Spring Fever

I've had a pretty exciting past couple days here on the island.

Roberto and his wife Mariella both made tons of progress and all of the sisters in the relief society have gotten super excited for their wedding. It's in about a month and it should be a party. We also got to see Letizia again after not seeing her for a couple weeks and she is still doing great. Super nice still they just struggle because they work on sundays so will have to see if we can't come up with a way for her to come to church.

We got some incredible referrals from the Ancis family and they all came to church! All four of them loved it and want to meet with us this week. Lots of other investigators came and it was great for all of the members to see so many non members come to church. Probably one of the greatest moments of my mission was getting to teach our friend Davide last week. He's from Brazil and I just have to say that all the rumors are true, Brazilians are chosen.

We had a fun pday out at the beach playing volleyball. It was a nice throw back to the mtc days. We've been blessed with lots of success finding and are pretty stocked for this next week. We did get dropped by some kids which was kinda sad but we found some guys to fill there spots thankfully. We saw Andrea Boi, the old investigator of President Pickerd and we're working with him on a baptismal date now so will have to see how he progresses. Spring is coming and so are the miracles!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

The District

Us chilling with the boys

Paradise City

We had another great week here in the city of Cagliari. President and Sorella Pickerd came for zone conference and it was really good. We had the chance to learn about a lot of the new initiatives we have as missionaries. Mostly just using technology and focusing on GANS age kids. President was sick for most of the time but he was still happy to come out and do some lessons with us and try to help the work in any way.

I got to go on a scambio with Anziano Raimondi and it was really fun.

He's from Torino so we had a blast finding his native Italians. One of the biggest miracles of this week was Roberto Pulina making it out to church for the first time. It was a fast Sunday so he got to listen to some great testimonies and the ward seems excited that he's came.

Roberto Fisichella also finally got his marriage figured out and it should be at the start of April.

We had a fun zone calcio and most of the elders really enjoyed it.

Stefano had another good lesson with us on the restoration and it seems like he wants to start taking things seriously. The members have been showing lots of support and we've had some great lessons with them. The best was probably when we walked into the ancis house and they had friends over to chat who got invited to stay for our spiritual thought. They were super cool!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Zone Conference

At the Beach

Moving Along

This week was filled with lots of chances to do service. The biggest was helping Roberto move his house which is kinda a nightmare in Italy haha since everyone lives in apartments. So we ended up taking the fridge and dishwasher up 5 flights of stairs. Almost the whole ward showed up to help and it was really cool to see everyone get behind Roberto. We also had a good stake conference this past week.

We also had another scambio and I got to go with Anziano wog again! We did scambi a year ago in Ragusa and now again in Cagliari. It was really fun and we had a good lesson with our friend Roberto pulina. We had good lessons with all of the new converts this past week and everyone is doing really well. Alessio got a calling, Edoardo and prince lucky will be getting the priesthood this next week and there all progressing so well.

We were privileged to go meet this English speaking class and lots of them seemed super interested. We also started teaching this student named Daniele and he is super cool. We've been really blessed with all of our investigators. Lesson highlight was probably teaching Edoardo about the temple and him just looking at us and saying at the end "I need to read the Book of Mormon to understand this". How true.

Everything is going really well and we are excited for march!

At the Move

The Zone

Going for 2!

Edoardo and Prince Lucky both got baptized this week! We had one ceremony in English and one in Italian and they were both sooo good!

The spirit was so strong and both of them were especially touched.

Prince Lucky self referred himself back in holland and then moved back to Italy. He has a really strong testimony of the  Book of Mormon and always wears the swaggest clothes to church on Sunday. The members really respect him for it and try to help them as much as they can.

Edoardo was found in our area book 5 weeks ago and he is so cool! He met the missionaries 30 years ago in toscana and just keeps telling us about how he felt it was his time to decide about the church. He's such a baller and we're excited to try and start working with his family now. His most Christ like action this week was when we got our car towed and he drove us to pick it up haha. Not our best move but oh well. Roberto pulina also made it out to a ward activity and everyone loved to see another youth in the church. He is starting to realize what it's going to take to church and we're excited to see how he does with everything.

We helped the other Roberto move again this past week. We carried his furniture up 5 flights of stairs and it was really tiring ha. His son fedricio really wants to meet with us as well so that should be good.

We've met lots of really cool young kids and we have been inviting everyone to get baptized.  Alessio is still doing well, we had him do a training with us last pday to help our soccer skills and he had a lot of fun. Cagliari has lots of people who are ready to get baptized and we're just working on finding them!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

Edoardo's Baptism

Prince Lucky's Baptism

Cagliari

We had another wonderful week and should be seeing some miracles from it. Edoardo and prince lucky both passed baptismal interviews and should be getting baptized later this week and were pretty excited!

Edoardo really impressed us with all of the progress he's made these past couple weeks and was a stud in the lesson we had with bishop on the priesthood. He'll be a great addition to the ward here. Prince has a hard living situation but is trying to make the best of it. He's been and will be forever blessed by his choice to follow Christ.

We had another split this week and I got to go out with elder valardi and we had lots of fun. A member made us fried chicken which we replicated today and it was splendid. We had zone calcio on Monday because of a conference on Tuesday and all of the eLders we're excited to be together. We all got Mexican food together which is probably the most unifying thing you can do out here ha.

We started teaching this guy named Alessandro from calcio and he's pretty cool. Soccer is just the key to teaching Italians I guess. We had another good lesson with Roberto P and our boy alberto from the ward made it out and those guys hit it off. The other Roberto had us help move him a little and we should be helping him again this week.

We stopped by a member named fausto this week and he's a man. He's the only member from his family and when we showed up everyone just started verbally attacking him/us but he didn't say a word. He is such a wonderful example and will be so blessed for his perseverance.

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

We gave a rose to Silvio this week

We made steak and fries this week

Love is in the Air

We had another crazy week here in Cagliari with transfers and luckily Anziano Bourne and I will be staying together for another six weeks!

We were invited to go to a conference in Rome on transfer day and most of the other missionaries in Cagliari got transferred away and were just excited to be back in the city. The conference with president was really good, it was mostly about how he wanted the mission to adjust to the new missionary schedule. We've been given lots of trust and flexibility and we want to make the best of it.

Edoardo made some huge strides this past week and has totally quit smoking! We are really excited for him and all the progress he's made.

Roberto pulina is still doing really well and he is reading and praying. It's cool to see how he's letting the gospel change his life.

Prince lucky from holland is a stud, it's cool to see how well he got taught by the elders and he should be getting baptized soon. He showed up to church in a suit and all of the members loved him.

One of our greatest lessons this past week was with the Mura family, they are an older couple in the ward who invited us over. We read from the talk by Elder Anderson called the music of the gospel. Fratello Mura is deaf and just started laughing as he read it telling us all about how he hears music all the time and just starts singing to it.

He really loved the message and it seemed to be the message he needed to hear. The mission is going well and happy V-Day!

Vi voglio bene

Anziano Whiting

The Field Back in Rome

The Conference in Rome

Alessio!

We had an incredible week and Alessio's baptism went really well. He did really solid leading up to it and the spirit was really strong at the ceremony. Lots of other investigators came to watch as well and everyone seems to be really excited about Cagliari and the potential it has. At church on Sunday we also had one of the best testimony meetings I've ever seen. We challenged Roberto to bare his testimony and he did a marvelous job and it sounds like he might be closer to getting a date set for his wedding.

Letizia also made it out to the baptism and she really enjoyed the whole experience. She thought she might have some trouble getting all the way under the water when she gets baptized but then her husband Maurizio, whose getting reactivated, said "ci penso io" which means I'll handle it ha it was a cool miracle. Edoardo also came and he is determined to quit smoking so he can start to progress as well. He's a funny guy and we're excited for him.

In sports news the Americans almost beat the Italians this week in calcio, Alessio was just too good for us on the day of his baptism. We also went to a football practice for the American football team of Cagliari haha and we've been offered spots on the team. The coach didn't seem to notice us trying to pick up his players as new investigators so will probably go back. We visited Sassari for their district meeting and it was really good. It's been allttle bit rainy these past couple days which has been a nice change.

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Whiting

Alessio!

Burgers with the District!

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