Pozzuoli!

August 22, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

I can honestly say this has been one of the craziest and one of the best weeks of my life! 

Let me start off by saying that Italy is way different than America. Rome was a huge city with ancient and modern buildings merging  and the sights are great. You cross the street wherever because pedestrians have the right of way always. And you use the metro system a lot. It is actually very great for finding people to talk.

Anyway, we arrived in Rome on Tuesday morning after a 10 hour flight from Atlanta and saw the sights with the assistants to the mission president. The pictures do not capture how beautiful these places are. Especially the statues of the apostles. President Pickerd and Sister Pickerd are wonderful and are encouraging us to really start off the best we can be and  overall while the Tuesdayand Wednesday made missionary work seem overwhelming, it also seemed exciting.

And then we opened our golden envelopes. In our envelopes, we discover the area we start in or how they call it on the mission, your "birth city."  It was a crazy night where we all celebrated and I discovered that I would be born in Pozzuoli with my trainer, Anziano Draghi. It was a great night for all of 14 of us that came, but it was sad to see them go. I hope I get to serve with them eventually on the mission.

Okay, here we go! My first days in Pozzuoli have been amazing! Pozzuoli is a smaller city on the outside of Naples. All of the Elders I am with (Anziano Silver, Anziano Draghi, and Anziano Berger), myself, and 2 of the Sisters in Pozzuoli have all been "blown in" or in normal words, we all come from different areas and don't know the people or the place at all. It is a little crazy because our area book, the way we organize the history of the people we teach, is very very very disorganized and the house we have only has one fan. The first few days have been super hot but I am getting used to it.

I love Anziano Draghi!! Literally, his name is "Elder Dragons."  He is the best companion for me! He loves having fun, teaching the gospel, and I think is really excited to train me. He is an Italian from Remini and luckily has learned English while on the mission so I can understand him. Yay!

Funny stories include all four of us almost getting stuck in our apartment elevator, luckily it made it to the 2nd floor, me and Anziano Draghi running back from the grocery store and our bags broke 100 feet from the apartment, and we ate real Napoli Pizza! It's delicious!

But really for the past few days we have met the Branch President, found some people on the metro, began teaching Di Pama who works at the gas station nearby, worked on my permesso (permit of residency), and we did a gesso!

A gesso is a chalk drawing where the missionaries draw a picutre or a question outside where a lot of people and talk to people. I even got to play my violin a bit which was super fun and I hope it attracted some good attention because it was super fun and we talked to a lot of great people.

Also, it was so cool to see a branch in Italy. There are about 70 members so they are close to becoming big enough for a ward, and there is a really good mix of Americans, Italians, and Africans. It was cool seeing the talks get translated back forth from English to Italian. And the youth focusing on family history work just like they would back home. These people are truly dedicated members. And a member asked us to come over for "pronzo" (italian lunch). It was absolutely amazing. We had pizzetta (mini pizza ball) and pasta marinara. I thought we were done but that was only the first two courses. Then there was chicken and fish, then shrimp that you rip the shell and leg off yourself, and melon for dessert. My first real Italian meal. Amazing!

While parts of the city are dirty and there is a lot of graffiti, I already love the people. I really hope I can learn Italian super well so that I can really communicate with them but I already enjoy teaching and want to search for as many people as I can. All I can say is that I encourage you to do missionary work in the wards you live in because Anziano Draghi and I want to work with the members as much as we can. And if you aren't a member, I really encourage you to ask the missionaries, ask someone you know, what this church is about. Because I know it is true. My testimony is the only thing I have really got in this completely new country. But I can't wait to serve and do missionary work. Ciao Everybody!

Anziano Price

Napoli Pizza!