Well this is gonna be one crazy letter home, from Christmas, to eating horse, to blood work, to getting spaced transferred and closing down
Mantova. You could say it was a long week.
Christmas Eve was good. We went to the Campos house for dinner. They are from Brazil and they are super cool! They have a son on a mission right now in Ogden. He will come home in February. Okay, super funny story… So we’re on the couch waiting for dinner and we’re talking to another member from Brazil who is here on vacation, who they also invited over for dinner. Anyways, we’re talking and we look down and their dog is having its way with this pillow, and I start dying. I can’t help it. I’m trying not to laugh but I’m losing it. So we try to like take the pillow away and get the dog to stop, but he has this death grip on this pillow. So we pick the pillow up and the dog is holding on for dear life in the air but he’s still holding on to the pillow.
I’m losing it at this point and I can’t breathe, I’m laughing so hard. The family is in the kitchen so they have no idea this is going on and we don’t know what to do. We put the pillow back down then finally we just ripped the pillow out from under him and put in on a shelf. It was the funniest dang thing ever. Anyways dinner was super good. We had lots of bread and cheese and meat. And one of the meats was horse. It was good but very chewy. It was weird.
For Christmas we went to the Zamboninis all day. Ahhh we had duck and turkey and potatoes and homemade lasagna that was to die for!. After, we Skyped home, which was amazing! It was super nice to see everyone:)! After we got done Skyping we went down stairs and talked with the family and taught a lesson on the importance of remembering Christ and we gave away 3 Book of Mormons to their other family members. It was a Buon Natale.
Saturday we were doing our studies, nothing out of the ordinary, and all of a sudden we receive this call from president. This was a little different because it’s usually Sorella Dibb who calls. Anyways, I just assumed it was about my health so I get on the phone with him and he
asks me how I’m doing. (Which, is the same answer as always, sick) Then he said, “Well, we want you to come to Milan to have your blood work done. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I want you to say all of your goodbyes to your members and investigators today and tomorrow. You’re going to pack your bags and you’re going to say goodbye to your companion at the train station on Monday and you’re going to head to Milan. Your companion is going to get on another train and he’s going to Pordenone.” (It’s North East of Venice)
“We need you and your companion to clean out EVERYTHING out of the apartment. We’re closing down that area for now and I don’t know when we’ll get new missionaries there, hopefully at the next transfer, but I can’t be sure.”
And at this point, I was shocked. But he already had everything set up and he’s said, “I’ll have the office elders send you your travel plans tonight.” So, we hung up the phone, freaked out for a bit, then started calling everyone telling them that we wanted to see them and that we had to leave on Monday. We started packing and cleaning up. We said bye to most everyone on Sunday. We were sad that we had to leave so we went and got a gelato. That was tasty. Then we went back home and started packing up
Sunday we saw everyone at church and said goodbye to the branch. It was sad but the Anziani from Verona are going to go to Mantova every Sunday to visit our investigators and things like that, so hopefully they all keep progressing. We packed our bags and we cleaned out all of the food and gave it away to members and to the missionaries in Verona.
Monday I went to Milan by train and by the subway. From there, the elders from the office picked mes up and took me to the office. Because we had given away our food, I hadn’t eaten all day. Lucky they office elders hadn’t either so we ordered pizzas and ate. Then we went to the AP’s apartment and slept there.
There are 3 office Anziani and they are in a trio… Anziano Wright, Cunningham, and Brooks. For the time that I am here. I’m technically with Anziano Brooks (Not the same Anziano Brooks from the MTC) but since we all do the same things all day, it’s basically like a 4-some. It’s fun. It’s way better than 2, I think.
On Wednesday we went to go to the doctor in Milan again and I got my blood taken for blood tests. I was freaking out about the needle..I hate shots. I was laying down and he had my arm tied up and things and I was clenching my fists. With my right arm, I was squeezing the crap out of the bottom of of table and then I felt it…..the smallest little pinch in the world. It was nothing. I thought he hadn’t put it in yet so I looked over.. sure enough, all this blood is coming out. So basically I had planned for a lot of pain then it’s not that bad 🙂 Yeah, he was super slick. No guess he used to be a surgeon or something. He said he had the steady hands. It was a good.
I should get those tests back in a week or so, depending on if Italians decide to work or not. They had New Years this weekend and next week they have the 6th which is the day the witch gives the kids candy and presents again…..Italians… So many holidays! And it’s not that they only don’t work on the 6th, they take the 5th off to prepare for it and the 7th and probably the 8th off to recover…. It’s nuts.
Then today for p-day (Saturday) we went shopping with the Christmas money people sent me and got a bunch of fun Italian things. I got a jacket, two pairs of shoes a cardigan sweater thing, another sweater, and a tie. We also did our shopping for groceries for the day. It was a good Pday!
In the office, the first two days, I just filed a bunch of bills all day. Wahoo, it was the party life let me tell ya. Since then, I’ve been setting up iPads and getting the iPads all up and running for the new missionaries, so when they get here they already have pictures for lessons and videos uploaded and on them and they are ready to go. So I’ve actually enjoyed it, but I miss the work in Mantova.
Well, I love you all! Ciao ciao and Happy New Year!!!
Oh, for new year we stayed up until midnight which went until 1:00-30. It was really fun the next morning at 6:30 hahaha…. Anyways we listened mostly to fireworks and we ended up seeing a few. They are SO loud here!!! I sent a video so hopefully it worked!
Ciao ciao tanti auguri!!!
Anziano Griffiths
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