The Great Italy Rome Mission

What a week! We saw lots of miracles and probably the biggest was Alessio passing his baptismal interview which means he should be getting baptized this weekend! So we hope everything goes well with that. He made lots of progress and grew a ton these past couple days.

Another one of our investigators named Stefano made some good progress, we got to meet with him during the week and he showed up to church and loved it!

One of the best lessons of the week had to have been with Letizia, a less active lady married to this man named Maurizio. We taught the plan of salvation and talked about how she'll receive her answer that the church is true and said she wants to "fall in love" with the plan of salvation and I loved that answer! The plan of salvation is so perfect why wouldn't we love it? It's been truly incredible sharing the knowledge our Heavenly Father has given us to his children in Italy.

It's also looking like we are seeing some results from focusing on the youth in the people we've been finding. Roberto and Edoardo are both still doing really good and with the help of the members they seem to have a place in the ward already! Hopefully we can help them get closer to baptism. They had a really good world wide mission conference and changed some of the standards and were really excited about all of the things that are going on. Anziano Bourne and I have been pushing ourselves a lot and are excited for everything to come!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Ermanno

The boys

It is Better To Be Trusted Than It Is to be Loved

Another marvelous week has come and gone here in Italy. Alessio really progressed this past week and accepted everything about the law of chastity and the word of wisdom! The ward has also been really inclusive of him and really all of our investigators for that matter, so that makes us really excited. Edoardo also had a good week and made it out to church along with Roberto who brought his wife and then stayed for Sunday school.

We had a really good zone conference with a big focus on invites and the Holy Ghost. The spirit was very strong and it was a real blessing to see all the trust President puts in us as his missionaries. Sorella Pickerd always likes to ask us 2 things we admire in our companions and so I asked her that question and she quickly responded with presidents kindness and the way that he has always diligently study the scriptures his whole life. Those are two things we should probably all try to implement in our lives.

One of the biggest miracles came with our new homie Stefano. We found him outside Saturday night and got these really cool milkshake donut things from the store that he works in and then he showed up at the end of church the next day! So we got to show him around and introduce him to lots of the members. Stefano is a pretty cool kid and we're excited for the progress he'll be making in the next couple weeks. The ward members have been showing a lot of trust in Anziano Bourne and I and we hope to be able to keep it.

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Cagliari Missionaries

I'm Feeling 22

This last week was really incredible! We had some really good lessons and met lots more cool people. We've been having lots of success heading out to the university here in Cagliari and talking with the college kids. It's a lot like being back with the GANS center and so that makes it loads of fun. We also had a really good lesson with Alessio on obedience and he was totally down to start working towards following all of them.

We had a scambio with the elders from Sassari and I got to go out with Anziano cutler. We had a blast wandering around because the other elders had the car and I didn't know the streets at all haha. On Sunday we got to meet with our boy john and his family from Nigeria and had a really good first lesson with them and everyone was really interested. We also taught this lovely lady named Letizia who is married to this less active friend of President Pickerd that went exceptionally well. She is really interested and has lots of faith in the message.

We've bonded a lot with the members playing soccer and doing service for them these last couple days and they've really given us their trust it seems. Sometimes they do Italians verse the Americans and we've been holding our own for a bunch of stranieri. We also have this sweet basketball court and soccer field pretty close to our house that we went and played on with some of the other missionaries from around the island last pday. The works gone really well out on the island!

And happy 22nd wedding anniversary to mom and dad!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Heading with our member fabulous to teach John

The Cagliari Missionaries

Find Teach Baptize

Cagliari is poppin! We saw some cool miracles this past week and we want to keep the magic going. Roberto is the coolest guy ever and his wedding should get settled in the upcoming weeks which will mean he'll be able to get baptized! Alessio is also this homie we play soccer with and he is the nicest guy ever. He has a baby son and loves hearing about the plan of salvation. We just want to help him get into a habit of praying daily.

We are blessed to have a car here and it makes it so much easier to get to appointments. We've been able to meet with lots of the members recently and everyone loves the missionaries so that's really cool. We had a fun family home evening with one of the bishop bric members were we watched these old Book of Mormon videos and it was the greatest Haha. I really did learn more from the video even if it was pretty weird. We ate at a Brazilian meats buffet last week and it was divine.

We had fun finding here in Cagliari. We've really tried to focus on youth this past week and we've met some really cool people. We found this girl named Milena last week from Serbia that loved the restoration. She wants to introduce us to her family so will have to see how it goes. We also met this really cool kid named Samuele that wants to learn more about prayer. They probably have the most potential of the people we've found but will see. The work is incredible here and we want to just help it keep growing.

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Pday at the Pizzeria

Roberto rocking the name tag

Cag City

This past week we had quite he surprise with transfer calls. I've been sent off to Cagliari to serve with Anziano Bourne! We started in the mtc together and now will be serving together on the island of sardenia. It was sad to leave Rome after such little time but there are people here in Cagliari for us to find. Anziano Jensen will be staying back at the GANS center with another elder.

We have a really cool investigator named Roberto here who owns a sweets shop and he is so cool. Once his marriage papers go through, he'll be able to get baptized and he even made it out to church with his wife which was really cool. We also teach this guy named Alessandro who is always all over the place ha. He makes lessons very interesting and we always have a good time. He gave us some nice treats for New Years as well.

We got to go eat at this really nice sisters house and she fed us some really good ravioli for New Year's Day. They had us clean up our houses New Year's Eve. We also stay with 2 other elders in our house, elders Larussa and Hansen, and it's always a party with those guys.

Our companionship gets a car so that's a real blessing as well. The member here are super sweet and we think we can do some real work here. The only down side is I'm back playing the piano again haha. The work is really good and we're excited for this new year.

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Whiting

New Years Pranzo

Cagliari