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)