Caserta - Italian/English Meetings

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

It was a great week in Caserta.  After the fun day at Pompeii on Monday we went back to Napoli on Tuesday for District Meeting.  The meeting went well and afterwards we went and got some pizza at Sorbillo's... Which is known as the best pizza in the mission.  I have to say it was exceedingly fantastic.  I will definitely have to bring my family there if we come back to Italy.  It was also cool walking through the city of Naples.  It's a really cool city with tons of history all around the place.  I need to take more pics next time. The rest of the week was pretty good.  We taught a bunch of lessons and found a number of new investigators.  We had a great lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ with an investigator and it was awesome to see someone really grasp it and let it change their life.  He will be getting baptized in a few weeks.  Another investigator wants to get baptized and came to church too.  After church we went to an American family's home for Easter dinner.  It reminded me a lot of what we ate back home.  Ham, funeral potatoes, cornbread, and other things.  Then we got a care package full of tons of American products!!  It was a great Easter.  Today we went to another American family's house for some burgers and root beer floats.  I really am getting spoiled here with both the work and food hahaha.

I hope everyone had a great Pasqua!
 Anziano Blazzard
 Inviato da iPad

 

Napoli - Bikes and Pizza

Cari Amici e Famiglia,
Well it's been an eventful week with transfers and all.  The beginning of the week we spent saying goodbye to everyone and we taught some new investigators too. They looked online and found out about polygamy so it was a fun lesson.  On Thursday I finished packing up and then went to the store to get a sandwich for the train ride.  One the way back home a random guy we met a few weeks ago bought us some barley coffee and a new umbrella for my companion because his was broke.  It was
random but cool.  The train ride to Napoli was uneventful but we got there with an hour delay.  Then I met my new comp at the Napoli station as well as a bunch of old missionary friends including an ex
missionary from Germany who was on vacation in Italy.  Then we took a train to Caserta and when we arrived I found out we were going to be riding bikes a lot.  My gluteus maximus is super sore.  It also seems to me a little dangerous with the crazy drivers in Italy but we have helmets too.  I never looked so much like a Mormon missionary.  The work is really good though and there are several progressing investigators.  The ward is a mixture of Americans from the military base and Italians.  They do the meetings in both languages translating both into Italian and English.  They even sing in both languages so it's pretty funny.  The pizza is super good though and I've already eaten a lot.  Today we went to Pompeii.  It was really cool.  The city is huge and a lot of things have been preserved well so you can see how Roman life was back in the day.  There are houses, restaurants,
bathhouses, and gardens.  The roads have grooves in them from the carriages and there are also sidewalks.  Also they have a bunch of petrified things from when Vesuvius erupted like bread, nuts, animals, and humans.  Super cool.  Now we are probably gonna eat a good pizza from Napoli.  Have a great week!!

Anziano Blazzard

Cosenza - Final Days

Cari Amici e Famiglia,

We got transfer calls this week on Friday and it was a surprise because I got transferred to Caserta (near Naples) and my companion who has been here longer than me is staying. I was expecting to stay and I'm a little sad to leave all my friends here but I can't complain too much because I have been wanting to go to Caserta my entire mission.

It's near Napoli so I will be enjoying the best pizza in the world on the regular and it also has a big military base with American goods. Unfortunately my military card is expired so I might not be able to go. The area also has really good places to visit on P-days and I hear the missionary work isn't too bad too.

I will be with a missionary named Elder Bowers who just finished his second transfer. It will be a fun 5 weeks. This week was pretty good. We went to Catanzaro and did an exchange with the missionaries there. Catanzaro is a very strange city. It is awkwardly perched on a couple of mountains with some huge bridges that connect them. It was a good exchange and we taught a lot of lessons.

On Sunday, a good amount of investigators showed up.  An ex missionary who was visiting also brought some friends from the local university here and they really enjoyed church and the educational gospel classes. We capitalized and gave them book of Mormons and set up a couple of teaching appointments for the week. On Thursday I take the train to Napoli.

 Anziano Blazzard

Scambio!

Cari Amici e Famiglia,
It's been a crazy week for us.  On Tuesday we went to Crotone to do a scambio with the elders there.  One is American and the other is Uruguayan.  He's older and a convert and very funny.  We went to do a baptismal interview the following morning for a young man who found out about Mormons last summer on reality TV.  He was very prepared. Tuesday night we went out for some pizza with some friends we made at English course.  There were a bunch of characters.  The restaurant was very nice and on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The pizza was delicious probably because it was expensive and had a bunch of buffalo mozzarella on it.  We also taught half the restaurant about the word of wisdom and modern revelation when they poured us some cocktails without us asking.  One of the guys drank the cocktails for us and luckily our driver didn't drink too much.  On Thursday we traveled to San Lucido to look for the brother of a member in Rome.  We enlisted the help of some local fruit vendors to find the place but it still took about an hour and it was raining.  We had a pleasant conversation with the family there, left a Book of Mormon, and then had to run for the bus.  We took a wrong turn and ended up running up a hill for 10 minutes before realizing the error and returning back to the bus stop. We were soaked (still raining) and sweaty, but also grateful because the bus was a little late and we were able to catch it.  The rest of the week was pretty normal teaching lessons and eating pizza. Transfer calls were supposed to come last week but they were postponed till this week.  I'll let you know where I'll be my last transfer!

Anziano Blazzard