Jan.30,2013 Matera

Hello,

Another week in Southern Italy. Zone Conference was last week. It was so much better than the last one. Also we went to Matera (yes, the place where they filmed The Passion of The Christ). This is thinking way into the future, but when you guys come to pick me up we I'm going to take you to go see it. It tops the list of the most amazing things I have seen in my life. There is a normal part of the city and it is just like any other city in southern Italy, but there is a corner at the end of centro that you turn and you can see all of Materra. After I turned that corner I thought I had been sent back in time about 1000 years. There are a bunch of houses carved out of the side of the mountain that are probably just as old as the Roman empire. Anyone that comes to Italy on vacation needs to go see Materra. 

        Pretty good week as far as missionary work. It  was a little bit slower, but that was because of Matera and Zone conference. 

At zone conference I learned that I know Brindisino and not Italian. I tried to talk to the Missionaries that are from the north and I couldn't understand them at all. My next city is going to be pretty rough for a few weeks getting tuned in to the accents.

         Anziano Harris finishes in a little more than a week now. I'll have a new companion (hopefully a native Italian so I can learn faster). He was a really good trainer. I learned a ton about how to be a better missionary. But now its time for him to go home and get the Iphone 5. 

Thats pretty much it for this week.

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Antonio Faggioli           

                                            Matera city where The Passion of The Christ was filmed.

Jan.23, 2013

We had our P-day moved to Thursday because of zone conference. We still got to email today, but we had appointments in the morning. Hopefully it didn't throw you off to much. There isn't to much going on in Brindisi right now. We have a bunch of new investigators and a few baptisms coming up (hopefully nothing is sure until they are in the water). There are a few families that we are visiting reguarly and they are awesome. 

        We did exchanges this week. Anziano Skanchy came up to Brindisi from lecce. He has a cousin that served in milan around the same time that Sean was there and now that I think about it I think I remember Sean talking about an Anziano Skanchy. 

        I don't think I am going to ever get used to the way Italians eat. They make so much food and force the missionaries to eat it all. I think they have a fear of leftovers. They never really get offended when you don't finish everything they just start freaking out about wasting food. Also they have a fear of eggs. They think if you eat more than three eggs a day you are slowly killing yourself. 

        Speaking of weird fears now that I understand more Italian, I understand how much they talk about colpa D'aria. EVERYONE here has a personal story about someone dying of it. I love it. It is so funny to get someone worked up about it. I have started telling them I believe in it. 

         I love being around the Italian people. For the most part they are the friendliest people in the world. Once you get someone talking to you you are automatically their friend.

         Tomorrow for P-day my district is going to Materra. It is the place where the passion of the Christ was filmed. It is rummored to be the coolest place you can go see on p-day in our district. I'll send some pictures next week. 

Sorry there wasn't much to write about this week

Love Anziano Antonio Faggioli

Ostuni, Italy

Jan. 16, 2013

I am missing out on the cold weather in Utah, but you are missing out on the torrential downpours in Brindisi. It has been raining so hard here lately. We got rained on so hard yesterday we needed to go back to the apartment because the streets were flooding. There was so much water that the sewer caps got pushed up and off and there were small geysers coming out of the sidewalks. It is going to be like that for about 3 more days according to the forecast. 

Teaching is going well. It was slow for awhile, but things have picked up again with the holidays being over. Things are good in Brindisi. 

Today for P-day we are going out to Ostuni to see the city. All the buildings there are painted white and are older than the U.S. If you get a chance you should look up some pictures on google. It is really amazing. 

Anyways enjoy the cold weather and the snow for me. Love Anziano Antonio Faggioli

Pictures of Ostuni, Italy

 

Chip Chop Pizza in honor of Emilia.

                                    Made with french fries and hotdog slices

Buon capo d'ano. 

 A lot of people here have joked about the Mayan calendar here. Some
one even paid for advertisements that said something like "screw the
Mayans" and stuff like that. The world hasn't ended yet. New years was
crazy here. One thing I learned yesterday is that the U.S knows
absolutely nothing about how to put on firework shows. We went to bed
at the regular hours, but at midnight all heck broke loose. People
made the biggest bombs. Car alarms were going off from the explosions
and fireworks were being shot into the sky all around the city. There
were people shooting off fireworks on our street and they were going
off right about level with our balcony. It was the most amazing
firework show I have ever seen. It sounded like there was a war going
on in the city.

The baptism was pretty good. Other than the part where he didn't
want to go in the freezing water (who can blame him). We didn't take
pictures of the actual baptism we were just posing before we actually
performed the ordinance. Speaking of pictures you need to put the
pictures I send home on the blog with the emails! Anyways he is doing
good. He brings a bunch of friends to church every week so we will
probably get a few more baptisms this transfer. He is really happy he
joined the church. He tells us that he could very distinctly feel a
difference in his life after he was baptised. I think the feeling of
baptising someone for the first time was not what I expected. I am
sure it would have been alot different if his reaction the the water
wasn't as funny as it was. That picture of his face is the only thing
that can describe what I am trying to say here. The baptism wasn't
what I expected, but his conversion on the other hand was an amazing
thing to watch. The gospel blesses lives and helps people to change
for the better.

Christmas in Italy is hard for missionaries. We couldn't do anything
that day. We went out on the streets and saw 1 person walking around.
Everything was closed. It felt really creepy. It was like all those
zombie movies were the streets are completely empty and nothing is
running. No lights, the fountains were off, and there were no cars
going anywhere. New years was alot better than Christmas.

Something weird that happened last week that I forgot to tell you on
the 26th is another crazy person story. There is no way I could tell
you all these stories about crazy people here in Italy over email, but
this one needs to be told. There is a guy here that just speaks
nonsense all the time so most of the time we just try to avoid him.
One day we went into the church and there was a letter tapped to the
door from this guy, written in formal legal format. In the letter he
requested that the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints make
him a U.S citizen and find him a woman of U.S citizenship to marry. I
still have the letter and will probably keep it.

That was the summary of my last 2 weeks here in Brindisi. Just a
mixture of crazy people, empty streets, and funny baptisms. I am doing
my best out here to lose my self in the work of bringing souls to
Christ.                                                               Miss you and love you
Anziano Faggioli 

Pictures from Brindisi 2012

Good looking guy in front of statue of Cesare.

Drinking this for Sean.