4-3-13

I was in a bigger city today and saw a car that someone had stolen the tires off of. Just like that story we heard about napoli.

I'm glad that I was able to write you guys this week. I wasn't sure we were going to have time. All the trains were stopped for 3 hours because someone got run over on the tracks. 

Anyways the week. This week we have continued to teach the wife of a member here. She has heard all the lessons and wants to be baptised, but she still wants to wait until some other things are in order. The best we can to is just to wait until she wants to. As missionaries we are here to invite people and to help people get ready. We can't make the decision for her. We are now just waiting to see how things pan out this transfer. She comes to church almost every week. It's nice to see a full family in the ward every week. All of the members here have part member families so it's really refreshing to see a husband, wife and kids together in sacrament meeting. The daughter is really funny. She is really shy the entire lesson, but when I pick up my scripture case and start getting ready to leave she throws a fit and makes it hard to leave. 

Easter was really wonderful. the day after the entire city disappeared to the beaches and country side to have some time with the family. We were invited to lunch for both these days. It's rough on me. I'm going to have nightmares of plate after plate after plate full of food. Everyone eats lamb on easter sunday. It was so freaking good. Only Sean and Emilia understand how good I am eating here. 

I finished the B.o.M for the first time in Italian this week. Now I just need to finish the New testament. I'm really proud of this. I read a 630 page book in a foreign language. Not to bad. I'm not going to bother with D&C or the old testament while I'm here. The most important books for missionary work are the Book of Mormon and the New testament. Maybe after I come home I can read them to help keep up the Italian. 

Thats all for now. Love you

Anziano Faggioli

Easter Week 2-27-13

I'm as happy to have the music as you are that it got here safe. I love practicing when I get the chance. Hopefully I can learn some new tricks before I get home. The district is good. I don't travel anymore than before. I go to Lecce every other week which is just the same as before. 

As far as new missionaries coming in there isn't a real influx yet. There were 22 missionaries that finished which makes the ones coming in almost equal to the ones leaving. I still haven't meet anyone new here. There hasn't been zone conference since the beginning of last transfer. 

This week is starting to pick up again. The winter is over and people are starting to leave their houses a little bit more. We need to do as much finding as we can before the summer starts because everyone disappears to the beaches the entire summer. You wouldn't believe how seriously people take holidays and the summer here. There is absolutely no one on the streets during holidays. In the summer finding is almost impossible because people take like a three month vacation to the beaches. It's crazy. I love seeing all these crazy differences about the culture. Right now we still have to wear our suit coats because we haven't gotten approval to take them off yet which makes it twice as hot outside. To top it all off my comp believe in colpa d'aria..... every time I open a window he shuts it. It's going to be a really hot summer like this. 

I haven't really noticed anything that I want to learn about cooking yet from the comp. For the most part he just makes a bunch of rice. I've learned how to make quite a few things. The pictures I sent were of the process of making a parmigiana. I can make lasagna, carbonara, rice, ect. ect. When I come home I'll cook a few dinners for you. 

Thats all for this week. Love you

Anziano Faggioli

3-20-13

Ciao tutti. Un'altra bellissima settimana in Italia.

 

Well I have a lot to catch up on the past 2 weeks because of the train issue. We went down to leauca which is the furthest south you can go in puglia. It was alot of fun, but it took forever to get there so and we missed a train on the way back. We made it back to brindisi just in time for our appointments so I'm really sorry for last week. The weeks moving along and time is flying by. 6 month mark already. Transfer calls were this week. There are 25 new missionaries coming in and 22 leaving. I bet transfers were kind of crazy for pres to organize. I will be in Brindisi for sure for another 6 weeks. I was hoping to go to a new city, but I guess there is something here in Brindisi that I need to learn better or someone out there that I need to find while I'm still here. They made me district leader for this transfer so I will have a little bit more responsibility like giving trainings every week and making sure everyone is doing okay.

 This week I did an exchange in Lecce for a couple days. There is such a contrast in the work between Lecce and Brindisi. Lecce is on fire right now there has already been two baptisms this year and many more coming up. All these people being baptized in lecce are from 1 person that got baptized last year and just went crazy within his entire family with missionary work. I learned alot this exchange. Here in Brindisi we need to get the branch excited about missionary work otherwise nothing is going to move ever. We have one woman here getting ready to be baptized. She is the wife of one of the members so their whole family will be together in the church soon. I am hoping this is the push to get things moving here. We are working hard and doing our best to find new people to teach.

Absolutely don't use dear elder instead of Email. It takes at least 6 weeks to get to me so it's really not worth the pain. They print them out at the mission home (if they even still use it here) then they are given to us at zone conference which is only once every transfer. It can be up to 2 months apart so I'm really happy with the email system.

The video sean tried to send me got blocked.   By the way I got the Music and I am really happy. I've been going crazy before english course practicing Chopin. Hopefully I will be able to master some Chopin pieces. The hymn arrangements are great for prelude music. I can read most of them I just have to play really slow while I play them. Hopefully with some practice I will be able to master a few of those to. Since I'm going to be here for another 6 weeks and the music made it you can try to send those packages that you wanted to send.

I didn't have a 6 month Gelato, but I did have plently of pasti cioti. When you guys come to tour we are going to Lecce, not just because its called the Florence of the south, but because these Pasti Cioti are the best tasting pastry ever. Lecce is the place to buy them to. Everyone says Lecce is where they are made the best.

Mark Davis will like this. I met some people that have been members of the church in Lecce for over thirty years. You can ask him if he remembers the Bruno Family. We ate lunch with them. And I took a picture with them. I'll send it next week so he can see.

It's starting to get really hot here, but we have to wait until conference to take off our jackets. I'm pretty sure these suits will be destroyed by the time I come home. Don't worry about the letters from the other Elders making me feel weird. I know that these missions are very very different. They have their hard parts and I have mine. They have their successes and I have mine. I love reading about their successes and just how their missions are going. It helps me to know that they are out there doing their best while I here toiling away at the work as well. Keep sending them I have enough time to read them every week and write you guys. Except last week. I didn't have time for anything last week unfortunatly.

 

Vi voglio bene. Godete la pasqua. Quasi ho dimenticato, ma ho sentitio troppo del papa. Sono in sud italia dove la chiesa catolica è piu forte.

 

Anziano Faggioli  

This Post did not get published back in Nov.   so it is out of order  sorry.


Nov. 21,2012
Buona giornata mia bella mama!!

Holy crap there is so much to tell I don't even know where to start! Well guess I should start with my address

via trento

brindisi 72100 Italia

You said it looks like a nice city..... parts of it. I live in the bagdad part of brindisi. Next to the train station looks like italy but when you get into where people actually live it is just a bunch of ratty looking apartments. I love it here!! As Il papa asked I have seen the end of the appian way near the harbor. It doesn't go all the way to rome any more because there are citys in the way now, but it is still cool. I got a little bit ahead of my self. My first day in rome was not to crazy, I just got to see the temple sight ;) They are finished with the walls of the building they just have to build the spires on it now. Then we went to the Mission home and stayed there for the night. The mission home is amazing. It is three stories with marble floors. It was a beautiful building. We had lasagna and pizza then we slept. I had to wake up at 6:00 to get ready to go out to Brindisi. All the other missionaries were able to sleep in until 10:30. My train was the earliest to leave. I was on the train with 3 Native Italian Misssionaries and did my best to talk with them. I didn't understand everything they were saying, but I think I did okay. The first time I switched trains was in Bari. That is when I realized the One of the Elders Anziano Embree is actually not a native and speaks perfect english. I meet my companion and we went off to Brindisi. We are the only two Anziani in Brindisi. Me and Anziano Harris. There are some in Leece that are in our district, but leece is an hour away. The people that actually stop to talk are nice. Most of the people we try to talk say that they don't speak Italian, but if you keep talking to them they explain in Italian that they aren't interested. I think the teachers in the MTC taught us more Milano Italian because I have a really hard time understanding people here. Some people speak dialect and others just dont enuciate at all. It is like sean said. Hopefully sean and dad will be able to understand what I am saying when I get home. The people in the ward are really cool. They are all really friendly and try to talk to me slow so I can understand. I introduced myself on sunday and bore my testimony. I did play the piano in the ward. I dont know any sacrament hymns so I had to sight read the right hand of one. They sing loud enough so that if I make a mistake on the piano no one will hear it. Overall so far it has been really hard. We haven't taught any lessons in Italian. There is a building in the city called la carita. It is a refuge camp for people from Africa and that is were most of our investigators come from. We have three baptisimal dates and one person for sure will get baptised on the 8 of december. I was really hoping that we were going to be teaching lessons in Italian, but it is not so yet. It is really hard to find people that will listen. I guess I  must keep working hard and not get discouraged. The appartment is bigger than I expected it to be. The kitchen on the other hand is really small. The only thing I have need of in the appartment is a shower head. I don't know how many euro that will be. I also probably need about 25 euro to buy another journal while I am here. 

I know you didn't have any problems sending sean stuff, but that was to northern Italy. It feels like a different country down here.  Sometimes they don't even pick up the trash. The post systems is not nearly as good so I may get charged a bunch of money if you try to send something. They charge at the door and if you aren't at the door when they try to deliver it you dont get it. So letters only. One other thing that is really funny actually. They whole town shuts down at 12 for about 3 hours. No one is out at this time because everyone is at home for lunch. It is crazy. EVERYWHERE is closed during these three hours every day. It was wonderful to hear from you I have some pictures that I will send next week. I hope that answered all of dads questions to.  Love you all. Vi voglio tanto bene. 

Brindisi 3-6-13

This week started off with quite and exciting P-day. We took Anziano Liccioli's family around to see the sights in Brindisi. It was really cool to get to meet his family here. I never thought I would get to meet a companions family in the mission. They came down from Venice for a funeral and got presidents approval for Anziano Liccioli to go to the funeral also. At the end of it all they gave us some numbers to contact and went on their way. So now I know even more people that Emilia knows. 

There isn't to much to report this week. We did finding all week. Just trying to talk to people on the streets everyday. If it wasn't for English course I would have gone crazy. We did find one guy on the streets that wanted to listen to us. We have an appointment with him tomorrow. At the end of the week we called all the names that Anziano Liccioli's mom gave us and set an appointment up with almost all of them. There was one that the phone was disabled or something. One of the families that we contacted saw us yesterday. And to our surprise they are very interested to learn about the church. (they also thought I was the Italian companion.) The lesson we had with them went so well I couldn't stop smiling as we were walking to English course that night. It was such a blessing to finally meet some people who are willing to have us in their house and open to hear our message. Alot like Jays letter that you sent me this week. All that finding and all that hard work, even though it seems like it was useless right now, will pay off in they end. 

Other than that nothing to report. 

Love Anziano Faggioli

Feb. 27-2013

I'll probably say this phrase many many more times over the course of the rest of my mission, but here goes. This was the most interesting week in the mission yet. The work was a little bit slower, but there have been a few really bright moments and some strange circumstances. First off that young man came to church again this week! We talked to him about what we do and we start teaching him next week because he has tons of stuff to do during the week and sunday is his only free day. Of course I still remember how to play the piano. The ward had me preform part of Clair de lune for a party they had. 

Now they have me learning a Chopin piece.

Now for the interesting part of the week. 

Yesterday at english course we decided to split up the spiritual thought at the end because the class is getting so big. I bore my testimony and read the passage from ether 12:6 about the trial of your faith. And some of the younger people asked me for a Book of Mormon. Next time I see them in English course I will invite them to church this sunday. I had sort of given up hope on getting young people to church in the last two transfers and now all of the sudden there are all these kids showing interest in the church. Just goes to show there are no real stereotypes in missionary work. The gospel is for everyone regardless of age, gender or anything else you can classify a person with. 

Thanks for sending the music. I should have just brought it all with me when I went into the MTC. I never thought I would have the chance to use it all to bless the ward. Luckily I remembered enough of some of it to add to the parties they have.

Haha yeah the blond hair is way different than anyone here. No one in southern Italy has blond hair. Everyone thinks he is the American until we both talk. Speaking of my piano could you send me a picture of it?  I just called the assistants to get permission to use photo bucket. They didn't answer so I guess I will just have to wait for a bit. I still need to print some at the end of every companionship because we make "dedicas" in this mission. We print off the good pictures from the transfers and put them in a book to give to our companions to remember all the good times. 

Anyways thanks for all the uplifting thoughts. I'm doing my best out here , I'm sure you already know. I'm hit by the humbling fact almost every day that I'm incapable in and of myself to do this work, especially right now seeing how little time I've been out here. In Ether 12:27 it talks about the way I feel.  I know that you pray for me and I can feel that strength to do more that I am capable of coming from the Lord. You are right I've grown alot already, but there are still things to learn, people to bring to the gospel, and Italian to learn.

Love Anziano Antonio Faggioli 

Ciao Tutti Feb,20, 2013

Ciao tutti!!

Well I just want to start off by saying I've seen a couple  of miracles this week. It started out slow with the work. We needed to do a bunch of finding this week to build back up our teaching base. At the end of a really long day we decided that it was time to go get a pizza from the pizzeria below our house. We went in ordered our pizza didn't really talk  to anyone and left real quick because it was super crowded. The next day we went through some old numbers and found a family that let us come see them and we invited them to come to church. Then at church on sunday we taught a lesson to another one of our investigators that we can only see once a week. (we teach the gospel principles class 2nd hour) At the end of the class some random young man walks into the room. We had never met him before or anything. We talked to him and asked him why he came to church that day and he said "I saw you guys at the pizzeria the other day and felt like I should learn more about your church" He gave us his number and we are going to start teaching him on sunday. I was shocked. We didn't talk to anyone, leave anything, and it was at the end of a hard day of finding in which we didn't find anyone. For me that is just proof that this is the lords work. There is nothing I did to get that young man to come to church. The lord made it happen somehow. There was also that family in church this week. 
Anziano Liccioli and I have been getting along great. He is a really good missionary. He doesn't let me cook really, but that's okay I will just have to learn in some other transfers. I would teach him how to make Worcestershire burgers, but Worcestershire doesn't exist here. Speaking of american food peanut butter is 4 euro for 200g. Today for P-day we are going to play basketball. I'm really excited I don't get much exercise except in the mornings. And even then it's a 30 min run and we run slow because Anziano Liccioli is convinced running slow burns more fat. Haha. 

Vi voglio bene
Anziano Antonio Faggioli