EASY..........I ain't going anywhere.......So yesterday is the usual P Day...but December 8 is an Italian holiday and most internet cafès are closed so we moved P DAY to today....as Clark Griswald puts it.....drum roll...drum roll....bbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbddbbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdb Joy to the World.......TORINO!........so yeah. I'm serving in Torino, actually called the Torino 2 but we all know that 2 is better than 1. They did write a song about it so it must be true. Torino 2 is the southern part of Torino and is the nicer area, which is both good and bad. It's less scary lookin' but also has less humble people. It's already been a week since I got here and already so many awesome, kick butt things have happened.
They introduced us newbies last week at one of the milano churches to our trainers. My companion and trainer is Anziano Poulson. He's been here for about 19 month and has like 3 transfers left. He's a pretty chill guy, he's from Smithfield, Utah and we're just kicking butt and taking names so far. Well mostly him, I'd like to say I talk a lot but that'd be a lie.
Sister Wolfgramm, Elder Poulson, Tucker, President Wolfgramm
Yeah the Italian is killing me. I would guess I understand 10%...maybe....U'm probably being a little generous. The only thing I'm bummed about so far is that I don't speak a lot with my companion in Italian. We share an apartment with our Zone Leaders, who are actually somewhat laid back...not in a bad way, just not really really strict. They are Anziano Brannen and Anziano Pilcher. Anziano Brannen's trainer was Chase Naylor. Anziano Pilcher just became a ZL so it was his first day in Torino as well last week. Both are pretty cool and funny. Anz. Brannen is from Alabama and has the best southern accent, its so awesome.
We have quite a few investigators. First off I need to explain that Torino has a little under a million people(I think). It's a close guess though. It's all just apartment buildings because everyone lives in apartment buildings,and like they are never ending. Our apartment has the southern half and 4 other missionaries have the other half. So yeah, we were doing casa(walking up to the top of the apartment building and knocking on every door). We switch off every other door; I can pretty much give our whole spill but once they start speaking back in Italian my companion has to intervene. It's pretty pathetic but oh well....it'll come. I've also realized I speak English Italian. I'm saying Italian words but it's in the format you would speak English(if that makes sense). Like in Italian you don't say, "Can I Ask A You a Question", you say "Can I Make You a Question"....stuff like that, that just goes right over my head....BUHHHH. So, anyway back to the story. We were doing casa while waiting for our next lesson appointment and we knock on the door of this Chinese guy. He told us he was just leaving but to come back at 8. So we kept knocking doors and at 8 we went back. He answered the door(he's like 21) and we went inside. He had 3 other Chinese roommates. They are all students at the Politechnico...an Italian college. There are quite a few foreigners who attend it. So yeah, the Chinese people are Eduardo, Simmone, Thomaso, and Andrea. We taught them a little bit of the Restoration and asked if we could come back the next day, so Saturday. By the way, they all have Italian names because it's just easier to say. So on Saturday we taught the the Restoration and gave them Chinese Books of Mormon. It was awesome. Eduardo said the closing prayer and afterward he said he really felt different. He said he'd never felt that way before and that it was an awesome feeling. He asked if our church had an activities we did and we said yeah...church on Sunday. We invited them all to come and 3 of the 4 came on Sunday. Eduardo just loved it..oh yeah...they all speak pretty good English and a little of Italian. They didn't understand everything in church but they liked it. I didn't understand a whole lot either in church. Eduardo is so money......haha. We are gonna challenge him next time we meet and probably his friends too. None of them have a religious background so it's in a way easy to teach because they don't have objections but they also don't know a lot about Jesus and everything else.
Church was sweet. It was Fast Sunday which wasn't too hard to do, and I bore my testimony which wasn't too hard..haha just kidding. I hope they understood it...I got a lot of grazies afterward....(fist pump)...The meetings were fun though. I got the gist of it kinda...I sat a lot with the Chinese investigators and tried to answer their questions.
We teach a lot of Africans, especially because they are very humble and will let us come and teach them. We have 4 really awesome African investigators. Bernard, Evans, Joice, and Sunday. Bernard and Evans are brothers and are so so so awesome. Bernard is 15 and says he knows everything we've taught him is true and wants to be baptized. He's coming to church this Sunday and we just set a baptismal date for Jan 8. His brother Evans,(20 yrs) was just baptized in some other church so he's kinda confused why he needs to be baptized again but he loves our church and everything we've taught...he is just so close. Joice has a baptismal date for January, too, and we've taught him the Restoration, Plan of Salvation and other lessons. He's a student as well at the Politecnico and is about 27 yrs old. He's super super nice and just so humble as well. Sunday is a little different. Sunday is kinda lazy and doesn't have a job. He lives in an apartment with a couple others and kinda mooches off the girl that lives in the apartment with him and another dude. He has been to church and wants to be baptized. I guess he was really close but then he like disappeared to some other city for a couple weeks. Anyways, we had the funniest lesson with him the other day. We got there and he was just chillin' in bed watching some music videos. We asked him to turn it off so we could teach and he said yeah no problem. Hahaha so he turns it off and puts on Rambo.....We were like, Sunday ahah can you turn off Rambo? And he's like OK...I will off it. By the way...most of these Africans speak English, except Joice....and we have to change the way we speak...its hard to explain...we only speak in sentences of like 3 or 4 words). My African English is pretty sweet ahaha. So yeah, we taught Sunday and at the very end he says..."Do you want to stay, you can watch Rambo with me". We laughed and said no thanks. He's a cool guy though.
I'm super excited for Christmas. We get to stay out until 12 for midnight mass and we can also watch a movie with a family. I will most likely get to call home on Christmas. By the way, President Wolfgramme and his wife are awesome. We had so much fun the night we flew in and had dinner with them. She made such a good lasagna. As you know I had been feeling sick that day but I still ate so much when he had dinner......I about died later that night when we got to the apartments.
We taught the Chinese again about the life of Christ and they loved it. It was only Eduardo and Tomaso. They other two were out shopping. We watched the movie Finding Faith in Christ. Eduardo didn't blink throughout the whole movie. He's been progressing so much and we've only known him for 6 days. Its so so so awesome. I'm positive he knows its all true, he's just a bit confused about some stuff but he knows he needs to pray and read to figure it all out. The last couple days some of our other investigators have cancelled but we've had mini miracles happen because of this. Last night an investigator cancelled so while we were talking to people on the street, some random lady was riding her bike and I said "Buona Sera" as she rode by...5 seconds later she come back and asks if we are Mormon missionaries..we say yes..of course.....and she starts telling us some story about how she was adopted and has always wanted to find her real parents(she's like 50 years old). She asks us for the directions to our church and we then give her some pass along cards with information about Family Genealogy. Alsomsome guy rides up to us a bike and tells us that he teaches a religion class and wants us to come and give a presentation. So were are going to teach a class of 30 Italian teenagers about our church...hm....mini miracle. Also, last night we were waiting for an investigator to show up...he kept saying I'm on my way...he first told us he'd be here in 5 minutes....that 5 minutes took 2 hours. haha. We were kinda mad....but anyway... we met this huge African that told us he was baptized in our church like forever ago. We invited him to church this Sunday....I'm not sure if he'll come but there is a pretty good chance. It was crazy. We had like 3 lessons cancelled yesterday but if they hadn't been cancelled none of those other things would've happened. It's so awesome how Heavenly Father just has this all planned out and how he blesses us.
Also....the food has been killing me. I've eaten so much chocolate since Ive been here. I've practically eaten an entire jar of Nutella(its a chocolate-vanilla)..its so so good though. We had pizza a couple nights ago, that was pretty good, nothing too special. I've only had one gelato which is hard to believe. I definitely need to be better though. We've gone running a few times and do a little other stuff in the mornings though. Its not too bad going without dinner though because we usually eat a big lunch and eat a little around 9:30.
That's pretty sweet with the sports though.. so whats the JAZZ's overall record? That's sweet about Utah and Boise State....one of the elders in our apartment got the bowl schedule so I got to see all the bowl match ups.....kinda surprising that Viginia Tech climbed back up and is in a BCS bowl, where did Connecticut come from?. This keyboard sucks; I cant find the quotations, and everything is rearranged.. stupid Italian keyboard.....haha sorry......nice try on Albert Pujols and the Yankees...Dad....this is me you're talking to...I dont fall for that kind of stuff. I figure the Utes will get destroyed though...it woulda been a good game if Jordan Wynn was playing though, at least i think so...Cain is too much of a wuss.
We do like 15-20 inviti per day...(inviti is just talking to people on the street). I usually do like 5 per day and my comp does a lot more. I'm still getting over the confidence thing but I've gotten a lot better. Just so you know, Torino isn't just all foreigners. We just happen to have all foreign investigators...about 2-3 are Italian though.
I will try and get you the address next time...sorry I don't have it at the moment...I forgot to bring all my other addresses so I could email other people...whoopsy daisy.
I played winter ball down in Venezuela, hey got kids half his age, everyone of them speaking Spanish.....They speak Spanish in Venezuela!....I know, that's my point.....-Little Big League
No comments:
Post a Comment