10 Days left.

Anziano Faggioli has only 10 days to wrap it up.  He is working the mission to the last minute.
He will probably want to make the last post himself.
Thanks everyone for your support, it's been a great 2  years!
Janice Faggioli

3 More Sundays, count them 1-2-3!

Aug. 26, 2014

 Departing Testimony borrowed from the mission blog.  Thank you!
And yes his hair is growing out, fast.

Anziano Faggioli is finishing his mission in Cagliari on the Island of Sardegna. He is working hard now to finish well in a few weeks.
His homecoming will be on Sep. 28, 2014   1120 E 600 N at 1:00 pm
I am sure he will be happy to see some familiar faces, and would invite family & friends to come to our home after the meeting to visit.  Just follow us home.
Jesse's mommina
A few more from the mission blog.



Former companion from Caserta,  he will be looking him up in another year.

July 13, 2014

.....Pres just made the zone leaders the only authorizzed drivers on the Island so....Only they use the car now. Cost of living went a little bit down. It is noticably higher being on an Island anyways.

Things are going really well with the work. We found a few more investigators this week. Our biggest problem is just getting them to Church at the moment. I'm sure over time they will feel more comfortable coming. As the meet more and more of the members of course.

I did an Exchange in Oristano last week. I got to meet some of the members there. It was the city my trainer began his mission in and they all still remember him very well.  

We ended up on a really weird adventure on Saturday. We got a call from an ex investigator saying he wanted us to meet people at the park. So we went and there was a big city event for the opening of a new piazza. They were giving away bushes and flowers. One of the english course students works for the city and I went to go talk to her. Without even asking she just loaded me up with a rose bush and 6 other flower plants. Just put them in my arms. Then this ex investigator came up and decided he wanted to take us to meet someone else on the other side of town. So we went with him and it turned out to be a sort of "fire side" in a _________Church. It was really good. It was this actress who had an experiance with God and repented of all her sins and now she gave all her money to children in Africa. This investigator wanted us to meet her and shake her hand so after she was done talking we went up to talk to her. After we shook her hand the priest took interest in us and wanted our number. Haha he probably thinks he's going to convert us. Well see about that. I've heard of more_______ priests converting than missionaries.

I got your message about the dumpbox. My only concern is that I really just don't have time to sit at the computer and wait for them all to upload. I have so little time with the Internet a week that would rather spend writing you. It must be driving you crazy to not be getting any pictures. I'm sorry.

 I would like to become like Jacob in the Book of Mormon and have as he says "unshakable faith". I know I'm going to feel a little lost at first, they have spent enough time warning us about that here, but I'm sure if I hit the ground running I'll adjust well to life again.

I'm excited to see my room again and most of all sleep in my bed. You can take the Mr. Orem picture down haha. I forgot I even had that. I have nothing against getting rid of it. Are you going to leave any work for me to help out with. It probably sounds weird coming from me, but I really miss doing projects with Dad and Learning how to do something with my hands. I should have taken more advantage of his handy man skills and learned a lot more. I don't know  how soon I'll bounce off the the singles ward. We'll see. For now I think I give the old home ward a few months at the least. I'm hoping they are either going to put me in with the Priests or mission prep. I would really like to go on campouts and teach the priests quorum.

I really hope Bishop ______ makes it a few more months. I'd prefer to do the exit interview with him.

I've been eating lots of different sard dolci lately. My favorite one is made from almonds and a cream. It is Amazing. Also there is a place really close to our house that sells really good canoli.

Well I really dont know much what else to say.

Love, 

Jesse

July 7 2014

This week was amazing. Full of miracles. We were working hard all week and it payed off.

 

First miracle that happened was we were doing some street finding and we stopped this lady and talked for a little bit. Turns out she knew the missionaries a long time ago and has a Book of Mormon and everything. She had a really nice conversation with her and at the end she just says "You should come to my house and meet my son and his friend". Just right then and there she took us to her house and we had a little lesson with them. The son has been fighting against depression for 10 years now. 10 years ago his dad died and he hasn't been the same since. He was really happy to see us and listen to what we had to say. Same with the Mom and his friend. We invited them to come to the 4th of July activity in church and they came and had a great time. Turns out his friend who actually is his psychiatrist knows tons of the members here. We had another appointment with them and we challenged them to start reading the book of mormon and praying to know if it's true.

 

2nd Miracle. We stopped this guy to invite him to English course and he stopped and said in English " I don't think I need an English course" So we said he could always practice. He liked the idea, but the time doesn't work for him. So we offered to come to his house and teach him about our church in English. He wasn't too sure about talking about the church, but he said we could come anyways. We went to his house a few days later and we talked all about the God, prayer and the plan of salvation. He told us a few years ago he almost died and because of this he doesn't feel there is anything on the other side. We asked him "Do you want to know there is another life after this one" he really thought about it and in the humblest of ways said "yes I reallyl want to know, I'm just not sure". He has a stutter so he really struggles to speak, but the things he says he really thinks about before he says them. We are sure he felt the spirit really strongly. At first we were on a strict 30 minute time limit then by the end he didn't want us to leave. He really opened up and we think he already trusts us. I really believe the spirit touched his heart. I can't wait for the next appointment so we can see how his prayers went and we can explain La restaurazione even better.

 

I haven't been too busy with my new responsibilities. There are 10 missionaries in the district. 2 of them are the Zone leaders. So things aren't stressful at all. We have a district of really really good missionaries. One of the sisters was in Pescara while I was in L'Aquila and she is a really hard worker. Things are starting to really pick up here on the Island for everyone. We need to work on getting members more involved in the work, but I think the first step will be getting our work really established. I'm not even going to come close to getting an Ipad. That's okay. I'll probably be the last to finish without the Ipad.

 

Bathroom is almost done. We finally got water 2 days ago. We still can't clean the whole house because the workers are still putting in the toilet and shower so the floor is always dirty, but the kitchen is like our little safe haven. I'm really happy to have the water back because I can use the washing machine again. I've been washing cloths by hand for about a week. We should have a shower in 2 days maximum. No more using the hobo house below us to shower.

 

Anziano Faggioli announced on Mother's Day that he has been transferred to Sardegna, he will now be serving in Cagliari which is on the southern tip of Sardegna. He will probably finish his mission from this area.
Here are a few pictures from his previous area L'Aquila, and some in Rome.

Jesse update 3-31-14

Jesse announced this morning that he will be  staying in L'Aquila  with Anziano Padilla for this transfer. He is very Happy about this because they get along so well, and they have so much going on that he was reluctant to leave the people they are working with.  He was off to Civitella Del Tronto (the city his grandparents came from for P-day)   I hope we have some pictures to share with you all soon.

March 10, 2014 L'Aquila

Actions

Jesse Faggioli

3/10/14

What... no email this week?

This week was a good week. We had some members come to English course and meet a new family that just started coming. It was perfect because we were teaching about family night so they invited them to come have a family night at their house. This member family had just expressed to us that they had lost faith in the city. That it would ever grow, but last night they were really excited about missionary work and rekindled that faith a bit. 

We had a Zone leader Scambio this week. I got to be companions with Anziano Pizza for a day. People made some many pizza jokes. I thought Faggioli was bad.... Anziano W. came too. I remember being in his district when he started the mission. It was great to see him again. 

Not too much else happened this week. The relief society( I don't know how to spell that word anymore) had an activity with ____ mom and______ mom on Saturday. We weren't invited because it was for womans day. So we just made a cheesecake and left it in the church for them. They loved it and were attacking me for the recipe at church yesterday. They were like "I want to make it for my kids!!" then they were mad that I put butter in the crust. They told me it'll make me fat and I should use olive oil instead. 

That family history you sent me came in handy. I had to give a talk on Pionieri in chruch yesterday. It took up like have the time to tell the story in Italian. Haha and the members loved the talk. It was the first time the complimented my talk. So thank you for that. I also talked a little bit about Grandpa Faggioli being the only member of his Italian family to join the church and how he was one of the pioneers that allowed me to be born in the gospel. I told them that they are doing the same for their posterity as what my ancestors are doing for me. A good 80 percent of the branch are first gen. converts. 

Other than that....L'Aquila got really really cold again. I thought summer was starting, but I guess not. I'm already excited for the mothers day call. I know it's like 2 months away,but I'm excited anyways. 

I'm starting to speak as much Italian as I can in my last 6 months. I'm speaking it a lot more on the streets with Anziano Padilla and other missionaries. 

Love you.

Jesse visiting the city his Great Grandparents came from.

Ruins in L'Aquila

Jesse atop ruins in L'Aquila

Posers!

Feb. conference in Rome

Borrowed from the mission blog. conference in Rome.   Where's Jesse.  Hint third in from left .

L"Aquila Christmas 2013

Jesse visited with us yesterday.   He is very a  happy  Missionary and enjoys working in L'Aquila, and loves the people in the ward.
He asked us for updates on his friends, and inquired about many of the members of our ward and remembers you fondly.
He sends you all his best. He  is especially excited for and wants to know about his good friend Chads mission call when it arrives.
Jesse expects that he will serve in this area another 2 transfers, and maybe by Mother's Day he will be in his last or 2nd to last area.
It was Great, he is Great, all is Well!
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!
P.S. As a family we are grateful to the church for allowing us to have this very special time with our missionary, and we're thankful for his Mission President and his wonderful wife who watch over the welfare of our son while he is serving the people of Italy. Merry Christmas Pres. and Sis. Waddoups!

A'Aquila 12-2-13

I had a white Thanksgiving this year. There was about a foot of snow outside a couple days before transfers. It snowed us into L'Aquila and we couldn't leave for district meeting. I was so excited that I forgot how cold it was and I didn't go out very prepared and my hands froze. I keep a pair of gloves in my bag at all times now. 

We were able to make it out of L'Aquila on time for transfers. I stayed in Roma one night waiting for Anziano Padilla to come in. In the morning we went to Terni then to L'Aquila. It took us forever to get back. I have a feeling that me and Anziano Padilla are going to get along great this transfer. He is from Colorado and a Convert to the church. He was baptised 2 years ago. So far it's been really fun working with him. 

The work was really slow this week. We didn't meet with any of our investigators because we were out of town . On the bright side however our 12 year old member missionary told us that she has another friend that she wants to bring to church now. That would make about 3 of them now. One of them stood up and bore her testimony about how she knows the chruch is true. She has been coming for about a year now and really wants to be baptised. We only need her mothers permission. Unfortunatly it is really hard to meet with her family right now. 

I set up the christmas tree while Anziano Padilla was un packing. We have a hughe tree here in L'Aquila. Most of the trees in the mission (except for the mission home of course) are really small. It'll be as close as I can get to a christmas at home this year. The snow , the mountains, Fagioli family nearby. If you count something like 2 hours away as near by. 

Meeting the familia 11-25-13

(Note from mother:  Jesse has had the opportunity to visit his father's only known living relative in Italy. As his family knows this is not a coincidence, more of a blessing as a result of his service, and there has been much praying about this encounter. He did not give many details but we are thrilled he had the chance to visit. We hope he left a good impression and that the spirit was with them while they were visiting, We hope to get more details from him in the future.)

The scambio in Ascoli went really well. I met Vanda and Nino. They almost didn't let us in, but the fish vendor drove by and they came out. Vanda was really excited to meet me. She thought I was Sean. She said "you're the one that got married to the Italian girl right" We sat down for a little bit and chatted. Nino was really funny. He was your tipical old italian man. I didn't get to meet with the priest, but I did find another number to get a hould of him on and actually got to talk to him. We set up for next month. He just wasn't in Civitella that day. He only comes to give sermons, but he said if I give him 1 days notice he can come in and help me look at the records. No names this time, but I have high hopes for the next time. We walked right past Hotel Zunica. Brought back a lot of really bad memories from 8 years ago. Like that really crapy cover band that played outside our window until 3 A.M.........

So on the train someone took a picture of me. I was looking out the window and I saw a flash go off. I turned around and this girl had her phone out pointed right at me. I guess she got a kick out the the tag on my chest that says "Elder bean".  

We did another scambio with Pescara except we did it in L'Aquila. I have been trying to meet with a quy in charge of all the publicity in L'Aquila for about a month now. We finially met him during this scambio. When we got there he looked at Anziano Lewis (Anziano from Pescara) and said "you stopped me on the street last week." Small world. 

Transfer calls are in. Anziano Carr is going to Mistretta in Sicilia. It is said that it is over 4000 years old. The sicilians say that it exsisted when Abraham was still alive. He is really excited. My new comp is going to be Anziano Padilla. He is coming up from Lecce. I'm excited to hear all about how Brindisi and Lecce are doing. It's been a year now since I started in Brindisi. I wonder if there has been any more sucess there. 

Our best member missionary brought another friend to church. The work is going good. We didn't teach many lessons this week because we were out of town for a few days. We do have a new investigator reading the Book of Mormon._______ is in Teramo for a couple weeks, but is still reading and praying. 

It is raining really hard right now. Things are really cooling down. Actually it just barely started snowing. I've got all the snow gear I need...... hopefully. It is quite a bit colder than Utah from what I remember. 

We won't be having thanksgiving with anyone, but we are already invited over for Christmas. I'm really excited for the Skype calls.

Love, 

Jesse

L'Aquila 11-11-13

We found the coolest new investigators this week. His name is ------- He is from ---------------. I'm not sure if I spelled that right or not. He actually stopped Anziano Carr and another elder a few months back. He really wanted a Book of Mormon in --------------. He was really excited when we called him and told him we could bring him one. We  had to take a bus out to ----------------where he lives to see him. We read the introduction with him in a mix of Italian and ----------------. It's crazy to see this weird language and hear him read "Joseph Smith" from the text. Anyways he is really serious about learning about our church and wants to be baptised. He told us he would read the whole book in less than a week. When we fisished our lesson we needed to check bus times. We did that and came back and he was talking to people about the B.o.M teaching them what we taught him. We were only gone for about 2-3 mins. He was a boxer when he was younger and he really liked it when I called him Mahaumed Ali. 

We lost contact with one of our investigators after she went on vacation with her family. She just doesn't answer her phone any more. We are pretty sure her parents or someone was really agaist her talking to us because she had some really strong spiritual experiances in church. I wish she would just tell us what happened. 

One of the pictures I included here is of me and Carr in one of our English course students cars. 

President set some new mission wide goals for baptisms. He wants us to get 40 in one month. We are doing our best here in L'Aquila to be a part of that. Hopefully Ferid will be part of that.

So I was reading in the D&C and discovered that God speaks a little italian. In 128 near the end there are some straight up italian words in my English scriptures. 

It finally snowed in the mountains this morning. I was really excited to see that. I took a couple pictures to show you. I realize it's not that cool for you back in Utah where it's already probably snowed a bunch. 

I got the Halloween card. I still need to take a picture with it to send you. 

Anziano Faggioli

10-28-13

So I finally met all the investigators this week. There are some really golden people in the teaching pool. A---------.  that I told you about last week is asking us for Libri di Mormon to hand out to her friends. She told us next week we should have a new person to teach in church. We invited the two girls that stopped us on the road to church this week. One of them actually came and loved it. She stayed for all three hours and made friends with all the members of the branch. I was so pround of our branch. The accepted her right away and bore so many testimonies of the Book of mormon. In between meetings she kept trying to crack it  open and read it, but people just kept coming up and talking to her. It was great. I have a feeling this branch is going to be growing over the next few years and decades to come. I gave a talk on the first article of faith. The members are happy to have a piano player. The first counciler said over the pulpit "every now and then a miricle happens and one of the elders plays piano" They also really like the fact that I have ancestors from Abruzzo. They all know where Ccivitella del Tronto is and keep telling me to go there. They say the priest there is a really good guy and will help me find some names if I go to the church. We will see if we can arrange a p-day with Ascoli and get up there. 

Last week after P-day we had family home evening with a family Melone. They area a half brazillian half Italian family. They are probably the coolest people I've ever met. Their daughter is waiting on a visa to go on a mission. She is called to the Temple Square Mission. She is trying to learn English right now so the entire family is learning and trying to do family home evening in English. They like having us over so we can correct their English. Then after the lesson we have dinner and I can practice my Italian. 

There is a missionary out in Ogden right now. I can't remember his name right now. It's kind of weird that I'm serving in a branch that has a missionary out in Utah. Every one here says he has gained a ton of weight out there. Probabaly because he has so many members to eat with everyday haha. 

The bean jokes haven't stopped yet. I do my best to change the subject as fast as I can when that stuff gets brought up. These people are lucky they are so cool. If they weren't I wouldn't let the bean jokes slide so easy. 

Anziano Carr knows how to cook really well and learned some really good recipes from his trainer. Everyonce in a while I'll cook, but he loves doing it so I'll try to learn some of the stuff he makes. 

One of the Elders that was in Napoli while I was there is in Ascoli right now. I got to see him at our district meeting on Tuesday. I really like this district.. It is made up of 4 Sisters and 6 Anziani. It turns out I'm the oldest missionario in the district. They have all only been out less than a year and they are already speaking Italian really well. 

Weather is starting to get a little bit cooler. It's not quite Utah cold though. I have plenty of jackets and sweaters to keep me warm even if it snows latter on. I hope I get to see snow on the mountains while I'm here. 

Till next time,

Anziano Faggioli

L'Aquila 10-20-13

I love L'aquila!! This place looks so much like Park City. I can't tell you how much I feel right at home here. The mountains are in every direction. I thought I saw Mt Timpanogos outside the window my first morning. I love this place. I've been in the pretty big cities up until now without much nature, but here is just like living in the Provo canyon with a few cool castles and churches. L'Aquila was destroyed by an earthquake about 10 years ago, but now most of the houses have been rebuilt. The only place they haven't made any progress on is the center of town. People are really upset about it, but they have their lives still. They are still working on fixing it up and there is a lot to do.

I haven't met many of the investigators yet. There is one __year old ____getting ready to be baptised. ____ is really good friends with a family here in the branch. ______knows everything already and wants to be baptised, we just need to set a date with ____.  All the members are really cool. They all know where Civitella is and are excited to have an Abruzzese missionary.

So maybe for some p-day I'll go out and find some family names in the state archive. 

We do some service in a ---------------soup kitchen. We meet a lot of really charitable people doing this. People that volunteer there are all smiles. Eventually we will teach some of them. Little by little the show more interest in the church. 

There is a big university here in L'Aquila so there are a lot of 20-26 year olds running around. My first day here we get off the bus and these two girls come running up to us and say, "are you guys Italian" we talked to them for a bit, but evetually we had to explain that we are missionaries and we aren't here to date. 

I'm not sure what p-days are going to be like here. Most likely a lot of hiking, which I am more than okay with. I've seen enough castles and churches I would like to do some outdoorsy stuff. 

Anziano Faggioli