Elder Nielsen's Mission Blog

Elder Ryler and I will be leaving for Nauvoo on Monday! Yes, just two days after he arrives in Utah I'll whisk him off to Nauvoo but for a very good cause, we'll be volunteers at the pageant assisting in the missionary work there!

We'll be set apart as "members of the Nauvoo Pageant and as special representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the duration of the pageant." So this may be the perfect "bridge" for Elder Ry from full time missionary service to pageant missionary service to everyday member missionary life!

Elder Ryler will serve on the work crew and I'll be helping in the costuming dept. I'm so excited for Elder Ryler to see Nauvoo for the first time and experience the "Spirit of Nauvoo" the way Elder Parker and I did when we were volunteers for the pageant in 2007!

For more info about the pageant please visit these websites:
Click here for the Church's official website pages about the pageant
Click here for the official website of the Illinois Nauvoo Mission of the Church

When we return from Nauvoo I'll catch you up on everything Elder Parker's been up to!

Wednesday was Elder Parker's first preparation day (P-day) in Italy which was great timing because he was able to send his first email to us only 2 days after his arrival! Three phone calls and three emails in one week, its been a great missionary week! Here's what Elder Parker had to say about everything...

Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Subject - I'M IN ITALY!!!!

HOLY COW I'M IN ITALY!!!!!!!! WOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!
It's so great to finally be here!! I am so excited!!!!!

Ok so here is the thing, as of right now, (it's 5:32) pm [and] we’re not at our house in Crotone, we are sitting in Cosenza at the senior couple’s house waiting for our bus, our train arrived at around 3-ish and the next train doesn't leave until around 9 tonight, that won’t work so we are going to take a bus, but that doesn't leave until around 7:45 tonight. Anziano McDaniel is in the same zone as me so he and his new companion stopped here to go with the couple to the hospital; their branch president’s wife fell down the other day and is in a coma right now. SCARY huh!! But while they are at the hospital we are staying here waiting for our bus.

Today is our p-day (it's Wednesday here) but we've been traveling for the whole day. I started my travel by leaving the MTC at around 5:00 am and checking in at the Salt Lake airport, from there we flew to NY city (I did get a really crappy picture of the Empire State Building from a distance lol! :) then from there to Rome and from Rome to Catania.

From NY we got on the plane (Alitalia) I sat next to Anziano Gurney, there were two seats, one by the window, (mine) and then Anziano Gurney (he is really tall so I let him have the aisle so he could stretch). After take off which was really smooth we started to talk with this guy (everyone on the flight was Italian pretty much) I don't even remember his name, sad, anyway we started talking to him because our name tags attract a lot of attention. SO we started talking and he said that he was a born again, but basically from what he believed he was LDS and he just didn't know it! We started talking about faith and he said, "wait I just want you to know that I believe faith with out works is dead!" HOLY COW right!! HE was awesome, but in the end he didn't want to change and he would accept the BOM but we're pretty sure we left an impression with him and the time wasn't right. He shared some pretty cool experiences with us, he was asking if we believed in miracles, I shared my experience with my eye! It was SO awesome!!! So after that we fell asleep for quite awhile (which was SO nice! by this point we were just beat!) they had given us dinner which was yummy, pasta, chicken soup, and cheese! so we fell asleep, read a little, and fell asleep again, woke up for breakfast, just a roll and some dolce (sweets). Italians believe two things with health, one- if you get cold air on the back of your neck you will get sick, and two- eating breakfast is very very unhealthy! ha haha! it's great! Fratello MacDonald who served in Catania was saying when he was the Assistant he would come down stairs and tell the Italian couple that he had eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and everything and they would freak out and get disgusted lol but they did it all in good fun it was really funny! So anyway back to the flight, after brekky we slept some more and then before you knew it we were in Rome! HOLY COW!!!!!!

We walked though the airport and then went through security, here is the difference, we kept everything on, they looked at us, we walked through the metal detector we beeped they patted us down, we’re good to go! It was pretty lax, lol! But good, they are really cool! There were a lot of neat people there! So after that we walked around through the airport and found a Ferrari store, Anz. Kinzie freaked out lol! he ended up buying a pen from there! It was pretty neat! SO then we sat down and waited for the plane. Oh by the way the Rome airport is right by the ocean so we flew over the coast and everywhere there were sailboats and beautiful houses it was the epitome of Italy! It was so cool! We were all hitting each other and saying we're in Italy!! WE'RE IN ITALY!!! It was a pretty much awesome experience!! SO at the airport we talked with a couple people which went ok but no BOM placed. Then after that we went and got some Arance Rosse, which is this really good orange juice but it's special blood orange from Sicily (which by the way the fruit in southern Italy is AMAZING!!! So this was great juice!!

Ok so after Rome we took off for Catania, I sat next to an Italian guy and talked with him for awhile but eventually fell asleep. We had some good biscotti on the plane with some more arance rosse and then we landed. The flight attendants on Italian flights are really nice but not, it's really funny they were great!

So we landed in Catania and again did the whole we’re in Catania we’re in Catania thing lol! We got off the plane and took a bus about 50 yards lol it was really funny we totally could have walked! So we went in the airport and found the belt where our luggage would be, we didn't see it the whole way or in other words no exchanging of bags in airports. So as we were walking towards the belt we see outside (because only passengers are allowed inside) the Assistants, they were on the stairs waving to us! Anz. Daughtry and Anz. Roach. So we wait for ever and ever for our bags to come and finally after about a half an hour the belt starts to turn. We all get our bags pretty quickly except for Anz. Mikesell he couldn't find one of his bags! After FOREVER [about another hour] everything got figured out in that his luggage would have to be mailed to him at the mission home. SO we finally went through customs (the customs people were really nice to us! :) and went out side! By this time Pres. Toronto and his wife had shown up so we went out and he gave us the GIANT hug!! It was awesome!! HE IS THE COOLEST MISSION PRESIDENT EVER!!!! Sorella Toronto is way awesome too! In fact she took a bunch of pictures of us at the mission home to e-mail to you so you would know that we were safe, and it was here that made it possible for us to call our mothers, since she is a mother and she knows how they feel as she said! SO after that we loaded up our luggage in two different cars, Anz. K and Anz. Spoons with Pres. and his wife and the rest of us with the Assistants in the "MISSION VAN!" lol!! HOLY COW TRAFFIC IS SO NUTS HERE!!! HA HA HA!! It's great! The lines mean nothing!! absolutely nothing and you have to go FAST everywhere but the weird thing is no one gets mad or in accidents that's just how you drive here, wherever you want lol ha ha!!

SO then we arrived at the mission home and loaded our luggage into the basement and had the most delicious lunch prepared by Sister Stienbaugh (she is the sister that works in the mission home with her husband Anziano Stienbaugh) It was great!! Tons of fruit and really good sandwiches!! After that we had interviews with Pres. Toronto! That was awesome too!! Made me love him even more!! Then he let us take a nap (very needed) in this awesome room for missionaries it has about twenty beds in it, we just picked one and passed out lol! In that room there is this GIANT window that just overlooks Italy it was awesome!!! So after our nap we went with the Assistants to get our permesso di so giorno (makes it so I can live here) in this super cool place! It was awesome!! I took pics so you will see it! SO we sat in there for about another 4 maybe 5 hours waiting for each of us to go through [the process] with the guy. While the rest of us waited we just talked with everyone! It was awesome! The tags attract SO much attention! It’s awesome! This group in Nigerians came and talked with us and so did this Ethiopian (we got him to come to English class!) it was awesome! This is when we found out our first cities [assigned areas]. After that we were going home and the Assistants were driving two different cars and one got lost so we drove all over looking for him! It was great we got to see a lot of Italy!!!! I’M IN ITALY!!!! After that we went back to the mission home (which is about 4 stories all connected with this GIANT spiral stair case) and had dinner that Sorella Toronto made! IT WAS SO GOOOD!! and then we got to call, and then we went to bed! We hit the sack around maybe 9:30 and for me I fell right asleep and then my eyes popped open at exactly 6:00 so no jet lag so far! WOO HOO!! I got up and showered (the whole time thinking I just woke up in Italy, I’m showering in Italy ha ha ha!!) Then ironed my shirt and woke up the other Anziani. We were looking out the window and we saw our new comps. [but] at this point we still didn't know who's was who's. They had a meeting while we had waffles ala Sorella Toronto! Really good! Then we had a meeting where we met our comps and then we went on our way!

So for today's travel we got on the train from Catania and took it to Messina, from Messina we took this awesome ferry, on which I had my first real Italian food, arancini. The train ride was about an hour, and the ferry ride was about 40 minutes. After that we jumped on another train for about 3 hours, then another bus, and now we have another bus to take before we actually arrive in our city! It's been so fun seeing Italy like this!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!

SO for other info.

My trainer or my “Dad” as they call him here is Anziano Lewis! He is from Tuscan Arizona he is SOOOO AWESOME!!! He is a really great missionary! I am going to have a lot of fun working with him!

Well time is almost up…This work is amazing!! The church is true! I LOVE ITALY!!! And I’m so excited to be here!!!

I will talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Anziano (in Italy!) Nielsen!!

CIAO!!!

Vocabulary:

Anziano = Elder

Arance Rosse = red oranges

arancini = fried rice balls coated with breadcrumbs, said to originate in Sicily; usually filled with ragù (meat sauce), tomato sauce, mozzarella, and/or peas

biscotti = biscuits or cookies

dolce = cake

Fratello =Brother