Elder Ballard Comes to Italy

This was a really big week for the church in Italy. Elder Ballard came to split the stake boundaries of Rome to include the districts of Napoli and Sardegna. The conference was amazing. Caserta became a Ward along with a branch in Sardegna. Elder Ballard talked to the members about their responsibility to make sure that we get worked hard enough. He called all us missionaries up to the front during the meeting and told the members "These missionaries represent 40% of the missionaries in this mission. They are willing to work are you going to make sure they are busy?". He also talked about how the Lord now trusts Italy to have a temple of it's own which means he has raised the standard for the members. It was amazing to be in the presence of an apostle of the Lord. Some members in our ward have already began helping us more. They took us to see a disabled member that no one has visited for years and give her the sacrament. I hope more of the members raise their expectations and work together to move the work forward. It was really a special experience. Elder Ballard trained us missionaries for an hour before the conference started. He gave us advice and we all had the chance to shake his hand. 

Work is slow this week. We had and investigator come to the conference in Rome. He is practically a member. He asked us when he could start saying he is a Mormon. haha. He is dropping smoking cold turkey this week and hoping to set a baptismal goal. We now have a new less active lady to visit. She is in and out of the hospital right now and because of health issues she cannot come to church. We plan on taking the sacrament to her every week. 

I got to see Anziano Burton again at the Conference. He is doing good and loving sardegna. 

8-28-13

Ok big news here. Napoli has been a district for a very long time now. Just last sunday the district president announced that it will become a part of a stake with Rome and Sardegna. All the members are really excited. He didn't announce any details about what brances will become ward or how exactly the split is going to work, but he did say that he thinks Caserta will become a ward because it is big enough. It was the perfect time for the announcement. All the members were freshly returned from the temple and all the members that went on vacation during august are back also. We don't know what this means for missionary work right now. It might mean that new cities will be opened up here or even we become a part of the Rome zone. All this is speculation. The Lords kingdom is growing. This new stake will bring many blessings to the Napoletani that a district just couldn't bring them. 

The work is still moving pretty slowly. We have a new focus on getting the members involved in contacting the less actives in the branch. We have been teaching people in members houses and sometimes in the church. Hopefully with September it will all pick up again. Until then we just have to do our best.

Our weekly meeting with the district has turned into a huge zone conference. There are three districts in our zone and two of them meet in the same building, so we all go out and get pizza after with about 16 missionaries. It's good being able to meet all the missionaries in the zone and become friends with everyone. There are some really great missionaries in our zone. I can't think of any that I wouldn't want to be companions with. It's been a really big blessing having a big district with a zone leader in it. He has been able to teach us a lot 

I've started studying the scriptures in english instead of Italian. I've gotten so much more out of them this way. I understood things in Italian, but not with the same power. The things the B.o.M teach are so much clearer now. The stories, the warning, the blessing and the comfort actually touch the heart. The spirit is with me more. I still read in Italian for my language study everyday so I will still keep improving in language skills. 

Transfer calls are coming in on Saturday. We are all really looking forward to these.There are going to be changes this transfer. I wouldn't send a package quite yet. I may be going or staying. Nothing is set in stone right now. Hopefully I stay. I like Caserta a lot.

That's all for this week. I wish there was more to tell, but hey I actually sent pictures this week so hopefully that will make up for not writing so much this week. 

Love, Anziano Faggioli

Plugged In 8-7-13

(The next paragraph won't mean much with out hearing what transpired in the previous letter.  
The fans are plugged in to a socket that is on the wall behind Jesse's bed and he manages to kick them out of the socket in his sleep.  He was startled awake one night to the new guy in the apt. who had climbed under his bed and run his hand up behind his mattress to find  the socket to replug his fan. As you can imagine it pretty much gave Jesse's heart a jump start.  Thus the response.)


Yeah, I went all week without unplugging the fan. Only because he taped it down. Yes I have a fan also. Other wise it would be way to hot to manage. Just yesterday in fact it was 90 or so degrees with 80 percent humidity. I can't wait until this is over and it starts cooling down. It's funny our neighbors always yell at us when we leave the house "Go back inside!" or "Why don't you go to the beach?" Finding is pretty much a no go right now. The streets are empty until about 8 pm. We have been filling our time visiting less actives outside of Caserta and working with the investigators we have now. The work is actually really solid right now. We have two investigators newly progressing towards baptism and a bunch of less actives coming back to church. 

So the guy going to England changed his mind and just went to Abruzzo. We haven't seen him for almost 2 weeks now. Hopefully he will come back ready to just drop smoking cold turkey. Another investigator was going to move to 

Sardegna but found work and stayed in Caserta. She comes to church every week and has made really good friends in the branch already. She was really interesting. She was praying to find a church one Sunday. And right when she got done praying she asked someone where there was a church and got pointed to our building. She already knows she received an answer to her prayer and wants to be baptised as soon as she quits smoking.  I just can't relate to quiting smoking. It would be awesome if we could get some members in lessons that could say "I quit for this, so you can too" but everyone is busy during the summer.  We got a text message last week from a less active member requesting a blessing. We weren't able to go out and visit her until last Saturday. She lives really far away and the trains don't run on Sunday so she can't come to church right now. We are trying to figure out a way to get her to church. She has a strong testimony and she wants he kids to be baptised. Most of our work is outside of Caserta right now. I'm becoming really well traveled. 

Fast Sunday this week was really special. All the Italian members got up to bear their testimonies. The spirit was so powerful at that meeting. The Italian members here are so strong. We need to help them bring more people into the church. I know if we can just get people to meetings like that they will feel the spirit and know it is true. Of all the good talks I've heard in church I have never felt the spirit more strongly than when I sat and listened to our members get up one by one and bear the same testimony, "I know my savior lives and I know he loves me." 

We have an American branch president, so we need to use our Italian skills to run errands for him every once in a while. One of these is finding a new house for one of our members. This member lives in a refugee camp and keeps getting beat up. This week after looking for about a transfer we found a place where he will be safe. It's a really nice place surrounded by a bunch of old people. He would have to really be looking it to get beat up there. 

So a really eventful week. I hope it makes up for past slow weeks. 

Vi voglio bene. 

Anziano Faggioli 

Our investigator getting ready for baptism is taking off to England in August. He told us he has been looking up churches where he is going so he is going to go to sacrament meeting while he is gone. He has been struggling to quit smoking lately. He just wants to get an answer before he quits smoking. We talked about how quitting will help him receive an answer. We will see how it goes with him. Either he needs to quit smoking soon or he won't be ready for his baptism. We'll see how it all goes next transfer. 

We went to a carnevale in one of the little cities with a couple of our investigators. That was to coolest thing I have ever seen. There were all the cool Venetian masks and huge costumes in a huge parade. I really wished I had my camera there. I couldn't get any really clear pictures with the one here, but I made due. I never thought that I would be able to see something like that in Italy. I always thought that it was a south american thing. 

The branch celebrated Pioneer day at the American base. It was alot of fun. We just ate a bunch of American food and talked to all the families. There wasn't time to tell the Mortensen  story during the activity. 

Transfers are tomorrow and Anziano Burton is going to train. We are all really excited to be done with the triple companionship. There will be 4 people in the house again.

We walked through the Reggia again today. This time we did it with bikes. While we were renting the bikes we ran into a couple from salt lake city. They were really excited to see us. We talked for a little bit, but we need to get going so we could see everything and have enough time for email today.

Mom

Jesse 7-3-13

So I just barely got off of some sketchy street in Napoli surrounded by fake Ray Bans and Gucci belts after eating a nice Napoli pizza. You asked the question if I am still in love with Napoli. The answer with out second thoughts is yes. I hope I never leave this zone. It's really hot, but not unbearable. I have it really good compared to Taylor, Peter and Conner.  Jay is probably really comfy right now in Sweden. 

This week we set a couple of baptismal dates. The work is moving along really fast. We have enough work for two companionships, but I like being really busy here so I hope they keep it down to just one. One of our new converts has been inviting his friends to church and we got a new guy looking into joining the church from that. This week has been so busy. Three new investigators. We are planing two baptisms on the 20 of July. 

New mission Pres is in. Still haven't met him. He will be down to Napoli on the 12th to give everyone interviews. 

Anz. Morgan is doing good. He is really good at Italian. He understands what people are saying better than I do, but I've got more Italian vocab floating around in my head. I remember not knowing anything in my first transfer, but he was lucky and already knew Italian coming in and is just going straight to work in his first city. 

Anz. Burton and I are getting along really well. We are probably going to be lost trying to find our way around the city when he is gone. They haven't sent a new comp for him yet and they wont until the end of the transfer if he stays in Caserta. 

Just a chill p-day today chilling in Napoli. We are going to go play soccer later with an investigator. 

I'm doing well and really happy. 

Anziano Faggioli

(P.S.  Jesse told us that the Rome temple completion has been pushed out to 2015.)   And to say he loves Italy is an understatement...he told us he has been there so long he has forgotten what is here, and when he dreams of home, he dreams of Italy.       

This week was pretty good. I have some pics to send, but I'm in an Internet cafè this week so..

Anyways I got my greenie this week and he is really cool. His mom is from Milan and he already speaks a ton of Italian. We have been out teaching and talking to people a ton. It's alot of fun having 4 elders in the apartment. 

Not much really to talk about this week.  We had to split up the work a bit with the 2 groups of elders. We have to do some more finding, but we are having success. We got 2 phone numbers this week of people we could possible teach. 

I ended up playing the piano for church last week because the family that normally plays is out of town for the summer. I get to practice again!   Again I'm super busy during church because I do all the translating and now I am the pianist again. Hopefully pres. doesn't want me to give another talk for a while. 

The summer is way to hot here. It's about 85 degrees with 80% humidity. I sweat all day and I don't even care anymore. Everyone sweats like this so I'm not out of the norm. Just don't expecty me to bring any of my white shirts home. I need to remember not to complain about the heat. Pete, Taylor and Conner have it way worse than I do. And I could be in Malta just getting burnt to a crisp. 

Pres and Sis Kelly came to Caserta for church last week to do some temple recommend interviews. Sis Kelly told me she had talked to you about their homecoming. That will be cool that you guys get to meet (maybe) them. They are really awesome and we are all really sad they are leaving this transfer. 

Anziano Faggioli

9 months today

June 12, 2013

You are absolutely going to love this letter mom! I got called into the primary this week to translate for the Italian little kids. Their teacher didn't show up to teach them so they threw a lesson on me last minute. I feel like I can relate to you so much more after teaching one primary class. They were so hard to control. I'm sure I would have been alot better off in English. They were all pretty good until one of them got out of control then they all basically followed her. They entire time I couldn't stop thinking "oh man my mom is going to love reading about this!" 

We got transfer calls last Saturday and I will be getting a greenie on Thursday. I still don't know who it is. I'll know tomorrow and you will all hear about it next week. Anziano Burton is staying in the house to and will get a comp that is a little bit younger than him. It's going to be way fun having 4 missionaries in a house together. 

I'm getting ready to send 2 packages home. I'll send you a little inventory list before I send them out so you know what to do with them. It will probably be next month when I send them. With the Ipod music just try to find as much classical piano music as you can (debussy, copin, ect), i don't know if its avalible for purchase but the come thou fount cover by mumford and sons, and hymn arrangements for the piano. 

Investigators keep suprising me here. One day they say they will never quit smoking and the next day they have cut in half their normal amount. One day they just start reading the Book of Mormon after years of talking with the missionaries. It's crazy how good the work is here in Caserta. We are going to keep it going good. 

We are getting on the wall at the local pizzaria. They started taking pictures with us and want us to develop them and bring them back. Next time the guy that works behind the counter making the pizza is going to let me actually make the pizza! I'll get pictures of that to send home to you. 

There is a new American family in the ward that has family from abbruzzo. They have been doing alot of family history work since they got here. They are having quite a bit of success. 

Thats all for this week. 

Love anziano Faggioli