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...