And the earth shook

We had a very eventful action packed last couple days here in the vineyard of Italy! From the sounds of it we had at least 3 major earthquakes in the past 5 days but thankfully everyone's safe. We were on a bus for the first 2 and consequently did not feel them. The third one happened Sunday morning right before we were going to leave the house for church. It was pretty exciting and we only ended up doing sacrament meeting after that.

We also had a ward Halloween party last Thursday that went really well! We had most of the members show up and then lots of nonmembers came as well. The food and the games were all really exciting. We also had a scambio this week and I was able to spend a day with Anziano Olsen in pescara. It went really well and we had lots of fun. We also got to do a couple more lessons with chino and it looks like our boys back on track finally.

On Saturday we got to go on an adventure with the branch president and his son out to a city called sulmona. We were able to see some less actives and one of our investigators named palmir whose a really nice guy. He's retired and really interested in the Book of Mormon. There was also a really wonderful part member family we got to visit and they are awesome. Will have to figure some way to get us back there.

L'Aquila is incredible!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

And yes, we were Mario and Luigi

Sulmona

President Nelson

We had the marvelous opportunity to hear from a lot of the church leaders this past week including the President of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, Russel M Nelson and it was incredible ha. To start off we heard from President Kieron from the Europe Area Presidency and Donald A Hallstrum from the 70 along with their wives. All of the wives did really well and it was a nice build up for President Nelson who later spoke extensively on the abrahamic covenant. No joke haha the abrahamic covenant.

It was really interesting and we learned a lot! He started by showing his scriptures that he had recently bought and been able to read all the way through in 2 weeks. He would then ask us questions and precede to teach us afterward. It was really intimidating standing up to answer the questions but a very exciting experience. We got to shake his hand and then he was off to visit the temple that's being constructed in Rome.

We had a fun pday this past week when we went to a midevil castle in the mountains. It was surprisingly intact and a really fun trip. We had a really good lesson with chino again, we hadn't been able to see him for awhile but now it looks like he's back on track. We also had the opportunity to teach this man named Franco after church with his member girlfriend Bruna. Franco has had the lessons before and bruna seems tired of his unwillingness to join the church so we're going to see if we can't help our boy out.

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Us with Stefano in church, and yes, his tag says "future missionary."

Rocca Calascio

For behold...

What an eventful week we have had here in Italy! We have pday today on Tuesday because of zone conference yesterday. It was really inspiring and a nice build up for the mission wide conference that we have this Thursday with President Russell M. Nelson of the quorum of the 12. We are all pretty excited and it will be with the whole mission in Rome.

We were able to teach this lady named Laura with her family this past week and they are a bundle of fun haha. She has two toddlers who are the craziest kids ever! We are super excited to see them start progressing and coming to church. For this whole transfer Anziano gunnell and I are trying to speak only Italian and gunnell has improved so much over these past couple days it's incredible!

We were able to help Paula and Irene get moved in this past Sunday and so now hopefully we can focus more on teaching them the lessons so they can come closer to Christ. The members have been feeding us a lot recently and a side effect of that was we got horribly sick last Wednesday from some bad seafood. I was alright but Anziano gunnell may not have been so lucky..... we're making lots of progress in little old L'Aquila and thankfully the lord has prepared L'Aquila for the gospel.

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Whiting

Gotta love gelato!

And it came to pass...

Life is full of miracles, we just have to know where to look. We had an incredible week here in the lofty roman mountains. Giovanna really agreed with the whole gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. She even had her nephew Mario drive us home after and marios a kid whose about our age and was really curious about our church's stand on chastity haha. So for the 40 minutes we were together, Mario and his friend fabritzio got to hear all about chastity. The good news is Mario will probably come next week when we teach Giovanna.

We also saw our less active friend Vincenzo and he gave us permission to teach his family. We took the opportunity to then have him explain the Book of Mormon to his 8 year old daughter Laura and it was really cool to see his testimony come out. Then we also went to our homie gaun Pierros house and talked with his parents. The missionaries have talked with them in the past but this was the first time gaun said his parents actually seemed to feel the spirit. I give all credit to guan because when he bore his testimony his mother started crying as she felt the spirit testify of the truthfulness of the message.

We also had another blitz just this time in pescara last Monday. We taught a lesson and it started raining super hard. We had planned to go to this restaurant and eat two of these huge sandwiches because it was our last week as an all elder district. The sandwich was really tasty and Anziano gunnell might have ate half of one. He eats a lot of food for a small guy ha. And we get to stay together this next transfer in L'Aquila which will be good to help all of our investigators come closer to Christ.

Vi volglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Gotta love rain

Outside our soccer stadium

The Church is True

First off I would just like to thank everyone for all of the birthday wishes, I'm certain it's going to be a wonderful day! We had the precious opportunity of listening to general conference over the past 2 days and learned a lot from the prophets and apostles of god. There were lots of marvelous teachings like how to have joy and the plan of salvation. Of course missionaries love when the apostles talk about missionary work as well ha. Lots of my questions were answered and it really strengthened my testimony of these men that represent Christ on the earth today. God has always worked through prophets and always will. 

We had a blitz in ascoli this past week with the boys and it was really fun. We figured we have to utilize our time as a sister less district and so we went down for pday and then did missionary work after. We got to meet this really nice less active member whose working on quitting smoking. We also got to see Giovanna again and she is just the sweetest lady ever! We're just working through her doubts on the need to get baptized again. 

The highlight of finding this past week was this old dude we met on a bus; he asked me if I had a girlfriend and I told him I still had to find her, so this kind gentlemen then proceeded to ask every girl who came on the bus if she wanted to be my girlfriend haha. Needless to say, I'm still single haha but we have lots of new potential investigators now. (Their not all just teenage girls so don't worry mom ;). Andrea came to conference and really loved it. The work is going great!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Whiting 

A nice picture Palmir took of us.

The boys