Ciao, Ciao…
Good week this week. I’ve been reading in Alma lately and I don’t think I appreciated Alma enough before the mission. It was always just the long book in the middle but I have found so many good insights in it. It’s awesome! Like everyone knows but Alma 32 is stacked with great scriptures. I hope everyone is having a good week and I have really appreciated all the prayers, thank you so much! And I love hearing about everyone’s week. Emails are the best! Grazie mile!
Verona Zone Conference
Verona Tight Fit Parking
Thursday was zone conference which was in Verona, so that was cool to go see. (Above photo taken at dusk) We talked a lot about how awesome sister missionaries are and how the best part about the age change was that we have more sister missionaries and how they bring a different power to the work. Then we talked about how to better use our iPads. It was way helpful because my companion is kinda anti-iPad a little, but now we have to use them.☺️
Also we had a thanksgiving type lunch which was good except for the part where I don’t want to eat. I ate some though, but eating just makes me feel even worse. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, a salad, and a piece of cake. I ate a little turkey, almost all of my mashed potatoes, all the green beans, half my salad, and I gave away the cake! So, I thought I ate a lot but everyone else had like thirds of everything so…. yeah. Basically I just have no appetite. But, then I eat something because I know I have to, but that just makes me feel worse.
Missionary Friend
We went to dinner that night with a man named Claudio. He’s been taking missionaries to dinner for like 10 years. He’s very catholic but likes hearing about the gospel. We are actually going to start teaching him so maybe he’ll convert. Haha. We went to a really nice restaurant (apparently he’s loaded) it was 27€ each!!! We had these freshly made noodles with cantaloupe meet, (auto correct can be crazy…we think he meant “antalope meat” but we aren’t sure. Anybody know? Noodles and cantaloupe don’t seem to go well together – Wade) That was good. Then we had donkey stew and some weird bread jello thing….and some veggies. It was pretty good. I didn’t know it was donkey until about half way through. It was pretty good though! It tasted normal! It was very tender! I liked it.
Lot of Food!
I figured out why Nana makes so much food for our Sunday meals, it’s cuz she’s Italian. They make SO much food here it’s nuts. Friday we went to the Zamboninis and had lunch. They are members and they feed us every week. They’re sooooo nice. They have 4 kids. Their youngest girl is adorable. Their oldest is going to school in England.
We had spaghetti that was sooooo goood then we had potatoes and chicken that were baked and smothered in olive oil! Haha, they love love love love olive oil here. But it was way good. Then we had some fruit and they have this fruit that’s only found in Italy. It’s called kacchi (no idea how to spell it) but it’s good. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s red and it’s sweet and it’s like jello-y and you eat it with a spoon.
It was like a TON of food and I’m not exaggerating at all. I was so full by the end of the lunch. And when I eat it makes me feel 10,000,000 times worse which is probably why I have no appetite. Yeah so my portions of eating are small. I never want to eat but I do cuz I have to. I still don’t feel good at all. But, the thing is…it tastes good.
Beautiful Italy
So happy to be here!
We didn’t have any lessons planned for the rest of the day so we just handed out tons and tons of “Meet the Mormons” flyers for YouTube. Everyone in Italy thinks we’re the Amish or the Jehova’s Witnesses, so we’re trying to show everyone who we are. ? It’s a good conversation starter but we get rejected a ton. But you know, it’s Italy…so when it’s rough I just have to look around and remember I’m in Italy. It’s honestly so beautiful. I could take a picture of everything cuz everything I see I’m like, ohhh that looks so Italian. Haha probably cuz it is! But everything looks how you would imagine. It’s beautiful. Everyone here is pretty scared though because of the terrorist attacks in Paris. As missionaries, we don’t know much about everything that is going on because #missionlife. But, apparently after France, Italy is most likely to get attacked but, it could just be a rumor?
Cold Weather Upon Us
She wouldn’t talk to us either
Saturday we didn’t do a ton. We went to the hospital again to pay my €100 fee for my appointment last Tuesday. Today was SOOO COLD! It was windy and rainy all day. It was miserable and I was feeling so sick. Ugh. It was bad but we had mint hot chocolate. And that was way good. It’s SO thick. It’s like pudding almost but not idk how to describe it. It was good though. We handed out Meet the Mormons cards again today but didn’t have much success.
It was awful weather and no one was really in the mood to talk to us…well more so than usual, lol. We also tried to do some house finding since we usually just do street finding and that was a big fail. Haha, no one likes to answer the door and when they do, they don’t want to talk to us?
African Refugee Camp
We went and talked to the Africans. There’s a refugee camp that has a bunch of Africans from Nigeria that we go and talk to. They are super cool and it’s nice because they speak English ? I played ping pong with one of them and that was fun. He was actually not too bad. They live like 35 min away riding a bike. I’m in a biking area, I don’t know if I said that or not. My bike is a piece of junk ? I could buy a nicer bike for $10 at DI. It’s a mess and it feels like I’m peddling uphill when I’m on flat ground. And the brakes don’t really work if it’s rainy, so it’s been an adventure. But it’s good… I’ll have thighs of steel by the time I’m done with this bike.
Meet The Mormons
Sunday we woke up and passed out Meet the Mormon flyers. It was the last day that it showed on YouTube so we had to pass out the rest of our cards. We had 2,300 to start off with a week ago. We handed out probably 1,500 total so we did pretty good. It was difficult though. We went to church and that was good. Also, after church they have like a lunch at the church so I ate lunch and that was good. It was a rice salad and bread with tomato sauce on it and it was really tasty. I wasn’t very hungry but it was good. It had lots of olives and their olives are sooo strong tasting here.
Sunny Sunday
Sunday was a beautiful day!!! It was the first time I’ve seen the sun since I’ve been here. So that was refreshing. It was nice and lots of people were out, except no one wanted to talk. Everyone wanted to enjoy their Sunday walks haha. But, a miracle that we had is that we’ve been praying to meet a family to teach. We started talking to this lady and she had talked to the missionaries when she was a little girl. She said she loved the feeling that she and her family had when the missionaries were over and she said that she wanted that in her home again. So we were pumped and we are going to meet with her later on this week.
Companion Exchange
Verona-Elder Skinner & Griffiths companion exchange
So every transfer the district leader does a companion exchange with everyone in the district. So, he went with Anziano Pack and I went with his companion, Anziano Skinner. He is way sweet. He and I went to Verona for the day. He’s the type of missionary I want to be. He knows how to work but he does it in a way that’s fun. He’s not worried about numbers but if he can let someone feel the spirit for a minute, then awesome. He’s an awesome dude and he’s doing great missionary work. We went and saw Juliet’s balcony and then we went to the top of this hill that over looked Verona. It’s soooo pretty here and it’s way bigger than Mantova and it’s gorgeous. I would love to be in this city it’s just incredible.
We had gelato and that was way good and we did some street finding and just had a good time. It was cool to be with a new comp and to see how other missionaries work and do things. It was very informative. I liked it a lot and I loved Verona…it’s GORGEOUS? We’ll probably do a p-day here sometime so that’ll be cool to see more of the city.
Juliet’s Balcony
Mantova Is Great
Mantova is still great. It can be a little lonely though. There are 8 in our district and 2 senior couples (12 in all). Elder Pack and I are the only ones in Mantova. BTW…HAPPY THANKSGIVING TOMORROW!!!!!!! Please eat lots of ham and mashed potatoes for me, and don’t forget the banana cream pie. We attempted to make our own so I’ll let you know how that goes next week. Well, I hope you have a great week. I am very thankful for you guys! I love you all.
Ciao ciao for now.
Braden
P.S. I don’t know when I’ll see my MTC companions again. Elder Brooks is very close to Milan but idk where exactly. And Anziano Rizzo is Genova…sweet.
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