ANZIANO PERKES

DECEMBER!!! [Letter written 12-2-09]

2009-12-02T18:42:00.000-08:00

Helllllllllllllllllo awesome family!!!!!!

So this week was the best most tiring week ever!!! So i wanted to start off with telling you why haha. So first off this ex investigator called us to ask us to help her move... hmm okay maybe we can pick her up again and teach her. WRONG.... so it turns out she just wanted to use us because we are two men haha. So it was literally the worst move of my life. Lemme draw you a picture. Okay. So i asked if this giant closet thing need to go and she said yes. Okay this shouldnt be to hard i bet its light. SO me and Anziano Bosco go to lift it up (its about 7 feet tall f.y.i.) and it is SOOOO heavy. What?! I think to myself... hmm maybe theres somtheing in it like boxes packed away. hah wrong. I opened the closet and it was full of clothes and odd things. It was that type of move where you expect to come, lift a couple heavy things and be done, and then you arrive and the person throws you an empty box and says... okay fill it up and take it down. So lets just say it took for ever and we were literally dead afterwards! Ok enough with that.... so i want to descirbe the funnnest thanksgiving ever!!! So we still hadnt made any super special plans... .but Thursday morning we were out doing some finding work and we smelt a great smell... hmmm what is that???? So we discovered that there was a giant rotecery thing full of rotecery chicken!! (first time i have ever seen it in europe) So we finsiehd the work for the morning and decided to buy two chickens for lunch! It was sooooo delicious! It was literally the funnest lunch. We took some pics that i want to try to send. The computers here are pretty lame. but anywas lets get to the good part. SERGIO!!!!! So this is a very awesome story. So everything for the baptism was ready to go. It was wednesday afternoon. We were feeling really happy because the interview went great and everything was set up. We had an appointment that night and then again on friday to see him. We were so pumped up.... until we recieved a text... uh oh... from sergio??? Ciao Anziani i have to cancel tongight... bye. Hmm it is a little strange that he did that... .he's never done that before. We were a bit confused but at this point still not worried. Okay... well at least we see him on friday... Lets call him to make sure there is no problems. No answer. Hmm now were a bit more nervous. Strange. So thursday we try calling.... nothing. We try later in the day... nothing. Hmm now we started to worry a bit. Sergio always answers the phone. And then another time.... Hello?. YES He finally answered. On the phone this is what he said.. Hello Anziani i can't be baptized any more. I'm sorry. Sergio what why?!? Sorry i have to go...beep beep beep. Ok at this point i could say that we were utterly paniced!! We tried calling him later... nothing. Ok we have to pass by tonight to see what is the problem. No answer at the door. No answer at the phone. So no it is Friday... the day before the baptism!! We havent talked with him, and all we know is that he said i cant be baptized! We were seriously so nervous and stressed out. I think i even let out some sugar glider noises :) (shout out to dad!!) So we tried calling him throughout the day and nothing. Well we still have an appointment tonight. We knocked at the door and sergio answered.... oh hello! Come on in. He was a bit surprised that we were there. (PS... sergio is verrrrry timid but all around a stud) We come in and we say a prayer and we begin to talk. He explains to us that he met a priest in the street and talked with him and told him that he was about to be baptized. The priest........ i'm sure a nice man (bighting my lip a bit) filled Sergio's head with a bunch of lies. How he will be damned, and how our church will obligate him to give his job to someone who is jobless, and that we are strange. So Sergio was very agitated and nervous. We began to bear testimony to him and the spirit entered the room and his agitation began to ease away. The spirit was so strong. And after about 30 minutes with him, discussing the various questions he had, and bearing testimony we said.... Sergio tomorrow night there will be a baptism of one of the strongest and spirituall powerful man we know. And he just looked at us and said....Ok i will do it. The spirt at that point just covered us! It was soo cool. And the next day we went and picked him up and took him to the church. At this point he once again had his eagerness and excitement for the baptism. The baptism was sooo amazing. The spirit was really strong. After the baptism we talked with him and he was sooo happy. He said... i feel so light! What a wonderful feeling. And then on sunday he was confirmed and once again recieved a confermation that he was doing the right thing. Hmmm... i'm running out of time i think i have to finish this at the next library. Sorry! See you in a bit!!

Anziano Perkes

LETTER PART 2!!

Okay so i actually dont have a ton of time but i wanted to finish describing the awesome Sergio! So we went to see him last night and he was doing great!! There was literally a new light in his eyes! He says he has been praying and reading the book of mormon everyday and he feels great and he is so happy that he was baptized! So that was a awesome tender mercy that we saw. For a while we were quite nervous haha. So funny story. We did exchanges the other day and i stayed here in SWZ with Anziano Murdock from utah (PS... he is a super stud) and we got out of an appointment literally on the other side of the city. We live pretty close to the lake on the very end and we were on the other side of the lake about 2 or more miles down, and we got out of an appointment at 9:03. Now we have to enter at 9:30 and its about a 25 ish minute bus ride. So we run to the bus stop and there is not another bus for 25 minutes!!!! So clearly we would be late.. very late. So i turn to Anziano Murdock with a grin and say.... hey you like running? And he gives me back a grin and says... heck yeah baby! and we took off running. Luckily we had umbrellas with us (it rained in the afternoon but wasnt reaining then) so we felt a lot like soldiers from WWII with rifles in our hands running down the cobblestone streets of Lugano. We ran straight for 20 minutes and it was a blast. People looked at us a bit strange... but we wanted to be obedient so oh well. I can just imagine... 2 guys in suits and ties, running carrying an umbrella in tehre hands when it isnt raining. We blitzed through the door to the apartment and looked at the clock.... 9:29!!!!! Right as we sat down... out of breath the clock ticked 30. What a blessing we made it! So with the rain brought a couple of waterfalls up in the mountains that were beauitful!! It is kind of like at lake powell when it rains hard and waterfalls appear out of no where. Ok no i have a bit of time to answer the questions and then i gotta rap this up! So mom you asked about teh Christmas call. No please dont call me haha. I will buy a phone card that lets me call. And i am pretty certain that i can call the 4 different houses. I think we'll have time. its kinda hard to say now a month before but i am almost positive we can manage it. You asked if kebabs are kind of like gyros. There are similar but the meat is really unique. It has a taste that i've never tasted before. And yes that mans name really was voldemort. That is a very typical russian like name. For example like Vladimir, voldemort, Vloginfra, and Ron Weasly. There all very common names. Crazy huh! mom you asked about the number of people in church. I would say about 40 ish. It is proba bit smaller than somersowrth. But the chapel is tiny so it feels bigger. I cant remember who said it, but someone reminded me that i am more than half done with lugano. I KNOW!!! I am already starting to become sad. You have no idea. I love this city sooo much. Piacenza was awesome and i miss it , but for some reason i feel like i will die when i leave here. Very sad. Fun little thing and then i gotta really get goin. We were comin home the other night, and we say this guy with this big cauldren in centro. And there was a greattttt smell. So i asked what is it? And he replied chest nuts. Wow.... i finally understand why in all the christmas songs they say chestnuts roasted on a open fire. So we bought some and they were delicious! I highly reccomend it!! Well i better get going but i love you guys!!!!!!!!! THanks so much for all you do!

Anziano Perkes

BOUN NATALE!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! [Letter written 11-25-09]

2009-11-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

Hello wonderful family!!

First off i want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving! Unfortunatly they don't celebrate that here as it is an american holiday... huh who woulda thunk? But we'll probably go out and buy a nice kebab. Hmm not sure if i have explained kebabs. They are turkish i believe. It is pretty much a ton of meat, chillin on this pole all day next to a burner, and then they shave off realllllly thin slices, put it on fresh bread, with a really good sauce. It is awesome! Not quite turkey but oh well haha, it is even better. Okay so let's start off the week here! Okay.... so we have a NEW ALLSTAR here in Lugano and his name is Luis!!!!! He just quit smoking 2 weeks ago and hasn't touched it since. He was a referral from San Remo (city on the beach in italy), but then he moved here to lugano so we were able to find him! And he is amazing! We have been working with him lots and he truely is a stud. He is 38, and is half argentinian and half italian. Not married, no kids. He will be getting baptized in a couple of weeks now and is very excited!! Okay so fun story... we do an english class every wednesday night for an hour. We make 15 bucks an hour.. no just kidding, we do it as service. But we have this man named Tiziano, (PS:.. coolest name in the world!) (PS... speaking of names i have decided that i want to name one of my daughters Stella. I know its a bit premature to be thinking about this but i heard that as a name the other day and loved it. It meens star in english.)) Anyways sorry for that rant! So this man Tiziano is a magician here in lugano. He speaks english pretty well. But last wednesday, he was the only one to come, and he said.... guys.. i have to do a show in english this saturday, so i need to rehearse it. So there in the church, he did his whole presentation for us!! I felt like i was in las vegas for a second it was awesome! He is really good and really funny. But fun news... i am learning finally to cook a killer pasta. The only bad thing is i'm not sure if i can make it in america haha, because ya'll dont have the ingredients. Maybe you can find them i dunno. Okay... fun update. I don't know if you guys know about this.... BUT...... the world is coming to an end in 2012!!!! That is the newest news here in SWZ. At LEAST 3-4 times a day someone says.... what do you know about 2012, or did you know the world will end?? So it is quite humorous. I would love to be a missionary in the end of 2011. I'm sure it would be quite interesting. So funny story..... we met a ukranian man yesterday and we taught him... in english luckily haha. And when we left i said... oh dang we forgot to ask your name... what is it? And he replied......VOLDEMORT! So i just wanted to warn everyone that Voldemort has returned, and has takin refuge here in the swiss alps. Don't tell Harry! Some other fun news! We found maggots in our apartment!! Yay what a fun surprise! Yesterday i was in the kitchen and i glanced at the cieling... oh.....uhh..... ANZIANO COME HERE!!!! Gross huh? Luckily we burned most of them, but they keep magically appearing. (PS:.. mom or dad please dont call the mission president :)

Oh yeah i just wanted to give a quick shout out to Jake. I printed off the Perx Security logo, and stuck it on the back of my agenda. So Jake my man... your company has spread all across the world. You can now tell people on the door.. umm yes we are international! Haha so another shout out! CONGRATS BUCK AND JAY-Z FOR BABY JACK JACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now i'm a bit confused because in Dads email it says baby Jake. Did you guys change his name? I am assuming it is just a typo but that is sooooo coool. I'm sure he is the cutest little bugger ever! Wow i am starting to lose count of nephew and nieces. I have now had 3 born while i'm in mission. Crazy! There is just one missing link! No just kidding... no pressure! Man there are a lot of shout outs this week so sorry haha! Next shout out goes to my man NATEEEEEEE!!!!! CONGRATS BROTHER! You landed the job!! That is soo cool. SWZ is way proud of you mate! Shout out to MOM AND DAD... temple officiators?!?! SOOO COOL! That is amazing. What a blessing! And last shout out to LUISA!! CONGRATS on the advancement for the job!!! Your a star! Wow i can't think of any more shout outs. If i missed someone... SHOUT OUT to you (insert your name here)......because your are amazing! Dad thanks so much for the baby picture i laughed out loud it is awesome! I want to print it off! So update on Maddelena! She hasn't smoked for 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!! The last little obstacle is the coffee in the morning but were workin on that together! Oh wow i almost forgot! Sergio!!! Had is interview last week and everything is good to go!!! This Saturday at 7 PM he will be baptised!! We are sooo excited!! Mom you asked a question about italians and there excersise habits haha. And yes my last Italian was the reason we got rid of the bikes. It's kind of a cultural thing. Kind of the take it chill attitude. A bit like ST. Thomas. Dont worry be happy mentality haha. So i should be wrappin this email up. Sorry I just realized it was really random haha. Every 2 sentences i changed subjects. I'll do better next week! Thank you all so much for your love and support!!!!

LOVE YA!!

Anziano Perkes!

What an amazing week!!! [Letter written 11-18-09]

2009-11-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Haha okay so i put the word amazing in the title so that i wouldnt have to start my letter by saying this week was amazing. But I guess i'll say it anyways because this week was TRUELY AMAZING! It was full of tender mercies, miracles, and fun. This week we were so busy teaching!!! I almost don't want to tell you because it really doesnt matter but i will anyways haha. We were blessed to be able to teach 34 lessons this last week. The whole week we were non stop rushing to lesson appointments, or tracting houses, and getting in a lot!! It truely was a blessed week. All week we just kept asking each other... man Lugano is amazing!! So i wrote down some funny and sweet experiences that i wanted to share... the first is funny so here we go. We have a sweet afghani family that we were teaching (i used past tense because we dont teach them more... werent super interested :( ) Anyways so they have this crazy son about 2 years old and he is too full of energy haha. So we were teaching the plan of salvation and i was bearing my testimony about something, when all of a sudden this little champion sprinted into the room from behind us and blind side tackeled me!! Haha included was a heroic tarzan scream aghhhhhhhhh. I found myself half falling off the couch on my side with this little munchkin on top of me with his arms around my face, a couple of his fingers nearly poking my eyes out. Imagine alladin when he is on the carpet and abu the monkey jumps on his head and he cant see. That is me with this little afghani monkey haha. So the parents chased him into another room. Ahh at last peace... ok sorry so anyways... i was saying... that Adam was the first prohet called to....... AGHHHHHHHHHHH another blind attack! So let's just end this story by saying the lesson wasn't the best but it brought back the funnest memories of wrestling with my cute little nephewes and nieces. So next story... we have this cool new african investigator named Patrick. He is from Nigeria and quite the man. He came to church one day to see if he could play the piano, so we volunteered to stay after and let him play a bit. Then we ended up teaching him and now he is a cool investigator with a baptismal date! We'll see how it goes. Were pretty much at the veryyyy beginning of the teaching process but he is way cool. He sings soul music while playing the piano like... i believe in Jesus!!!!.... i put my faith in him!! He actually has a decent voice. So fun story... last pday!!! So as ya'll know we decided to attack on of the biggest and coolest mountains in our area here. So we took a bus out to the mountain (named mount Boglia) and began our hike. It was very comical because Anziano Bosco hates hiking and has never gone. Honestly i'm not quite sure how i talked him into it. So we start hiking and we go for about 20 minutes (i start to hear gasps for breath behind me.) We turn a corner and we get a great view of our final destination. There before us is the mountain... wow very beautiful but far up in the distance. I was very excited... when i heard a gasp... anziano.....breath..... were nevvvvvvvver going to make it up there.....breath..... lets go back..... this is stupid. Haha oh... did you say go back anziano... NEVER!! So after a short discussion i managed to convince him of this brilliant idea yet a second time.... we continued on. About 2 hours later i was just starting to break a sweat when i turned around to see a nearly dead, crawling up the mountain companion. Anziano... want some water?.... NO this is stupid!! Well the good news is that we finally made it up to the top after a couple more discussions.. kind of like a family council you could say. And the view was UNREALLLLLLL. First off it was the most clear day ever.. and second the view was out of this world. I honestly have never seen ANYTHING like this ever before. We have to hike this as a family some day! For 360 degrees there were jagged mountains! It was amazing. So then we had a fun lunch on top of this swiss alp I Love Lucy style.. and then began the climb down. So in the end it was the funnest pday ever. Super fun. I took lots of pics... that i will send at the next library! So great news about Maddelenna!!!!!!! She hasnt smoked for 4 days!!! So for about a month now every time we see her we ask.. hey how is quitting going... and she responds... oh i smoked 13 or i smoked 9 yesterday. We always re committed her and she always said... sure sure i'll try. For about a month nothing happened. So we were really struggling with what we could do. We had tried it all... a program, a contract, we gave up coke. So at the end ... an idea came to us that was simpler than the rest... would it work?? The next lesson we went and at the end we said... Maddelenna we have a challenge for you. Don't smoke for an entire day! We were nervous about how she would respond but her response surprised us.... Why not 2 days!! Wow... okay yeah 2 days sounds great. We called her about 10 times every day to check up on her and not it is since friday that she hasnt smoked! She is doing amazing!! So we are super excited. Her baptism is planned for the 12 of december. So were working on making that date. Sergio continues to be amazing! He is now starting to get very excited for his baptism that is in 2 weeks!! We also are starting to get the pre baptism jitters haha. We brought him to the american families for lunch after church, and he loved it!!! He finally came out of his shy box and made some friends, and felt comfortable and relaxed!! And also we had an amazing american lunch (first american in mission... sad i know.) She made corn chowder, and then we had salald with RANCH!!!! Ranch just so you know doesnt exist here... they shipped it in from america because they miss it too much. And then we had classic american cookies. It was amazing. I miss american food actually. Italian food is the bestest ever... but theres nothing like a good ole' american plate. Oh before i forget... DAD MY MAN! HAPPPPPPY BIRTHDAY!!! TANTI AGURI A TE, TANTI AGURI A TE, TANTI AGURI A PAPA, TANTI AGURI A TEEEEEEEE! My man what is this birthday.... 45?! Oh wow 50 sneakin up you young cowboy you! I hope you have a great birthday.... oh and ps.. mom thanks for the reminder haha, believe it or not i actually remembered! Mom i got your letter yesterday and the CD's today!!!! THANK you sooo much! I love them! There are perfect to bring the Christmas season into the small apartment here! I want to try to send a chocolate bar home so we'll see how it works haha. Oh speaking of Christmas, i have to excuse a flubber that i did haha. I titled my email SNOWWWWW and then i forgot to tell you guys... it snowed!!! Kind of... only in the mountains, but now, all the mountains are white capped in snow and it is very beautiful!!! So fun little thing.... well actually it is very annoying.. but i am forgetting english!!!! Aghh i hate it. When i talk in english to teach or talk to the american family, i sound like such an idiot sometimes haha. Because i'll be talking and then an italian word sneaks its way in. For example.... like this..... ohhh yeah, the other giorno we had a great lesson! Haha but at the same time it is funny. So now i cant speak english or italian! No just kidding... italian is actually coming along great! I can talk pretty easily now without thinking or being nervous. It is very natural. Ok so i have to give a shout out to MOM and DAD for being the most faithful writers for 2 weeks in a row! You guys are the best! Dad i laughed your story about almost getting beat by G.I. Jane haha. How funny. Oh yeah i wanted to give another shout out to Jake for the Perx security logo!! I love it! It is awesome! I heard Nate designed it... is that true? If it is props to nate for being amazing!! So i discovered a fun surprise at our store... PS.... the store we shop at is called MIGROS. Kind of risky huh? Everytime i say it i feel like i'm being racist or something haha. So i found a giant chocolate bar, half a kilo... not quite sure in lbs. But anyways... i found this chocolate bar for 1.80!! It lasts for a long time and it is the best chocolate ever!!!! Super creamy. I'll have to smuggle some with me when i leave switzerland! But anways wonderful family i must get running!!! Thanks so much for the love and support!!

Love ya!

Anziano Perkes!!

SNOWWWWW!!! [Letter written 11-11-09]

2009-11-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

Hello wonderful family!!!!!

So lemme just say that this week was one of the best weeks in my entire mission!! We were amazing blessed to teach 26 lessons this last week, but that is not why it is special, because in the end it's not the numbers that are important but the progress that people are making. So i want to tell you why this was a very special week. So we were teaching our dear sweet sister Maddelena about the 10 commandments. We had finished all the other commandments and that was the last step we needed before we were done. In the middle of the lesson, Maddelenna inturrupted and said. "You know what??" And instantly i was like... oh nooooo haha. Quick note about our dear friend. She is about 60 not sure if ya'll knew that. And she is one of the funniest people i know in the whole planet. She is like our mother here in switzlerland. And she lovessss to talk and tell stories so when she interupted i was like.. oh no were gonna get side tracked. But to my wonderful surprise she said... You know what my desire is..? No Maddelenna what is it? Can i tell you? YESSS tell us what is it! My desire.... is to go to the temple in switzlerland. When she said this the spirit just flooded the room it was so incredible. (note.. we have never talked about the temple with her before... must of heard about it in church) Then she said... i dont know why but something inside of me is saying... you have to go there! I dont even know what you do there but someday i will go to the temple! WOW!!!! The spirit was so strong it was amazing. Truely a tender mercy. So the next day that we went which happened to be the actual next day, we brought a poster of the swiss temple and taught her about the temple. She was truely touched, and is now excited and eager to make it to the temple. At the end we asked her Maddelenna what do you need to do to go there. And right away she said... quit smoking and be worthy. Wow She is amazing! So we have finished all the commandments and doctrine with her. Literally she is ready for baptism. If she quit smoking today we would baptize her tongith! No not really but she is that ready. She amazes us every time we go there. I'll have to snag a pic with her the next time. But anways... she is doing amazing. Also Sergio is doing great. He is very excited for his baptism on the 28th of November. Okay so i'm sorry but today i dont have much time. Today, we are hiking one of the coolest mountains here in switzlerand, and it just happens to be the most beautiful day in the world!!! So we are very excited. Mom i have my shoes to help me too!! We packed a couple of sandwiches and were gonna eat on top of the world!! So another fun experience this week. We were doing door to door and this old guy let us in and in the middle of the first lesson he declared... i'm a mason! Wow how cool just like national treasure!! We asked a couple of questions, and then continued our lesson. At the end you wont believe what happened! We got invited to join the masons!! How cool! Unfortunatly we declined but we want to get a souvenir or something from him... like some ancient mason ring or something cool like from the movie! So that was an interesting experience. YOYO and Slaja are doing okay. They have some problems right now, and we havent seen them for a week. Were not quite sure whats up but right now they need to work some things out on there own. Were gonna try next week. Mom you asked what kind of art Anziano Bosco does. He draws fantasy stuff like spencer Hawkes, he does also paint, and scultp. He is really good of what i have seen of his work. Mom you asked if we see president at zone conference. Yes we do. We see him at least twice a transfer (6 weeks) for interviews and zone conference. He is the man... way cool. Mom you asked about a christmas cd. Sure! That would be awesome! I am always open to more music... and yes i do have a cd player! You talked about christmas goodies. You are right mom... I am in goody land right now so dont stress out to send candy. We have it all here! Speaking of chocolate wow... it is so amazing here. I want to send some home but i think it would explode in the mail. Your encounter with the italian man inthe temple sounds so neat. If he is from milan it meens he is a stud for sure. Dad i laughed so hard that Harvy will miss the max update haha. Wow... who woulda thunk huh?? Okay so Mom and Dad ya'll asked some questions so i just cut and paste below here... lemme answer them now!!

You spoke of going on exchanges in Como. Question,…when you do exchanges and you are with another Elder, who is he and do you enjoy that? …or would you just rather stay in Lugano?

No we always go with other Elders. And yes i love it. No matter how much you love a city or a companion it is always nice to have a little break. Also it gives us a chance to learn from other missionaries as well

Is there a purpose in doing the exchanges? Or is it to just mix up things a little and give missionaries a change?

The main purpose is so that we can learn from other missionaries.. like approaches or ways to teach a certain lesson.

When you go to Como do you teach from their teaching pool? Is Como part of your District or Zone. Do you have many Zone or District activities on p-day where you gather together???

Yes we teach people in Como... i love it. They are the zone leaders in Como and they have some very cool solid investigators. So it is fun to get to know the people who are getting baptized also there. Como is in our district. There are 6 in our district. 2 Elders from como, and 2 sisters from como... obviuously we dont do exchanges with them haha. And no... President discourages from doing group pday activities so i have never done it in my mission yet.

1. What one thing do you most love about Italy that we just don't have going for us here in the US?
Hmmm good question pops... lemme think. The architecture for sure is one thing, and also the history i would say. It is so fun to see these churches that are just ancient. For example the lds church in como was the popes house like 200 years ago. Pretty neat. Also there are markets everywhere which is quite fun. And gelato ever where!! I will for sure miss that!!!

2. What is the one cultural trait or characteristic of Italians that you most enjoy?
They are loud people. And there are blunt and not afraid to speak there mind. Its like when we went to st. thomas and the members came up to Jake and were like... Jake your fat!! (sorry jake to bring up that terrible memory again!!) They are just like that. For example.. if i wear an ugly tie and i ask someone.. hey you like my tie?? Instead of being like... uhh yeah its cool man.. there like... no it is ugly haha.

3. Do you ever get to hear Italian music? Opera? Other cool music? What do you think?
Yeah people really like andrea bocceli here. It is fun because now i understand the words! And all the teenagers listen to rap, so every once and i while a car will drive by blasting there music. So we catch a peak of all sourts of music haha. It is quite interesting.

Well my wonderful family i hope that this wasn't too short!!! But we are off to hike the world now! I'll write all about it next week. PS... mom i sent a letter 3 days ago so its funny that you sent one too haha! But i love you guys and i'll hear from ya next week!!

Love ya!

Anziano Perkes

Ya Ruschi . . . [Letter written 11-4-09]

2009-11-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

Hellllllo everyone!!!!!!!

So lemme just start off by saying this week was great... no im just kidding im sure everyone is tired of me saying that haha so i want to start off by thanking everyone for there emails, pictures and love!! I seriously was laughing a lot while reading all these emails. I loved the pictures too!!!! Okay so i have lots to write about so ill just jump right into the good stuff! So i want to describe something called an out of country expereience. So i heard about the out of body expereience where you feel like your out of your body..... well i invented a new sort of abnormal thing called out of country experience. Let me explain ehem...... So i am currently serving in switzlerand right... so naturally one would think... okayy i'll teach and talk with swiss people right?!.......WRONG! So the other day we were fortunate to find a couple of people doing casa, and to talk with some other people on the bus/street. We found an amazing married couple named YoYo and Slaja!!! Yo Yo is from nigeria, and slaja is from croatia...... nothing close to swiss haha. So Then we talked with a nice man from Iran. An old italian couple, and an american mom! Well let me just finish this rather strange expereience with something i have named, the muslim encounter. So we were doing house, and this little (not trying to be racist) but this little arabian-like alladin man answered the door, complete with robe and slippers. We said, hey we have a great message for you... and he replyed with... there isnt a greater message than the islam one. Okay.... we said... we'd like to hear this message. So he invited us in. But first we had to take our shoes off, a religous tradition, pretty neat huh? So this man is from afghanistan. He was very nice and hospitable. We listened to him for a bit, and then we gave him our short sweet message. He told us that we should become muslim and that at the day of judgement he would be there to testify that he gave us the oppurtunity to be muslim. He was a stud. He was really concerned for our future and salvation. He did say one thing that was kind of strange. When he found out i was american he said that george bush is a child of the devil. Wow.... thats quite the statement huh? So this is my out of country expereience..... WHERE ARE THE SWISS PEOPLE?! Haha i love it... i feel like im serving in 18 different countries here in lugano. We meet people from all over the world every day!!! Ok so i took way to much time to describe that.. as it was just one bullet point on my list to email haha. So i went to como for exchanges again and it was funny because i learned that lugano has a reputation for just being rich people and banks haha. It is kind of true... there are so many swiss banks here where tons of foreigners store money to flee taxes. Quick update on sergio and maddelenna. Sergio is doing great.... we gave him so book of mormon posters and he had them framed and now his house is a great atmosphere for the spirit! Maddelennna is also doing great... she was in italy all week so we havent seen her, but she called us and told us she wanted to read the entire book of mormon this week!! She is in jacob when she called. She is soo cool! So i realized i havent talked about my bruther anz. Bosco much. So some basic info. He is the youngest in the family. Has 3 brothers... all served missions, and all are married. His parents are both converts and very awesome. He comes from Pescara, which is in the middle of italy. He went to artists school, and is very good. He is a great cook, and spoils me with amazing pastas, which im learning how to make! Mom and Dad that sounded so much fun about Brandon Gill!! What a good kid. I miss him tons... tell him i said hi. Email a pic of him to me from his mission if you can! Thanks!! Mom i actually did understand the packages theme haha its just that i couldnt wait to go hiking to try out the shoes so i sported them to help someone move. And i must sayyy that they are veryyyy comfy. Were planning a hike when the wearther gets nicer here!! Mom you asked how i liked Milano. That is where i have been going every month for zone conference, since i came to italy... so ive seen it beofre. According to me the best part of milano is that mcdonalds has burgers for 50 cents!!!!!!!!!!!! Every time we eat at least 5 or 6. The main station in milano is incredible!! Also the duomo is quite impressive! Dad i loved your story about facebook!! I agree with mom that your a nerd, but all the same i laughed very hard. Im glad that shadow ken and ken ken are friends haha. I literally laughed so hard. You should write a book dad! You have a great talent. But i'm sorry if this was short but i must be running soon. Im trying to think of what else is fun that i did this week. Hmmm... all I can say is that we are truely seeing miracles every week. The work here in Lugano is just booming. It is soo incredible. On a daily basis were finding new people. I often ask myself... what did i do to deserve such great blessings??? So i am very thankful and humbled to serve here. But anywho i gotta get running!! Love you guys soooo much. BYEEEEE..... oh ps.... Ya Ruschi... i have to explain that. It is russian for I'm russian. I am learning russian! Shout out to Tyler Mac! I like to learn little prhases in other languages so i can speak with all these foreigners!!!! So now im working on russian haha. Love ya guys!!

Anziano Perkes!

Hellllllllllllllllllo La La La . . . [Letter written 10-28-09]

2009-11-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

Helllo my wonferful family!!!!

HOw is everyone doing!? So this week was terrible... no just kidding i just wanted to see if i could scare you. It was truely an incredible week! So lets start off with a funny like difference in languages. So everyonce in a while we meet people that only speak english. You would think this would be great but it is actually a real pain because im to the point now where it is easier to teach in italian. In fact i stink at teaching in english haha. So english for me is really awkward when it comes to like, approaching someone on the street or anything like that. So this other day i sounded like a complete idiot because i tried to translate what i say into english and it just didnt work haha. So in italian we say a lot, Lei e una persona credente. This translates to, are you religious? But the literall translation goes like this. So the other day we stopped the person, turns out to be an american! So im like... are you a believer?? I sounded like some vampire from a story or something haha. The gave me the weirdest face... a believer!? What does that meen? Like santa clause or something haha. And then there is another frase that is simply, In Giro. For example if i would say... hey were here in giro. THat meens hey were here going around talking to people. So with this same person i was like.... hey were here in gir.... umm around! Haha it made no sense at all. So lets just say it was like the worst street approach ive ever done haha. So funny story with americans... we were on the ski lift the other day going up to the train station and these really short girls were on the ski lift too. When they both look at me with a wow face. One leans over to the other laughing and says... oh my gosh he is sooooooo tall. And i was just sittin there crackin up inside because they didnt know i spoke english. Then as we were getting off i was like... oh go ahead... and they both turned brightttttt red it was hilarious. I gave them a cheesy smile and walked away, and then there were like.. oh my gosh he speaks enlglish aghhhh. Haha so last pday was way fun. WE went down and played billiards and fooseball, it was a lot of fun. And mom i dont remember the priest from st. thomas sorry! Ok.... speaking of mom.... I GOT MY PACKAGE!!!! ThANK THANK THANK THANK XOUUUUUUU. Thank you so much i loved it mom and dad! The freez dried ice cream was really fun. We enjoyed that a lot. THe frisbee is great too, we played in the house this morning and nearly broke a lamp haha. And the shoes!!! You will be glad to know that i am wearing them right now! Were in normal clothes right now it is soooo weird haha. We went and help this guy move early the morning and the library right next door. They are super comfy i love them. In fact i want to send a picture at the next place i hope i can. Did you guys get my pics last week?? I never know with the computers here. So we have zone conference last friday and we had to sleepover at como which was fun. Oh ya, the macho man post card is a blast, it is our work out pump up song haha. And PS::: Dad tell your parents thanks so much for the post card they are too nice. I wanna set some time aside to write a letter but were really busy latley. So Sergio is doing great!!!!! This week we saw a miracle from him ^he is amazing. So lets just say he had some sketchy posters and magazines all over his house haha..... we'll leave it at that. So we taught him the law of chastity and we came back and all of it was gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then he said with a grin... did you notice i cleaned the house a bit? Not only did he do that but he threw away all his films that were too violent. He said he felt like it was the right thing to do. Sooo cool!! Soo funny little story haha. So i had to take some fotos at a machine for my documnets right. So i sit down, insert the outrageous 3 euro that it cost. And i smile and click.... do you like this photo? To take another press this button. Hmmm.. i look a little cheesy in that photo... i'll try again.... okay click.... hmm i look a little gay in that photo ok one more time. So this whole time im inside this little curtain booth thing okay and anziano bosco is outside. Well right when it was about to take the picture anziano bosco leans his head in right on the countdown 2.......1. And with a mister been voice and face says..... HEWWWO. (hello in mr. bean language.) And of course i started busting up laughing. Well it took the picture and i had the worst face imaginable... but right after it took it... it said... thank you! Your photo is now printing! NOOOOOOO! So this was for a serious document so i couldnt submit this terrible photo! So i got another 3 euro.... dang itttt. Well this time i was dumb and pressed the wrong button and instead of getting id pictures... i got a picture of me with the colleseum in the back round!!! Oh perfect a souvenir. So lets just say it took three times and 9 euro to finally get a picture that was half decent. But in the end it was a funny experience to remember. So we had conference of the Stake this sunday, so we all went to milano, (MAddelenna came and loved it!!!!!!) and Elder Causse spoke! He is of the 70 and a real good guy. And then the cool part is they had a special meeting after for all investigators with a baptismal date!! So maddlenna and us, got to talk to this 70 and it was awesome! He incouraged her and just did awesome... she fealt really special on the ride home. It really helped her. THis week though she is in italy... so we wont get to see her for a week or two... bummer. But we will continue to call her!! A announcement about future packages... i heard that shoes in the mail are really dangerous here, so i am very grateful to have recieved these ones, but for future notice it might not be a good idea. Mom also thanks so much for the back pack i love it. It is perfect for just bringing a couple things along! I dont know if you found my school bag. It would be nice to have for exchanges and things when i need to pack more... if you cant find it no worries! I love ya! So that was pretty much it for the week. Sorry if that was too short. Because of the move we dont have tons of time ikes! BUt i love you guys so much thanks for everything!!! Oh yeah... shout out to buck and Jay-Z and baby JACK JACK!!!!! That is sooo exciting!! But anywho i gotta write president now!!

Love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anziano Perkes!!

Tanti Aguri Halloween! [Letter written 10-21-09]

2009-11-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

So this week i believe Halloween is coming up! How exciting... too bad they don't celebrate it here. I'll have to just scare anziano Bosco to get my fun out of the holiday haha. So this week was a great week. Thanks so much for all the letters. Wednesdays are always frun days because i get to hear from my wonderful family! It sounds like you are all doing great. I just wanted to give a shout out to Jake WOOP WOOP HOORAY. That is so cool you got the first business sale. Way to go bro. Were proud of you here in Switzlerand! I loved the logo's too. I kinda agree with mom a bit, but at the same time i really liked the hipness of them. And dad it isn't blood haha. So... lemme update ya'll on the week and then ill answer some questions etc. etc. So we were on the train and this priest walked by and i smiled and waved, and to my surprise he stopped and sat down with us. My first thought was oh no i dont want this to be contentious. Boy was I surprised when he was totally a cool guy and just wanted to talk. He is from brazil and has seen our temples down there, so he just asked us a bunch of questions. So before we know it were exchanging numbers and he invites us down to his sanctuary or whatever it is called sorry haha. So we went down this last week and he fed us a great dinner of rice and beans and meat... shout out to BUCK! Bring back any memories buddy!? It was delicious and then the coolest part... he took us on a tour of the facilities there. We saw things that not even the members see. He took on this tour of an old baptistry which was quite awesome. Then there was this section kind of like a museum, or a collection of old stuff and he showed us the oldest bible i have ever seen! So all in all it was a very intersting fun experience. In fact it was so fun that for pday today were going down to play some basketball, billiards, and fooseball with him and other priests haha. So were really excited. I'll have to get a picture. Oh i'm so sorry about not being able to send pictures. The computers here are really lame and the problem is to send one pic takes like 10 minutes, but i'll see if i can get one sent off today. Sorry! My card is almost full so i'll just have to burn a cd and send it home! Mom you are too sweet haha, your already wondering about my christmas package, wow your on the ball haha. I was trying to think the other day and i have a couple things that would be nice, but not neccassary. Whatever you send i'll be thrilled i'm sure! Just some ideas... Deodarant (axe), chapstick (magic kind jake uses), Zebra F-301 BP pen refills (black), I dont know if my bag is still sittin around the house but my bag here is really dorky and breaking, if you cant find it please dont worry about buying one, it was just a thought. And then i dunno if they have these but like 2 pairs of the thermal garments would be awesome! For size im guessing large, 34-35 ish waist. But these are just ideas to help ya get started. Thanks!! Anziano Bosco is still doing great. My italian is really improving i love it. We are both really motivated to study the language everyday. He is studying english obviuosly. I have some sad news about the Carbone family... not reallly that sad but not terrific. Allexander is leaving for the military in northern switzerland this week. It is obligatory for all youth here to serve for 8 months... BOGUS!! So unfortunatly he will be out of our teaching area, but we are going to refer him to missinoaries up there. We are going to still keep in contact with him. I know he will be baptized some day. But these day now will be difficult for him. Maddelenna is really struggling with quitting smoking. She is also going to italy for 3 weeks, so her batpism date needs to be pushed back, but no worries. It is more important to be ready right? So we are still working with them and they are still awesome, we love them! To try and help them quit we decided that we would give something up, so i cant drink any more soda!! OH NO!! So it has been a challenge but Anziano Bosco is helping me :) . The good news is that we have a new power house investigator named Sergio. He is seriously a stud. He has some of his own problems as well but he is amazing. We taught the word of wisdom and half way through the lesson he says, you know what i will not drink tea or coffee any more!! I've had enough! That was a week ago and to this day he has been living the word of wisdom 100%. He is our superhero. He is 50 and from france. Speaks perfect italian and is very nice. We teach him 3 times a week. So that is the news for us here in lugano! I am so excited that Brandon is home! That is soooo nuts! Give him a big hug for me! He is a good kid. Oh and mom haha, im sorry that someone profaned on my wall. You have my permission to permanantly delete them forever!! :) Thanks for the happy birthday messages from facebook. Honestly i had a hard time remembering who those people were but im sure were great friends haha. So i better get going now.. i will try photos at the next library. I cant promise anything but i will try!! THanks so much family and have a wonderful Halloween!! Sono molto grato per voi e per tutte le cose che fate. Siete un esempio per me ogni giorno. Veramente, siete bravi!

Ciao!!

Anziano Massimo Perx!

Hahah , , , hello family! [Letter written on 10-14-09]

2009-11-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

Hahaha so this week was amazing and very fun to say the least. So first off mom and dad thank you so much for the 49 letters... no just kidding there werent that many but they was a lot haha. I loved them. So lets start with last wednesday. I was a little worried about you guys but at the same time i realized that your busy. So me and my companion were eating lunch with this old couple, she cooked some awesomeeee baked pasta it was great! When i saw the office calling... hmm thats strange, but not that strange, i ignored the call. Then 2 minutes later.... vibrations, to see the office calling again. Hmmm now this is starting to be strange. So after the appointement i called the office thinking.. oh no what did i do haha. When sister christensen answers... hello anziano perkes we recieved a call from your father about an hour ago... oh no something must really be wrong i thought, and he called to say that him and your mom love you and they forgot to email. She then went on for about a minute telling me how much you love me haha. So dont worry dad i wasnt mad at all, in fact i laughed about it for a good part of the day. The no no would be if you called the mission president, but the office sisters, there fine. Seriously they remind me of grandma. There very sweet. So that was pretty funny. So i sent my companion off, after packing and saying bye to members. To pick up my new companion, Anziano Bosco.... and the big news is.... drumroll..... he is a stud!!! I love this kid! Okay so it will be hard to describe him. I want to say he is kind of like mister been, but that sounds negative and i dont want it to be negative. Okay so he kind of looks like a mr. been and a eoen mcGregor mix. So he has the himor of mister been (not his weird strange humor but funny humor) and the studlyness of mcGregor. Seriously this kid is awesome, we laugh all day long.... literally we laugh so much. We get a long great. In fact i would say the best out of all my companions by far. We have the same amount of goofyness in each other. So we'll just like make eye contact in the bus and start laughing. Not only is this italian funny, but he is the most amazing teacher. We taught this lesson and he blew me a away. This kid knows how to teach. It is not just because it is his language, but he just knows how to teach. So all is good in the world of lugano. We are getting a long perfect, and not just that but the work is going great as well. We have been finding new people and inviting tons on the bus, in the park everywhere! And the last bonus of the day is he is a gooooood cook! We have been eating great here in lugano i love it. He has made this like cheesy pasta with sauce, it is the bomb. So anyways i am running out of time here so i gotta rap this up haha. So yesterday i got to return to Piacenza to do fingerprints for my documents!! So we slept over in italy yesterday morning and we had a blast. Anziano Motley (big black brother from mtc) is serving there so we had a blast together. I also got to see the saquing family (awesome new convert family) and they fed us dinner which was awesome. So Carbone family is doing great. They have met there first trial in this blessed process of conversion. The word of wisdom. I never told you before but both of them smoke like someone from NH (alot! Haha shout out to Jake and the NH smokers voice. COUGHHH* ). So we taught them this lesson and they are both working on quitting smoking. They are smoking less but it is very hard. So we are going to come up with a program to help them quit. Any advice from x-missionaries that had investigators quit smoking? I would love some thanks! Okay mom and dad thanks so much for the birthday money, we'll have to go get some pizza or something. It will be awesome thanks so much! Yeah you guys called the american school Tasis right? Haha that is funny, a kid in the ward goes to that school he is aweseome. Mom thanks for the jello facts haha i loved them. I loved the pictures of mt. washington... how amazing is that! I loved the story of the italians haha... and yes dad all italians are loud and very animated with there speech, hands and everything getted involved in the language. MOm your already putting together the christmas package wow your on the ball haha. Quite honestly i had no idea christmas was coming up haha. Umm im not sure about requests... ill think about it this week and let you know ok? Well my wonderful family my time is running out. But i hope you all have a marvelous week!!!!

Vi Volgio Bene!

Anziano Perkes

Good Morning America . . . [Letter written 10-7-09]

2009-11-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

Helllo familyyyy

How is everyone doing. So strange thing happened this morning. I opened my email box and there was only one letter from Buckstersss. Props to Buck yeah! So i'm not quite sure if my computer is working, or if my emails buggy, or if there was an emergency at home, or if everyone is just busy (which is very understandable). So let me know, i hope everything is okay. So this week was a really awesome week. It was way funnn. First thing is that last pday we went to Locarno which was awesomeeee. It is a city an hour north. It is set on a gorgeous lake just like Lugano. I like Lugano more, but it was fun to see a complete other city. Most people spoke German there which was fun. So fun culture fact haha. So because they speak italian here, they just like us in america come up with lots of clever abbreviations for things, although sometimes there abbreviations have meening in english haha. For example... the bus company in Locarno is called FART LOCARNO. On all the buses that is written in big letters on the side. So i got a good laugh out of that. Another i saw was CTR. So the choose the right progam is famous here in svizzera. I would name the other ones off but they were a bit on the vulgar side haha so i'll spare you the pain. So it's startin to be a bit chilly here in lugano. I love it. We haven't put on jackets yet which i just love. Nothing is better than a brisk fall day. It is so beautiful here. In fact this morning i got some great pics of the lake before emails. Sorry about not being able to send pictures. I'll try to figure it out today and see how it goes. So it feels realllllly weird being 20!!!! I'm an old person aghhhh. It kind of scares me... i want to be a kid still haha. So for a great birthday present i got to go watch conference!!! Which was amazing. We watched every session except for the sunday afternoon session. Which meens we missed elder holland's talk which is sad. BUt the rest were wonderful! And another fun surprise was that Maddelenna and Allessander (Carbone family) came to all the sessions of conference and loved it!!! Not only this but Allessander showed up in a suit looking very sharp. He is 20 and such a stud. You guys would love him, he is really a sharp kid. He is the type of kid that if i ever came back to lugano i'd have to go see him and hang out. So another conference surprise was when i saw Mark Stevens in the choir!!! LIKE 5 times haha. Great job Mark, you sounded great! So they don't have Jell-O here but yesterday i was looking through our cupboards and i saw a huggggge like 3 gallon bag of jello powder. So i have been making jello for all these people and they all hate it hahahaha. They think it is soooo weird. I guess jello would be rather gross if you havent grown up eating it... or sloshing it. So fun fact about Lugano. They have a hockey team here that is reallllly good. It is kind of like canada. Everyone plays hockey here so there really good. So funny thing. I changed the zone leaders name in the phone to George Cloony so everytime they call us i say like... oh george cloony is calling, and these people on the bus next to us are like..... HE'S TALKING to George Cloony!!!! Haha so were quite famous here now haha. So something i wanted to emphasize is that i'm in a different country!!!! CRAZY HUH? Now that is not just like going from idaho to utah or NH to Vermont. This is like going from mexico to cuba or something. The culture here and the food is very different and unique. So just know that i am lovvvvving soaking in a completely new experience here in switzerland! It¨s amazing i love it! So some big newsssss DRUMROLL....................................... So yesterday in the bus president called us and he was like... can i speak with Anziano Perkes. So turns out my new companion who will come on thursday is italian!! Another italian crazy huh! His name is Anziano Bosco. Just so you know the craziness of this... we have 4 italian elders, and 120 ish americans. That is some crazy odds. He has been out about a year now. So this should be interesting haha. But i'm excited, an italiannnnnnnnn no way. It will really help my language skills. I'll be with him for 4 and a half months! Long time huh. And this elder doesnt speak english by the way haha. So yeah this will be way fun. But that is about it for news about switzerland. Sorry if i was boring this week haha. So thanks you all so much for the love and prayers. I feel them everyday. Vi AMO!! Love you guys

Love

Anziano Massimo Perkes

Bonjour!!!! [Letter written 9-30-09]

2009-11-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Hello hello wonderful Perx family!!

Thanks so much for the emails this week. I laughed a lot haha you guys are too funny. So this week was drumroll..... awesome as always in the mission haha got ya. No but really it was an awesome week. So first for some cultural Lugano facts for you. Languages.... there are lots of languages here. Switzlerand has 4 national languages being, italian, english, german, and french. So pretty much everyone speaks at least two languages. We hear other languages being spoken all day everywhere. I love when german speakers ask us for directions and there like... chzne bokcnien shinepine bla bla bla... and i respond with i dont speak german (in german though) and immediatly they think i do speak german so they start speaking louder and slower, and once again i respond with nooooo i dont speak german silly!! Haha so it is quite fun. So next cultural fact.... ethnicity. Most people here are swiss, with some connection to italy... like there parents are from italy but they were born here in Ticino (the name of our region). There are many german swiss people here as well. Lotsss of africans, a ton in fact. And most of them are muslim african from like... samalia or other crazy places i've never heard of. I have met, iraqians, pakistanians, iranians, turkish, russian, mongolian, johanisburgians, all of the european places, japanese, chinese, ukrainians, americans, santo domingo people (lots actually, quite fun) and basically name a place and i know someone from there. So it is quite the little mixing pot of people for us. For some reason on the muslims love us here haha. We'll have some guy stop us and be like... wasssup man ho are you guys. And as we are walking away i turn to my comp and ask... who is he.. and he responds... i have no idea... never met him haha. So they like the missionaries here. So food here in Lugano. Nothing really different than in italy actually. Pizza, the works. Lots of pasta or as you americans say spaghetti. Just a fun fact. Spaghetti is a specific type of pasta. So as americans we just call any type of pasta spaghetti which is like calling every car a jeep or something. Each type of pasta has its own cool name here which is fun. Spaghetti is correct but that is the long pasta. But anyways im not sure if i already told you but we just have 2 hours for lunch and no dinner, so we usually eat lotssss of pasta for lunch with mayonaise too... yummmmy. The Carbone Family is doing great. The grandma came to church and lovvvvvved it!!! The son who is our age was in Locarno (2 hours away) for the weekend so he coudlnt come. But she seriosuly loved it. She told us after that everyone was soooo nice. She made some friends so she is doing great! Thank you guys so much for praying for them that is very sweet. I will tell them that, they will love it. So last pday we went hiking!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome! We actually took a ski lift partly up and then hiked the rest. But we hiked Mount san salvatore which is right next to lugano. SO i got some great pics on top of the world with lugano behind. There is soooo much hiking to be done here. I hope my next comp likes hiking because im way excited!! Today for pday we are going to lucarno a city about an hour north that is also on a big lake. I think they talk about it in I loved lucy crazy huh?? Dumb fred sends the band to locarno i believe... which quite honestly is a great place to be sent haha. So sorry i havent been able to send any pics really. I keep trying at the second library and the computers are mega slow and it hasnt been working. I'll try to figure out a better way. Maybe i'll show you in two years haha... just kidding. I'll work on it. So mom about the package. Thats good there wasnt meat in it. The office unfortunatly doesnt call when they recieve it. But honestly mom i dont want you to feel bad that i wont have it on my bday. Were so busy here that quite honestly i have not really realized my birthday is coming up. So i'll just pretend like it actually is october 20 haha. I will get it at next zone conference which they havent announced yet. I would bet in like 3 ish weeks or so. But dont worry mom seriously.... ill be just as excited, im not sad. Mom i'm glad the birthday was fun. Funny fact, i saw your present from nate before you haha. Nate sent me a picture preview and it looks awesome. Nate you really have an eye my friend, in fact you have two!! Dad thanks so much for the pop culture. I have really come to love your news caster type reports thanks so much. THats crazy paula abdul quit. In italian we say... Meno Male.... which meens like... perfect... its about time. I think miss degeneres will be a great replacement. Mom and Dad your trip to idaho sounded awesome. I laughed so hard hearing about Ben and how he shouldnt step on Jesus's animals haha how cute. Those little stinkers are growing up on me. The trip sounded too fun. But we are cutting internet time a bit shorter today to make it in time. But mom i recieved your letter the other day and loved it thanks so much! I'll get around to writin one back to ya'll. But hey my wonderful family i love you guys so much and will see you later!!!! Buck and JayZ how is my little Max doing? Haha he'll be the cutest kid for sure!! Well i gotta get going.

CIAO!!!

PACE FRATELLI

Love you guys!

Vi Amo!

Anziano Perx

Hola Amigos! [Letter written 9-23-09]

2009-11-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

Hello wonderful family!!

This week my inbox was flooded with letters from the family. Thank you sooo much i loved everyone of them. Unfortunatly i only have 3 minutes to write this letter so here we go. I love you guys but i gotta run!!! Sorry i'll write better next week!!

Love Anziano Perkes

PS.. Haha im just kidding sorry that was a terrible joke i know. I have plenty of time to write a big long letter haha. So let's just start off with the miracle story of the week. The Carbone family!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow what a family. I cant even describe them in words. So we were doing casa right... and we were just getting a lot of doors shut on our faces. So we were like... hey this isnt working so we decided to switch it up a bit. So we knocked on another door and this 20 year old kid leans his head out and says what do you want? Instead of pitching him like we usually did we just said... hey can we come in? And he said... ummmmm why? We just want to explain who we are. Sure come on in. So they we were we got into the house! Not only did we get into a house but we got into a house of a family!! There is this boy Allessander, the grandma, madelena, the daughter of the grandmpa barbara, and the daughters daughter (8 year old girl). So this Allesander isnt actually apart of the family but he lives in the house, and is just best friends with this 50 year old grandma. So there we begin to teach our lesson. Turns out there all catholic, but they all like many italians/swiss people dont like the church and don't really practice. So we taught about how the church of Christ is once again upon the Earth!! This whole time all of the were completely silent, just staring at us with a deep concentration, not even blinking. We gave them a book of mormon at the end of the lesson and asked them to read a chapter. The next day we called them and Allesander answered the phone. Hey he said... we love the chapter but honestly bro... were gonna need some more books of mormon in this house! We have been arguing over who's turn it is. WOW RIGHT!! So we set another appointment with them for 2 days later. Brought back 4 book of mormons, and taught them again. The lesson went awesome. They are all just wayyyy interested. So at the end of the lesson we challenged them to be baptized on November 14th and they all said a big YES!!! It was awesome. SO we taught them again and it went great again. We are seeing them tommorow and saturday and then there gonna come to church! I really cant describe this family. Lets just say that this is the type of family that all missionaries in the world dream of finding. So they are stellar and ill keep you updated on them. So this last week i went to Como and yes mom it is amazing. Unfortunatly i didnt see Goerge Clooney but we'll see haha. There part of our district in como. They have a big ole ward there. Yeah mom, we taught a bunch of lesson on the exchange it was great. Real nice members there. It was wayyy beautiful but i still think lugano is more beautiful up here. There is just a huge difference between swiss and italian cities. So dad you'll be sooo jealous haha. There is a hugggge bonsai convention right across the street from our apartment!!! When i saw the sign i was like dad would be soooo jealous. So mom you asked some questions lemme try and answer them now. The weather here is great now. I would imagine they the do have a rainy season and it would be in the fall not quite sure. The leaves here arent turning red yet but i think soon they will. When i say cold i just meen a bit chilly. We arent even wearing jackets yet so its still not cold cold but it is getting there. At night it cools wayyy down. And then during the day the temp is perfect! Haha mom you dont have to send a new jacket. My jacket is actually really nice its just that i wouldnt go rollin around BYU campus flashin it off. I only use it in the rain so its fine dont worry about it. I cant believe Tanner is home mom that is nuts!! And Brandon comes home in 3 weeks i dont believe it!! What a good kid i miss him. Say hi to him alright? Mom you asked me about the convert baptisms that is a great idea. I'll have to write Alice and ask her to send it to me. How neat would that be. Dad haha thanks so much for the letter. I really enjoyed the Pop's pop culture keep them coming!! You'll be famous some day! I loved how you wrote your letter with the features like it was a news cast haha your too funny. So i'm running out of things to say haha. Lugano is going great i love it. Oh mom i do have some sad news for you. I didn't get my birthday package yesterday (we went to milano for interviews). My guess is that it is still in the mail. But i should recieve it next month's conferences. I wont get it in time for my birthday but i dont want you to be sad. Honestly i nearly forgot it was my birthday. And plus conference is on my birthday so it couldnt be better! But i was a bit nervous.. you didnt put beef jerky in it did you? The mail system is known to confiscate packages for certain items like beef jerky. So i was just wondering. But dont worry mumsy i'll get it some day and ill love it more than ever!!! So sorry that i didnt really have much to say this week. Lugano is going great. I love being a missionary. Time is flying haha thanks mom for the reminder. I feel like ive been here for 3 weeks honestly. It is kind of scary!! But anywho i'll talk to ya'll next week!

Love ya!!

Vi amo

Anziano Perkes

Hi . . . [Letter written 9-16-09]

2009-11-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hi!

That sounds weird. I havent said hi for about 6 months haha. The funny thing is sometimes people answer the phone here saying hhello? Its not in italia but just here in switzerland it was very funny last week i had the phone and someone called and i answered saying in my best italian accent, si pronto, sono anziano perkes. And this man responded hello. So i started talking in enlgish, hey hows it going how can i help you etc. etc. And he started being very confused..... chi é, perche parli in inglese? Non parlo inglese! Which translates to pretty much.... what?? I dont speak english what is going on?? Haha so people say hello here it is funny. So anyways sorry that was random. Whats up everyone!!! Thanks so much for the letters i loved them. Lemme jot down some things about the week and then ill get to answering your questions. So this week was absolutly spendidly fantastic. You like that string of adjectives there.. haha yeah i liked them too. So this week has been wayyyyyy rainy. But surprisngly enough i loveeee it. For many reasons. First is that the buses are cramped with people that cant leave haha... so i get to talk to them and they cant run away. Second, when were out in the rain it really helps motivate me to get into a pillazo, or in english... a... ummm dang what is the word. Condo?...no thats not right. Like a flat or something i dunno a apartemnt complex. English is lame.. so a pilazzo right. Okay it really helps motivate me to get in there because its raining. And thirdly, its not hottttt anymore!!! In fact it is kinda chilly i love it so much. Were still in short sleeves here, and we get asked by lots of sweet old ladies... arent you cold?!?! Haha i love it, its a great intro into a gospel conversation. That is something we learned about in yone conference this week is how to navigate everything into a gospel conversation it is awesome. It reminds me a lot like sales.... not selling the gospel but of controlling the conversation. For example, i met this guy that was carrying a fishing pole... so i was like.. hey man you like fishing? He started going off about fishing and i was like.. dang how can i NAVIGATE this conversation. So i was like.. hey man your just like an apostle of Jesus Christ, did you know they were fisherman? Haha it worked perfect... sadly he wasnt interested but i invited him to here about the restored gospel! So it is rather fun. Like a challenge actually. So the fourth reason for liking the rain is we get to wear rain jackets! And luckily my trainer gave me one. Man i miss that kid. But this jacket makes me look like a hench man haha. Its one of those big ole jackets with the popped collar. I look quite fashionable haha. But something cool about the rain is that its really foggy and misty being on the lake here. The mountains are covered in fog it is soooo pretty. It is raining today i want to go hike a mountain but we'll see what we do today. I get to go to como tonight for a split. Como is where george cloony lives!! Ill let you know if i see him! So the ward is still doing great. I seriously feel like im in a utah ward here the members are just sooo cool. There is lots of families in the branch here. About 50 60 ish people in church on sundays. Interesting fact is before these 4 baptisms that happend in the past 6 months, there wasnt a batpism for 5 years!!!! So the branch is getting real involved in the work its great. They had an activity the other night and we got a call from the branch president and he was like... hey guys (he calls us rigazzi which meens like kids or guys its very funny.) Hey guys.. theres a bunch of food in the church, go take it home or it will go bad. This man kind of reminds me of an italian brother siebach. He is from balogna (italy) and has a serious bolagnesi accent. Its funny because that is his name, Presidente Bolagnesi. So last week we went to the chocolate factory. Honestly it wasnt as cool as we thought but it was still very intersting. We got to eat a big ole handful of chocolate for free. And we got to take pictures with a cow!!! Ill send a picture! So besides all that that is the week! We did lots of finding work and it was great i love finding work. More than anything! We have found lots and lots of potentials in the past 2 weeks so now were working on turning some of them into new investigators. We are trying to kind of recycle some investigators. Kind of like a bonsai. Get rid of the week branches and make way for strong ones! Mom thanks so much for the BYU trivia i loved it haha. Go cougars! Hey did mark stevens serve in the milano mission? Dad you commented about the cheese factory and the store clerk that was short. I didnt explain this but this wasnt some cheese tour or something. We were good friends with that store clerk named Gorgio. And he invited us to come to the factory where he buys his cheese from. So it literally was like we were ina cheese factory watching people make cheese. This wasnt some tour where there like... okay look over here. We just sat and watched these cheese makers for hours. It was awesome. And the cheese warehouse with the millions of cheese balls, the guy there gave us the key and was like... hey go check out the warehouse here.... lock it up when your done. So it was arealllllly cool experience. It was like a behind the tape tour type of thing. Dad im surprised at how hip your becoming!! Way to go cowboy! You know what gaged ears are! Isnt that gross haha... lots of teenagers here do that to their ears. Dad i laughed so hard about your water haha. You are too funny. Youll be sad to know that i just drink tap water here... aghhh. It actually makes sense though. So your not too weird haha. It actually kind of sounds like a fun little hobby to have. Lemme know if there is some springs here in lugano okay! Actually cool thing is everywhere there are these fountains in the parks, sidewalks everywhere!!! Now this isnt like a walmart drinking fountain, but a cool modern fountain that you can drink out of... all different too. And dad guess where the water comes from!!! The lake!.... no im jus tkidding. The mountains! So my friend i drink from your springs up here in lugano!! Haha i¨m glad you guys liked the movies. So mom lemme answer your questions now!

You haven't shared with us much about your new companion. Do you like him? Do you get along? Is he hard working? Would he be your friend if you were at BYU together?

Yeah i like him is is reallly hard working. We get along just perfect. He is a cool kid i think ill keep him around for 4 more weeks haha. sad!!

I know you only have him for about another 4 weeks and he will be transfered out. Man, you've got to get the lay of the land quick so you don't loose anyone when he goes. Tell me about the leadership in the branch. Are you loving all of the members. You have commented what a wealthy area you are in. Are the members that way as well??

The members here for the most part are pretty well off. We have an american family that lives here they are aweesome. And yes they are veryy wealthy. But i only have 54 se^conds aghhh!!! So i have to go i love you guys so much... Ill send pics in 10 minutes at the next place.

Love ya

BYEEE!!!

Helllllllllo la la la . . . [Letter written 9-9-090

2009-11-27T12:48:00.000-08:00

Hellllllo wonderful family of mine!!

So this week was a gggggreat week! Thanks for all the emails i loved them. Dad if you sent a letter i didn't get it. If you didnt have time though i understand. Mom told me that you won your big trial!!!!! CONGRATS!!! That is soo fun! Was that the hanniford bank robbery one!? That is too cool. So did your boss give you a fat bonus check? Well anyways i have lots to write this week so i better get started. So i have realized that i love old ladies haha. They are too fun. Especially european old ladies there just a kick. So we were walking on the street and there was this old lady with a mustache, i know rather strange... i was a bit surpirsed myself. But when we walked by i heard her under her breath mutter... translated.... holy cow he is tall!! So i stopped and turned to her and was like... mam have you ever seen someone as short as me? And she starts laughing, by the way she seems a bit strange from the start. She was like... wow how did you grow that tall?? And i said... mam i ate my vegetables like my mother told me too (i know kind of a fib but i did eat potatoes and ketchup too!) And she was like.... oh my gosh stop!!! Stop growing!!! Basta!!! which meens enough. And she was seriously like screaming this in her old lady voice... so i was like.... okayyyy mam i wont eat any more. And she was like NOOOOO Youll die dummy!! You have to eat. So that was basically our converstaiont,,, doesnt sound quite as funny written down as i thought haha... just picture a crazy old italian woman with a mustache shouting at me haha. Okay so this week i met someone from joburg! Shout out to nate woo! THey had crazy accents by the way... they were white. Okay so i told you how amazingly gorgeous lugano is right?? So along the lake there is a giant sidewalk along the whole outside. Not only that but its surrounded by gardens, modern statues, and lots of american tourists! We meet americans on a daily basis here it is soooo fun. I love americans there soo funny. So last pday we just walked around the city and centro. I saw like 9 ferraris and maseratis it was great. But today for pday were going to a giant chocolate factory!!!! How fun is that right! Were are very excited. Switzerland is mega famous for chocolate... in fact lindt comes from here. The chocolate here is soooo yummy... i get chocolate once a week when i shop and then i nibble on it all week hah yummm... we also got root beer!!! So gooooood. So you know the phrase everything is bigger in texas? Same goes here but it goes like this... everytrhing is bigger, nicer, cleaner, prettier, more expensive, fancier, more legit, and tottaly cooler in LUGANO!!! I cant stop being amazed by this beautiful country! At least once a day i say to myself... wow this is my area!! So we have a guy come to our english class named Tiziano! He is a magician!!! And he comes to practice his show in english with us!! No way right. He taught us like 8 tricks the last week and i wrote them all down in my journal so i can remember them. But he is super funny and just a really cool guy. So every wednesday night we have a magic show for us! Mom you already sent the birthday package? Dang i wanted to tell you not to spend too much money. But its too late... so i'll tell you in advance... next year please dont spend too much money haha. Oh yeah so our area is ginormous by the way... its like the size of utah... maybe not that big... but to put it into perspective... we can ride a train for 3 hours going north and we are still in our area! Thats a lot of souls to cover! But mainly we just stick here in lugano because there is tons of work to do here. So right now we have a baptism coming up of a 17 kid named Davide. He is a stud. His mom is less active so that is how we found him through her. He is progressing just great. He said that he wants to serve a mission. They also baptized a lady named Dina the week before i got here and i realized that most of the fun is not the progressing towards baptism which dont get me wrong is an amazing sweet process. But i think i like even more working with them after. Seeing them just completely change there life and become happier and happier is amazing. Because the work is not done after baptism for sure. So Dina is amazing and i love her. She is 40 and single. 2 daughters about our age never met them though. She is just radiating happyness off of her i love it. So something funny i dont think ive told yall. Anziano literally translated means ancient. In my opinion its a bad translation for us to have on our tags and ill tell you why. About once a day i swear.... we have people that stop us saying.... do you know what anziano meens?!?! You guys are young!! Your not old! Becuase they call old people anziani so its kinda funny. I make a joke out of it telling poeple that im much older than i look. So funny story... i said that theres lots of americans here. So we were on a bus yesterday and these 3 americans got on and they started speaking english right next to us. And they gave us a look of like... what losers haha. So me and anziano mickelsen started talking in italian just saying like... hey next stop is ours. When they heard us speaking in italian they started making fun of us because they didnt think we spoke english. They were like... oh hahaha theres always two of them, there so weird type talk. So im just sitting there smiling, almost chuckling to myself. Right before we get off i turn my head and in a big smily voice im like... where ya'll from?? And the look on there faces was priceless. They were silent for about 2 seconds all looking at each other with the look of a guilty 8 year old... then the main guy stuttered out colo...o...o...orado. And i was like... awesome yeah i worked there for a summer... well guyss this is our stop see ya later! It was sooo funny the look on there faces. So i got a good laugh out of that. Someone actually thought i was italian awesome huh?? So mom you told me to email president to tell him to make sure to bring my package haha. Sei Fouri?? Meens.. are you nuts?? Haha i cant call president saying... oh yes presidnet.... dont forget my birthday package hah. No im just kidding dont worry though... they never forget. He has a big van he uses. Wait mom you said that Mark Stevens knows lugano? Did he serve in the milano mission?????? Am i just an idiot or did i not know this?!?! He must of been zone leader in como then. At least that is what it is now.. Como, where george clooney lives. It could have been Bergamo back then not sure. But he served here!?! No way i dont believe it!! I feel dumb now haha. Salute Mark for me! Tell him i say hi from lugano! Well family that is about it for the letter today sorry! I'll try to send a pic at the other library today. Sorry i didnt send one last week. Love you guys!!!!!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Perkes

Helllllooooo from the mountains!! [Letter written 9-2-09]

2009-11-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Okay so lemme explain something real quick. So here the swiss switched the z and the y on the keyboard and it is taking me forever to try to perfect it. So if i mess up i am sorry but i think youll understand the same. It will actually make me sound swiss which would be cool. So anzwazs swityerland is sooooooo amaying. So seriouslz i want to move here sooo bad. It would be hard but we should build a cabin here it would be awesome. So transfers went good. The last night i ate dinner with the saquing family which was awesome!! I gave them my password for facebook so that they could add me as a friend to see my pictures. So if any of zou saw me cruisin facebook it wasnt me so dont get nervous or anzthing. That would be verz dumb and i wouldnt do that. Oh zeah so thez also called me and told me that right next to there friend request was Jake Perkes!! What Jake zou got a facebook... no way i dont believe you!! That is too cool. Haha so i thought instead of waiting 2 years to accept you id just give you my password so you can go on if you want. [password edited out] Yeah ps... dad please edit that out and dont publish it to the thousands of people online haha. Thanks! So Jake or anyone i guess if you wanna go on there go ahead. So i have to tell yall my first impression of lugano. So we are on the train just up in these green mountains superrrr beautiful. And then all of a sudden we come around the corner and there is a ginormous lake with a city dug into the mountain. It was the most beautful thing that i think i have ever seen. Truely incredible. So this city is surrounded by green mountains and a giant lake. It is awesome. For instance.... sitting here in the library i am looking out the window and i can see the lake. So pretty much from everywhere we can see the lake or the mountains. It is awesome. The city is wayyyy rich. I have seen the nicest cars of my life here in 4 days. Masarati, ferrari, porshe, lamborghini, bentley, aston martin. You name it and ive seen it. They are everywhere!!! So the city is way nice. It is just a step above the rest. Everything here is of the nicest quality, from the shopping, to the trash cans, to the bus sytem. Things are quite elegant here. So no im gonna answer moms questions because im running out of time. By the way we use 2 different libraries here to get the full time. An hour at each for our allowed 2 hours. So im done here in a bit and then off to the other one to send pics, write president and all that good stuff. So anyways here we go.

1) What is your shirt size? Ohh.... i honestly dont know very good. But if your thinking of sending white shirts honestly im fine with white shirts. I picked up a couple in piacenza. But i think it is 15 and a half neck and longest sleeve im not sure.
2) What is your tshiet size?
Tshirt size would be L
3) What is your pant size? Think 34 waist and longest they come
4) What is your shoe size? 11

1) How is your companion? He is a stud. His name is anz. mickelsen. He is from clearfield utah. Comes from a big family. Is the only one in his family to serve a mission which is amazing. So he is a stud i have a lot of respect for him. He has been out for about a year now and actually served with Anz catalano my last companion so we have had some fun conversations haha.
2) What do you think of Lugauna? Lugauna also known as lugano is amazzing i love it.
3) What is your apartment like?

The apartment is tinyyyyyyyy. It has a bedroom, where we sleep, study, dry laundry, and have the fridge. Then we have a kitchen the size of a large shirt, and a tiny bathroom. It is nice quality but just very small. But i like it. It is in great location. In fact it is way close to the lake. Yesterdaz we went running along the lake with the sun rising it was awesome. Very beautiful and tiring haha.
4) Are you on city transportation, or do you have a bike again??

Nope we use a very expensive city pass that lets us use all buses, gondolas, and local trains. Yes there are gondolas here haha. There awesome. The bus system is amazinggg.. Super nice nad clean.
5) Tell us all about the branch??

The branch is awesome. SO i loved piacenza a ton especially the branch, but there were not a lot of families in the branch. Here in lugano it is all families!!! It is awesome. Little kids running around. They have primary, seminary everything!! It is awesome. They are super nice. It is bigger as well about 60 members that come, so i need to get to know them all!! So oh yeah i have to learn the city in one transfer because anz. mickelsen is leaving next transfer. So i have to pay attention a lot this transfer haha.

KK mom i hope i did well haha. Thanks for the questions i love them it makes it very easy to respond. So we use franks here. They are huggggge. It is about the equivalent to the dollar more or less. It is very expensive up here though. Also they have root beer here!! And dr. pepper!!! So it is amazinggg. So this is a really touristy area so we meet americans on a daily basis. It is quite fun. Okay so mom you asked about my address here in switzerland. You can mail the package here. Im not sure what will happen. I have interviews on sept. 22 so if you mail it to the mission home i'll get it before my birthday. I think that would be better. Im not sure how the mail sytem is for packages here. I might get charged for customs and stuff. So if you need to you can send it here but mission home might be better. Its up to you. So my address is Anziano Perkes, Via Del Tiglio 13A 6900, Lugano (TI), Switzerland, Svizzera If you could update my facebook with that new address saying ill be here for 6 months that would be great. Letters come here just great. So that is about it. I want to take a picture of the lake and send it at the next library. I'm running out of time so i better wrap this up. Josh congrats on denver big guyyy!! That is wayyyy cool. I am very excited. You are tooo cool. You will have lots of fun. I'm sure Buck and JZ will miss you guys lots. Mom and Nate California sounded amazingggg. Thanks for the pictures i loved them!!! You guys must of had soo much fun. Nate you surfed huntington you lucky dawg!! Dad i'll keep you in my prayers my man. Sounds like the trail is going great. Keep it up slugger! So i'm glad you got hedwig. Everything worked all right? Mom if you could back it up and then send it back ill work on another delivery from hedwig my owl. Sorry i was a bit short. I love you guys so much. Thanks for all your love and support. Lugano is amazing i love it. I'll explain more next week.

Love ya!!

Anziano Perkes!

Amazing last week here in Italy [Letter written 8-26-09]

2009-11-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

Helloooooooooooooo

How is everyone doing?! It was great to hear from the fam today thanks so much. Hey i have a question right off the bat! Wow i'm starting with a question, just throwin in all sourts of curve balls at ya. Okay so i want to know if you guys get the pics i send through the email. I've sent pics every week for a couple weeks. But i was thinking, the list of emails i put on is huge because were a big family. So i was thinking that maybe my pics weren't getting to you guys. No one has said anything about them which makes me think there not getting to you. So today i'm just gonna send them to mom, and then mom if you could forward them out. Lemme know if that works. I hope hedwig gets there this week. I hope you'll like it. But anywho lemme get started with the email here. So this week was greattttttt. First off it was blazingly hot....still. Your probably tired of hearing about how hot it is but yesterday i woke up with a sweat stache. It was so gross to wake up sweating haha. But luckily lugano will be a lottttt cooler. Okay so it amazes me how much the Lord is in his work. Cool little miracle story. So a month ago we were doing casa in casa... sorry umm in english house to house. okay anyways... we found this wonderful equadorian family. A mother and the cutest little daughter named pamela. So we taught here the first lesson, she told us that her sister in rome is a member of the church. And that she always wanted to look into the church because her sister liked it. So we got another appointment but then she stood us up. She called us and told us that her work schedule was crazyyyyyy and that she would call us in a couple of weeks when she had more time. So a month almost 2 months goes by. I honestly had forgotten about her for a bit. Well this week i was studying in the morning and all of a sudden i thought about Maria the mom. And i couldnt stop thinking about her family. So i figured, okay this is my hint, we have to go out and see them. So i saw that we had some free time that night and said okay awesome were going out there. So we knocked on the door and maria came to the door laughing. Haha i was kinda scared. But she laughed and then said, we were just talking about you guys!! And then lo and behold the sister came to the door too. The sister was visiting for the week, and Maria told her she talked with the missionaries but had lost contact with them. She said that right before we knocked they were talking about how they had to call us. So we taught them the next day and it went great. It has really helped me realize how much the Lord helps us. It was not just a coincidence thats for sure. So i hope that it will go well after i'm gone. Okay another amazing story, not quite as amazing though.... I found snickers!!!! Yeah the candy bar sorry for the let down. But that was a little miracle for me. They had them on sale at this store last wednesday so i bought 6 and ate them all this week!! Wow they were amaaaaazing. lOVE them. Okay so we had an italian man come down for the interviews of Koffi and Dodji and he didn't speak english!! So he had me translate for him it was very strange haha. But at the same time really cool. I have noticed that when i have to translate the Lord really helps me out. I find myself able to talk a lotttt better. So that went good. And then...... drumroolllll the baptism on Saturday was amazinggggg. It was truely a spiritual experience. I love those guys. So they were really happy that day and just really excited. So cool experience, i gave a talk on baptism. And i was talking and during the whole thing i was fine, but then at the end i was bearing my testimony to them in english, and i said that i knew that their Heavenly Father was happy with the things they were doing. And when i said this the spirit hit me so strong, confirming that it was true. I felt the love of Heavenly Father so much, that i started to cry. Yeah crazy huh haha. First time i've cried in public it was crazy. So i choked out the rest of my testimony, and then the baptism was done. But i was so grateful for my experience. It really helped give me a stonger purpose as a missionary. I experienced the love that God has for his children and it really strengthened my testimony. It was truely an amazing experience. So the next day in church they wore ties!! Yeah they looked so good. President in the middle of sacrament asked them to bear there testimonies. They were a little nervous but i told them i could translate for them if they needed. So they were like yes, come with us haha. So i got to translate these 2 wonderful brothers testimonies it was great. Dodji said that today was his happiest day ever. And how he was so happy to be here with his new family. It was awesome. So i'll send you a pic of baptism after. So something crazy that i'm very jealous about. Remember Anziano Motley form the mtc. Big black kid that i always hung out with that is just an amazingly funny kid. He is taking my place here in piacenza!!!! NOOO. I knew it haha. I wanted to be his companion and we were sooo close. But i'm really happy though. He'll really be a great help for koffi and Dodji. So i'll see him tomorrow which will be fun. Okay so today is crazy by the way. I leave early tomorrow so today is pretty much packing, and saying bye to people. Tonight we are eating with the saquing family who are new converts. And Alice is coming too. So that will be so awesome. I am very excited. But besides that i'm gonna be busy busy busy packing cleaning, and all the fun stuff involved in moving haha. Not too excited haha. So Mom and Nate your in California this week!!! That is wayyyy exciting!! I have never been to Cali. I have always wanted to go. Say hi to usher for me wouldja!? Mom you asked about my travel schedule for tomorrow. On transfers everyone meets in the train station in Milano. So i will go to Milano to meet my new comp and he will take me back to Lugano. We take trains, no not planes sorry mom, and the President does not come no. So it will be a hectic day that is for sure! You asked about dialects and wondering if the Lugano members will talk different. I'm sure they will. The history of italia is interesting because before they were not italia. 100's of years ago all the cities were independent. Which meens they spoke there own languages/dialects too. it wasnt until they united them all that italian became the main language. For example, people here in piacenza speak piacentino, which i've learned a bit which is fun. People in Genova speak Genovese, and in Verona, Veronese. Pretty much every city has a dialect. And lots of time it effects there italian. So i am sure that Lugano will not only have german and italian but some form of dialect. I love learning a bit because when you speak with old people you drop a line of dialect and there like... you speak my language!!!! It is so fun haha. So i'm sorry if this was a bit shorter but i have lotsssss to do today. Thanks for the emails. I am very excited to go to Lugano tomorrow. It will be quite fun. WOOOOO. So i love you guys so much and will talk to you next week!!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Perkes

Ciao Tutti Come State! [Letter written 8-19-09]

2009-11-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

Okay just wanna start off with the same start that i always do but really, this week i loved all the letters. Sorry i say that everytime but it is true! Okay so this week was awesome. First off saturday was a holiday called Ferragosto. Which meens that the whole town of Piacenza flees to the nearest large body of water. Which meens that just the missinoaries and all the hobos are left in the city. Haha so saturday is the day missinoaries clean the house all day, wow how fun right. I wanted to go out and work but it is a pretty serious thing. Sister dunaway sent us a check list about as long as a marathon. We had to dust the cielings. Dust the cielings!! I have never heard of such a thing. Lucky for me i am tall so i got the job of dusting the ceilings. So for most the day we cleaned, then we got tired and snuck out to teach a lesson to someone under house arrest which meens he is home haha. But shhh don't tell anytone. We still got all the cleaning done so were fine. So that was an interesting day. But also this whole week it has been very dead. But the Lord is still finding a way for us to teach so it is awesome. i love Being a missinoary. No joke... its the best! Okay so the update on Koffi and Dodji, they are getting baptized this saturday!!!!!! Yeah they are amazing. They are soo excited it will be aweomse. So were way busy this week preparing for that. I am so happy for them. We found them like 3 months ago and they are now worthy to be baptized and start there new lives. I love those guys. They are so humble and have such a great faith. Okay so something way fun that we did! Last pday we went to a place called ROADHOUSE GRILL!!!!!!! Pretty much it is a american restaurant that got lost here in italy. So we went there and they had everything from the peanuts to the pepsi. Anz. Catalano loved it. I got a burger and it was soooo good. It was a bacon burger that tasted just like chilis. I loved it. It was a bit expensive but we were celebrating. Now i just have to eat crackers for 2 months. no just kidding, i am learning how to budget and doing much better on the money side of things. Okay so i have started thinking in italian which is reallllly weird. I could never imagine what that would be like.... but it is weird. I love it. I am so thankful for the gift of toungues haha because without i would be way worse haha. But it is awesome. I feel like i can comfortably talk with people for the first time it is the best. I am getting to know the members so much better. I love just talking with them. I made this friend that is like 89 in the ward. She is so sweet and about 4 feet tall so were best friends. So i have a fun surprise for you mom and dad! I sent a package last week!!!! WOooohooo yeah! So i just put one small thing in there. Hedwig my usb drive! But wait, it if full of 400 of the latest and greatest pics, and a movie!! Yeah thats right i made a movie. I decided that i needed to take a day in the life of a missinoary to the next level. So i made a film called, Un giorno della vita di un missionario! You'll love it it is about 20 minutes long, includes me shaving, some fun members and some investigators as well. I hope you like it! So i think i am becoming accident prone haha. I was walking on the sidewalk and wasnt paying attention and stepped in a pot hole thing and tripped and ended up falling into rosebushes haha. Full of thorns ouch!!! So i just finally picked the last thorn out of my hand last night. I was reminded of Brooke with the sea urchin attack. So i was laughing at myself all week. So next week i'll have to tell you what else i did haha. Okay so mom you asked if i was leaving in about 3 weeks. Nopeeeee... I'm leaving next Thursday!!! Crazy huh! Next week is transfers. So wednesday i'll pack and thursday early morning i'm out! I am veryyyy excited but also a bit sad. The zone leader told me that they are teaching tonsssss in lugano so i am very excited. So this last week will be crazy with packing, saying bye to people, and the baptism! So mom my address will change. If you could update my facebook saying to not send letters till i know the new address. That would be great thanks! Mom that is soooo exciting about the camerons!!! I am sooo happy for them. They will be amazing parents. Thanks so much for there email i will have to say hi to them today. Okay so i was very ecited to hear that jake your starting up the security company! Way to go idaho! So i was laughing hard about the competition! That is too clever. And i just wanted to say that spelling Perkes with an X was my idea!! Because that is my email is mb.perx. I don't think i thought of alert with it but i remember the x for sure. And i just want to say i was so honored that some sweet person thought of Max Security!! I love it! That is my vote 100%! Haha great name according to me. Dad it was fun to hear about your case. When you wrote no one messes with my hannafords i was laughing so hard. I think some of my slang is rubbing off on you haha. So lemme know how the competition goes. I love you all so much thanks for all the love prayers and support! I hope everyything is going wwell in america. But i gotta run now. I love you guys!

Vi Voglio bene!

Anziano Max Perx

The Library is laughing at me . . . [Letter written 8-12-09]

2009-11-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

So the library is closed today haha. It got the better laugh out of me. So unfortunatly i will be a bit on the short side today because this is very pricy ouch! So i loved all the emails i got thanks so much. It sounds like you guys are all doing great. So this week was way fun. To start off i got bit by a dog!!!!!! I think i have some curse or something i keep getting attacked, first by hail and now adog. So lemme tell the story. We were at this members house doing an fhe, and there dog was outside and i was playing with the dog i thought, i guess he thought i was teasing him. When all of a sudden this little golden retriever ugly thing leaped in the air with teeth shining in the light. He latched on to my lower calf, ouchhhhh. Then i have no clue how he did it but he used his hold to make another flying leap up my leg! This time latching on to my thigh a little too high for my comfort. So this is when i assessed the situation, thought for about .1 second looking at all my options, and kicked him off of me. He came back even more angrily, but luckily this time i was well prepared with a rubber sole of my shoe, fending him off. Back BACK!! Finally he surrendered but the little jerk took a piece of my suitpants with him. So unfortunatly i have a big hole in my suit pants on my inner thigh area. Luckily you cant really tell unless i was doing yoga or something but it is still a bit of a problem here in the pants department. Luckily i didn't get hurt too much, not too much blood or flesh removed. Just a little nibble. I hope he doesn't have rabies. No just kidding. Mom please don't call president haha. Okay so later this week our ward had a talent show that was really quite fun. We had a lass active come and also an investigator. Some people sang, played instruments, and did skits. It was an amazing night just to be able to get to know the ward members better. There so sweet and nice. Okay so Josh and Brooke i recieved your letter in the mail today! Claire is sooooo cute. I loved it thank you so much. Mom i'm glad you went to Jordans without me haha. I always loved walking around looking at couches for hours haha. Mom you said i have a birthday coming up. Really?? I guess i do no way haha. okay so you said i could hint at somethings. The only thing that i can really think of is sour patch kids watermelons. Those are delicious and no one has them here! Umm besides that i really can't think of anything. You asked if money would be nice. I am happy either way. Package no money, no package no money. Just promise me that you wont spend an arm and a leg sending the package. Oh yeah... if you could send a missinoary photos of the siblings i would love that. If you can find them. but thanks i love ya! Dad i am glad you are doing well my friend. It sounds like you had a very special week. How fun a dude in a white jacket with soda no wayy. I want to buy a white suit while i'm here in italy haha. Nate the picture of you board looooooks wayyyy cool. Way to go luisa great find. I love it. In fact you can just set that aside for my coming home present thanks! No just kidding but really its awesome. I loved the pictures thanks broseph. But i'm sorry this is so short. I love you guys so much and we'll talk to you later!!!!

Ciao!

Anziano perkes

Laughing in the Library [Letter written 8-5-09]

2009-11-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

Ciao Tutti!!

Hello everyone thanks so much for the emails i lovedddd them! So first off, Mom i got your package!!!! THank you sooo much i loved it. The drink mixes were perfect we love them! We have been making fresh lemonade pomegranitaid all week!! It is so nice to have something to drink besides water. Thank you!!! And the other thing i loved... the tape!!! There were many moments that i was just busting up laughing and smiling. I love it thank you so much. First off i learned that you went to mexico!! Gramma said that you went to mexico. I think she means Pheonix but boy was i surprised when she said, your mom is leaving to mexico. I thought oh no did she dodge the draft and now she's fleeing the country. No mom don't do it! The next very funny momnet was when James was saying hi. He talks about Jelly car and then he is like... okay i have to go .... i love you........ And then in the most innocent little voice.. What's his name?? And i hear someone in the backround.... maxxxx. Haha i think he was really into jelly car when you gave him the tape. I laughed a lot very cute. Then of course Emma disrupting pokemon was very funny. I loved when little Ben was talking and he says about 3 words and then i hear kate in the backround... tell him what you got for your birthday... and then ben says in his little voice... WHAT??.... tell him what you got..... WHAT???? I rememeber he used to say it just like that. So thanks for all the people who spoke in it which i think was everyone. Actually no sorry Josh i think your part got cut out of the movie. Maybe in the deleted scense you'll make it haha. I remember near the end everyone is like... okay i have to save room for josh so bye! And then i hear a cshhh... okay max this is mom sending the package love ya! But its alright Josh you'll make the next tape. So thank you mumsy it was avery special treat to get that i loved it. So this week was real great. We had Zone Conference which was real nice. It was a bit strange because i went up and talked to my next companion! I discreetly found out some info about Lugano. it is a branch there and they use buses. They have a baptism planned for about a month after i get there which will be great! Anziano Mckilson is from utah. He is a good ole farm boy. I think we'll get a long great. Anziano Catalano was his companion as well crazy huh!? So this was very good news. It sounds like he a good ole mormon boy that will work hard. I am very excited. Anziano is a good kid and i love him to death but sometimes he has the attitude of the Pirate in the first pirates of the carribean ( when there talking about the pirates code) when he says, They are more guidelines not rules. So that is frustrating sometimes but I love him he's a good kid. I'm just trying to be a good example for him hoping that he changes a bit. I heard a talk by someone that says the best way to help someone is to just be a loving example. So i decided against being like.... okay here is what you are doing wrong and just lead by example. So i hope it helps him. it is amazing having an italian companion though. I am learning about the culture... i am learning the language sooo fast now. I find myself thinking in italian it is very cool. Sometimes i'll speak english and accidentally throw in an italian word.

Okay so i told you that i bought 2 usb drives. And i did!! I named one the vault and on hedwig. I will use one to keep all my pics and one to send pics home. So Nate can you do me a favor and resend the pictures of the cabin, you and luisa jumping, the business cards too? I can't remember far back but if you can just look back in your email and forward them to me so that i can save them. Oh yeah if i can get the pic of josh jumping too... i love that one haha. Okay so Alice is still amazing. She bore her testimony on sunday and pretty much owned the pulpit it was awesoome. She was like... if any of you don't have time to read the book of mormon read it!! because it changed my life! It was amazing. Okay so i didn't tell you but my mtc comp anziano collins is in my district!!! He got transfered here no wayyyy right? So on monday we did exchanges and he came down to Piacenza to be with me. it was the most fun and best day ever! It is really great to see him. First off we were out working and it started hailing!!! We had no idea this was coming so we didnt have umbrellas or jackets or nothing. So it starts downpouring and hailing marbles (about the size of marbles i kid you not) i looked over at Anziano Collins and said.... is this gonna stop us?! And he grinned at me and said.. no way baby! So we continued stopping everyone we could. The hail got a bit bigger and really hurt when it hit our head so we put are hands over our heads and not my knuckles are a bit bloody haha. It was sooo awesome. We stopped everyone we could find. All of them thought we were crazy out of our mind but we didn't care it was awesome. Plus before this we had been sweating a lot so it felt good. We continued to work the streets in the hail and we got 4 peoples numbers!!! Which is just unheard of from what i have seen. We got two families and 2 africans. So we were very excited. We then retired back to the house after a long amazing, and slightly painful bloody day. but we were fine... mom just our knuckles are a bit bloody but by today there fine. DOn't call presidend pleaseeeeee. So we got home that night and made pudding american style!! As it was a our 6 months of being a missinoary mark!! No way huh... crazy. Usually missinoaries burn something like a tie, but we decided that was dumb and decided to burn birthday candles on top of our pudding. So we had a little party it was tons of fun. 1/4 the way done... how scary wow! I gotta pick up my pace time is ticking! So the next morning the scambi was over... awww we got on the train to go pick up our comps when this cool muslim guy sat next to us. Me and Anziano Collins made eye contact and just both grinned knowing exactly what we were about to do. We started up a converstaion with this man, and ended up teaching him a 45 minute lesson on the train and getting a return appointment for next week. He was sincerely enterested it was awesome. I was just amazed at this couple days. It was so nice to be with another younger missioanry that is not a burned out veteran. I've decided i want nothing but young companions from here out haha. So it was an amazing day. So this last week i ran out of money and spent 2.55 euro about 3, 4 bucks on food!! I bought pasta and milk for the whole week haha. So today i have money again and i'm very exccited to go shopping for food!! So how are my salesman doing?? The summer is almost over boys!! You gotta end it strong! I remember august being a veryyyy amazing month. The joy of being done for the summer just pounding down on you haha. Don't get trunky boys! Koffi and Doddi are doing great. They wore white shirts to church on sunday and my shirts fit them great haha. I was a bit nervous it wouldnt fit but they looked great. Mom can you get me mike camerons email address? I'd love to zip him a quick hello. Mom and Dad i loved your emails, i was laughing so hard. until a woman here in the library gave me a dirty look. How embarrassing! So the 300 people you sworn to secrecy better not spill the beens haha. The saga about the bats is very humourous. Dad i can jsut picture you standing on achair swinging your towel at these bats how funny! I liked you Harry Potter analagoy dad. I think i'm neville Longbottem haha. Mom you asked about the bikes. No we didn't ship them off. One was a members and the other we put in the storage shed. We got rid of them because Anziano Catalano doesnt like bikes. So my shoes are rapdily wearing out ikes! But it is alright.. It is a bit easier to stop people when i don't have a bowling ball on my head. And AC in the apartment... that is a negatouire. We use a fan and thats it. I know che skiffo right. I found out anziano mickelson has been about for about a year. He has been in lugano for 3 transfers and will finish there 1 with me. Then i will have a new comp for 3 tranfers. (1 transfer is 6 weeks). Wow i can't believe nate and mom your going to kick it with someone that knows usher!! Get is autograph for me haha. That will be amazing i'm sure. By the way Nate you little stinker... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! TANTI aguri a te, tanti aguri a te! Okeedokee i believe that is it for what i have to say. Thank you all so much for your love and support!! Miss ya!

Love ya!!

Anziano Max the preacher Perkes

PS.... can someone tell me Kate's email address. I just noticed i don't have it on this list. Thanks love ya!

Bon Giorno Tutti! [Letter written 7-30-09]

2009-11-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

Bon Giorno Tutti!

Come state?! Ho ricevuto il vostro email e ero molto contento! I ho una bella famiglia! Grazie mille. Quindi, questa settimana era molto bene. Abbiamo insegnato un saco di lezione. Specialmente africani. Ci sono tonti Africani qui in Piacenza. Piacenza dovrebbe essere Sud Africa! I'm just kidding haha. I wanted to see you if you thought i accidently wrote the whole email in italian. Got ya!! How is everyone!!!! Thanks so much for the emails and mom the pictures of lugano were amazing! Wow that place is beautiful! How exciting! Okay so this week was way good. First off we don't use bikes anymore in piacenza. I was quite sad to let my bike go. Even with all the repair problems theres just something fun about cruising around town with a helmet the size of africa on my head and all the people laughing at us. Anziano catalano doesn't know how to bike so naturally we had to switch to buses. Ew so far i'm not a big fan of the busses. The problem is there not very reliable. So pretty much we lost the bikes and now we walk everywhere! It is much more tireing and i feel like i'm wasting time when it takes 20 minutes to walk to an appointment when it used to take like 3 minutes biking. So now we have to space our appointemnts out more especiually if there far away to alow walk and bus time to get there. I'm not a big fan. But it is also fun making friends with all the old ladies that cruise the buss's around all day. I just walk up to them and say, sorry mam i know i'm short and they start bustin up laughing. No your not your tall!! Then by the end of the bus ride there like... bye!! Say hi to your mother for me okay!! By maxi! Haha there very sweet old ladies. All of them are veryyy catholic but still fun to talk to. So the heat here in piacenza is still blazing down on us. Yesterday it was 104 degreees!!!! And get this it is humid here! It was like 80-100 percent humidity as well. So as you can imagine i was sweating like a horse these past couple days. You walk out of the house and it like knocks your breath out. So i just want to tell you guys how hardddddd it is to keep this whole lugano thing a secret!! Haha it is amazingly hard! LUGANOOOOO AGHHH... okay i feel a bit better. The other day we were with other missionaries because they had to come down to piacenza to get there permesso di sogiorno (living permit) and i was talking to this awesome kid that was under me in the mtc and i was like... when you came in where did you want to serve. And he was like... ohhh i wanted to go to luganooo so bad haha. And i was like... um uh hmm ughh umm yeah.... that would be nice. But anyways let's talk about something else now haha. And then i was joking around with Elder Shill, (elder in the district who is awesome, the one in the pic of us sitting down the day we biked up into the mountains to go to the cheese factory) and anyways... i was jokingh that i was going to go south the next transfer, and he was like... haha now that you say that your going to go to lugano next transfer (because lugano is the most north in the mission) and i was like... nooo way that would be unreal haha. The whole time i'm just smerking in my head woo hoo lugano. So i feel like i'm clark kent sometimes. I just want to grab some random pedestrian and say HEY I'M SUPERMAN!!! and run away smiling, haha i told someone! So cultural thing. Here in Italy it is sometimes very popular for people to have english written on there shirts because america is cooool. But sometimes i see shirts that just make me laugh here is an example. "I love boy" or "I love party". They just make me laugh because i can just picture some italian shirt designer being like... oh i knowwww i love party! That's it so brilliant, when little does he know he is be grammaticly falssse. And then this one is too funny. I saw a big billboard that was in italian and said basically come to english class, learn english and all that. Then in big bold letters it said in english, "Learn and Practise English!" If i'm not mistaken i'm pretty sure practice is spelled wrong. I'm not sure i can't really spell anymore haha. Okay so the update on Francesca. She is M.I.A. For about 3 weeks we havent seen or talked with her. Her daughter says she is in southern italy, but i'm not sure if that is true. So i hope she actually is and is planning on returning sometime soon. It is sad to see people progress and then just change all of a sudden. I think that is why a mission is hard. Not because of the walking and hotness but because the people you love, don't accept the gospel. Anyways Koffi and Doddi are doing great. We have reset there baptismal date to August 22nd and are seeing them 2 times a week to help them prepare. We just finished teaching them the lessons, and commandemtns and they have accepted them all and are living them. The only problem is getting them to church. Weere trying to get the members to take turns picking them up but there kind of dragging there feet a bit. But they are doing great. We asked them to wear shirt and ties to church and they told us they didn't have any so i'm giving two of my shirts to them (as Catalano's would be a bit big on them haha) and two of my ties. They are verry funny. Alice is doing great. The branch is preparing to give her a calling now. I know she will do great in whatever she does! So anyone who has served a mission will know this but as a missionary we see very strange things sometimes usually on a daily basis. Yesterday we were waitin for this bus and this very strange man came up to me with no teeth and said in broken english. Let me borrow your pen. So i gave him my pen and a pieace of paper. He wrote on it THE EARTH HAS A ROTATION. Then he looked at me and said why? And i wanted to assure him that i was a missionary and not some first place science fair boy on the way home from a hard day in the lab. He then told me about Isacc Newton gave me the pen back and continued walking down the street to stop some other poor person to lecture them about Isaac Newton. So there are very many strange things that happen to us on a daily basis like this. Maybe i'll start a book someday. So this friday we have zone conference yay! So mom i think you said you sent a package. I should get it on friday. I was talking with the zone leader and he told me that my companion in Lugano is named Anziano Mickelson (spelling check) and he says he is a stud. I guess there from the same group in the mtc but he says he is wayyy cool. And he works really hard. I guess there also teaching 20 lessons a week and seeing a lot of blessings up in the alps there. So that was very exciting news. I am very excited. The weird thing is i will see him on friday. I asked the assistant about it and he told me i would have to talk with him and give him the "look" meening hey buddy see you in a month look haha. So i'll have to go say hi to him on friday. Anziano Catalano is doing good. He continues to amaze me with his uniqueness haha. He is a very special person. I am very grateful for him. My italian is really improving. I can pretty much understyand people it is aweosme. He hates making calls so i make all the calls and i love it. Because i actually am talking in italian!! For pdays we don't really do much which is a bummer. The first day i tried to get him to want to go to this castle and he was like... no thanks i'm staying inside, you can go if you really want to. So as you can guess i ended up choosing not to go haha. But it is also nice to be able to relax and kind of rest up for the rest of the week. So i was reading the scriptures this morning and found a fun spiritual thought for ya'll. I know crazy right. As much as you guys probably don't think i do study the scriptures haha. I think this is my first spiritual thought sending home haha. I just don't want to bore you but this one was pretty cool. So in mosiah 8:3, it talks about Ammon telling the people of Limhi about what king benjamin said. And it struck me that this was home teaching! Ammon was a 100% home teacher. I could just picture him there with the ensign in his pouch, pulling it out and being like... okay king the message of the month is from king benjamin. So if you havent done you home teaching do it! Okay so new idea that i quite like. I am going to buy a usb flash drive for pictures. They make like 4 gig and 8 gig usb drives that are pretty cheap. So i was thinking it would be soooo much easier to just put my pictures on that to send home so i'll let you know. I have to check them out at the store next week. But wow i'm running out of time. Okay so josh i loved your email your story about James was so cute. Thats so cool i'm very proud of him. Thanks for the sweet little picture of Claire! She looks like a little princess! I can't wait to meet her. Dad i was laughing so hard about your facebook exspereince. It sounds like you are quite the big man on campus with all the people asking to be friends. Oh and by the way we can't be friends. It would break all the violations of the son father codes in the use of facebook. Sorry. Although you do have my pass word so i guess you could log on and friend yourself. Dang! I also laughed very hard about your Gomer Pyle HEY!! I could just picture you saying hey to the judge haha how funny. Mom thanks sso much for the emails it sounds like you had a very busy week. My advice would be to sell the truck and use the busses haha no i'm just kidding. I'm sorry to hear about the computer dying that is no fun. Please don't send me that email haha. But anywho i really better be running. Nate sorry to hear that your sick my friend hoep you get better! Piacenza is great and i love you all times a billion!!

CIAO!!

Love Anziano Perkes!

Hellllo from Piacenzzzzzza [Letter written 7-22-09]

2009-11-27T09:21:00.000-08:00

Ciao Tutti!!

This week has been very intense. Thanks for all the letters and pictures! I love them everyweek. it is so fun to open my email box to a bunch of emails i can't help but just not smile. Okay so first offff.... LUISA!!! Happy birthday! I hope my dear brother nate wowed you with something cool. If he didn't go out to town and buy something big haha. And your triathlon sounded aweomse. Wow i am very impressed you go girl! So this week in Piacenza has beeeeeen very hot! Oh my i am sweating like a pig. Get this.... i wake up shower, and by the time i'm brushing my teeth 10 minutes later i have a sweat stash haha. Gross huh?? So i heard Lugan is a bit less hot being up in the alps and all. Okay mom i love when you type up questions so here we go!

1) How is your new Italian companion? What is his story? How long has he been a member? What kind of family does he come from? Wherebouts in Italy is he from? Is he hard working and wonderful?

Okay i'm gonna split this up into abc's ok. So.... A.) My new companions name is Anziano Catalano. I picked him up on thursday and he's been here ever since. Things are going great here in piacenza with him. We haven't talked english since thursday so i've had a constant head ache for a week but i'm sure it will go away. They other night i was writing in my journal when i looked down and noticed that half way into it i had slipped into italian haha. So i guess something is startin to tick in my little ole brain of mine. B.) He is 24 and he is from Polermo Sicilia, i think sicily in english. He is very short haha and a bit filled out. He was a computer hacker before the mission crazy huh! C.) He has been a member his whole life. D.) He has one brother and two parents. All members seem pretty cool from the picture i saw. E.) Palermo the soccor ball of italy haha. F.) Haha if i had to use one word to descirbe my wonderful new companion it would be "unique" haha. He is just a interesting character. I don't know if it is the italian culture or just him. I think the best way to describe this would be with a story haha. So i spend like the whole last 4 hours of me and Anziano Ransom's time together cleaning!! I cleaned like crazy because i wanted my new comp to come home to a clean home. Anziano Catalano walks in and the first thing he says is Che Sciffo which meens how gross. He then unpacked his suitcase and pulled out a vacuum!!! A vacuum! This kid has been lugging around a vacuum with him his whole mission! Gotta be crazy. So i just sat around reading the book of mormon while he fumigated the house haha. But he's a good kid. He goes home in two transfers. But he's a funny kid. I'll survive a transfer i think. One thing that is amazingggg is always speaking italian. I am oh soooo grateful to be able to speak italian always. So i love him he's helping me out a lot.

2) When do you get to go to Switzerland to start filling out the paperwork? What a trip for you to be able to check it out before you pull up your routes and head out.

So i actually don't go to switzerland but i went on monday to the swiss consolate in downtown milano for my visa. It was way fun. They had pictures of switzerland and from what i can tell it looks beautiful

3) Are there misionaries in Swizterland now? What news do you hear from them as to the area, etc?

Yes there are two missionaries in Lugano. The zone leader told me the work is really good there and they have been really busy with teaching and baptisms and the AP told me that the branch is really solid there as well. So i'm very excited. Dad you were talking about being seperated from the rest of the mission its funny you say that because when President called me (hope i didnt already tell you this) he explained about how he only sent really obbedient missionaries there and how it is seperated from the rest of the mission and you have to be a very good example in the city, and how he had great confidence in me. Boy was i nervous when he told me that. It was kinda of a if you let me down i'll break your knee caps mafia style haha no just kidding but it was kinda overwhelming news haha. The whole visa application was in German i had to have the lady there translate for me haha. it was very embarrassing. And then you think that was enough wait till you see my visa picture haha. You'll love it. I used a photobooth thing and i sat down, and the picture was just of my chest because i'm too tall so in the midst of trying to get myself situated it took the picture haha. You'll like it.

3) How is Alice doing? Was her confirmation on Suinday wonderful?

Alice is doing great her confermation was awesome. The whole branch loves her and has just taken her into there arms.

4) His is Dodi coming along? Wouldn't it be so wonderful if you were able to get Dodi and his cousin to join the church before you leave?

So Koffi and Doddi are doing great. We've been getting them rides for church. We taught them tithing yesterday and they accepted. We re schedlued there baptismal date for august 22 the week before i leave. So we are really working with them to prepare. They said they have finally stopped drinking coffee so that is awesome. They are great i can't wait to see them get baptized.

Okay so that was it for the questions now lemme see if i missed anything. So it sounds like HP was fun. Thanks for the update it is always fun to hear a little piece of the world. Nate thanks for the photos my man... that jump was nutsssss. You couldn't of landed that haha. NON CI CREDO! by the way the video you tryed to send didn't work. Jake it looks like your loving the boatin life my friend. I saw those shades!! Are they oakleys! But they family looks awesome. dad it sounds like your very busy lately i'm sorry but i'm sure your tearin it up. Mom thanks for the pics of portsmouth. I really like the tug boat one. But anywho i can't really think of anything else. Oh yeah... PS.. if someone is awake could they send me a picture of LUGANO? I would love that. I'll be on for another 10 minutes! But i love you all thanks soooo much!!!

Vi Voglio Bene!

Ciaooo

Anziano perkes

One Word says it all: WOW!!! [Letter written 7-15-09]

2009-11-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

Okay so this has been an amazing and crazyyyyy week.

So lets start off with the BAPTISM!! Wooo. So it was pretty much amazing and made my first 2 transfers and life. Alice got there and she was just beeeeeming! First off we did it in a little tub at a members house out in the country. So we sang a song, then we both hopped in the font. Water... no joke... was up to my knees! Haha i think i recieved some extra back strength for the baptism because i had to bend down far. So Alice the whole time just beeming i said, Maria Alice Monteiro Almeida, essendo stato incaricato da Gesu Cristo Io ti battezzo nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo, Amen. It was awesome. So after we changed she bore her testimony aand boy was the spirit just drenching us. She is amazing. She talked about hor her life was in a despair, and then 2 angels knocked on her door and changed her life. She was crying the whole time it was really amazing. And also pretty much the whole branch was there at her baptism supporting and loving her. It also happened to be her birthday that day so we sang her happy birthday and ate cake after!! Okay i have to kinda skip along because i have a lot to reveal haha. So This last week was awesome. Anziano Ransom left last Monday. I'm very tired this week. Sending someone home is very draining haha, with packing cleaning, saying bye to 100's of people. So he left on monday and since then i have been in Reggio Emilia a neighboring area rolling the threesome here. So Tuesday night was transfer calls and i got a call, Anziano Perkes your new companion is Anziano Catalano! Yes you guessed it.... HE IS ITALIAN!!!! Yippeee hahahaha. So like a week ago i was praying to help me do SYL (speaking italian with comp) and the Lord is sending an Italian!! So pretty much bye bye english language...yessss. I am soooo excited he is from Sicily. I go to pick him up tomorrow! So another crazy story. Yesterday i got a call from President..... bum bum bum. He was like... Anziano perkes i have some news for you. Oh boy i totally freaked out haha. So it turns out this next transfer i am going to get transfered to Lugano!!!!!!!!!!!!! That probably means nothing but let me explain. Lugano is 100% switzerland. We have one city in our mission that is across the border and i guess most people speak italian still. It is way up in the alps of Switzerland!! I am sooooo stinkin excited. The reason why he is telling me is because i need to get a visa for there because its a different country and i'll need to be making some trips this next transfer to work on my papers. So wow that was some news huh?? I'm going to the alps in another country!! I have heard that is is just amazing there. I also know that i'll stay there for 4 transfers (6 months). So it is kind of strange knowing i'm getting transfered. It surprisignly has motivated me because i want to leave it all on the court here in Piacenza so i'm way stoked. So it was quite the week this week wow! Only problem is i can't tell anyone but you guys so i am nearly exploding with this giant secret haha. AGHHH LUGANO!! Haha okay i feel better now. You guys should look it up lemme know how it looks haha. So that in a nutshell was my week! Thanks all for the emails i loved them. The pictures of Ed and Beth i loved. They look amazing. How fun for our little ward. So BROOOOOKE!!! Your probably giving birth right now!! hOW IS is my cute little Claire! That is too fun. I'll be praying for you! Haha dad i'm sorry i couldn't come to Harry potter with you. You'll have to let me know how it was haha. Jake and Nate your sports club thing sounds amazing. That is too fun. Take a boat our for alright! Say hi to ya mutha for me ight? Buck and JAYZ!!!! Your having a boy!! Jack i like that name. I think Max might be a bit more manly but Jack is a close second haha! Dad it sounds like your case was way intense. Slap your boss from me okay haha he sounds like a bum. That is too fun you won you stud you! Oh yeah dad i actually don't have Anziano Ransom's phone or address haha.. oops. But i do have his email. Not with me but at home. I think it is curtisransom@gmail.com Don't qoute me on that one though. He should be home now, he's probably sleepin though. So it sounds like life is going great! Thanks for all the emails i loved them. Oh yeah i forgot! Today we went to a cheese factory!! It was soooo sweet. Saw the complete process of Parmegianno made. YUMMY! But anywho i should be going i have a long day today here in Reggio.

Love ya'll!!

Anziano Perkes

Ciao ciao ciao [Letter written 7-8-09]

2009-11-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

Buenos dios!

hello my great family thank you alll so much for the letters they were wonderful! I love all the photos that you sent! Keep them coming i love them. Okay so this last week was very awesome. Last pday after emailing we got the chance to go bowling! It was so fun. We were the only people there so we played a quick 2 games. It reminded me of the good ole sellin days of bowling. I totally beat Anziano Ransom too. They asked for our names and on the screen it said, Lorenzo and Peres haha. So i guess we failed the italian heritage test. They don't use K's here so perkes kinda gives me away every time haha. They are always like.. Anziano Perhezz? Okay so we had interviews this week and Nate and Luisa I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!!! Thank you guys so much your the best i loved it so much! The CD's were perfect!!! The candy was also much appreciated! You guys are too kind thank you so much. So the other day i found this little asian shop and they sell tammarin and passion fruit drinks! So naturally we tried them and there amazing. Anziano Ransom has also had passion fruit so we love getting them. Okay so funny story. We were eating at Alice's house and she cooked viel, and it was amazing. But i was like... i think this is baby cow. So i tried to ask her what kind of meet it was and i said, Che tipo di cane e questo? Which meens what type of DOG is this!! Meet is Carne and not cane. So she started laughing like crazy, she loves when i mess up like this she is very funny. So we all laughed about it over some lovely lunch. Ok so i have some rather dreadful news. I got Bocci'd!!! NOOOOO. That meens some old lady kissed my cheek. I told you before that i never wanted to get bocci'd haha. We just met her and she looked at me and was like... YOUR TALL, stood on her tip toes grabbed my hair and planted one right on me making me bend way over. She had my hair i couldn't excape! Haha it was rather funny, Anziano Ransom said i made quite the face. So we met a man last night name Hugo who works for the CIA. We thought he was crazy at first, but then he turned out to be a genius! He speaks 7 languages and was telling us all about the war and stuff, things you don't see on tv, and then at the end he was like... i probably told you guys too much haha. I asked him what he did for the CIA, and he was like... that is classified. I love when people say that! So cool! So mom i'm going into the CIA when i get home.. sorry! No just kidding. Dad your jury duty sounded so much fun. I love the story of your nun that was there. It reminded me of the movie runaway jury a bit. Is it like that or is that dramatized? I could just picture you sitting there taking down notes about all these crazy hicks, gangsters, and nuns. Ed and Beth sound amazing! What a family! YOu have to send a pic of there baptism to me! Josh i loved your geocache adventures haha your nerds.. .no i'm just kidding it actually sounds very fun. How cool is that, so many people do it. I could just picture matt and james yelling MUGGLES!! Haha what funny kids. Mom thanks so much for the pictures they were great. How fun 4th of july. Here in Piacenza, 4th of July is there biggest holiday. No connection to america at all but they pretty much turn the whole of down town into a giant market it was amazing. I tried taking pictures and it was really hard to capture the grandness of it. By the way mom the reason why my pictures are blurry i think is because i shrink them when i send them, or else it takes a bit longer. Therefore when you blow them up as a screen saver it makes them quite blurry. I'll send one full size, lemme know how it looks compared to the others. Mom thanks so much for brandons email! And yes tyler emailed me back!! he sounds like he is doing great! They have a baptism in 2 weeks. I'm going to email a quick email to brandon today. So Alice....drumroll....... is amazing. Sorry i think you guys already knew that. So she is getting baptized tonight at 8!! The interview went great and she is good to go! We were setting up the program with her and we usually try to have members do the baptism to create bonds, so were like... yeah who do you want to do the baptism, harold can, fratello Bissi, Presidente Maldarizzi, Lorenzo, and she just blurted out. PERKES! So i have the honor of baptizing her tonight! I am very excited, honored and nervous haha. It is in italian so i have to memorize it today. I'm afraid i'll be like... i baptize you for Alice, who is dead or something. I haven't seen a normal baptism for ever!! Haha so it will be awesome. She is very excited. Today is her birthday so were going to call her and sing to her, and then give her acake tonight. So i'll make sure to take lots of pics for you next week, and mom i'll hold my breath. Oh yeah mom, Katherine Alice's daughter is 1. Her husband left her when she became pregnant. Alice has had a very hard life, consisting of overcoming cancer, being hit by a car 5 months ago, brreaking her hip and ribs, and being a single mom. But she is the happiest person i've met truely an example for me. She is from Capo verde which is off the coast of Africa, but she speaks portoguese. Buck you should call her and be like... HI!!! In portoguese of course haha. So I have to hurry today because we have to go fill up the pool and set up chairs, (no font here in piacenza). Nate were using a rubber pool like the ones you used in Africa. But thank you all so much and i hope i didn't forget anything!!

Love ya!!

Anziano Perkes

Bon Joviii! . . . [Letter written 7-1-09]

2009-11-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Bon Jovi my superstar family!

So i got lots of emails today with lots of pictures!! Thank ya'll soooo much i loved them. Okay so first off real quick. So here in italian we have Bouna Mattina, Bon Giorno, and bouna Sera. All meening good morning afternoon and night. So i figured with all the "Bon's" going around i'd throw in a Bon Jovi. Sadly no one has responded back yet. I threw a couple out via bike but sadly got no bon jovi's in reply. Caspito (it happens). Okay so first off... we'll start off with the most important. I heard Micheal jackson died what a shame. One less fruit on the giant tree of fruits. Everyone here is very sad, i'm not quite sure why he was rather bizzarre. I'm sure they had a grand welcoming party whever he went, not quite sure where the plan of salvation and him match up... no just kidding. It's funny though because in tribute all the cars have been blasting thrillller. So it has been a musical week that is for sure. Okay third episode on THE BIKES. My tire that i had to pump up everymorning started becoming worse so i bought a new tire and it is working marvelously. Anziano ransoms bike chain broke in half so for a day he held on to my backpack as i gave him a ride haha. he was on his bike and me on mine, but i guess you could say it was like a tow truck haha. So a couple of ya'll have been asking what we do on pdays down here so lemme tell ya. Nate you were asking. We have pday all day until 6 at night. Sometimes we are naughty and sneak in a lesson in the morning though shh don't tell anyone. We usually try not to but if someone is like hey.. come by tomorrow were just like... umm okay! So the past couple pdays we hadn't been doing really anything. Maybe just seeing one church and staying inside against my protest haha. So last pday i was like lets go go go, so we went out behind out apartment in a soccer field and played some frisbee and it was actually really fun. Then there were like 10 old men playing bocci ball (the game we played on the beach). So we watched them and talked with them for a bit. This Pday is Anziano Ransoms 2nd last so we decided we should do something crazy and fun and take advantage of being in Italy. So this morning we caught a bus to a town about an hour and half away called "Bobbio". Piacenza is not mountainy but if you go outside the city at the very west of our area it starts getting quite mountaineuos (sp). So Bobbio is right on the edge of our area, way up in the mountains. So this morning we grabbed breakfast out, consisting of a wondeful briosche with chocolate, and a Fococcia Dolce. Which is faccacia bread made into a dessert with sugarize carmel stuff. It was amazing. Then we went up there, and the town was gorgeuos. The town is famous for having this bridge that dates back to the roman empire. You'll see a picture of the bridge that i send. So we hung out there, even went on a little hike up this fun hill, and found some fresh plums, and had a great lunch on a mountain top. Then we came back and now were emailing. Bobbio reminded me of the war of the buttons community complete with farmers driving there tractors on the small streets. It was so fun. Then we got some faccacia bread pizza which was amaaaaazing! People use faccacia bread for a lot of stuff here. It is amazing. Mom its like that bread with the salt that you buy but the real deal. So today were going to go shopping after, make some brownies and take them to Alice! Nate i have a question. We met with this african on a bench the other day and taught him and asked him to say the prayer. Halfway through the prayer he stopped and was like... you guys aren't doing it right. Everytime i say in the name of Jesus you say amen! So then were like... um okay and he bagan every sentence with in the name of jesus. So we were sitting there on a bench chanting amen with this crazy african friend of ours. Did people in Africa pray like that? Haha we love our friend Julius. So quick update on the investigators. Alice has her interview this weekend and if everything goes well she will be baptized a week from today!!!!! She is so excited. She shared with us yesterday how she is so excited to be baptized. She compared her self to a little school girl waiting for her birthday or something. So we are going to take her brownies today for her 1 week countdown celebration. Were having some problems with our other start investigators. Francesca is still amazing, but we met with her and we werent quite sure she was understanding everything because she kinda has ADD, not in a mean way but like... she just is sooo energetic and we weren't sure if she was listening as much as we would like. So we kind of tested her understanding asking her about the restoration and she really didn't remember much. Then she shared that she thought Heavenly Father was a spirit, so she is still going well but we kind of need to slow it down and explain some things. So her baptismal date has been moved back, because they have to live the word of wisdom for a month and we need to make a foundation with her before teaching it. She comes to church pretty much everysunday but branch president is big on making sure they understand, which is awesome. He is way cool. And then Koffi and Doddi. They are amazing and are doing great but they just have the hardest time coming to church. They haven't come for 2 weeks now. the first time they said they missed the bus but this last sunday they said they just went to their church in their town. So we are going to teach them about the importance of coming to church. But besides that work is going well. Still teaching lots lots. This next 2 weeks will be nuts however. This week we have interviews with president tommorrow in milano, then i'm doing an exchange with the zone leaders in milano, then next week we have Alice's baptism and Then Anziano Ransom is going home. So it will be a bit hectic this next couple weeks. Josh I loved your letter split into the three sections. Your facebook dilemma sounds quite serious. I would go ahead and accept all the friend requests as long as there not wierdos. I have like 300 friends, and i barely know half of them. If you ignore though, they probably wont even notice, its not like they get a note saying, Joshua Perkes hates you, better luck next time, thanks for playing! Matt and James sounded very cute in the lockers and i laughed very hard at your graduation jump. You goofy guy haha. It was hilarious. Mom thank you so much for tylers email. here is Sister Libe's address for you haha. She would love getting a postcard or something. "Libe Carla, Via borghetto, 99, 29100 Piacenza (PC) Italia" It will have to be in italian though, unless you want to write in english and when we go over i'll translate it for her. In answer to some of your questions. Anziano Ransom is not touring, just going straight home. Yes i do remember going to the hatshell. How fun you will have a blast. That is weird the weather is cold. It is july now and this is the hottest month in italy. I might die, it has been very hot lately. Oh and by the way KATEEEE HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! I think it is also BABY NATE'S!! Hope ya'll have a happy happy birthday. Jake i got your letter my friend thanks so much i loved it. julia sounds so cute give that stinker a hug for me. Mom the pic of the boston temple, regular size should workd fine. By the way your pics of nauvoo were great i loved them. The family looks great. Dad the pics worked just fine and i have lots more space so keep them comin tiger! Dad it sounds like you are very busy with your cases how fun. It was fun to hear about some of the "nut cases" you have to deal with.. no pun intended there. Mom said you were watching Mall Cop haha. That made me laught thinking of you watching that movie, going and why did max like this movie?? Nate thanks for the pics and email my friend. You are the bom. Your guys scooter looks a bit like mine but BETTER!! It looks very fun. Luisa were you wearing a helmet young woman?? If you look in the missionary hand book on page 34 it says always wear a helmet haha just kidding. The business card looks great nate. I'd buy your photos for sure. Tomorrow i should get ya'lls package so i'll write next week for sure about how much i loved it. That humming bird picture was amazing i loved it. But hey family that is all i can think of writing but thank you so much for the letters. This week was amazing and very busy. I'll send some pics in a bit!!

Love ya!

Anziano Perkes

AMAZING!

2009-06-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello, wonderful family!

This last week was . . . I'll let you guess the word I'm going to use . . . yes, amazing. I know I say that every week but they all have really been amazing. Truly amazing.

Okay, so I'll do a quick update on the peeps and then tell you a bit more about Italy and things we do. I've realized I don't talk much about our day to day activities and about Italy much, so I'll try to include those in here.

So Alice is doing great. She is definitly our star investigator. We taught her the Sabbath Day and she was like . . . yeah the Sabbath Day is sacred. For the past 10 years I haven't done shopping on Sunday. She even cooks extra Saturday night so that she can just eat left overs on Sunday, thus focusing more on the Lord and her beautiful daughter. Imagine this . . . every lesson you teach someone they already know and add more insight than you have thought of. BAM that is Alice for you. She is just so cool, not in a arrogant way of I'm so cool but a very humble way. She has that DESIRE. So she has been living the Word of Wisdom for 2 weeks now. She says the head aches went away and she feels wonderful. She had a friend visit her and was like . . . let's have some coffee and she was like . . . sorry, I don't have any. I guess her friend was just blown away . . . you don't drink coffee any more why not?! And Alice was just like . . . I don't; enough said. Haha, what a champ. We are going to see her tonight for a FHE at the Saquings house for dinnerrrr so good, yeah!

We saw Francesca and invited her to be baptized and she accepted right away!! She was way happy. We haven't taught her the Word of Wisdom yet though so we need to teach her that. She shouldn't have any problems with it.

Koffi and Doddi are doing great. They weren't able to come to church because the bus schedule was messed up. The hard thing is they live like 40 minutes outside the city and on Sundays the buses come irregular times. So they went down and waited for like an hour and no bus came. Koffi asked if we could move the baptism back a bit, because he said . . . I know that this is something very sacred and I want to be fully prepared. I don't want to rush it. Which was actually good because we had to move it back because here in Italy they have to come to church 4 times, preferably in a row. That way people don't like baptize someone in a week and have them become inactive a month later.

It's way cool, Mission President has a big push on converting life long members. He gave a great talk in zone conference yesterday. He was like . . . what do we want for our investigators? And a bunch of gomer missionaries were like . . . To read! To have faith! To get baptized! The whole time I was sittin there I was like . . . no, to go to the Celestial Kingdom and then President was like . . . to receive exaltation! We have to have a goal further than their baptismal date! I love it; it was way powerful talk.

So here in Italy they have something called colpo daria that I am learning about. We had a branch council meeting and it was stinkin hot and I was like . . . can we crack a window open in here! And everyone was like . . . colpo daria, anziano! So out here in Italy a lot of people have funny superstitions. In fact, Lorenzo Snow who served his mission in this area always talked about the superstitions of the people. But anyways they beleive that wind blowing on the back of your neck will make you sick and potentially kill you. They even give kids vaccinations for this stuff!! They also believe that if you drink cold water when its hot it will like kill you, haha. So this week I have been worrying a lot about colpo daria, as I noticed that I often have wind blowing on the back of my neck. So if I die, colpo daria did the trick!

Okay they have something called Bocci here, just like in France Josh! It is where everyone kisses each other's cheeks. It is as common as a hand shake here. I have been talking to other missionaries and they're like . . . sometimes it's impossible, they just grab you! Well, I am proud to say I have not had the strike of the Bocci yet! I'm too tall, they can't get me, haha. This old lady went in for the strike with me and I just stood tall and she was like, hey, what are you doing? HAha, I have a goal to make it my whole mission without getting attacked. Other elders say its impossible but I think I can do it.

So here when we do door to door, it is more like call box to call box. There aren't any neighborhoods here like in America. They are all multi family homes, or apartment buildings. So we have to stand out at the gate and press this button and then they come on saying . . . what!? So a lot of our pitch is done through a box, and sometimes we're lucky to get in the building and then go door to door. But the other day we met this Italian surfer dude through the box and he was like . . . (surfer voice) missionaries?? . . . . . ahhhh, tranquilooo (tranquil) ma, no grazie. It sounds dumb but it made us laugh a lot. Just imagine some surfer bum saying that we're tranquil, haha.

Okay, so we had this FHE on Monday with this awesome lady from the branch, with like 5 non members there. She had us over and she was like . . . Aanziani, I made tacos!!! So we had American-style tacos and it was very fun. No one else knew what they were; it was fun as we had to explain how to assemble the taco.

Okay, so back to zone conference. We had it yesterday and it was amazing. Nate and Luisa I didn't get your package nor your's Mom, but we have interviews next Thursday where they also bring the packages from the mission home, so I'm hoping that they will get there by then. Thank you guys soo much; you're too sweet to send those. Zone conference was way fun.

Sister Dunaway decided she wanted to read us a childrens book in Italian, and boy was I surprised when she pulled out Librabry Lion!! So congrats Kevin: your book has made it all the way to the children here in Italy! It was very fun to see it in Italian and hear the story again. Tell the Hawkes hi!! They are an amazing family; I miss them.

So get this... President is giving his last talk, we've been sitting there for about 4 ish hours so i'm startin to get a bit tired when all of a sudden president is like... and now we will hear the testimony of Anziano Perkes!! What!! So out of the blue i had to go up in front of the whole zone and bear my testimony on the spot. It was good i was lucky enough not to trip over my words. When i sat down Anziano Ransom said that he's never seen him do that, so maybe he knew that i needed to get up and stretch a bit so i didn't die so it was really a hidden blessing, but still scary. So mom you asked if everyone else was teaching lots. All i know is what the Zone leaders told my companion but i guess other people teach a lot too, i guess the zone leaders said that they ap's loved us because we were the only ones consistintly hitting 20 lessons a week. So honesly i don't know. I'm sure everyone is teaching lots, italy is amazing. it's crazy too because i swear every day we ask ourselves... man what have we done to get these lessons and these amazing investigators. So the bottem line is we have been blessed a lotttt. Mom you were asking about my bike... yes it is very much a lemon haha. In fact i broke it again this week. Somehting with the gear changer. Now i can't peddle backwards or change gears or the chain dies haha. So it has been quite the adventure. I figure i'll open a bike shop someday because of all my practice fixing this bike. Mom i'm sorry to hear some of my pictures are blurry. I'm sure my camera is fine. I can't lie i havent been using the viewfinder hold my breath trick you talked about haha. I'll try it out and see if it is better. Someone in the branch told me transformers 2 comes out this week so that will be fun your you all. I remember the summer days when we'd all go hit up the movies. I'm surprised how modern italy is. I kind of expected to be secluded from the world hear but i hear about movies and all the works including obama. People love to ask us about him. I hear he is doing good stuff. How's the crisis? Everyone talks about it out here. Is it really bad right now? jake and Kate were you able to sell the house yet? I'm glad dad you liked the fathers day over the pulpit surprise. Mom says you were beat red so that makes me happy. My goal was to embarass you just a bit haha sorry! I hope you get bettter and happy Fathers day to all of you guys! Mom thanks so much for sendin a package out, that will be very fun to get. Sour patch kids and crystral light I can't wait oh boy! They don't have either of those here so it will be very fun. I should get it next thursday i hope. Nate and Luisa sorry to hear about your little run in with the cops. That sounds unfortunate. I had very similar expereience driving on campus at byu with my scooter. Thanks so much for the package you guys sent. I hope to get it on thursday as well so that will be fun. Nate your business cards are amazing!!! They are truely cool i loved them. Everyone i opened i was like... wowwwww. I loved them it was very fun to see them. Oh yeah an announcement to the fam, i love getting pictures it is very fun. Even if it is just a picture of you in front of burger king or something that would seem boring, i'd love it. Oh yeah mom and dad how is mark denniss doing? for some reason the other day i just randomly thought of him and wanted to make sure he was doing alright. And also how is my buddy Q doing? Tell them i say hello! So Italian is coming along all right haha. I understand more and more every day but speaking is the hard part still but i know if i study hard i'll get it down. My buddy Tyler Mcintosh is leaving the mtc in a week for russia so that will be way fun. i've been able to keep in touch with him which has been way fun. Anziano Ransom says hi. He is doing good. he only has 2 ish weeks left and he is doing great. Hangin in there like a trooper! But anywho i hope i didn't forget anything. i love ya'll times a billion! Thanks for all the letters!!

Vi Volgio Bene

Anziano Perkes

The Week of Miracles!

2009-06-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

Helllllo there, wonderful family!!

Okay, so first off Italy is amazing. Second off . . . this last week was amazing! We managed to get 24 lessons breaking our new record! It was truly a busy amazing week filled with miracles. We are very blessed here in Piacenza. I think it is like daily I turn to Anziano Ransom and say, man what did we do to deserve these blessings!?

But anyway I'll start from the top of my list so this might be a bit scrambled, sorry! First off, if you could hook me up with Tyler Pendleton's email somehow I'd love to shoot him an email.

Okay, so I've told you the different escapades of my bike . . . well, this week has a whole new episode!! Previously on THE BIKE . . . my bike stinks and is always breaking! This week on THE BIKE . . . okay, so we went out to our furthest biking contact way out in the sticks, took like 20 minutes biking. Little to my surprise, my tire exploded on the way back about 5 minutes into our travel! So I guess I'm a bad driver because I manage to hit all the nails, pieces of glass, barbwire etc. etc. So at first I was mad, but I am getting use to this weekly occurance, so I just laughed it off and was like . . . okay, let's grab another bike and get back to work! So we walked to the Saquings house, which took about an hour, and asked if we could borrow a bike for the night and return it that night. They said yes because they are amazing, and then led us to the back of the house where their bike was. To my surprise the bike was miniaturized with some magical spell. No, but seriously this was like a kids bike, complete with racing flames and everything. So with my knees nearly hitting my chin we set out again. Now the bike is fixed, with the small problem of having to pump up the tire on a regular basis. It's kind of like our car in St. thomas that we needed to stop every half an hour to fill it with oil. So I figure it's some good exercise for my arms pumping it up. By the end if my time in Piacenza I'll be huge!!

Okay so Aliceeeeee. She is so cool . . . very inspiring. So this last Wednesday, after emailing, we went and taught her the Word of Wisdom . . . oh boy. We told her about alcohol, drugs and tobacco, and she was like . . . ok, I can do that. I quit smoking about 10 years ago in one day. It was very hard but I have a stong mind. So were like . . . sweet. And then we were like and also tea and coffee are bad. And she smiled and just gave us this look of . . . oh crap . . . you serious? She laughed and was like . . . oh boy . . . well I guess if I quit smoking I can quit drinking coffee. So we came back a couple of days later and brought her some herbal tea to replace all her bad tea and she thanked us a lot. I was like . . . how are you doing? And she was like . . . these 2 days have been hard. I've had a head ache and I've been very tired, but I haven't broken the Word of Wisdom! I made you guys a promise and I'm keeping it! She is literally just glowing everytime we see her. Everytime we see her, which is 3 times a week now, I am just inspired by her faith. So then church rolled around . . . actually more like flew around, and all three of our power investigators were there!! Alice came with her cute little baby, that is one, Francesca came, and Koffi and Doddi came!

We also had this Russian guy, Cristo, come who doesn't speak any languages we do. We literally teach him by drawing, it is very hard. So he is also kind of [an unusual] character. So he came in his jean shorts and white flame shirt. In the middle of a talk his cell phone went off and he held an argument in Russian right in the middle of church, with all the members turning around to look at him. It was not soo good, but I couldn't help and just think... yeah that's our investigator baby!

So anyways, Alice came and president asked her to say the closing prayer!! And she said it and it was perfect. Then another lady asked her how long she had been a member and she responded, I've been a member for 3 weeks (how long we've been seeing her). That's how cool Alice is. We saw her yesterday and we were like . . . how are you doing? And she was like . . . today has been very interesting. So i was like . . . oh no, is she drinking beer or something?? And she was like . . . this morning I prayed, asking God for something, and I got my answer today! She was just beaming. It is so amazing to see the change that the Book of Mormon makes in people's lives. She is on page 124 in Italian which is the beginning of 2 Nephi. Everytime we come she shows us her favorite verses. It is my favorite part of the week to see her come to us with her marked scriptures, wanting to share them. She will make an amazing member. She requested to be baptized on the 8th of July because it is her birthday and she says that would be the most special birthday she has had. So we said that would be perfect.

Francesca is still doing great. Nothing really new in that department. I know I say this every week but I think we're going to invite her to be baptized this week.

Koffi and Doddi are the bomb. So in Sunday afterwards, the Branch President came up to them and was like . . . hey, if I was someone who didn't know anything about the church, could you tell me about the church's beliefs? And Koffi was like, yes, we could. So branch president was like . . . I, for instance, have never heard of this church. And it was soooo sweet, At first I was like . . . oh crap . . . but then they totally jumped into the first lesson! Swtiching off and everything. Well, you see, Joseph Smith in 1820 was 14 and had a question . . . etc., etc. They amazed me; it was awesome. So we saw Koffi and Doddi this morning before emails, and talked about commandments and we invited Doddi to be baptized! I don't know if you remember, but we asked him before and he said he had been baptized twice before and didn't want to make it 3 times. And he was like . . . yes, but I am concerned about this. Will it be a sin if I get baptized again, because it says in the Bible one baptism. And it was sooooo cool I looked over at Anziano Ransom and he gave me the look of . . . you got this answer. So i turned back to Doddi and was like . . . No, Doddi, it will not be a sin. If you could see the Joy that God has because of your faith and your decision to be baptized. I know that this is exactly what God wants you to do . . . it was awesome. And then to see the look of joy come to his voice, as he said . . . okay, I will be baptized on the same day as Koffi (July 4th). Then we just bore testimony and left it was awesome. The Spirit was very stong as we testified of Heavenly Father's joy for his choice to be baptized.

So the other day we met this funny guy named Max who is from Africa and I was like . . . my name is Max!! And he was like . . . no way . . . I will call you MAX THE PREACHER then, haha. He took our number down and titled us as that. So we're going to try to see him this week. We met him in the park which means there is a good chance that he is homeless, but we'll see, haha. He is a funny man.

So this week was just way cool because of our awesome brothers and sisters in the gospel here in Italy. Thank you all for your emails; I loved them. Josh happy Birthday, my friend!!! Graduating from the "M"BA and all that is way cool. Mom take it easy on the bats, haha. Dad I would search the closet in case mom brought home a shotgun or some other form of weaponry, haha, sorry Mom. Nate I loved your picture of the cabin. You should send it into halllmark or something. Write a poem about me and send it in. For sure it will be a winner. But hey, I have to rush off now and buy some food. I hope this wasn't too short! Mom and Dad glad to hear you got the package. Lemme know if the pics work so I can clean up my card.

Love you all!!

Ciao, ciao, ciao

Max the Preacher!

Ciaowdy!!

2009-06-28T16:07:00.001-07:00

Ciaowdy!!

That is a mix between ciao and howdy i thought it would be great for the southerners. A mix between formal and informal. But anywho hello hello hello family! This week was wonderful! Thank you all for the letters it sounds like ya'll have been very busy busy busy. So this last week was wayy fun. So i'll start off with Koffi and Doddi. We saw them and they had both read 1 nephi 1-4 together and had some questions. Doddi asked about a verse talking about how nephi wrote the plates in the language of his father, and he wanted to know all about that haha. So we explained the difference between hebrew and egyptian and all that stuff i luckily learned at BYU. Koffi and Doddi want to know everything in the chapters we give them. It is quite humbling to me. I seriously thing that they read these chapters at least 3-4 times. Because we come in and are like... how is your reading and there like.... oh nephi just did this to laban and his brothers are murmering. They are amazing. They weren't able to come to church because they had some mini emergency. One of there brothers or i think friends just showed up on their doorstep at like 1 in the morning without a place to go. So they had to like stay up late and spend the next morning helping him out. They were very sad that they couldn't come. But we saw them again on monday and they are still doing great. Koffi explained that since we've met them they can't put the book of mormon down. He said... we have other books but right now it is only the book of mormon!! So they are loving it. I asked Koffi if he had prayed to know and he was like... why you keep asking me that... i know i know... its true. It is a book of God. I cannot say it is not true or i would be lying. He is a stud. So then as they were walking us to the bus i was talking to koffi and was like... hey my man your baptismal date is coming up... you excited!! And he was like.. yes... but i have to tell you someting.... and i'm like... kuplunkkkk oh no what!? And he is like... i haven't boughten my suit yet for my baptism. So we told him he was silly and we had one for him. I told him if he ever came to america ya'll would feed him dinner.. he laughed at that and said he wanted to meet you guys. Okay now for ALICEEEEEEE. Our starting power forward... wow is she amazing. Okay so we taught her right after sending our last email and invited her to be baptized and she smiled and said yes right away!! And then we were like... were so happy for you.. and she was like.. oh believe me i'm happy too. Then we saw her again on monday and she just finished 1 nephi in her reading so we were talking about that. Then my companion started the lesson and i felt like we had missed something. We hadn't really followed up on her reading at all. We had been like... oh your finishing 1 nephi? Great.. but anyways today we want to talk about. We had gone from teaching a person to just teaching a lesson. So halfway through the lesson i just fealt terrible that we had failed to really follow up at all. So i kind of awkwardly stopped us in the middle of talking about faith and repentance, and was just like... i am so happy you have been reading so much but i want to ask you a question. And when i said this it was quite awkward because it was so random. But then i was like... have you prayed about the book of mormon? And she gave us the response we get a lot from people avoided the question. Yes i always pray. So i was like... perfect....BUT have you prayed and asked God if this book is true? And this was when it went from awkward to wonderful. She looked me straight in the eye and with the happiest smile nodded and said... Yes i did. But then she just stopped so i was like... and.... did you get an answer? And once again that wonderful smile.... Yes i did. She paused for a moment looking at me the whole time just grinning with pure joy and said.... i recieved a comfermation and i know it is true. I prayed and asked God and felt a joy i've only felt a couple of times in my life. This is why i love Alice. I seriously feel like she teaches us when we go over there. She has sooooo much faith and just ... i don't know how to explain her... just awesome! So we just bore our testimony's after and ended the lesson and asked her to say the prayer... she wa nervous at first but we assured her she would do fine. In her prayer she thanked the Lord that her brothers (us) could be here in her home, and she prayed that she could prepare for baptism!! She came to church again on sunday and is making friends and just doing amazing. She asked to be baptized on her birthday on july 8th. After she is baptized i am going to write her story from start to finish in my journal. She is amazing. Francesca is also doing great. We weren't able to see her last week because her daughter broke her leg but she came to church and loved it again. She is like the little miss popular in the branch. She is making friends with everyone. It also helps that we have brought about 5 different members to our lessons so she practicly knows the whole branch. So Mom and dad Happy Anniversary!!!!!!!! I actually found out the day after emailing because i looked in my binder thing... i was like... aghh i forgot! So i sent home a package for you guys!! Ta daaa. And in it is about 700 pictures on a 3 cd's, about 6 videos, and a cassete tape to narrate the pictures!! Woohoo. You should be getting it this week hopefully. There is also a surprise for dad for fathers day in there. Lemme know if you get the package. I taped it all up so it should get there alright. And lemme know if the pictures work, or if there broken so i can re do them. I still have them all on my card so when you back them up lemme know and i can erase them. They are the pics from my last night in the mtc all the way until now so it should be a fun little treat for ya! Oh yeah.. if you guys could send me that great cookie recipe that nate used to always make. Italians love american cookies and never get them so we wanna make some for our golden investigators. Mom and Dad or anyone i guess haha if you want some good italian music get Andrea Bocelli's new CD Vivere (To Live). It is mostly in italian and people love it down here. We have a crazy less active member that played a bit of it for us. it is very good. It was fun because i could understand a bit of what he was singing. The other night we had a fun little expereience. We met this fun guy and he invited us to his choir performance. So saturday night we thought we would go poke are heads in and say hi to him. We went into this veryyy beautiful cathedral and there was this cute old guy we met a week earlier. There choir was amazing. It was way good. They sang songs like... ave maria that i think you know. We listened to 3 songs and then ran but we saw him again and were like you were sooo good and he was like... i have to come to your church sometime. I am so happy you came to my performance. He is actually that crazy old guy that stopped us and sang to us on the street that i told you about like 4 letters back. So he is very nice. The nauvoo trip sounded way fun. Yes mom i did do baptisms there. If i remember it has the dark wood cabinets very beautiful. Dad don't get upset that matt beets you in Pokemon haha. He beat me too the little stinker. But everything sounds very fun. Today we don't really have a plan of what were doing so we'll see. Anziano Ransom is going home in 5 weeks crazy huh! You guys were asking about him. He is from North Dakota so we as you can imagine kind of different haha. He thinks i'm this little thug from the bronx and i think he's this little hick from the sticks haha. So our personalities aren't quite the same but he is a good kid. We get along good. I'm trying to help him not be trunky as he is leaving soon and getting a bit ancy haha. But i think all the work here will keep us too busy to think about going home so life is good in the mission field. I hope this letter wasn't too boring for ya though. I can't think of anything else to write about. Please if i leave stuff out just ask questions. it helps me know what i don't talk about enough. But anyways it was fun hearing from ya'll and i love ya soooooo much. I will talk to you next week!!!

Love ya tons!!

Anziano Perkes

P.S. Italian for the week is.... hmm lemme think...
Ho Fame (prounounced Oh Fom Ay) It meens i'm hungry. it is a good phrase to remember here in italy haha. Loves! bye!!

Face of an Angel

2009-06-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Ciao, ciao, ciao, everyone!

First off I'd like to start the traditional way of starting my letters by saying thanks so much for all the letters. I love Wednesdays, being able to hear from you guys. You crack me up, haha.

Okay, so let's start off the letter with our starting line up! Okay, so Francesca is still doing amazing. She ended up missing church because she had stayed up late the night before with her friends and her alarm didn't go off in the morning. Usually I'd cash this in as an excuse but coming from Francesca I believe that she is sincere. She is on page 500 in the Book of Mormon . . . man, she amazes me. She's read more than I have [since I have been in Italy]! She is starting to like the Book of Mormon more and more as, when she first started reading she just kept saying . . . there're too many names it's so confusing. But now we can see the excitement in her eyes when we ask her about her reading. It has been an amazing experience to see the change in Francesca. When we first taught her she was still way cool but to see more light come into her life has been amazing. She is sooo happy now. She told us the other day that when she opened the door for the first time and saw us, she felt like there was something different about us and she should let us in. She also said that I have the face of an angel or cherubim, haha. I'm not quite sure why; she's very poetic though, I give her that. Then we gave her the conference dvd's and highlighted on the index the 3 talks we most loved, and she was like.... can't I just watch them all?? With kind of a like... hey, gimme, gimme voice; it was funny. She really has a desire to learn and grow. She told us she wanted to become more like Christ. So I know I said this last week, but we are going to invite her to be baptized this week. We think she is ready to commit to baptism. So keep her in your prayers would ya? Thankssss.

Okay... starting at center is our boy KOFFI!!! Wow, he continues to amaze me!! Okay lots to say about Koffi. First off, we are now teaching his cousin, Dodi, as well who is also a stud. Koffi is from Togo, he is married and has children. He is in Italy for work, so that he can send money to his family. Italy actually has a lot of Africans here that are searching for work. Many of them sadly have been here for months with no work. A man we're teaching has been here a year with no work. It is very hard for them to get jobs when they don't speak Italian. So Koffi and Dodi came here together from Togo, they are both married, and they both work in the same warehouse. They don't make a whole ton but compared to the work in Togo they are making lots. So the big news is that they came to church on Sunday!!! Wow I was sooo happy they came. The hard thing is that they live about 30 minutes outside the city in a part where no members live so they take the bus. These two guys are such studs. They roll into church sportin suit pants, with a button down Keith Urban like shirt, only buttoned up half way. We had a very nice man translate for them and they loved church!! Bless their hearts, they both pulled out their Book of Mormons and had a scrap piece of paper and were taking notes!! Taking notes!! Wow, oh wow, they are studs. I sat next to them and they kept being like . . . oh yeah, that's good, I like that. We taught them two days ago and followed up on church and they were like, we loved it. They didn't have any questions about what happened in church until halfway through our lesson Dodi was like . . . oh yeah, I DO have a question. And he pulled out his notes and was like . . . in the front of the room there were 4 numbers written on the wall, 34, 4, 126, and 67. What do these numbers mean!? He asked with the curiosity of a little boy it was so funny. I wanted to go into how they were part of the Dharma theory but i explained that they were the hymns that we sung.

So we taught they the Word of Wisdom in this lesson and at first they were kinda like . . . that's crazy. When we said tea was bad, Koffi ran into the kitchen and brought back a jug of Lipton ice tea and was like . . . "Diz tea is bad?!?" So when we committed them to live the Word of Wisdom they were like . . . okay, we're fine with drugs and alcohol, but we have to drink coffee and tea or we'll fall asleep in work and get fired. So we just bore testimony about how God would help them and at the end they were like . . . okay, we will do it. So we're teaching them today at 3 and we're gonna follow up. It'll be awesome.

Okay, so we have a new recruit to the dream team. Introducingggggg Alice!!! Pronounced ( Al-eech-ay ) She is soo cool. So a couple weeks back we did a power lesson with the Saquing family, the new convert family here, and we talked about missionary work for 5 minutes and asked them to pray about a street that we could go knock doors on. So they prayed and it was amazing. The wife prayed and at the end she was all teary eyed and told us to go to Via Boselli. So we went there and it happened to be like one of the main interstates going through piacenza. So at first we were like... this thinggg is huge. So we started knock and the 4th person we talked to stuck her head out the window and was like what do you want? We told her our schpeal and she was like where is your church? So we told her.... she didn't have time for us to talk to her and she told us if we wanted to we could try back later sometime which we hear a lot. So we were like.. okay whatever... 2 weeks later we were back in the area, and we were like... lets go stop by that brazilian lady (She's like black brazilian mix, but speaks italian perfectly because she has been here for 20 years.) We go back and she lets us right in without any questions. There were some random other people in the house.. one i think was her sister and maybe some friends or something, so we taught her the first lesson, and it turns out her cousin is on a mission right now and her sister lives in boston! So we gave her the Book of Mormon and left. We came back for our appointment 3 days later, and she had read 30 pages and loved it. She said she felt peaceful and happy when she read. it was amazing! So we talked about the spirit and how it testifies. We then kind of recovered joseph smith, watched the restoration movie with her, which at the end just kept talking about how beautful it was. Oh yeah... our first lesson, like 4 minutes into the lesson asked if her 1 year old daughter could be baptized and we had a sweet experience in teaching her about how her daughter was pure and sweet and she really liked that. Alice is 39 and a single mom with 1, 1 year old child named katherine. So we invite her to come to church and she is like... i will come! Before we even asked her she talked about how she had went into town and looked for the church so she could make sure to fund it on sunday. Wow amazing. So we invited her and she said she would come. Lo and behold she came on sunday, even to gospel docterines which she even commented in the class about the spirit and the influence it's had on her life. I think she wowed everyone in the class it was awesome. Then after sacramant she pulled my companion aside and was like... during the meeting i felt a very odd sense of joy that i've never felt. What is this feeling?! And Anziano Ransom responded very well with a scripture of how the fruit of the spirit is joy and how it was the spirit testifying that this is what she needs to do. So she was like... oh that makes sense. We called her this morning and were seeing her at 2 today and were going to ask her to be baptized!! So it should go very well. Alice is amazing though. So those are our 3 power starters. The rest are doing well too but just not dreem team well yet. We hope to recruit many more members to the team.

This last week was another amazing week. We were blessed to teach 22 lessons and get 11 people in church. Getting 11 people in church is like un heard of. We got very lucky, it was quite funny. Mission President said that anyone not a member that is in church counts for you. So we had alice, koffi and dodi, some evanglisit dude that has been coming for a couple weeks, this mom and her two sons that have been being taught for a while, this other mom and her son that also have been taught for a while, then there was someones 2 random friends there. End of the story is that there were a lot of people there that we didn't plan on being there. It was awesome. So sorry i don't have much time today since were kind busy today. So this will have to be a bit short. Josh congrats on making the NBA. Mom and dad told me about it. That's wayy cool. From bishop to the NBA.. wowsers. Buck I was sorry to hear that you got called into the bishopric... no i'm just kidding, i'm sure you'll love it. You'll be great! Ed and Beth sound like they are amazing! That is soo cool. Dad thanks for updating me on the box haha. One request if i could make it. Could you look online to see if you can order harry potter in italian? I see all the kids reading it here. I want to read it in italian when i get home to keep my italian up so if you could look into that. If they are pricy don't worry about it its fine but i was just thinking that would be fun. Mom and Dad your trip sounds way fun. Sounds like you'll be nice and busy this week! Hope all goes well and i'll talk to you next week!!

Love ya All!!!

Anziano Perkes

Twenty Lessons!

2009-06-01T03:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and all!

Thanks so much for the letters, today they were great. I laughed very hard while reading them. The Italian lady here asked if I was alright, haha. But anywho, this week was amazing. Wow, wow. wow, we were very blessed. So we had a real big desire to hit 20 lessons finally. My companion says he's never hit it that he can remember. But when Elder Perry came, these one missionaries went up and said hi and he said, how many lessons are you teaching? And they were like, yeah we hit 14 this week! And he was like... you are wasting time then, you must hit at least 20 lessons. So wow... that is pretty intense. So this week we were just like come on we got this... we really wanted and worked very hard to hit and alas.... we taught exactly 20 lessons! It was funny because we actually hit 20 lessons Saturday afternoon. And that night our 2 appointments gave us a no show but we were still happy because of hitting 20. Then on Sunday we had 5 lessons planned and all ended up falling through at the last moment. People that never cancel dropped us right at the end. So we decided to set a goal of 20 or more, that way we don't just call it in for the week when we hit 20. But that was besides the point we were soooo happy and blessed to be able to teach that much.

It was really an amazing week. It is amazing because when you're working the hardest the days fly by. I notice that when we bust it and give it our all, all day, that we get home and I'm like ... the day is over?!? But then on the days where we get discouraged and maybe take a gelato break, that I get home and am like... wowwww, what a long day, haha. So last week we just busted it and it was amazing. We were truly blessed. It was way cool.. the 20th lesson we taught was at the end of the day on Saturday, and we just needed one more to hit it, but we didn't have any planned so we met this guy in the park and we talked to him and told him we wanted to share a message with him another time and he was like, okay, that sounds good. And just as my companion was saying well cool we'll see you later, I decided... no, no, this isn't good enough. So I used some of my sales skills and was like... hmmm, well we don't have another commitment for 15 minutes if we could just sit down real quick and explain why were here in Italy for two years. And he was like... sounds great, take a seat. So we taught him a brief first lesson and just bore testimony on the Book of Mormon and gave him one and committed him to read it. So it was very cool. It made me realize that we need to be more bold instead of just being like... you don't want to hear us do you? Okay no perfect... Grazie tanto!

Okay, big news of the week Koffi. Wow, he is amazing. So I think I told you a little bit about our African brother. We went back again and we were like... hey, did you pray about the Book of Mormon? And he was like yes, I prayed about it and I felt good, but I've been searching for you missionaries for 1 year. Turns out when he first moved to Italy he tried lookin up the missionaries but couldn't figure out the website so he finally gave up because he didn't know what to do. One year later, he goes to his friend's house that is an hour away and it just so happens that his friend had just let in the missionaries. When he saw them he was like... hey, give my number to your brothers in Piacenza! Coincidence? I think not. The Lord is truely working miracles her in Italy.

So he told us this story and we were like wow, what a guy. So this was our second time seeing him, but we decided that he needed this so we were like. . . Koffi, will you be baptized July 4th? And he was like . . . yes, it won't be a problem. So He is very prepared. So then we went back two days later and were like . . . oh, did you read the chapter we gave you? And he pulled out his Book of Mormon and he had a red pencil marking the page, and he had made little notes in the margins. We were like what did you like about this chapter? And he went off about how this awesome man Alma did this and that. He said he read every morning and night and I was like . . . did you keep reading on or re-reading the chapter? And he said . . . I just kept re-reading it . . . I wanted to do exactly as you guys told me to do. Very humble man; he is the bomb. Then we taught him on Saturday and his cousin was there who is just as amazing as him. He, I guess, was also looking for the missionaries with Koffi, but before this week he was working the night shift. But this week they are on the same shift so we'll be teaching them together. His cousin's name is Dodi. They are both from Ghana. So I'll keep you updated on them. They are amazing.

We taught Francesca and showed her the restoration movie and she loved it. At the end she just kept saying how much she loved it. She had read a little bit. The problem we have with her is we keep asking her if she has/will pray about the Book of Mormon and she keeps responding that she wants to read the whole thing before asking. We've tried teaching her that she can still recieve a witness of its truthfulness without finishing it. But she is doing marvelous. She met with her Catholic friend, and he was like... oh my, Mormons are evil, bla, bla, bla, and she was like . . . I don't care what he says, I like you guys, haha. And then she came to church on Sunday for the 2nd time! She is getting a long great with the members. They are really pulling her into the fold, which is great.

Okay so it is stinkkkkin hot here!! Sunday got up to 100 degrees farenheight plus like 99% humidity. So we have been veryyyyy sweatyy these past couple days. I think I'm slowly getting adjusted to the heat. Okay, Mom I got your letter yesterday!!! Because we had interviews with president in Milan. By the way . . . any letters can go here in Piacenza. Because I only get the ones that get sent to the mission home when we have zone conference or interviews which is 2x every 6 weeks. So letters can go here and packages to the mission home. But Mom, thanks so much I loved the letter. The memory card is in great condition. It was very fun to see the pics from the MTC. Man I feel like that was forever ago . . . weird, weird.

So I've been working out since I've got here, which has been awesome. They give us these super rubber band nifty things so I feel kinda of stupid but they work great. I've gained 10-15-ish pounds since entering the MTC. I weighed 81 kilos like a week ago which is 178 pounds. When I entered the MTC I was like 165 so it's been great. I hope to come home breaking 200. My companion says I eat a lot but I can't help it I'm hungry! In the pictures I'm sending I am sending my before picture from a week ago. Just in case you guys do like a LGN v2 competition or something . . . I'm winnning for sure this time. Bring it on baby! I'm actually in the best shape of my life right now I think. It is very nice.

So time for the language update... ba, ba, ba, blaaaa. Italian is still very hard, the end, haha. No, I actually am understanding much better now. I can understand mostly all the words people use, but just putting them all together and making any sense out of it is very hard. So we're still practicing here. It was fun to hear that Tyler Pendleton entered the MTC. If you could somehow give him my email or get me his I would love it. Wow, so this morning has been crazy. We were going to go teach Koffi this morning, but my bike tire popped . . . again. So we quickly ran back to the house... and patched it up, reassembled the bike to learn that there were 2 more holes in it. So we didn't have any patches left, so we ran to the bike store bought a new tube, ran home and put it on. Then as I was screwing the wheel back onto the bike, the axel thing kind of exploded, nearly taking my eyeball out. So then we ran back to the store, ran home and after a long time fixed the dumb bike. End of the story: Koffi had to go to work so we rescheduled for tomorrow which should be okay. We think that Satan is working hard because he knows Koffi is amazing. So that was kind of frustrating this morming to miss that but its all turned out well. My hands are like permanly black from all the oil though, haha . . . it is quite funny looking.

Josh and Brooke, I loved your letter thanks so much. The picture of Matty was especially cute. Rocketssss . . . I remember those! Mom I laughed very hard when you were telling me about the bats in the house. I could just picture you being like . . . Ken, Ken, KENNN being chased by a bat, haha. Very funny picture in my head. But I agree, I heard bats lay eggs in your hair and make you go crazy. I would get rid of them for sure. Sorry Dad. That is sooo cool that Ed and Beth are getting baptized . . . Wow, what a blessing for them and the ward. They sound amazing. Haha, Dad I liked your description of Mom's armoured truck camera bag; how fun, haha. And wow, you have lost 25 pounds!!!! That is amazing. I'll come home and be like . . . where is Dad!! I'm glad you guys got the tape. That went real fast. A week is all. Yeah I listened to a bit before sending it and Mom your comment about us sounding like the Italian Job actors was very true, haha, I'm trying to work on the accent. I also realized that about every 10 seconds I was like . . . ummmm I hope this isn't boring, haha. Maybe I'll do another one for you sometime this next month. I'm gonna try to burn my picture off maybe next week sometime, so maybe I'll try to include a tape with descriptions of the pictures kind of like a slide show or something for ya. I'll see what I can do for ya. The other day we were on the highway and 10 Lamborghinis drove by in a row. It was awesome. But besides that I think I'm out of things to say. Thanks so much for your love and support. I can feel it all the way over here in Italy. I'll talk to you later!!

Vi Voglio Bene (Love ya'll)

Ciao, ciao, ciao

Anziano Perkes

Yet another upgrade in mission cars?

2009-05-26T18:04:00.001-07:00

Teaching, Teaching, Teaching

2009-05-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Hello my wonderful fam!

Thank you all for the marvelous letters. Dad I loved the 9 mb picture you sent me, haha. My email box went from 28% to 65% in one letter! Haha, I loved it though you guys look great! Mom I'm lovin the grey hair. It's kinda like a Rogue look from Xmen, which probably doesn't make sense, so I'll just say it's sexy, wait can't use that word, it is red hot chili spicy! Ow, ow! But anyways sorry about that. Julia Welcome to the world!!!!!!!!! I loved the pictures you sent me Dad. She is soooo cute. Tell her I love her. Jake and Kate I hope you're doing well. Kate I know you're great, Jake I hope you didn't faint or have any severe problems during your labor, haha.

Okay, soooooo here is the run down. Francesca is doing good. We actually haven't been able to see her since the last letter so nothing new. We see her tommorrow though. The reason why is... we had stake Conference in Verona which was wayyy awesome. Also Anziano L. Tom Perry wasss there! Yeahhh it was sweet and the coolest part is only our stake got to go and we are like the very edge of the stake. I'm in the Milano Zone, but in the Verona (another zone/big city) stake! So we really lucked out with that one. He was amazing! He had to say something and then have the translator translate which was cool. He gave a very simple but great talk about planting seeds and making sure we plant seeds. It was very funny he was like.... we need to use a rottertiller and dig up the earth. And Andrea, the translator who is a 28 year old stud who is going to byu in 3 weeks. He kinda reminds me of a slightly chubbier Italian Josh. So yeah, he is way cool. But he looks at Elder Perry and is like... a WHAT!? And Elder Perry is like... ummmm do you know what a till is? And Andrea is like, umm no. So he is like.. well anyways, planting seeds is very...... and then in the middle he snaps his finger and says, "I know! Do you know what a shovel is?" And then Andrea was like... ohhh, ok. So he was very cute with all the Italians here. He is a stud.

So we do this thing called dieci inviti which is ten extra invites to hear our message in a day. You can't plan them, but if your like on a bus or making calls and you talk to someone it is a bonus. So this week I worked real hard at getting them and I ended up getting 56. I need to work harder to get a perfect 70 so I am very motiviated to get the 70 invites. Dad its kinda like your sales thing. I know if I can get in 5 doors I'll sell. So for me it's like... I know if I do this that I'll get an appointment, or a number, or if not blessings at least. So a couple days ago it was getting late and I only had 4 inviti so I was like dang, I gotta get 6 more. When to my surprise I saw 6 old geezers sitting on a bench just kickin it in the breeze. Similar to the old guys in andy and griffith who just sit around all day, haha. So I was like... Anziano Ransom hold on buddy. And went up to them and was like I'm a missionary and so forth. I ended up inviting all of them to have an appointment with them and 5 of them just laughed at me, it was quite funny, but one of them, Leonardo, I ended up getting his number so we'll see what happenes with that.

Okay so this weeks miracle story. We met this African man named Koffi. There is actually quite a few Africans here that come up for work. But anyways we met Koffi and got an appointment. He lives 30 minutes outside our city. So last p-day we ended a bit early and took a bus out there to teach him and he gave us a no show. So we're like.... dang this is dumb we come all the way out here and when we call he's like.. oh sorry, I'm busy. So at first we had a very negative attitude towards this man, but we were like okay, we'll give him another chance. We went back last Friday and he was there and brought us to his house. We shared a short message about happiness and how the church has been restored when he shared with us that his sister was Mormon and her husband was a bishop in Ghana where he is from. He told us that his sister had been trying to get him to meet with missionaries but he could never find any. So he was like... I have to call my sister and tell her I finally found her. So we left and were like wow what an amazing man. So we went back this monday and taught him in more depth the restoration. We invited him to pray about it and his response was that he would, but he has been hoping for this day for a long time. So we were just like wow. So we're inspired to share a scripture about Christ getting baptized and then we asked him... Koffi, will you follow the example of Christ and be baptized July 4th (first Saturday in July)? And he was like yes, I will be able to do that. It won't be a problem. So we have a baptismal date!! He is amazing.... we also told him we wanted to see him 3 times a week to prepare him and he said that would be no problem. So we have been blessed amazingly here in Piacenza.

Also I think I told you about Cristo the crazy Romanian, and also about his kick boxer friend George. So we came back during the weekend and gave George a Book of Mormon in his language. Because he had to go to work last week but he was like... yess, I would be interested in hearing this message. So we gave it to him and he was like excellent. And we were like will you read and pray this week? And he was like, all of it? And we were like no, we'd just like you to read this passage here to start off with and his response was . . . no, I think I'll read all of it this week. Then he assessed the situation and was like... yess, I don't think it'll be a problem I'll read it all this week. 2-3 hours a day won't be too bad. Because hey I'm curious you know? So he is the bomb. He has a long way to go but we think he can do it. He smokes, drinks, and is a body guard in a club, he also says he does underground street fights sometimes to earn extra money. So he is quite the character but we know he can do it. George was the 2nd place kick boxer in 2001 in the whole world. I can't remember if I told you about him. But he's a stud. If you have any questions about anything I forget to say just ask me.

Okay so crazy fact: I have been in Italy for a month now. That just blows my mind it seems like this is my first week. Everyone has said that it only gets faster which makes me nervous because it's already going very fast. So our branch is playing another branch in basketball and they want me to play real bad but it's out of our area. In sacrament, Harold Saquing, in the announcements said, I believe that with Anziano Perkes we will be able to win, haha. So the branch president made us promise to ask President Dunaway so we were like okay, whatever haha. Of course he said no. Luckily he was talking to my companion about signing up for college classes so he managed to slip it in there. So at the stake conference Presidnet D. went up on the stage to sit down and one of the members, Andrea (Italian Josh) went up on the stand and pulled president aside and asked him if I could play, haha. He was heart broken. The members here are so funny I love them. So we brought this like 80 year old guy named Fratello Bizzi to a lesson. And then after he was like... hey come over for drinks so we were like... okay we can teach them a short lesson and get feed back from them. So we finished the lesson with brother and sister Bizzi and we were like... hey what can we do for you today? like we always do but this time she was like... ummmm.... come here. By the end of the time there we had taken down and folded all her laundry and carried these extra mattresses down to the basement. So it was very funny taking down an 80 year old couples laundry down. Kind of gross in a way but very funny, haha. So we were happy someone finally took us up on our offer. By the wayyy Matt, happy birthday!!!! Sorry, it's a bit late, haha. Time goes by too fast! Oh mom or dad if you could keep the letters I send home and you send out somehow that would be great. I don't have a ton of storage on myldsmail. Dad, thanks for the American Idol and Star Trek updates, haha. They actually have a theater here that we go by everday, so I've seen the Star Trek posters everywhere. Also I guess there is one called Public Enemies that everyone is talking about here. Mom, I still haven't gotten your letter. Did you send it to here or the missino home? I'll keep an eye out for it. So I recorded a day in the life of a missionary with my tape recorder and will probably send that off next wednesday for ya. I want to add some final recordings and then send it off. So I hope you enjoy that. If you guys want anything from Italy, what is it?? Like little candies or crushed flowers or 100% silk ties for 5 euros, haha? Lemme know if ya want anything special and I'll see what I can do for ya. haha, I'm glad to hear that my mission is hitting the world wide web. Hope I get lots of hits on my page, haha, just kidding. Dad thanks for editing my letters a touch to make them all grammar correct. This is following are sentence just to gives you a an challenges haha good fortunate edits this. Betchya couldn't edit that in 5 seconds flat haha take that. Max 1, Dad 0.

Lessons are going well. My first week here we taught, 9, then my 2nd week we taugh 12 and this last week we taught 16!! So lessons are just boomin right now. We are hoping to break 20 this week, which shouldnt be too hard. We are on track to hit it. 3 on monday and 3 yesterday. So we are workin real hard to up those lessons because if you're not teaching, then what are you doing, haha. So I can't think of anything else to write. Love ya all so much and thanks for your love and prayers.

Oh ps... mom Cia is spelt Ciao just so you know, haha. I know weird right. Here's something else for you to Learn. Word of the week would be.... Cosa le Piace fare? (pronounced Koza lay Pee-aw-che Far-eh) It meens what do you like to do?

But anyways love ya all so much thanks for the support!!

Ciao!!!!!!!

Miracle Week

2009-05-17T04:51:00.000-07:00

How is everyone doing!!

Hope that ya'll had a wonderful mothers day! It was soooo much fun to talk with ya'll and hear your voices. Don't worry it didn't make me home sick. It actually inspired me to work harder talkin to ya'll so thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, let's see I'm runnin a bit short on time today so I'll have to make this faster than usual. Okay, so first off today we kind of did a bit of pday and then were doin more after this. This morning we went to this huge castle/Italian mansion thing that was turned into a museum. It's kinda hard to explain but just know that it is a hugeeee building filled with cool stuff. They had armour, and spears, swords, tonssss of awesome paintings, and sculptures. I guess we're the only tourists in Italy too, because we were like the only ones there. I snuck a few pics but then this lady told me i couldn't take pictures in the museum. So that was way fun.

We also went and bought groceries. Okay so they give us way too much money on our missions, haha. Too bad we can't save it away and buy a car here. So they give us 180 euro every month!! So I have a ton of money, so this time shopping I was like... okay, I need to spend more money. So I was grabbin all the stuff that I never dared to, like yogurts, Dolce (Italian sweets.... oh baby so good!), and all the good stuff. So I'm like dang I'm droppin some bills today, and I got up to the cash register and I only spend 15 euro! For a whole week!!!! So I'll be buyin some gelato this week, can't wait. I wish I could send home some gelato in the mail, you would loveee it. The best kind is cookies . . . wow, amazing. Okay so anyways, sorry, little tangent there. So now we're emailing and we still have a lot of time for p day. We think we might go play some ball with some Italians, show them how it is done. Maybe some frisbee as well. We'll see.

So this week I did an exchange down to Parma where the oh-so-famous proccuto crudo di parma comes from. Cured meat in very thin slices. So I had some of that, it was amazing. I loved it. We also had zone conference this past week and that was amazing. It lasted all day so it was very tiring, but it was good to see President.

Okay so we have this investigator named Augustine and we had the coolest lesson with him. We have always taught him and his wife decided to sit in this lesson. Up to now Augustine hasn't showed a ton of interest but in the middle of the lesson, the wife very sincerely asked.... how do you know that this is true? Our eyes lit up and we bore strong testimony to her, it was awesome. She said that she would read and pray. The only problem is that they live far out. They might be buying an apartment here in Piacenza though, so were praying for that. That way they could come to church and be near their friends. The Saquing family just got baptized 4 months ago, and they are wayyyy stellar. He is now the 1st counselor in the branch presidency. They help us out a ton. Augustine is Harold Saquing's (dad) best friend. So Harold comes to all the lessons; it really helps out. Unfortuanly, they are all Phillipino, haha. They speak kind of English, kind of Italian, and a lot of tagalog. So we had that lesson and it was so crazy. They want us to teach them in English, so we are teaching them in Enlish. They would read the scriptures in Italian and speak to each other in tagalog. So the whole lesson we keep switching between all these languages and I'm just sitting there dying, haha. It got to the point where the wife would ask me a question and I'd be like... I don't understand (in Italian) and my companion gave me the look of, she's speakin English you dummy, haha. So I got very mixed up language wise, but it was a wayyy stellar lesson.

Francesca is still amazing. She wasn't able to come to church because her daughter took her to some restaurant for mothers day and shopping, which is understandable, I guess. We have a lesson with her tommorrow, so were hoping it will go well. You asked for Fratello Clarke's (Harris is his first name) email, so here it is: harristclarke@gmail.com. My other teacher is Fratello Garlick. He was a stud too. Here's his email: spenceritaly@gmail.com. They were both amazing. Tell them I said hi from Italy! Oh, if you ever send any packages.... something that I can't get here is drink mixes, so like little crystal light lemonade packets would be wonderful. But only send them if you're sending a package. Don't go out after reading this and mail a package out. I can survive till whenever, my birthday or something. About the baptismal picture. I'm not sure if you took pictures. If you can't find it, that is fine. Don't worry about it.

I also did an exchange with the zone leaders this week in Milan. So I've traveled all over. At first I was like sweeet, I get to see other cities, but now I'm like... leave me alone, I'm tired of traveling, I just want to teach lessons, haha. No, they're fun, but I get tired of the travel time. So the other day we were biking on this big old road that is closed where all sorts of people walk on it, and these three old guys stopped us and were like... How is Obama!!! Haha, so we quickly dodged that question and were like we're missionaries. When they found that out they were like were in the Catholic choir! On the spot they started singing with an o so terrible old men voices and all. We caused quite an attraction in Piacenza here. 3 old crazy guys and 2 young guys with bike helmets on that look like bowling balls. So we gave them some pass a long cards and left the stage as soon as possible, haha.

Okay, so this week were are doing what's called an English fast... drum roll please..... I can't speak English this week agh!! From today to next wednesday, I cannot speak English ever! Not even if i slip in a puddle of melted gelato. Other missionaries have done it and say it just brings great blessings to the work and your language skill. It helps keep you more focused and improve in the language. So me and my companion, Anziano Handsome Ransom, are doing it this week. We started this morning. My head hurts a bit but I have already seen myself improve. There are times when I have to literally bite my tongue and grab a dictionary before I break my fast. I'm just like aghhhh what's the word!! But it is amazing. It will be a long hard week, but we are calling it miracle week, and i'm sure we'll see many miracles this week.

I laughed when you guys said you watched Lady Hawk, haha. I'm sure it was cheesy beyond belief, but probably fun. I heard that all the outside castle scenes are from the castle here. I'm guessing the indoor shots are sets, but I don't quite know. Dad your story of the fire truck made me laugh so hard. I could just picture you up there 100 feet above the ground and being like... wow, it's sooo beautiful... and the 13 fire fighters below being like... just take the picture already!! Hahaha, no I'm just kidding, but it sounded way amazing. I was jealous for about 4 seconds, but then I rememberd that I was in Italy, no I'm just kidding.... but seriously, Italy rocks! So I'm sorry this was a bit shorter. I can't think of anything else to say, hmmm. I'll send some pics across your way in a sec. But I love you all. Thanks so much for the letters; I love them.

CIAO CIAO CIAO!!

Anziano Perkes

Beautiful Italy

2009-05-11T15:23:00.001-07:00

The following photos may have been taken in Piacenza, particularly the one of Max on the old city street. The two shots of the buildings below came to us with the caption "beautiful Italy," and could have been taken in one of the outlying areas. But one thing is for sure, Max is definitely right on his assessment of Italy's beauty!

Cremona

2009-05-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

"Okay so i forgot to tell you, we have a city called Cremona that is actually part of our area. We have some less actives out there we are teaching so we went out this week. I have a couple pictures of it. It is where violins were like invented so it's a pretty famous little city. I also did exchanges in Reggio Emelia, i think i told you. Kobe Bryant grew up there, haha. So there is quite a bit of culture around me. Tomorrow I'm going to Parma which is a famous city for its food. It's fun having a district leader as a companion, I get to travel around, haha. But anywho gotta run lemme attach these pics."

Lady Hawk

2009-05-11T15:01:00.001-07:00

"Oh!! For pday today, I never told you: We went to this castle that's outside our city it was very cool. You can see the pic. My companion wanted to take a nap and I was like.... nopeeee we're goin to a castle . . . so it was a blast. There are like 2 more we wanna go see. So we'll let you know. This castle is where they filmed the movie Lady Hawk. Some medevil movie that is cheesy I guess. You could watch it and that's the castle I was at! Some more pics on the way!"

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Jen and I watched Lady Hawk last night. It is worth seeing just to see how cool this castle is! We had a blast watching it and knowing that Max had been to this amazing place.]

Mission Cars?

2009-05-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

The Hills Are Alive . . .

2009-05-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

MAX'S 5-6-09 LETTER:

Thank you all for you wonderful letters!! I'm sorry I've made you wait a bit... We decided to write after our pday adventures, which I'll tell you about. Okay so looking back on my first letter I realized I didn't have enough enthusiam!! I love Italy sooo much! I will admit the first 3 days were the hardest 3 days of my life. Pouring rain, straight up all finding work, and 9 hour jet lag. Terrible combo haha. But I am over the jet lag, the sun is out, and were teaching lots of lessons! I love it everyday we get home and its just like.... wow I'm in Italy, this is soo cool.

Okay so I dont have a ton of time because we have 3 lessons tonight. We're cutting into pday time a bit. Quick question, do you want me to tell you about investigators very much. I didn't know if that would be boring or not. Its really all I have to talk about so lemme know, haha.

So first off.... last week I didnt have any Italian meals. Heavenly Father must have done something because we ate alot this week, haha. It was amaazing! First off we went to this sweet sisters house names sister Libe. We went over to share a quick lessons and she completly took over and just told us stories. Many Italians love to talk and if you let them take control it is very hard to get it back, haha. So she went on for quite a while about her life, me not understanding anything. Anytime she looked at me waiting for a response, I'd just nod my head and be like si. Haha, I guess it worked because she gave us ice cream. We finished a whole tub me and my companion. She was ruthless I'd be like I'm full thank you, and she'd be like ANZIANO the last elder would eat 4 bowls, come on. So we practicly rolled out of that lesson. Wow, it was amazing. So we ran or rather biked to this lady named Yvonne. And right when we get there she comes in carrying a tray of the very same ice cream!!! I wanted to die. She was like here's some ice cream and I looked at my companion with a grin. Haha, so we felt sick that night.

Okay so that last guy that got baptized was named Adalberto. He is a spanish guy that moved to Italy for work. He speaks a mix of Italian and Spanish so I really don't understand him but we hit it off very well. He is very funny. Picture a spanish Ernest T. Bass with a mullet, haha and you have him. He comes with us to a lot of lessons so that we have a male with us whenever a lady is alone. We were biking yesterday and he stopped and stepped in some mud and he screamed out AIIIIIIII. It was very funny; everyone in the street turned and stared at us. We were just laughing the whole time. He started asking me about Lord of the Rings, and we decided together that my companion is Gimli, haha. He thought that was verry funny. Tu sei molto buffo!! Haha, you are very funny is what he said. So he is a total stud, I love him. Very goofy at the same time.

Buck and Jayz, I'm sorry I missed your birthdays. Happy birthday!!! And congrats on the baby!! I'm so excited!! Just one more from another brother and sister and I'll have 4 born while I'm gone!!!! I won't mention who the brother and sister are, haha. Take a guess. Speaking of Nate and Luisa, haha, I missed your anniversary!!!! Happy anniversary! By now I'm sure you're already celebrating your 1 year 2 week anniversary, haha, I'm just kidding... but no seriously, how was it??

So back to the food conversation, haha. So we went to this ladies house to teach her a quick lesson. We come in and she is like Anziani I cooked you lunch!!! S o were like... ummm okay, sounds good I guess, we have time for lunch. Boy was that the biggest mistake we've made. She hands out a plate of lasagna, and I'm like, oh marvelous, home made lasagna. So I eat till I'm full and I'm like okay, I'm ready to roll out. Well, apparently they like eating out here, because they eat in different shifts, oh boy, do they, haha. So I'm full at this point, because I thought lasagna was all, right? Next she brought out bologna fresh cut and bread so I'm like... that's weird, a little after dinner snack I guess. Then she plops a plate in front of me full of baked chicken and some weird mushy stuff that was delicious. I look over at my companion and I'm like... does she have Alzheimers? We just ate!!! So I shovel that in, nearly dying, when she takes my plate and replaces it with shish kabobs and potatoes. Wow, I feel terrible at this point, but I don't want to offend her, so I eat that. Of course, she would make it delicious too. The nerve of Italians, haha. All 3 plates have been amazing already. So I slowly finish that and she then makes gelato in some crazy machine. Home made pineapple gelato!!!! So I eat that ready to explode, but are we done... oh wait, then she brings out some amazing pudding stuff that tasted like tarimisu, I think not sure. It was incredible though. So that was lunch, wow oh wow, I think I gained 2 kili. Mamma mia!

So outside of piacenza there are these beautiful greeeeeen hills and thats where she lived. I have a picture I'll send."

"I want to send home my pictures because I have like 300 and I want you to see them all!!!! But it takes quite a while to upload them here. One thing that would be nice from home, if you could send me my baptisimal picture, I would love you to peaces!!!!! I want to show it to everyone to show them how happy I was.

So the other day, we took a 10 break to make all our calls to set up the lessons. So were sitting by this basketball court and my companion is calling members and such and this little 12 year old is playing ball, so I was like hey better go to some contacting right?! So I go up and ask him if I can play. His name was Diego; he was so funny. We're playing and I'm like who are your favorite NBA players, and he tells me he loves Mykill Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Shakweel Oneale. Haha, Diego was a stud. Imagine the chubby Italian/Spanish kid in mighty ducks and that's Diego. So a lot of Italians know who we are, especially the teenagers. Whenever we go by they go YAY MORMONI, haha. I think they're making fun of us, but in my mind they're cheering us on. It's funny, people want to practice English with us, so they're always like... Hhhhello ow are oo. It's quite funny. It's probably what I soundl like to them.

So one of our investigators came to church!!!! Her name is Francesca; she is such a stud. We gave her a Book of Mormon and when we came back 4 days later she had read half of it!!!! She is just super nice and excited. She is about 45 and divorced with no kids. We are really excited about her. She liked church and we're going to follow up tonight. We might commit her to be baptized tonight depending on how she liked church. I've only been here two weeks and I've already seen miracles happening. It is amazing.

Calling out to all the brothers/sisters that served missions. What are your secret finding tricks!? People in Italy are pretty hard core. We've had our fair share of doors slammed in our faces. So we're trying to think of something to just wow them on the doorstep, so we would love any secret advice ya'll have.

I loved all your letters. Mom I loved how you said my companion looked like a munchkin, haha. I laughed sooo hard. People in the branch tease him because I'm so tall. There always like... wow Anziano Perkes, you're tall and then they just look at him and chuckle, haha.

The branch is doing wonderful. They're the nicest people in the world; I love them. Josh, thank you very much for the history about Piacenza. I loved it. I really thought the Po River here was famous, but I saw you were kidding; I was very sad, haha. Okay, so I guess next sunday is Mothers Day! Crazy huh?!?! So we're going to call you guys Sunday night. It should be like after 6:30 anytime, so that ya'll aren't in church. I'm gonna buy some phone cards to talk to ya'll. I won't get another email with instructions on who to call and such, so I'll start off callling mom's cell and then dad's, so if you guys could stay near them that would be lovely! I should be able to talk a bit longer, because ya'll are spread out all over the place, but we'll see. I love you all and can't wait to talk to you!!!! I'll send off some picture rights after this!!!

Love ya'll!!!

Anziano Massimo Perkes!

Anziano Perkes - il gigante

2009-04-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

Max with his first companion, Anziano Ransom, and President and Sister Dunaway.

I'm HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

MAX'S 4-29-09 LETTER:

Hello wonderful family!!!!!!!!!!

So first off this keyboard is very weird as it is set for Italian and has all these goofy accents everywhere, so every time I go to use the shift key it gives me one of these <<<. So if you see some of those don't worry, I'm okay. Okay, so let me seee . . . . WOW is all I have to say. WOW, WOW, WOW!! So I have a lot to write about and a lot of you had questions, which, by the way, I love questions, [they] make it easier for me to email, haha. First I'll start with Dad's list of questions . . . . drum roll pleaseeeeee.

1) Tell us about your INTRODUCTION to Italy. What was your first day like? What were your first impressions?

Okay, so this was a very amazing part of my welcome. As ya'll know, I didn't end up having any time in Germany. I am so sorry to anyone that was waiting up. We didn't even have time to call to say we didn't have time. But Mothers' Day is coming up, so I'll talk to you all then! So I had a big sleep over with all the cool kids in my district at the MTC. We laid mattresses all across the floor; it was awesome. When we woke up we were all just kind of stunned . . . we're leaving!!! So the plane ride from America to Germany was bruuuuuuutal! thought I was going to die. I was considering jumping out the emergency exit, no lie. I was in the middle row and the seat had no extra room at all even though the flight was 9 hours. So we couldn't watch the movies, so we pretty much just sat there and suffered. And of course, I sat next to Anziano Motely who is a 300 pound black man. So yeah . . . when the plane started coming over the Alps, we were all just like yesssssss, we're in Italy!!! So it was the best when the pilot started his descent to the wonderful land of Italy.

On the plane (which was the plane to Italy, sorry, I skipped the Germany plane), I got the chance to talk to an Italian man named Mario. Yeah, no joke, haha. First Italian I meet is Mario . . . pretty ironic, haha. So I really couldn't understand anything he was saying, haha, it was so fun. He said I did good though. Luckily he spoke a bit of English as well, which he didn't reveal till after I struggled for 10 minutes to hold a conversation with him. He was like, you speak very good. I was like, you speak English!?!?!? Haha, so that was fun.

Finally, we landed and President and the 2 AP's picked us up which was so great to finally see them. They took us to the mission home and it was a beautiful, bright, sunny day. We chilled in the mission home for a bit, had some boring meeting that I didn't understand, haha. No joke, I almost died, I was soooo tired! At this point I'd been up for like 30 hours straight. But then we got a chance to go to DOUMO!! In downtown Milan. If you haven't seen it, google it. It was incredible. We came out of the subway and it was just like BAMMMMM! It didn't even look real. The subways were way fun, except for the half-naked chicks posted everywhere. By the way, Italy must be very poor, because no one wears clothes here, haha. The first couple of days I was like . . . oh, my gosh, where am I!? But now I have just learned how to tune it out. It's pretty funny. Immodesty is literally everywhere. But anyway, we talked to some people on the subway and that was fun. We got to tour the Duomo. I'll attach some pictures after this email. It was awesome.

So then we came home and had some lasagna, which was awesome, and then they shipped us off to a hotel, which was so nice being as we were all dead tired! So then we woke up the next morning and went to the chapel in Milan and met all the trainers. Then they just straight up called us out . . . . . Anziano Perkes, you will be with Anziano Ransom in Piacenza!!!!!!!!!! WOW, was I excited. But I called it: I got the shortest trainer in the bunch, haha. We're quite the couple! So then we just were like . . . okay, let's go. We hopped on a train and headed off to Piacenza!!! I'll pick up this story later, but I wanna get these questions anwered!

2) What did you think of your mission president and his wife?

They're awesome . . . very nice . . . President Dunaway made me promise to call him if my bed was too short. I got to the apartment and discovered my feet only hung off about a foot, so I decided that wasn't enough, haha. I love it; it's great.

3) What was it like being at the mission home?

The mission home was so fun . . . just to be able to sit on a couch and relax was heavenly!

4) How was it SPEAKING Italian IN Italy? Was it easier or harder than you thought?

Haha . . . I think the only words to sum this up is WOW. What language did they teach me in the MTC!?!?! So yeah, it is very hard.

5) What are the people like? Have they been nice to you?

6) Did you get a great first companion? Tell us about him. Will he work real hard? How long has he been out? Is his Italian good?

Okay, so I've decided I'll probably end up answering all these in my story, so back to that . . .

We got on the train and at first it was just kinda awkward. Sooooo, where ya from?? Haha, I'm not gonna lie, the first day was just kinda weird. But A. Ransom is a stud. As I said, he's pretty short, so it's fun. He is a way nice kid from North Dakota. At first I thought he was kind of shy and not very talkative, but then he opened up quite a bit. We get along perfectly; I love it. He is the district leader of our district and goes home July 14th. So I'll be his last companion. We're gonna work way hard his last two months and send him home in style.

So we got to the apartment, which is actually very large. We have a study room with couches, a smalllllllll kitchen and bathroom, and bedroom and an empty room that we throw all our storage in. So we are very fortunate to have this great place. Italy smells great, by the way, I love it.

So the first couple of days were wayyyyyyy hard. I expected to come in and just teach lessons all day, haha. Anziano Ransom's last companion didn't ever want to do finding work, so basically we only have like 2 to 3 investigators. So the first two days we just did all finding work. Jet lag was getting the best of me and I couldn't speak at all! We had no success at all, everyone just said no. So the first two days were rough. I woke Saturday morning still jet laggy and just being like mamma mia, another dayyy aghhh. I was kinda just not excited to go out. I know this sounds terrible but just get to the end of this story, it gets better. So I showered and did some pushups. Well my personal study that morning was wayyy cool. It just pumped me up to get to work. So we went outside and it was pouring rain and at first I wils like this id gonna be a longgg day. So we started biking . . . . oh yeah, we're a biking area, which is wayyyy cool. My bike is purple and is so awesome, I love it. My helmet is even cooler; I'll have to send you a picture. So we're biking and it just hit me: I was like this is soooooo cool. I'm in Italy!!! I'm a missionary!! So I started singing teh rocky theme song and just had a grin on for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I got sick as I don't have a rain coat, haha. So we are going to buy one today as it has been raining since then. My suit is beat to pulp. It smells like a drying tent; it actually is rather pleasant.

8) How is the food? Have you eaten anything weird? Really good?

In terms of food, I actually haven't had any Italian meals yet. President just put in the rule that we have to have an investigator there, so that kind of killed all our dinner appointments. But the food we've cooked at home has been awesome. You'd be proud of me. I cooked hamburgers the other night and they were delicious!

9) Have you been able to teach anyone yet?

Yeah, we have had a couple of lessons. They're a bit different than the golden investigators we taught in the MTC. People don't read what we ask them to; they have their tv on, haha. So it's been a bit of a shock. But I love it. We've had some sweet lessons. This man named Nando said he wanted to be baptized, but he smokes so we're gonna be working with him. Everyone here smokes; it is quite a sad thing. Especially the teenagers. It is sad to see all the teenagers wasting their lives to smoking and drinking.

10) Is your area one in which your companion has already been serving? Or are you both new?

My companion has been here for 1 transfor, so it is perfect. He knows the area greatly and also all the members.

11) What was church like? Are you a little branch? What are the members like?

Okay, so we have a little branch here in Piacenza. It has like 30-50 people, depending on the week. They are the nicest people in the world. Italy actually reminds me a lot of St. Thomas, without all the garbage and with a lot more Italians. It is sooooo beautiful here, I love it! So the members are very funny. In the middle of sacrament, the branch president said something like . . . . bla, bla, bla, bla, Perkes, bla, bla, bla, bla. I was like what??? And Anziano Ransom was like he wants you to bear your testimony. Oh, wow . . . so I got up there and the pulpit went up to my legs, which by teh way, Italians are very short, haha . . . they're all scared of me. But anyway, so I just bore my testimony as best as I could and told them how happy I was to be in Piacenza. I said that my Italian wasn't too good, so if they could help me. After sacrament they all came and welcomed me and said my Italian was awesome, which it isn't, haha. Some of them were like, Mamma Mia, un Gigante!! Which means like oh wow, a giant, haha. They call me the giant. That is one thing everyone comments on is how tall I am. I thought America was bad; Italy is like triple, haha, but I love it. It is a great way to start talking to people. So that's our branch; I don't know them very well, but I love them all, they're all sooo sweet. Wait till you see a cute little 2 year old girl speak Italian; it is the cutest thing I've ever seen. This little girl came up to me in her sweet voice and was like you're tall! But in Italian, obviously. Okay, so I'm now going to go off of my list so this may be a bit [of a] jump; I'm sorry.

So the cars here are crazyyyyy. I've seen like 20 Porsches, 2 Ferraris, and 1 Lamborini, and 3 Audi R8's, which is the car Iron Man drives. That's just in a week. People have real nice cars. Then there is the 3 wheeled tiny trucks people have. No joke. I could probably pick one up; they are hilarious. Alpha Romeo is a huge car brand out here. I alaso saw a Mazerati, which was awesome. So I've had a chance to have a few Italian foods from shops. I had some focaccia bread, gellato, and pizza. They were all amazing and so much better than American food.

Anziano Ransom is the district leader, which means that he does exchanges once a week. So I always do them too. I got the chance to go down to Reggio Emilia and do a 24 hour split with Anziano Cook, which was way fun to see his approaches and a different city. [Max describes doing "casa in casa (door to door)" contacting] When people yell in Italian I just can't help but smile. Whenever they slam the door I look at Anziano Ransom and I'm just like what did they say??? So we have been speaking as much as we can in Italian with each other. I'm imporving fast already, but I have a long wayyyy to go so I need to really work hard.

So every city has something called Centro (pronounced chentro), which is the old city of the city. For us, it is like the main hub where everything is. Our church is in Centro. The streets are are all cobblestone and very narrow. It is what Italy looks like when I think of Italy. The most beautiful long narrow streets with multi colored apartmetns all the way down. I'll have to get a good picture. It is raining still today so my picture I took isn't the best . . . I'll send it anyways though.

So I loved all your letters. Sales sound like they're going good! Buck and Jay Z, I like the Gulf model of car. It sounds sweet. By teh way, on P-days I have as much time as I want to spend, so emails work just fine. Here is my address, if you want to send letters, which would also be fine.

Anziano Perkes

Via XXIV Maggio 42

29100 Piacenza PC

Italia

All letters can go there. I'll be here for quite a while, so I'll let you know when I'm transferred. Here is the mission home, if you're sending packages and want to send them here.

Anziano Perkes

Via Gramsci 13/4

20090 Opera MI

Italia

If you send any packages, don't send beef jerky or deodorant. Customs, a lot of times, will take or charge huge fees on certain items like beef jerky. Just be careful of what you send; if you do send something, which you don't have to. Oh, and Luisa, I don't really have time to knit. You're too sweet. Thank you, though. It also helps if you put "Della Famiglia" on it. If you have any stickers of Christ, throw them on there too. Both of these help get it through.

Nate, your pictures you sent were amazing. But, hey wonderful family, I hope I answered all your questions. But I have to write President as well, so I love you and all look forward to emailing next week. I'll send pictures in another email. Please forward this to everyone as I don't have a contact list yet.

Italy is amazing. I love every moment of it. I'm already getting sad to leave.

LOVE TO ALL!!!

TODAYYYYYYYYYY!!! [Sent from MTC -- April 21, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:04:00.005-07:00

So i'm sorry that i didn't get to email yesterday. They were being stupid, because today is officialy our departure day, so we had to wake up extra early and come down here to shoot off a quick email. Hello everyone!!!! Today i am flying out to Italy!!!!! Thank you all so much for your Dear Elder!!!! I got 9 letters on monday breaking all district records! I even got a little plaque, no i'm just kidding just on my teeth that is. So this past week was way intense! Guess of all people who spoke to us on Tuesday!?!?! ELDER HOLLAND!!! It was so amazing, he always gets so fired up when he speaks to the mtc. The spirit was so stong. There seriosuly could not have been any better way to get sent off to the mission field than by hearing from Elder Holland. He just talked about how he loved the mission so much and not to let one hour go by, one minute, one second be wasted because you will forever regret it. I took like 6 pages of notes it was so cool. I don't have then with me now though they are packed away sorry! So yesterday our teacher brought in all his mission pictures as kind of a farewell culture day. Italy is sooooo beautiful! I knew it was but i just thought you know like the top 4 cities, venice, bergamo, milan, and Genova were the only beautiful ones and the rest were kinda normal. Every city he was in was sooooo coool. There is something unique about every town/city in Italy, whether it be a special look or holiday or food. For example in the city Parma is where parmesian comes from and you have the best cheese there or in Genova they have the best fricatcha bread. I got your phone cards with all the numbers thank you sooo much. I might call mom and dad in provo and then the rest in germany. I'm not sure i'll have a ton of time in provo but i know i can at least call ya'll. I'll try to squeeze in as much in provo because it will be better time for ya'll. So i sent home my memory card yesterday! Please read Mormon 9: 31 (or maybe 33) before looking at my pics haha. No i'm just kidding from all my pictures you'll think i don't study, but i thought it would be boring if i just took pics of me memorizing vocab, reading all day, or in class. I sent a mini explanation paper for the pics that have people in them. If you zoom in i'm sure you can see their name tags to see who it is. Just keep your eyes out for Anziani, Motley and Casuto. There my boys that kepy me sain during these past 9 weeks. Without them i quite possibly could have gone bonkers haha no just kidding. So i really don't have that much to say, as I will be talking to you today!!! So I love you all and hope to get to hear you today!

Vi Voglio Bene!

Anziano Perkes

1 WEEEEEK! [Sent from MTC -- April 14, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:04:00.003-07:00

Wow oh wow!

1 Week from today i will be on an airplaine to ITALY!!!!!!!!! Hello wonderful family how is everyone doing?? Thank you all for the letters this week i loved them all as always. Mom listening to Kanye West?!? I'm impressed this is a whole new step for you. Mom and Dad your new raw diet sounds very.... intersting. I'll have to try it sometime, maybe when i'm like stranded on an island where there are only apples and pine apple juice... haha. No it sounds like it is working great. Okay so i made a list of things to write about to try and get in the most out of these letters! So first off i have about 500 pictures on my camera and i think i am going to send home the memory card now rather than get to italy put some more on and send it home. So if you guys could copy the pictures somewhere and then wait till i'm in italy to send it back that would be fantastic. Let me know what you think. If you want me to wait to fill it up in Italy let me know. I won't send it till next monday so you can tell me. I was very sad to hear about the earthquake in italy that is very sad. Something very interesting thouhg, i was talking to my teacher about it and he said that there has not been a baptism in that little city for 8 years. So mayvbe the Lord is just preparing these people to be humble. BUt regardless it is still sad. So we do this funny thing when we call (pretend) our teachers to set up an appointment with them, they will go out the door and then i'll make a ring sound for them and then 2 missionairies and the teacher will talk on the pghone. So my previous ringtone i used had been the stereotypical one that is like, beedo bee do beeedo beee do diiii. Its the one in the coke commercial where he answers the coke and says, its for you. SO i got a bit bored of going original so i decided to mix it up a bit. So i started singing, buffalo soldier in a ringtoness voice. And Fratello Clarke, (the teacher that is the horse) starts laughing and goes, Anziano Perkes what is that for? So i was like you got a custom ringtone last night, don't worry about it. And he was like, that is not my ringtone silly, so i was like... allright what is his ringtone hmmm. So about 2 seconds after i was like, As sisters in zion we all work together....." And he started laughing so hard that he had to close the door and re compose himself. It was quite funny. So in 30 minutes i have to go get a departure haricut!!!! Crazy huh!?!? Hey mom if you could send me everyones number, and let everyone know that i'll be calling. Thank you so much!! So here's the schedule. We fly out of provo on the 21st at 11:07, get to chicago at 3 and depart at 3:45, get to Frankfurt, Germany at 6:55 AM and then depart there at 8:45 AM. We then get into Milan at 9:55 AM on 22nd of April. So i won't have any time at chicago, but i have 2 hours in germany. I don't know what the time difference is but if you could check and let me know if that is not a good time to call. I was planning on calling then so lemme know. I might be able to make a quick call in Provo but i'm not sure i'll let you know. Just make sure people answer there phones because i won't have a ton of time to re call back. So we have this funny elder named Anziano Barthell that i told you about the one that is kinda like steve but very amusing. He's from Minnesota so has a crazy accent. He of all people got chosen to be our travel guide during our flight which isn't that big of a deal, but he is taking it ever so seriusoly. So he called a zone meeting yesterday to have a mission debriefing sort of haha. So he called us in and started talking about not watching movies on the planes and so forth. And then with his famous voice he was like, "NOw remember Anziani, once we leave provo we will be a bunch of weird men in suits." You have to see this kid say this to appreciate how funny it was. so i pulled out my camera to grab a picture of him and he was like, "Please Anziano Perkes, no flash photography at this meeting!" He was being dead serious too, we all busted up laughing. We all love him so much. So quick story i was reading in Ether. I'm going to finish the BOM today in the temple which is going to be amazing. My last temple day for 2 years!!! How sad, i've come to really love the temple. So i read about the Brother of Jared and i always just thought it was a sotry about a bunch of barges, nothing to special you know. And then i read in chapter 6, verse 2 and 3, and realized taht the two stones of lights in the boats of darkness could be missionaries!!! And that they light the people as they travel across the dark and scary ocean which could represent our lives here on Earth. I was very sad to hear of Daniele Hales getting married, no i'm just kidding, thats cool. So she didn't wait for the high voice kid then haha. Or maybe that is him woops haha. KK for my scripture plaque if you could put D&C 35:13-14 on there. Lemme know what you think. If that's not a good one lemme know. I just thought it was cool. Because without God I am nothing. So my family i must depart for my departure haricut. I might be checking this a bit later but we'll see. Dear Elders will work for this week but after this please email everything to this email. It will be lovey thank you all!!!!

Love ya'll tons!!!

Love Anziano Perkes!

Family!!!!! [Sent from MTC -- April 7, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:04:00.001-07:00

La Mia Bella Famiglia!!

Thank you all for your letters this week i loved them! How is everyone doing?!?! This week has flown by again haha. Want to hear something crazy!!! So 2 weeks from today i will be on a airplane to italy!!!!! That seriously blows my mind! These next two weeks are going to flyyyyy by! So this email might be a bit shorter because i'm already a bit short on time. I keep zoning out haha. So i will only go to the temple one more time after today, and only teach in the TRC one more time! Time is already flying by i'm getting nervous that the field is going to go by in a blink. So i had a couple of funny experiences this week in teaching lessons. Actually they are probably very bad but i'm just glad i did them here and not in italy. So i was trying to say Jesus Christ suffered for our sins, so i said Gesu Crist Soffrito (past tense of soffrire (to suffer)) per i nostri peccati. Well it turns out soffrire is an irregular very and the past tense is supposed to be sofferto. So what i actually said is, Jesus deep fat fried for our sins. Which is sooooo bad right!! My teacher was laughing so hard but i guess a lot of people make that mistake. Another time i was trying to talk about sacrament bread and the word for bread is pane but in my nervousness i accidently said pene which is body part only males have. This one was sooo embarrassing. The investigator started cracking up and i was like... hey why are you laughing at me and he was like PANE Anziano!!! while laughing. So those were the only two language mess ups i had this week which i was grateful for. So i am famous for mixing different odd drinks in the cafeteria. After eating like 100 meals here you gotta mix it up right!? So i made up this drink called the hulk drink, which is white on the bottem and then it turns into this like battery acid green so we call it the hulk drink. It is coke, powerade, and sprite. I got everyone hooked on it haha. There is this one sister that always comments on how much energy i have when others are like dead tired, and she was like, Anziano Perkes i'm gonna have to start drinking that hulk drink to have as much energy as you. Haha so i'm trying to come up a with a new recipe for the spider man drink we'll see how it goes. Oh yeah mom and dad, bishop wrote me and said i forgot to give him my scripture plack scripture. I don't really have any time to write him so if you could just choose a scripture that would be awesome. Anyone works there all good. So i loved conference! iT WAS way cool to be able to watch it as a missionairy. We all watched it together in the gym so it got a little crowded and hot but it was still stellar. I left my page of notes at the dorm so i can't really remember which ones were my favorite. I know i loved Elder Eyring's talk about no soldier left behind, and also elder uchdorf's talk about the blinking light was way cool. A lot of the talks were so applicable to missionary work is was awesome. It seemed like almost every talk had something about the economy involved in it. Is it really stinking up outside this bubble i live in? So i saw Mark Stevens i believe in the choir which was way awesome. What a stud. I'm starting this new journal with this smaller journal which is called my book of memories. I have so many things in my life that i know i'll forget if i don't write them down, so every couple of days i'll write a page long memory down there. So far i've written about me and nate climbing the banana trees in st. thomas., building the igglo as kids, trailing james with nate in denver haha that was so funny, and skiing at grand targhee. I was thinking a lot about that day, man was that fun. When i get home we have to all go hit up targhee!! So i got both your packages this last week thank you soooo much! I got the conference candies and also the box of easter candy. I love the food but i just want to tell you, i have a whole drawer just full of food, chips, candies and everything that i'll never be able to eat in the next two weeks! Seriously i eat as much as a can each night an i haven't even dented my supply of food, so please no more haha. I loved the little easter bunny bubbles you sent me and the boys had a lot of fun with them haha i'm just kidding. I was blowing bubbles in my room and Anziano Motley the big ole black kid walked by and was like.... yo Anziano Perkes what the crapppp are you doing?! I think his respect for me as a person might of dropped a couple of points haha. How are all the kiddies doin? I miss them a lot. So usually i bring in all of your letters so i can answer questions and such but i forgot to today so i might miss some of your questions i'm sorry! I heard about the earthquake in italy. That is very sad. So i had this crazy dreem the other night that i actually didn't remember until the next day. You know how sometimes you'll just be like wo!!! I remember my dream! SO i was sitting in class and then i was like bam i remember! So i had a dreem i was meeting with President Dunaway and he was like, Anziano Perkes, you are going to serve in Bergamo. And when i remembered it i just felt so happy. So i'm not sure if i actually will serve in Bergamo or if it was just a dream so we'll have to see. I've come to realize that anywhere you serve in italy, is amazing! I remember my first day i asked my teacher what his favorite area was and he responded with Italy. So after seeing pictures of all these cities there is not a non gorgeuous city in the milan mission. So wherever i go i'll be so excited!!!!!!!!!! But hey family i got only 2 minutes left so i'll see you in 2 years!!!

LOVE YOU!!!!

Anziano Perkes!

Family!!!!! [Sent from MTC -- March 31, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.010-07:00

Wonderful Family!!!

Sorry i was a bit slow writing today. I can email anytime up to 6 so i kind of procrastinated this letter
but its all good because i have some time now! So this week at the mtc was amazing!!!! My companion kind
of had a rough week. We taught a lesson last week and he froze up and walked out of the lesson leaving
me to teach the whole thing by myself which actually happened for 3/4 of the lessons we taught this week
which kind of stinks haha but i look at it as a secret blessing because i must obviously need more practice
with the language. So he'll go to say something and then freeze up and go so frustrated that he just walks
out of the room or puts his head down and refuses to even just read a scripture. So this week was amazing
because i got a ton of practice with the language which was awesome. The bad part is i have tried to talk to
him a lot this past week and he always just ignores me. He has kind of become angry at our whole district.
So one night i was just asking how he was and he didn't respond. So i was like yo buddy you okay? And he
told me he was fine, and i said i could tell something was bothering him. So then he said why don't you just
shut up! You don't know me! You don't care about me! And i'm not mad i'm fine, and i'm not affected you at
all so just shut up. So that didn't go as well as i had hoped. That happened a week ago and he hasn't talked to
me or pretty much anyone including both teachers that have pulled him aside. So i really don't know how to
help him. I've tried countless times to lift him up telling him that he's doing great with the language
and how he is a smart guy, or simply just talking to him. It seems like no one can get through to him so
we are all just praying because we figure if anyone can get through his head it will be the Lord. So it has
kind of been a quite week but it has also been amazing. Silence every once in a while actually isn't that bad.
I've been able to feel the spirit a lot this week which has been a blessing. The spirit here at the mtc is crazy!!
So anyways I have a couple of funny stories that happened this week. We have a PA system in our class room and
our teacher needed to check up on 2 missionaries in the dentist office so he called and no one was answering so
I decided that i would go ahead and pretend to be the magice voice from the ceiling. So i cup my hands and go
"Beeeeep Yes how can i help you?" I never thought it would work until my teacher was like, "Umm yes we have two
missionaries......" I carried a like 1 minute conversation with him the whole time while the class was biting there
fingers to stop from laughing. And then at the very end i was like.. "Cshhh... this is commander Perkes speaking,
requesting permission to land Eagle one" My teacher got so mad in a funny way. Not like a mad way but in a like
i can't beleive i just got tricked haha way. Ed and Beth sound amazing! Tell them i say hi. Congrats dad on
your home teaching that sounds great!!! Oh and to answer your question dad we always go to the 12:40 session.
That is when we are assigned to go. Josh and Brooke the food coloring story about Emma made me laugh so much.
That little stinker haha. So many of you have been asking me about the language. I guess I don't talk about it
much. So far all i can do is bear my testimony.... no i'm just kidding haha sorry mom. I am amazed at how
much we are able to learn with help from the Lord. i love it. I walk away after teaching for 30 minutes in italian
not having memorized lessons, but just being able to talk about what the spirit is prompting me to talk about
and i just want to scream with joy. It is so amazing that we are able to learn the language as fast as we do.
Now i don't want to think that i'm fluent or perfect in any way because i am farrrrrr from it. But pretty much
i can get my point across even if i have to talk around a word i don't know. I love it. For example i haven't
memorized this but i'll just say something in italian about the gospel for you. Possiamo vivere con le nostre
famiglie per sempre, quando viviamo il vangelo. Dio ci ama, e perche Dio ci ama, lui ci dava le famiglie e il
vangelo e il libro di mormon. I just said, "We can live with our families for eternity, when we live the gospel.
God loves us and because God loves us, he gives us families, and the gospel, and the Book of Mormon. Pretty
crazy huh? I love being able to pick a gospel topic and bear my testimony on it. It is amazin! I just can't
wait to get out to Italy ans seriously talk to everyone in sight!!!! ON the plane, bus, bathroom, streets
everywhere!!!!! Oh my gosh i can't wait. I only have 3 more weeks here in the mtc. Tomorow is April 1st
(no foolin) and i leave on the 21st!!!!!! I am getting so excited, not ancy, but excited to finally teach
the wonderful people of Italy! So i am just about out of time so i will have to let you wonderful family
go! But thank you all for the letter i love every single one of them! Oh i think one of you asked what i
like to hear in the letter the most and my answer would be just life! I study the gospel like 12 hours a day
here so every once and a while it is nice to hear something non gospel related haha. I hope that makes sense.
Not that i don't like when you talk about the gospel i love it, just i love stories about home the most!

I love ya'll a billion!!!!

Ci Vediamo!

Anziano Perkes

Ciao La Mia Famiglia!! [Sent from MTC -- March 24, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.009-07:00

Ciaody!!!!

Sorry that's like my mix between howdy and ciao, cheesy i know. How is my wonderful family doing?!?! Thank you all for your letters. They all piled in yesterday which was way nice. So i'll try to pack in as much as possible into this letter. If mom you could forward to all the fam and peeps that would be nice. So this last week was way crazy as you know we taught in italian which by the way is nuts!!! Our first lesson didn't go too well. Anziano Collins in the very beginning got frustrated and walked out on the lesson, leaving me to teach is all by myself. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because i got more practice haha, but it is really hard teaching, number one in italian, but also by yourself. I now have realized the importance of having a companion when you teach. It is very helpful. We taught 2 more yesterday and we did much better. We both talked and bore our testimonies and all that good stuff. So there is this really funny guy in our district named Anziano Barthell. If you look in the pictures look for the most odd but funny guy in the picture and you got him. He has been homeschooled all his life... yeah you know the guy. To make it even better he is from minnesotta which adds to his funniness. He prounounces everything way crazy. But i have been trying to teach him some innocent slang to slowly introduce to the outside world haha. So i was like, Anziano Barthell say, "You eye ballin my piece 50 cent??" Mom and dad you'll have no clue what this meens but i'm sure the brothers and sisters will appreciate this haha. It is a line from the movie transformers, but anyway that really isn't the point of the story, so he looks at me with the funniest expression and says, "You EYE Balling my piece 50 cents???" And then he says, but those pieces are so rare now adays, reffereing to actualy 50 cent coins rather than the rapper, haha what a character. So that's Anziano Barthell for you. The reason for this story is i realize i really have talked to much about elders in the zone. Another really funny elder is Anziano Motley. He is the big ole black kid that i semi knew at BYU before. Me and him are real close. He's way funny. The other night we were way bored and decidecd to give everyone in our district harry potter characters that they reminded us of. So of course he was Lee Jordan the only black kid in the whole movie. He elected me to be Fred, one of the weasley twins haha. But anywho sorry i'm kind of going off on a tangent here haha. So anyways Buck and JayZ I got an Italian shirt today that i had ordered from tyhe book store and boy was i surprised when i didn't have to pay for it and on top of that i got some cadburry eggs! Thank you so much. I have a feeling the magical Jeanie was involved in the scheme as well so if you could thank her. I've actually only seen her once. I don't frequent to the book store too much. I get to get the mail everyday which is always an adventure haha. So guess who i heard from last P-Day??? Elder L. Tom Perry!! It was soo cooooooool. I love how the Apostles kinda let lose when they speak to us. He literally jumped to the stage it was so funny. He talked on companionship Unity which was exactly what I and the zone needed to hear. It was so great. The spirit was so strong through the whole meeting. It was a very helpful talk. I took like 3 pages of notes it was soo good. So back to teaching in italian. It is so nuts. We taught this guy for 35 minutes in italian!!! And we only shared like 4 scriptures. I am so grateful to the Lord for the gift of tongues. I took spanish for 4 years and if someone said talk for 30 i'd be like.... Che Cosa!?!? Which meens like whattttt? I was amazed when we ended the lesson and saw how long we taught. It is amazingly hard though. I don't want you to think that i'm like this italian master because i am far from it. When we teach it is very simple, which they say is the best way to teach. I almost feel like our first italian lessons have been better than last weeks english lessons. We really rely on the spirit when we teach in italian which is good. So the temple dedication was so cool. They locked all the doors in the gym and as they said, they made it an extension of the draper temple so the gym literally became a temple for 2 hours. The spirit was so strong at the end when we sang the spirit of God. What was way cool is when we went in it all all nasty outside, foggy and just kinda dark. And when we came out there was like a cirlcle of blue sky around the mtc with sun pounding down. We decided to eat lunch outside and by the time we had finished it was cloudy again. Right as we came out the BYU bell tower was sounding a hymn so it was way neat when we came out to a beatufil day. Sorry if my english is bad. Ever since this week i can't spell haha, i'm hoping some day that will go away. Q hurt his shoulder? Dang that dummy haha. That stinks though tell him i say hi. I don't really have time to write him this week. Were teaching 3 more lessons so i'm busy busy busy! Dad it sounds like Ed and Beth are amazing. That's so cool way to go you stud muffin! Buck congrats on makin level 2 tech. By the time i get back you'll be like level 60 haha. Luisa your Italian is coming very well. I am impressed. You actyually probably know more than i do haha. That will be way sweet if your fluent when i get home. You me and dad can all chat about the latest Gilato flavour haha. So there is this elder in my zone name elder ghalacher and he knits every night it is way cool. he says it is like the most relacxing thing ever. I want him to teach me how to knit. He makes these way cool beanies. Mum and Dad, Ian's play sounded pretty cool. He is a funny kid. Tell him to start reading preach my gospel haha. We read that like alllll day here it's so intense. So something that me and Anziano COllins have done is we always sing a Inni (hymn) to our investigators before we leave. It is always way cool. We can't sing too well but they say songs are like prayers so it really invites the spirit. So mom you asked about my P-Day. We get up at 6:15 run and grab a sacked breakfast come back and chill in the residence until 8. Then we do laundery and write letters till lunch at 11:30. Then after lunch we head to the temple. After the temple we have dinner and then we have normal class schedule and devotional. So we don't get too much extra to do besides letters and laundery. You asked about adjusting to the schedule. I have adjusted great. I am tired every morning but it slowy wears off by the time lunch rolls around. The best thing about the mtc is you can always be happy and people aren't like.... dudde why are you always happy???!? I remember in high school people would always be like, yo perkes why are you always happy?!?! Gosh ahah. I can honeslty say that i have been happy every day here in the mtc, and i still get the occasional yo perkes your goofy but i love it haha. So this cool thing in the RC this week. I talked to this lady and just talked to her about life and nothing special. I told her i wanted to her to have the missinoaries over and she said she would like that. She had been to temple square once, and i helped her realize the feelings she felt was the spirit. I told her i want her to pray to know if the missinoaries coming were the servants of the Lord and she said she would. She thanked me so much, and she said it would be okay if i called her this week to say hi. So i'll let you know how she is. Her name is Terrie. Well my wonderful family it is time to go. I only have one minute so i better be off. I love you all oh so much and thank you for all the love and support.

Amore!

Anziano Perkes

HELLLOOOO [Sent from MTC -- March 17, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.007-07:00

Heloooooo LA LA LA

In case you were wondering i was qouting a seinfield episode. Sorry today is st. patricks day so the zone has been a in goof mood today haha. Well first off if someone could forward this to the fam i still haven't set time to make a group. My 30 minutes flies by!!! So first off this week was wayyy nuts. So today i've been in the MTC for a month!!!!! Crazy huh?? I can't believe it! It feels like i've been here for 6.....months. No i'm just kidding. It really does feel like i got here last week. Time is very weird here in the mtc. I think i might be going a bit crazy, luckily there is no side effects... AGHHHH.... sorry haha. So the zone is doing grrreat. Not that i've done anything at all there just a great bunch of kids. We had the fun oppurtunity to welcome a new district of 4 elders and 2 sisters on wednesday. It was fun because me and Anziano Collings got to welcome them into the mtc, and give them a tour and kind of take them under our wing for the first day. They are all way sweet. There all going to Catana which is the foot of Italy so not in our mission. Most people in our zone as of now are going to Milan which is fun. Probably 5/8 (Yes that exact) of us our going to Milano. So the reason this week was crazy is because were learning Italian! Crazy huh?? No i'm just kidding. Yesterday our teacher told us that for now on we would never speak english in class (which is most of our day). We read from Predicare il mio vangelo (PMG) and Il Libro Di Mormon. And Harry Potter e la stona di sorcerer. No i'm just kidding about HP but i wish! That would be way cool. So not only do we have to talk italian but we have to teach in it!! Me and my companion Anziano Collins decided that the best and fastest way to learn italian was to throw ourselves under the italian bus. So we have what's called prgressing invesetigaters which meens that we'll teach them like 1-2 times per week. So here's our schedule... were teaching 4 times in italian! per week. This week we only teach twice but next week it's 4 for then on. we are teaching Daniele (which is Fratello Clarck, my teacher, pretending to be one of his real investigaters that he had) and then were teaching in the TRC which i've told you about, and then we signed up for this extra service thing where we will be teaching Sister Bradsall twice a week. So it is going to be nuts. We saw a lot of the older people leaving, and not really knowing italian at all and then we saw the anziani that really emerged themselves in the language and could speak it much better. So were planning to take the higher road we'll see how it goes haha. If you don't hear from me next week it is probably because i am dead haha. So I'll let you know... or i guess i wouldn't. So the Referall center has yet to dissapoint me. I talked to this old man the other day and he called just to get a free finding faith in Christ dvd, so normally were just like, okay here's your dvd, your going to love it bla bla bla. But i really wanted to actually talk to this guy. So i started just talking to him and ended up bearing my testimoney, and i commited him to pray about the dvd to know if it was true and if he should contact our missionairies. He said that he would pray about it. He then asked me how to pray. So i taught him how to pray, and then he was like, will you pray for me right now? So we said a prayer on the phone and it was way cool. I want to call him back sometime this week or the next. So sorry if my spelling is not as great, because this italian stuff is really throwing a curve ball at my spelling. So this sunday i get the amazing oppurtunity to take part in the Draper temple dedication. They are sealing off the gym and broadcasting it to all of us in there. We all had to get interviewd and stuff it was awesome. So we all bought white hankerchiefs this week. Were all way excited. This sundaay, i will have less than a month left in the mtc scary!! So i'll let you know how that goes. Dad i got your 2nd letter and of course loved it! It is so fun to read them thinking of you back when you had hair, and wore goofy clothes, oh wait you still do... no i'm just kidding. Being here in the mtc i've come to love and appreciate your jean jacket just so you know. Serious it's hot! I'm sorry mom, it's mildy spicy! (just so you know that's the first time i've said the "h" word since i've been here.) So we just barely finished the ginormous browny platter ya'll sent. They wer so good thank you so much. About the cookies for the zone... please o please don't go to the trouble. You guys are too nice. Your setting the bar too high haha. now if i don't get a package every week in italy i'll go into withdrawel haha, no just kidding. Oh back to your letter Dad i loved the story about you being called bishop. What a cool story. So that's crazy about Simon what a stinker. I'm sure he'll get a grand welcoming somewhere after he dies. No just kidding. I hadn't really thought about simon when you first mentioned it i was like.. who? haha. So that picture the cafeteria guy sent you wasn't my companion haha. TYhat's Anziano Turner he's in the district. He's a stud. That guy was just randomly sending pictures out so i was like.. hey get me! So i've seen Jess Lufkin like 12 times here. He leaves in a couple weeks for north Korea. But anyways my family I'm running out of time and things to say i'm sorry! I realize that i don't really ask you any questions i just talk about me me me. So please continue to update me on life, i do care! Well my wonderful family. Life is great. The mtc is amazing. The church is true! I love you all!!!!!!!!!!

Ci Vediamo!

Love ya

Anziano Perkes

Salve La Mia Famiglia!!! [Sent from MTC -- March 10, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.005-07:00

Hello my wonderful family.

Thank you so much for writing me all those wonderful letters. Once again i've got this little red blinking light in the top right corner with 27 minutes remaining so i'll try to type like the wind here. First off the MTC is going amazing. I can't believe i've been here for 3 weeks!! The time here is so crazy. It seems like yesterday was 2 weeks ago but then if i try to remember the morning of toay i can't remember what i did haha. So it is all a little crazy. So to start off I have made a list of what to talk about so it might be a bit jumbled but hopefully i'll get it all out there. First i want to talk about the referrall center again sorry haha. So i had two amazing experiences that have made me so excited for missinoary work. It is awesome! I can already tell in two years i'll be sad to come home. Time is already going by tooooo fast. So we can now do what are called chats where non members go onto mormon.org and then they can chat with missinoaries and ask them questions. So i've been doing that all week and it is so fun. We get the occasional weirdos that come on just to be weird hense being weirdos. So this one guy i was talking to his name is Bryan. Please pray for him. He came on and he had a couple of pretty good questions. So we started talking and then BAM, he said, "Can we meet with the missinoaries....i meen would they want to teach us if that's okay?" So i was like OF COURSE that's OKAY!!!! That's Fantastic! So turns out he has a member friend but he never got teh courage to ask him about the missinoaries but had always been impressed with the church. So I entered his name into the system and got his contact info to follow up and as he was saying bye he said, "I'm so happy about you. Thank you so much for helping. We will be honored to know more about your blessed church." WOW huh?? Quite amazing. His name is Bryan. I'm going to call him later and make sure the missinoaries called him. So this other experience. This lady just got baptized and she said that her husband was muslim, and she said that the bishop said that she couldn't go to the temple without his permission. So she asked me if not going to the temple would mess up her salvation. I was like... oo hard question haha. So my response was (Paraphrased) That really she should talk to her Bishop, so then i bore testimony about bishops and the help they provide. And then i told her before leaving, I shared with her the scripture about nehi where he says, "I will go i will do.... and then talks about the lord giveth no commandment save he shall prepare a way" I shared that with her and told her that if going to the temple was what she wanted, if she went to the lord in faith, that in time the lord would provide a way for her to go to the temple. I don't know why i really shared that scripture at the time, and then she replied with, "That scripture is very much what i needed to hear!" She then said she would go talk to the bishop more about it so i was way excited for her. So a funny thing happened in the cafeteria yesterday. I'm standing in line for food, and all of a sudden the president of the mtc buts in line right behind me because i'm next in line. Well the lunch lady for some reason was struggling that day so it was taking forever. He taps me on teh shoulder and goes. "Hey Elder your tall, can you reach over and grab me a roll?" So at the lunch line there are these like glass defender globe things, i'm not quite sure why but they are there. So i'm like... ummm touch it with my hands? And he's like yeah that's fine. So i reach up and over the divider and all of a sudden this spanish lunch lady is like, HEY NO REACHING OVER!! And i'm like "It's for the president though :(" So as i handed the president his roll i was like, "Now look what you did, made me get in trouble with the lunch ladies." "He thanked me and laughed as he walked off. So moral of the story is I TOUCHED THE PRESIDENTS ROLL!!! Amazing huh? Yeah i bragged about it all week haha. Not really but i still felt cool. So i got your brownies last night thank you so much. They are delicious.... but PLEASE O PLEASE don't send any more food. We eat like 34 meals a day here so i am totally fine. I'm not just being nice, please o please don't send more food, your too nice haha. But I loved what you sent. For now on just mention that you wanted to and i'll still be grateful and love you o so much. Nate and Luisa. Luisa i loved your thing on the book of mormon. That was way cool. I loved it thank you so much. Nate i'm sorry you almost broke your thumb... wait that was until i heard you did it by chasing a goose haha. Silly Nate. Your too funny. 11 minutes oh my i have to hurry!! Dad thanks for your letter this week i loved it. My companion did know the two people you mentioned. He knew of them but not really know know them. The idea about me having a blog is a bit scary... no i'm just kidding. That sounds like a good way to have a big ole book when i get home. Josh i saw your picture!!!! The funny thing is i always walked passed it and was like... that is the coolest picture!! It is not in the main building anymore but in my class hallway imagine that??!? I'll get a picture with it and send it off to you sometime in the next 6 weeks haha. So yeah we've had 2 people go home from our incoming district i'ts kinda sad, but everyone else is doing well. So i had this really cool exprience in the temple. I was kind of tired and i started to kind of zone off, sorry mom, but it was actually really cool. I heard this noise and for some reason i day dreamed that an atomic bomb just hit provo sad i know but kinda cool. I imagined myslef coming out of the temple, and seeing nothing but destruction, but yet the temple was in perfect shape. It was kind of weird but i realized that the temple, or the church literally and spiritually saved my life. So it was kinda cool. But right after i went back to focusing just so you know mom. Sorry i am running out of time i'm gonna have to write a letter as well. So another funny story. I read in John where it says greater love hath no man that he lay down his life for his friend. It kinda hit that that is exactly what I am doing. I am leaving my family for a short time, so that others may live with theirs for eternity. So that night i was kind of thinking about that. So in my prayer, i started praying, and said that i was dedicating my nezxt two years to the lord and i wanted him to use me in any way he wanted. That i would do his will for 2 years 100%. Well i quickly learned that the Lord answers prayers. Not even 12 hours later, 7:45 the next morning, i'm sitting on a couch studying scriptures and the President comes out of no where and says, Anziano Perkes can i speak with you and your companion? So i'm thinking.. oh cool were probably just doing companion interviews or something. He leads us into a class room not even shuts the door and says, I'm gonna make your life harder elders. You are going to be the new Zone Leaders. Can you do that for me? WOW was i surprised. Haha so yeah you might think i'm joking but i got called as a zone leader. It's a little intimidating actually. The first night on the job we had an pair of elders missing and i had to like organize a search and rescue party. Luckily we found them. I guess they had been talking and lost track of time and didn't realize it was 11. So i'm trying to not go crazy yet haha just kidding. Life is great in the mtc. I'm nervous and humbled to be a zone leader. But anyways i only have a minute. I have more to say so i'll send a mail letter today as well. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!

Ci Vediamo!!

Anziano Perkes!

Hello Wonderful Family!!! [Sent from MTC -- March 3, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.003-07:00

Salve wonderrrful family!

So first off i'm sending a letter today with like 4 pictures of some of the ones i've taken. So hopefully you'll get them soon. I have yet to get a picture of my whole district so i'll see what i can do. Okay so i made an outline of what i have to say in this letter because i have a lot of questions from all of you to answer so this might be a bit scrambled but hopefully i get it all covered. First off Dad i loved your letter to your parents. I was amazed at how much it sounded like you but at the same time sounded like this younger version of you. I liked how you described flying and how it was so amazing. Boy have times changed huh? haha but keep sending them i love them. Josh and Brooke!! Congrats on a baby girl. I love the name Claire Brooke Perkes. It's a close second to Maxine, but i still love it. That's so excited and Disney World that is awesome you guys will have so much fun! Little Matt already playing basketball?? What a champ he is. One day he'll be as good as me haha just kidding, i play ball everyday here it is so much fun. Yesterday i actually dunked it in a game but then i got yelled at because i was hanging on the rim haha. Mom your trip sounds way excited! I'm jealous that you get to go see all the family! You should come to the mtc and let me teach you the plan of salvation in the TRC. That would be crazy! I think i said this last time but Dear Elder works great. I get them the day of or soon after. And i think i said this last time too haha time in the mtc is crazy. I can't remember anything i've said in my letters, but my address is 167. It caused quite a stir at the mtc mail room haha. My first letters went to some random sister that was going to like guatemala or something. And i just happened to bump into her and she was like Anziano Perkes i have your letters! So i finally have all your letters hence me having to answer lots of questions. I loved all the letters they were grreat! Okay dad you had 10 questions in one of your letters so here we go. My companion is Anziano Collins and he is from St. George utah. He is a big ole football player and is pretty funny. My district is way sweet. We have a little bit of drama between some people but mostly it is way sweet. Nothing big just people's personalities clashing. It's all good though. I love them all they are all studs. The study here is INTENSE!!! For instance last night, from 5:15 to 9 was one class. Usually in a day we'll have about 8-9 of class where we have a teacher teaching us. And on top of that we usually have about 2-3 of personal, companion, and personal language study. So it is way intense but so sweet. Last night we learned how to do past tense when using past participles. I don't even know what that meens in english but i do in italian! Learning italian has made me realize i don't know english at all! Haha they keep talking about like transitory verbs and i'm like... Che Cosa!?! Which meens.... WHAT?!? Right now i know how to pray, bear my testimony, and make small talk. Ask about peoples families and hobbies and such. It is way cool. I've had the usualy 9,345 people ask me how tall i am everyday haha it's pretty funny. I asked a guy yesterday if he played mini golf and he didn't think that was very funny. He was like... do you play basketball?? So i asked him if he played minigolf. Changing my sleep pattern is still hittin me. I can never fall asleep at night but then in the morning i'm like dead exhausted! Things to send me.... would be nothing haha. Really please don't send me food. I eat so much at the cafeteria. If you want to send something i'd love to have an Italian flag! I did get your cookies and cinnamon rolls they were delicious!!! I shared them with the district they loved them! I haven't seen any General Authorities yet but we have a devotional tonight and we'll just see. They don't tell us till we get there. I get to go to the temple today which is way sweet. The provo temple is huggggge. We went to the Referral Center and did inbound calls which meens someone calls in to get a b.o.m. or something. I had someone ask me if i was a james Bond agent when i said, "hello this is maxfield how can i help you?" And then i had someone call and scream, "JEWISH PIGS" and hang up. I laughed so hard. I was like... if your gonna critisize get your facts straight haha. We have so much fun as a district. Time flies! I can't beleive i've been here 2 weeks! Seriously time is messed up in the mtc. By night time i'm like... what did i do this morning??? haha it is way weird. Me and my buddy Anziano Milar were doing chats with this one guy from scotland and at first he was hard core athiest to us. Then after an hour and 15 minutes, he finally said, Where's the closest church to this address? We were like sweeeeeet! And then he was like, until i talked to you guys i didn't believe in God. So were praying for him. His name is Bryan and he's from scotland. He didn't have the chance to go to church on sunday but he called the Bishop and asked some questions. The mtc food is amazing! I've already gained like 5 pounds it's intense! I got to teach Annie Jack in the TRC it was way fun. I taught her the lesson about the restoration. It was kinda weird to see an outside person but it was funny. Jake and Nate!! I hope sales are going well my mighty brothers! Tear up Boise for me ight?? Mom and Dad i don't have time to look on the blog sorry :( I don't even think i can though but once we get to the field we'll see how it goes. Mom you can either type or handwrite your letters either one is wonderful. Use whatever is easier. But anyway family my little red light is blinking so i better get off and go get my laundry. But i love you all so much and thanks a billion for the letters i love them! LOVE YA!!

Anziano Perkes

Ciaooooooooo [FIRST LETTER!!! Written in MTC -- February 24, 2009]

2009-04-29T17:03:00.001-07:00

Hello wonderful family!

This is Anziano Perkes writing from the mtc laundry room. Today is Tuesday which is P-Day, oh what a wonderful day it is. Today we do laundry, have personal study, go to the temple and then hear from a general authority tonight! What a day huh? So thank you so much for your cookies! We had a cookie party last night which was way fun. Everyone in the district thanks you! Okay time to answer your questions. I actually forgot the letter in my room so i'll do my best to answer some of your questions haha. First off my companion is Anziano Collins and he is from St. George Utah. He is a big ole football player which is cool. My district is wayyyyy cool. There is 12 of us and we are all going to Milan which is fun because we'll stay friends throughout the whole mission. They called this way awesome Anziano to be the District Leader. He got baptized a year ago and is now serving a mission. He is 23 and is a major stud. What a year huh? Get baptized, Holy Ghost, Patriarchal Blessing, Melchezidik Priesthood, go through the temple, and serve a mission. What a crazy year huh?? He is way cool and it is fun to hear the stories that he has to tell us about being a convert. So as i've told you the italian missionaries aren't Elders we are Anziani (plural of Anziano). It's really fun because we have a real tight knit group of all these italian Elders. There are only like 40 of us all together and pretty much everyone speak spanish so we are extra loud and fun to make up for the difference. They say that is how Italians are as well. So after learning a bit of Italian i have learned that the last name Perkes will not flow well for the natives in Milano. So I know introduce myself as Anziano Perkes prounced PEAR-KEZ. It took a day to get used to it but now if someone just says Perkes i'm like huh? So pretty much the MTC rocks and is awesome. Every day is so draining both physically, mentally, and spiritually but yet it is so amazing. There is not another place I would want to be than the mtc, well perhaps Italy.... or maybe even Hogwarts. Actually no mtc is cooler than even Hogwarts. We sing as a zone everynight in Italian and it is soooo cool. I think all the hymns were written to be sung in Italian. English is so last year haha. So i also am sending a letter out today that i wrote over the past two nights. So you should be getting that by the end of the week. Hopefully you got my first letter that i sent on the 18th. But the MTC is going wonderful. I have two teachers that teach us Italian, and then also Preach My Gospel. One has been home for 4 years and is married named Fratello (Brother) Garlick... haha what a last name huh? Mine as well be Fratello Spaghetti or something. And then we have Fratello Clarck that has been home for only 4 months. He is way cool. He was the Assistant to the President when he came home for President Dunaway the same mission president that i will have. I can just tell he would of been a powerhouse missionary. When he teaches us gospel stuff it is way intense. Time is flying by so far. I'm sitting here doing laundry and i'm like, I just got here like yesterday! What am I already doing laundry for? And then i realize i've been here for a week. Something way cool that our zone does is when we eat meals, whenever a Sorella (sister missionary) comes to the table all the Anziani stand up until they have sat down. So like 40 Anziani will all be standing up for 3 Sorelle. We are the only people in the cafeteria that do it, which is fun. So we get gymn time everyday and i've been playing basketball everyday which is sooo fun. We have little zone competitions and stuff. All the Anziani are obsessed with how tall i am haha. Most of them are pretty short which is funny. So i'm sending this email to a couple different emails off the top of my head, hoping that one of them will be the right email haha. So if you get this and your not mom or dad if you would not mind zapping it to one of them in case i got it wrong. Well wonderful family it is time for me to go. But I love you!!

Anziano Perkes

P.S. Mom and Dad the cookies were great. However, you don't have to send me packages quite yet as i'm guessing it is expensive, and the cafeteria has lots of food for me. So save the money and just draw a picture of cookies in your next email or something haha. Love ya!