Dear Family and Friends,What a cool week! Zone conference, BAPTISM, Gela, and lots of lot of finding! Hopefully, I can explain how awesome everything was!
Okay first we had Zone Conference. We have it in Catania so everyone from Ragusa to Reggio Calabria drives there for two days where we do interviews, and the mission president, his wife, and the assistents to the president lead addestramentos on how we can improve the work, the stories of the baptisms that happened last transfer, lunch, and more discussions. It's so much fun and really helpful for us on how to improve our work. I loved especially seeing my old missionary friends from Siracusa like Anziano Moscon, Sorella Ferre and Tacchi, and their updates about the work in Siracusa. I just love them so much! And Giuseppe from Siracusa also got baptized so that was super awesome to hear about! It also happened to be the last time I would see Anziano Berger (remember him from Pozzuoli?) since he goes home this transfer! Time has passed by so fast!
Anziano Albright took all that great excitment from Zone Conference and put it into practice. The assistents invited us to hand out a Book of Mormon that day after zone conference so we planned to. Only problem was after English Group, there was only 20 minutes left before we had to be home! We ran outside and did a giro around our apartment looking for anyone to talk to. First person: not interested, next person: not interested but we bought a 2.5 liter bottle of grape Fanta from her Romanian market(they don't sell it in Italian stores). I then see one guy on his phone in front of a pizzeria and think, "oh, I don't want to bother this guy" but then I realize he's only person left to talk to. So we asked if he had ever heard of the Book of Mormon, explained how it answers the questions to our soul, and he (Angelo) asked if he could read it! Unbelievable!
Our goal for the week was to find people in places we have never been in Ragusa. This involved a ton of walking back and forth, up and down hills, and stopping anyone and everyone that was in our vicinity. Little miracles happened like a store owner asking when did church start on Sunday possibly being interested, and many weird situations were encountered. (Examples: while doing door to door, we found a live turtle in front of an apartment door/man turns around on street as we walk towards him/old lady talks to us for 20 minutes and then says she isn't interested, etc.) For Anziano Albright and I, it was a mix of excitement, discouragement, and even fun all at the same time. One things for sure: we worked our hardest to spead our message of the Book of Mormon to everyone, even if nothing comes from it.
For church yesterday, since the branch president was out of town, I got to preside and direct the meetings in Gela in his place. Normally, this would only be a little nervewracking considering the usual turnout besides the branch president's family is 3-4 old ladies. But it also just so happened to be when a member of the stake high council also came. He called me early Sunday morning asking what the theme for the meeting was when I didn't even know who was giving talks, let alone the topic. In the end, it was pretty fun. I got a little tongue tied in teaching Sunday School in Italian and I put the wrong numbers up for the hymns we were singing, but other than that it was fun.
Oh, and there was a baptism! The fun part was that the font first didn't have hot water and once that got fixed, we were running out of time to fill it so Anziano Albright and I grabbed buckets and filled them up in the sink and began dumping them into the font. Quite entertaining. And Nuria, the person getting baptized, was so happy for this moment and the sister missionaries, Sorella Torres and Demann, only found her in a park a month ago. Nuria is definitely inspiring especially to all the members that support her. She is fan of my chocolami (I made it for her baptism) and especially loves all the crazy Italian children of the ward so I am guessing that she will be helping out in the primary any time soon. I also got to play my violin for the baptismal ceremony.
While every week is not quite this exciting, every day certainly has its memories. I was reading back through my journal of all the crazy little things that happened and how fast the time has flown. And also how much has changed with people cities, and especially myself! This mission in Italy is definitely changing myself for the better and hopefully I am changing the people I meet too. I have loved my time so far and can't wait for what lies in store and I never want it to end. It certainly is the hardest thing I will ever do, but after the amazing people I have met and taught, the fun moment and the diverse cultures I have experienced, and the quiet peaceful moment of joy I have felt coming closer to my Savior, there is nothing else that compares to a mission. As always, thank you for your support! Ciao for now!
Vi voglio bene!
Anziano Price
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