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

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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