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!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Hellllo from Piacenzzzzzza [Letter written 7-22-09]
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
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]
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
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]
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
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]
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
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
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
AMAZING!
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
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Week of Miracles!
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!
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