Christmas Week

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

It's been a great week.  We ate a lot and met some new people and had a lot of fun.  We watched two kid movies as is allowed once a year on Christmas: Big Hero 6 (which I liked a lot) and the Minions (I lost a lot of brain cells).  We ate Christmas lunch at the district president's mother's house (he has the same last name as a famous quarterback who's number was 4).   It was delicious and, as usual, we
ate a ton.  I rested for a half hour on my bed before heading to the church to do Skype with the family.  It was a little crazy but fun with the family in Idaho and the three missionary brothers in
Tennessee, Argentina, and Italia.  I appreciated the letters and the package, especially the spam.  Happy New Year!!

Anziano Blazzard

bella settimana

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

It has been another very busy week for us in Cosenza.  This week we had some interesting lessons.  One was with a new convert family where we watched the butterfly circus and talked about the value and potential each of God's children has and how he can make our weaknesses into strengths if we have faith.  It was the first time I had seen it and it shook me (I weeped a tiny bit).  The family's comments were the best (they are Ghanaian).  "He died?" "They want to kill him?"  "In Africa the elders take children born like this and put them on the river bank so that when the tide rises they are swept away.  I now know this is wrong."  Overall great lesson.  We also taught this lawyer guy again who started the first online consulting firm in Italy.  He is doing really well and is apparently more popular on Facebook than the main tv channel here in Italy.  He is really really smart so it is kind of intimidating to teach him but he told us he had been thinking all week about baptism and how what we explained made a lot of sense(we had taught the gospel of Jesus Christ).  We then had a really good lesson using the talk "Why the Church" by Elder Christofferson.  Later in the week we went to Taranto for zone conference.  We also acted out the nativity as our "gift to the savior."  I was the cow and tried to be a good sport.  I even mooed a few times during the part of Away in a Manger, "The cattle are lowing...".  When we got back we had to begin prepping for the Christmas party.  Our chocolate chip cookies were a big hit and the lasagna received relatively high marks.  On Sunday church went well and we had a good lesson later in the day with a new investigator.  Vi auguro un buon Natale è una bella settimana!

Mosquito e Mozzarella

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

This week was fun.  We ate too much panzerotti as well as the best pizza I've ever eaten in Italy thus far.  I also ate one evening 250 grams of buffalo mozzarella brought to us from the new sister who came from Battipaglia which is the home of buffalo mozzarella.  We also ate pumpkin and sausage stuff (very good) at a German sister's house and decorated Christmas cards for the primary using a lot of glue and glitter.  A lot of people pointed out that I had glitter on my face later on that day.  We went to Castrovillari to see a sister of the church and her family and we also ate lunch there in a park.
Missionaries hadn't been there in a while and a bunch of kids swarmed us and asked us who we were.  I was pretty embarrassed because I was caught eating plain meatballs like a caveman which I had just boughten there.  We also have been having a lot of mosquito problems... like I kill at least 7 a day with our electric racket and I still wake up with a mosquito buzzing in my ear (literally the worst way to start your day) and a bite on my face and/or neck.  This week we have zone conference and the Christmas party.  We have been telling everyone that we will make a lasagna and American cookies (chocolate chip) for the party so hopefully we won't disappoint.  I also volunteered to play the piano for a couple musical numbers unfortunately.  Work is good though so yep.

Anziano Blazzard

The Foot of Italy

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

Well I wrote last Thursday and nothing super exciting happened so this is going to be short.  After going to the castle and eating some expensive pasta last Thursday morning we had a lesson and English course that night.  The next day we planned a bit and then went to a lesson with a super smart lawyer who is very smart and helps us with language study every time he talks (because of his vocabulary).  Then we got a bidone (means trash bin and also being stood up).  After which we had another few lessons.  The next day we visited a new convert family and then had a a few other lessons.  Also President flew into town to set a missionary apart who will go to Colorado for
her mission (mission presidents preside over districts).  That night we met some cool contacts who bought us some cannoli which was pretty nice of them.  The next day was church and afterwards we had a lesson. Kind of boring stuff, but the work is going alright and we are hoping to see some developments in the next few weeks.

Anziano Blazzard

Cosenza Week 3

Caro Amici e Famiglia,

I am emailing today because we had to switch our pday due to travel on Monday to get to Taranto for zone conference on Tuesday.  And a lot happened since last pday.  First off I was wrong about the information in regards to the Waldenses in the north being killed by an army from Cosenza in the Piedmont.  There is actually another group of Waldenses here in this area that has been persecuted from time to time.  I did do some more research on my ancestors that were apart of the group of
Waldenses in the Piedmont and was able to find two photos of Jeffrey or Chiafreddo Bodrero and his wife Maria Louisa Combette.  I was also able to find a history of him and his brothers who emigrated to the United States and to Utah.  One brother actually went first after being baptized by the original Mormon missionaries in Italy and Jeffrey, my third great grandfather I think, came to live with him
after several years and was never baptized in his lifetime into the church.   You can check it all out on familysearch.org.  Anyways two Tuesday's ago we went to Crotone after waking up very early in the
morning to catch a bus to have district meeting and a thanksgiving meal with the elders and sisters of the Crotone district which includes the Crotone elders and sisters, the Crotone senior couple, and the Catanzaro elders.  We then went to Catanzaro with the elders from that city because we had been invited to a wedding by an ex-missionary from Turin who's brother was getting married to a girl
from Catanzaro.  Then later that week on Friday Anziano Mika and his greenie, a guy from Milan, came to get his residence permit.  They ended up staying until Monday because they arrived after the
immigration office had closed for the weekend.  It was a party and we also celebrated my birthday by trying out this American grill.  Then on Monday we traveled to Taranto and stayed the night there before going to zone conference the next morning.  It was held in the church there which I believe is one of the older Mormon churches in Italy. It went smoothly and the food provided by a member was easily the best conference food I've had.  We ate pasta al forno, this meat stuff with gravy and bacon, roasted potatoes, oranges, and some desserts.  We then drove back to Cosenza with the elders of Statte who have a car. It was real nice taking a car instead of a bus.  We had a good time with them and then today we had pday and we went to the Castello Svevo with out buddy Eugenio and ate some good traditional pasta in a small restaurant.  The work is going pretty well and we are getting better
at meeting with our investigators.  And that's all for now.

Anziano Blazzard

Cosenza Regional Work

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

This week we traveled a lot.  On Tuesday we had mission leadership council via Skype which was pretty neat but afterwards we went to Fratelli la Bufala which is a nice pizza place where we got some pizzas to go.  There were cheaper than in Rome which I was happy to discover.  Then we got some gelato and ate it in the lounge area outside on comfy couches under the beautiful autumn sunshine.  On the way there we met a guy who wanted to show (off) us some of his English tattoos.  I unfortunately had to tell him you don't say "I love the life" but rather "I love life."  His expression of unbelief and regret was priceless and a strong testimony builder for me.  Also this week we helped a member and his elderly (though by how hard she worked you wouldn't think it) mother harvest some olives in a village in the mountains called Rose.  It was cool to learn how to harvest olives by shaking them or beating them out of the trees with a branch shaking machine or some long sticks.  They then would fall onto some nets that were laid around the trees.  Then you had to pick out some of the sticks and other rubbish that fell out of the trees with the olives before gathering them into sacks to take to the oil pressing machines.

Another day we went to a place called Saracena to visit some members. One of the older guys there had lived in Argentina and was converted there.  He became a bishop and was there to see the 1000th stake of the church organized.  That city was also very beautiful and as well as being precariously perched on the side of a cliff.  On the way back we stopped in a city called Castrovillari where a branch used to exist to buy some stuff at a store that imports goods from around he world.
I got some mike and Ike's, skittles, and some sprees and man were they good.  I also found Mountain Dew right next to our house in Cosenza but I am trying not to drink pop so much these days so I haven't gotten some yet.  Today we went to get my other pair of church shoes whose soles have been destroyed since my time in Bari from the shoe repair guy.  He really loves the fact that we preach the gospel being such young guys who could be doing other things and so he did it for free.  He did an amazing job and they look better than they did originally.  We also went to visit the castle in old Cosenza but it is closed on Mondays and open every other day of the week.  It was a hard hike up there, too.  We saw some painting though of a massacre of the the Waldenses who were a group of Protestants (and I think some of my ancestors were in this group) in the Piedmont region of Italy.
Apparently some order was given by the Catholic church in Cosenza to go kill them.  Interesting stuff.  Besides that the work is going pretty well and we are having some success.

Anziano Blazzard

Cosenza y Panzerotti

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

This week I traveled to Cosenza and it was an abnormally smooth and tranquil transfer for me.  No sweating, no running, and no starving (office gave us breakfast and lunch bags).  Before the 5 hour train ride down to Calabria it was a little more hectic running to say goodbye to all the homies in Rome 3 and eating tons of their food. When I left I was a little unsure of how things would be when I got off the train in Cosenza because every time I said I was going there people would be like "ohhhh I'm sorry."

Anyways Anziano Borner, my new comp, was waiting at the station for me in Paola and after getting all my stuff off the train and saying goodbye to the other missionaries heading to Sicily we took another quick train to Cosenza. When in Cosenza we got on a bus to go home because the station is quite a ways away from our apartment.  While we were waiting another bus showed up that we thought may have been better so my comp got off while I waited with my luggage to check it out.  Then my bus takes off without him and I halfheartedly (because they never stop) shout, Aspetta! (Wait!)  Luckily he stopped when he saw my comp running the bus down.  It would have been interesting wandering a unknown city without a phone and all my luggage for who knows how long.  Then we stopped at home (big and pretty nice though it was not clean enough for me) before heading to the church for some lessons and English course.  While at the church and for our last lesson of the night a member walks in carrying some food for us...  And believe it or not she had fresh panzerotti!!!! (folded over fried pizza that I ate not enough of while in Bari).  All my doubts about how the last leg of my mission being spent miserably vanished and I actually began to weep a
little.  I knew everything was going to be okay.  And I have found that there are many good things about Cosenza.  There is a Lidl (amazing German grocery store), a Zara, an H&M, and many other cool stores all in this clean, well kept city.  It reminds me of earlier in my mission in Sicily with all the good food and beautiful classic Italian cities.  There aren't a ton of members but they are strong and kind.  The work is also really good and we have some very cool and interesting investigators.    I really do look forward to all the new experiences and people that will come with this area.

Anziano Blazzard