a ghost country!! Its weird lol!! SO all the missionaries on that day have a "deep cleaning day" where we literally spend most of the day cleaning the apartment! Ours didn’t take to horribly long so that was good! (our apartment is brand new!....yesss! lol!) I did re-arrange Anz. Lewis and I's study room though for a change of scenery and its been very nice!!

After cleaning we did a little giro! Speaking of Giro...we pronounce it as this: Jee-doh (the d is because the r is slightly rolled)

Sunday was great, it was very relaxing! We ate that corn beef hash and it was FANTASTICO!!!! I also did a little reading from Our Heritage, that was very fun!

Oh yeah I also sewed myself a new pair of shorts that came out very well I’d say! I took an old pair of pajama pants and cut them down and hemmed them! So they are my pajama shorts (since it is SO hot still) and I use the others for other things! Its been great!!

We met this lady on the street that called us beautiful Americans! lol then we met another old lady that said the same thing! lol...the diet is working!!! YESSS lol ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

We also met this lady that when we stopped her said....ho fretto (which means I have things to do) and then told us to have a good vacation lol!! We both joked that when we go on vacation we would for sure wear shirts and ties lol!! It was funny!

There was this other man that spoke perfect English, he is a professor of it. We asked to share our message with him and he said that he was already Christian, in fact he is the translator of Christian literature from English to Italian. He asked if I knew a specific author and when I didn’t he slapped me in the face lol!! Now don’t worry it wasn’t hard, it was just that oh you silly boy face chuck thing lol!! It was really funny!! Also when he walked by, in English he said..."you are the salesmen of salvation!" so we explained that we don’t sell the gospel...it was funny!

Well the guy is closing up, so we will have to come back after to finish! I will talk to you then!!!

Love ya!!

Anz. Nielsen!

Aug 12 Email

So this week has been great!!!

Other than the disappointment of Gela, it’s been a fantastic week!!!

After I wrote last Wednesday we went back to the apartment of the Anziani in Gela, and went to sleep because we had a long trip ahead of us the next morning.

We decided that we wanted to take the bus instead of the train because the trains don’t have AC and they stop a lot!! and I mean a lot!! The buses are the big tour buses, and they are cheaper so we figured that would be the way to go!

The ride was so amazing!! It followed the coast the whole way!!! It was gorgeous!!! I loved it!!! I got some great pictures!!! It was so fun seeing that side of Italy, instead of the train tracks lol!! It was gorgeous!! It took a little less time too! We still did get back to Crotone around 10pm though.

The next morning...Friday....we got up and did a little "giro" as we call it, (a walk) and then did weekly planning. We do it on Friday here to figure out our last attempts to get our investigators to church. So we do that and then have lunch, then we head out for the work. So after lunch we did the usual house, street, house, and street routine.

Saturday we just wanted to get a ton of "pct's" as we call them. (Parla con tutti) (speak with everyone) since we had been in Gela for so long. So we did a lot of street.

Sunday we had church, which was great, I felt the Spirit very strongly as we were blessing the sacrament in Italian! It was really cool!!!

Also the two youth that are in our branch got their mission calls!! Lara is going to Milan on her mission, and Giovanni is going to England! We are very excited for them and hope to get them pumped as well!!
After church we did a giro and then did some mostra! The mostra went well; we talked with a lot of people! it was awesome!! We met this one atheist guy that got really riled up saying that instead of teaching the gospel we need to take care of the mafia....its pretty rampant here. [It] was weird, we tried to share our message with him, and he just stormed off...oh well....I hope he finds the truth! :)

Monday was a Long day, we did a lot of street, and a lot of house, but didn’t really find anyone. We did find this really cool park though. Crotone is the city of Pythagoras right, (you know the guy with the theorem lol) well this park is dedicated to him, and it is full of real life optical illusions and sculptures all dealing with math!! It is so awesome!!! But the sad thing is no one knows it exists! It is really run down! We stumbled across it searching in this back neighborhood. We are going to go check it out more after this! :)

Tuesday we did some street and found this guy that had the "questions of the soul" and we talked with him and he was pretty interested. We have seen him before and know that he is a really big drug addict, he was very sober when we talked with him, and we want to help him, and maybe the gospel will. We talked about the BOM and he was like, "WOW!" where can I get one! So we of course gave him one!! I hope it helps him!!

After that is was English course! That was fun! I love our class!! They are so cool!! They are all so much fun! The twins are gone right now but they sent us a really nice postcard!

And then today was my quest'ura appointment! We waited for three hours and then finally got in! Got it almost taken care of too! My hand was too sweaty to do the finger prints lol! So we will have to go back tomorrow!

We also tried to help this man from Ghana.....(there are tons and tons of Africans and middle eastern people here...they are refugees) get his papers, but the people said that either he has to leave Italy or go to prison, we felt so bad for him, he was so hopeless, and there was nothing we could do! It was hard!

We have many friends that want to learn the gospel, that are refugees here but its hard to teach them because they all live in a camp that we cant go to and they cant leave very often...but we teach them when we can! Elvis from Ghana, Abdul'rauf from Afghanistan, etc...They all want to learn more but it’s hard to teach them with so little time! We sure try though!!!

Our investigators...how are they doing....well we don’t know lol! During the month of august, and I kid you not, the Italian mentality is that we should do nothing absolutely nothing. So we call our sim. for appointments and they all say..."well call me in September." or "I am on vacation I wont be back till September" etc..... missionary work is hard during the month of august in Italy...but its all good! We just keep pushing and working hard, and we will find the elect!!

Also on that note...I’m not sure how well email will work out here this month, we were lucky to find this place open today...so sorry if its really messed up, but we will find a way!! :)

It is really fun (and you are going to think I am weird) for me to go shopping for example here in southern Italy and get all the stuff that I will need for the week! I.e. cereal, bread, milk, and for sure water! The water in southern Italy is un-drinkable so we buy bottled water. Luckily it is way cheap! For 1 2l bottle of water it is 25 cents so for 6 its a few bucks or as we say here euro! So that comes in really handy!!

Love,

Anziano Nielsen!!

Aug 5 Email

Ok so first, sorry it took so long this week to reply, we are in Gela again trying to finish everything for Anz. Lewis....I will tell you more about that later! :)

Second....I LOVE THE PICTURES!!!! The sign is so funny!!!

[after reading what he wrote about business hours in Italy I sent him this…]

Ok so for my week...

Last week after email Anz. Lewis and I went for a "romp" as we call it, in the dirt hills (aka mountains) so that was fun! We really enjoyed it! Also we found some awesome views of Crotone and took some awesome pictures!! Those however will be on the next camera card at the end of August! :)

Thursday we did splits (My first one!) so that was awesome! I really enjoyed it! I went with Anz. Benson while Anz. Shaw (the DL) went with Anz. Lewis! We had a blast!!

Friday we were back together. We did street. House. Lunch. Street. House lol! I’m not going to lie the work here is hard, but never the less I LOVE IT!!! About every 30th person will listen to use...for about 30 seconds......every 200th will let us teach a lesson......and every 2000th will want a lesson! Ok ok that was exaggerated but it is pretty difficult lol! But yeah I really really love it!! The people here are still very nice, just not interested.

Saturday we did splits again. I went with Anz. Shaw this time! It was really fun!!...for me...lol he was really really tired!

Sunday was great, we had about 10 people there this time! Still none of our investigators...but we are working on that! :)

Then Monday we headed down to Gela again! Woo hoo!! 13 hrs of travel this time! I especially love when we are on the ferry and we can go up top and be out in the air and smell the sea and see the blue blue water!! It’s so clear by the way! I guess because it’s a sea that is protected. You can see in shallow water perfectly about 60 feet, and out in the deep stuff you can see (if you throw a shiny coin like we did) for a good 150 feet! It is so beautiful!!! I love ITALY!!!!!!!!!!

So we are here in Gela...right now. I am sitting in a cafe in Gela typing this email to you. This is your first official email from Sicily lol!!

Ok so we are here for Anz. Lewis' permesso right? Well we found out from the other Anziano that live here (who we are staying with) that you need much more that we thought. Ok so we arrived Monday night around 10:30. Tuesday morning we took care of getting all the stuff that he has to have for this. Tuesday afternoon they were closed so we took half of our pday and went and did some shopping for the trip home as well as taking care of a few other things. Here is the kicker...we were completely ready to go but the internet line went down!! ha ha ha ha!! We will have to come back in a few weeks and do it again! lol!! It’s funny now! But then we were a little frustrated! :) Its all good though! Its fun for me to see Anz. Sponseller and talk with him! :) Oh man this is an interesting situation! Oh well we have to get it taken care of! :)

So after that we went back to the house and had some lunch. Then we had found this place that makes t-shirts for cheap so we drew some funny designs and went and got them printed up! After that we went to a branch party with the other Anziani! That was fun! I really enjoyed it!! It’s been a good trip but the thing is in all honesty it was a pretty big waste of time. We need to be in our city working with our new investigators etc...

Speaking of that we found two new people doing street that are interested! We are yet to find out how really interested they are, but still it is very exciting!!!

We had a great lesson with Rafael! It went really well! The Spirit was so strong! The killer is we won’t be able to baptize him, or really teach him anymore. he wants to go back to Syria and with all Muslims we teach they have to never return because they will, not can, but will be killed if the change their religion so we will still teach him and be his friend but we’re not sure what is going to happen, because he may not go back....we don’t know....the thing is that no effort is wasted. I have no doubt that if it comes to the point that his ability to accept this gospel is on "the other side" he will! He is so awesome! We will see what happens though! :) It’s all good!!

This work is so awesome! Albeit it is hard, it is so awesome!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!! it is so awesome to know the things we do!

My new power approach is this:

First in Italian....

Boun Giorno, siamo americani, e abbiamo venuto qua per con divedere I nostro messgio, questo messagio è molto importante per lei. I nostro messagio è questo: Noi crediamo che Dio ha chiamato un nuovo profeta per questi giorni, e grazie a lui possiamo sapere essamente quello che Dio voule per noi in questa vita. Per Espempio Grazie a nuove rivelatione etc.......

Now in English.....

Good morning, we are Americans; we have come here to share our message with you! This message is very important for you! Our message is this: We believe that God has called a new prophet for these days and thanks to him we know exactly what God wants for us in this life! For example, thanks to new revelation etc.....

It is so cool having what we have and knowing what we know! We NEED to share it with EVERYONE!! It is so great being a missionary and having the ability to do that all the time! 24/7!! I love it!!! I LOVE THIS WORK!!!

Know that I am happy, healthy and well!!! I am so excited to be here!!

Have a great week!!!!!

Love,

Anziano Nielsen!!!