Italy

This week has been incredible and I don't even know where to start. We had a lesson with Marco (the man who has been investigating the church for 5 years) and straight up asked him why he has been waiting to get baptized for so long. He told us he had not received a solid answer that the book of mormon is true and that when he reads the book he feels the same as when he reads the bible. We told him he feels that way because they're both the word of god and that if this next week he reads the book of mormon and prays everyday to know if it is true, he will receive his answer. So we have been praying super hard for him everyday as well as fasting for him. Will have the zone leaders coming down saturday to interview him hopefully. 

We also made some great progress with our africans and will have one of them interview this saturday as well. We did another scambio and I was with anziano bellows again. He is a great guy and I really learned a lot from him and how he teaches. We taught some other good lessons this week and are looking forward to this upcoming week. We have a Halloween party on thursday and are going to be looking for a lot of new people to teach. We ate some baby octopus this week, the brain was super weird but the legs were fine ha. We don't plan on making it a common thing. The weather is getting a little bit colder and were hoping that we can get some people ready for baptism before transfers.

I love all you guys and are praying for you all.

Vi amo Anziano Whiting

The district

A member named Francesco who loves the missionaries

Calcio

We went to zone conference this last week and it was a blast. We did zone calcio (soccer) with all the elders in the district and it was super fun. After we did interviews and met meetings and it was lots of fun.. One of our new investigators is on the ragusa soccer team and he invited us to go watch him play. So we went and it was super cool. He started and played really well the whole game. It would be cool to start teaching more of his teammates coming up here soon. Other then that, life has been pretty normal it seems like. I'm still loving the work and praying for everyone everyday. 

Vi amo Anziano Whiting

The marina

Ragusa

Blessings

This week was really exciting and it definitely feels like it just flows by now. We gave two blessings this week and it was amazing. They were both to less active members that we want to start teaching to try and reactivate them. We gave them in Italian and it really strengthened my testimony of the power of the priesthood. I prepared a lot before and when the time came I was able to say the right words.

We also have this really cool investigator named Paulo we started teaching and he has this way nice house by the beach that he took us to and we had lunch. After we taught a lesson he even offered to let us stay the night, which we can't but it was still super nice. Our African homies are still waiting to receive an answer that the church is true but they want to be baptized so we're working with them on recognizing the spirit and getting answers.

On Sunday we had a ward activity after church were everyone brought food to share and we brought a huge thing of pasta salad. All the sisters came and kept giving us food because they wanted us to have a plate of everything. Ingrossare is the Italian verb for to fatten and that's what they did to us...... But after we did an activity where all the members got blind folded and followed a cord like the iron rod. There's a story in the Book of Mormon where you follow an iron rod to the tree of life representing the pure love of Christ. And so the members would follow the rope to the tree of life we made, and had the missionaries either be angels or Devils and tell people which way to go. Of course they had me be one of the Devils that led people astray. The members really liked it and it went well. Overall it was a good week and I'm grateful for all of my many blessings, Vi amo Anziano whiting

Catholic church right by our house

Transfer Number 2

So I turned 19 this week and got to watch general conference on my birthday! They set up a classroom in the church and had the missionaries watch it with our african homies. Four of them have made really good progress and we have a lot of hope for them. The talks were all so cool to hear and I felt I got something out of each one and found different things to help our investigators. Our main investigator also brought his whole family to watch a session! We have worked a lot with him and the ward really wants to get his whole family in the church (he has 5 kids) since you never can find families to teach in italy.

We also had transfers this week, anziano martin and I stayed together since I'm still being trained and we got a new sister named sorella holiday who is 6 foot tall. Anziano Martin and I are super good friends with this guy who owns a health shop and he gave us this protein that expires in 15 days for super cheap but it's pistachio flavored. Italians love pistachio flavoring in everything and this protein tastes so gross. But we have to eat it since its expiring. Ha and hopefully he will want to take the lessons some time soon. But the work is going really well in Sicily, Anziano Martin actually knew the family that Neil L. Anderson talked about that got in the plane wreck. It's super sad that something like that would happen to that family but with the plan of salvation we have the knowledge that we will live with our families again. 

I'm loving the mission and pray for all of you everyday,

Anziano Whiting

Olives from last week

Birthday cake

Vineyard

This week Anziano Martin and I got to go work in an actual vineyard! You read all these parables in the bible about laboring in the vineyard and now I actually got to see what it was like in person. One of the stake presidency members asked us if we could come help him work in his father in law's vineyard, and our appointments for that day fell through, so we went out to the vineyard. You literally just plug all the olives off the tree so its not very hard to do at all, it just takes forever. To grow these trees you have to prune and dung them and wait for them to grow. It is all the stuff that you find in the bible that people did to grow the trees.

The work here is going really well. We have 3 investigators from africa that have baptismal dates for october 17th but they have to make it to church for us to baptize them. We also have a father of a family that were still teaching and his family is now taking the discussions with the sisters so we're excited for them. There was another scambio this week and I went with Anziano Bellows. He's a stud missionary and has served for a long time. We mostly taught members together but I learned a lot from him. We had transfers this week and sorella reber is going to rome and sorella batezzatto is getting a new missionary like me. So know half of the Ragusa missionaries won't know italian ha just kidding, language is coming along just fine.

I love and miss you all and pray for you all everyday!

Vi Amo,

Anziano Whiting

Italy

Sorry for writing late this week, we went to the marina for P-Day. But anyway this week went by super fast. We actually had a lot of our investigators commit to get baptized this week, they're in an African Refuge Camp that we go teach in about once a week. They're all very humble and just need to come to church now. We also have been teaching this man who has been an investigator for over 5 years and his wife just started taking the lessons with the sisters and it is going really well with them. We are super excited.

This week we also met with a lot of member families and our ward mission leader wants us to meet with a lot of the members and teach them the missionary lessons so they can strengthen their testimonies and be more prepared to share the gospel with their friends. My companion and I have been working really hard to give the missionaries a good reputation here because the past missionaries did not work very hard at all. Ragusa hasn't had a baptism in a year and a half and hopefully we can have a couple in the next few weeks. But anyway, I love you all and Vi voligio bien!

Anziano Whiting

A church in Modica we went to teach a referral in.

The Marina

Italy Week 4

This week was really exciting! We got a bunch of new investigators and have some potentials we've been trying to reach this past week and we're having success. Because of that, we have some crazy important lessons this coming week and we are preparing super hard to be ready to teach these people. Will keep praying that the lord will open these peoples hearts and miracles will start to happen. We've met with the members a lot to try and get them excited about the missionary work in the area.

After district meeting last week we had a 'scambio' which is where the district leader switches the companionships around for a day, so I went to Gela which is right by the sea. I was with a Swedish anziano named anziano Saffer. He's super cool and we just did tracking in Gela and found some really nice potential investigators. Gela has 7 people in their ward and we found a mom with a family that is really interested in the work. Hopefully they end up doubling the ward.

The mission is great and the food is still incredible. I'm working hard and looking for the blessings in my life.

Good luck and I miss you all!

Anziano Whiting

Anziano Martin at the Marina

Gela festival for the Madonna

Week 3 in Italy

This week was pretty exciting and it seems like the days are going faster. We had specialized training at the start of the week with the whole zone and I got to see Ibla which is this ancient city right by Ragusa this week too. We passed off another lady to the sisters and she is just a golden investigator. The whole time we taught her we just felt like she was ready and now the sisters will hopefully help her reach baptism. We also had some good lessons with an investigator that has been investigating for like 5 years. He just has to take the last step and we think he is really close.

This week a lot of investigators didn't show up for lessons so that was kinda sad but we think we can get them next week. There are a lot of potentials that we are looking into and trying to teach and we are preparing for miracles so hopefully we can have more people progressing next week. On sundays we eat with the members and it is soooo good. I could probably go on and on about the food haha but we ate chicken with bacon in the middle with these italians sauces yesterday and I about died from how good it was. But anyway, I miss you guys and wish you all the best!

Anziano Whiting

The ancient city Ibla

One of our potentials is an artist and we went to an art show and this was my favorite one.

Italy

My first full week in Ragusa is officially over and now the work has finally started! We had to do a bunch of permesso stuff this week so I could be legal in this country and it took forever but oh well. We teach an English course to a lot of people every Tuesday and Thursday and it's pretty exciting since the people don't know how to speak English and I don't know how to speak Italian ha. But the language is coming pretty well. I can do all the lessons and am working on being able to have normal conversations which I can do with missionaries because they speak clear and correct but the locals don't always do that so I'm working on it. We taught a couple different lessons this week and I thought they went pretty well. We have one girl on for a bap date but she has to show up for church and another mother and daughter who are super ready and exempting all the lessons that we passed off to the sisters. We're working and praying for all the others and hopefully they have progress.
My companion gave a really good talk at church on Sunday about member missionary work. His mom was converted by missionaries so he has a close tie to the work were doing. Anziano Martin is really cool and I'm glad he is my trainer. He has 7 kids in his family and he's number 5. He is short and really buff so hopefully we eat healthy. Anziano Martin loves motorcycles and soccer. He went to BYU for a semester and then left on the mission. He has only been on the mission for 8 and a half months and served in rome before ragusa. He had a really great trainer and then 2 super hard companions after that. He hasn't had a ton of success on the mission but we seem to be doing really great here. We are going to try and focus this next week on member missionary work and getting them excited to participate and share the gospel.

After he gave his talk a lady came up to us and said she has had this nonmember boy friend for 10 years and they want to get married but she wants to get married in the temple. So she has been praying for the right time and the right missionaries to help teach here fiancé and after hearing my companions talk and my testimony last week, she wants us to do it which is an honor. Were going to fast and pray a lot to be able to teach him the way the lord wants us to.

But yeah the mission is great and our other investigators are doing fine. We had a San Giovanni festival in Ragusa (the catholics holiday for John the Baptist) and handed out tons of pass along and english course cards. Everyone in Ragusa came out so hopefully we get some new contacts.

The mission is great and I love the work,

Anziano Whiting

Fesival

Buddhist temple we visited with ward mission leader Salvo

Italy

So I made it safely to Italy and it's incredible! But first on Sunday
I gave a talk with the other writings and then sang with the Nashville
tribute band for devotional. It was super spiritual.
Then we got up early on Monday and took the train to the airport and
flew all the way until Tuesday. We stopped in New York and I talked
with this really cool guy from India. And after we went and saw the
temple Tuesday night. It's not done yet but there working on it. We
stayed at the villa with the mission president and his wife that
night. They had to do interviews and give us iPads the next day so we
spent time at the church and the colosseum. We then got our golden
envelopes with our areas and trainers and I was assigned to serve with
anziano Martin in ragussa which is this older city in the southern
half of Sicily. So I went on a train all Thursday down through Italy
and I got zero sleep for 4 days but it was fun. I made a lot of
friends with the missionaries.
I got to Catania,which is my zone headquarters and it was really late
so my trainer and I stayed with the zone leader in Catania. I did get
to hand out my first Book of Mormon that night and eat some real
Italian food. They say that Sicily has the best food so I got lucky
with that. We came to ragussa the next day and got everything in our
apartment which took like another day. We have an investigator whose
moving to Canada but we went and had horse burgers with him that night
and he's excited and sad to leave. He's super intelligent and I'm sad
he's taking off so soon.  He has little questions that aren't so
important that he gets caught up in.
Saturday we went to the hospital because one of the sisters converts
husband died and we helped her with that. We actually went to the
funeral today too and I just felt so sorry for all the people. We
talked to some guys there and they might want to take the missionary
discussions so that part was good. They have these houses for everyone
when people die which is really different from America. It must be
super hard for these people to have to pay for the funeral.
The church here is kinda big, we have one of the few stand alone
chapels in Italy and it looks like a doll house haha. :) I like it
though. I bore my testimony in Italian on Sunday and that was an
adventure with my limited vocabulary.  I did fine though and
understood most of what people said. The people down here have a nice
accent that I get to deal with.
My comp is super sweet, he's from Provo and went to byu for a year. He
learned the language really fast so hopefully I can replicate it. We
get to eat dinners at members houses on Sunday's and it's super good
and super huge. We ate yesterday with these old people that are super
funny. It'll be better when I can communicate more and let my
personality show but I know the lord will bless me as I use what I
have to communicate with his children.
I love and miss you all
Anziano Whiting

Since we got Ipads in our area we can have use the cloud albums to upload pictures throughout the week. So the pictures I take with my ipad will be uploaded whenever I get wifi. I won't be able to comment to anyone unless its pday but you would be able to see more pictures. So let me know if anyone else wants to be in the photo group and you would need an apple device.

Thanks love Anziano Whiting

The mainland

Arrival in Rome!

Hey mom, i made it safe. Here are some of the pictures we got from today. Sister Waddoups is also going to post a lot of the pics on the blog.

The Rome Italy temple site

Me and President and Sister Waddoups

Final Week at the MTC

The branch president gave us a short P-Day today to do laundry and write emails so here goes. I taught my last lessons on Thursday and it was really cool because we taught Concetta who got 'baptized' about getting sealed in the temple to her dead spouse so they could live together for ever. It was really spiritual and something I hope I get to do in the mission field. On friday we had in field training all day and I had a blast. We did different workshops and scenarios to practice for when were actually in the field next week. It was weird teaching in English for the first time in forever. I feel like I would have done a better good in Italian which is a good sign. Today we just have culture day which is where our teachers will talk about Italy and then will have to say good bye. I'll send the last pictures from today later tonight. Then tomorrow will be the final church before Rome and I'm almost certain I'm going to speak just because I haven't yet and Brother Whiting is in the Branch Presidency. They choose randomly every week and I've just dodged the bullet so far.

The flight will be all day on monday and I'll show up in Italy Tuesday and then get assigned to an area and head right out to it. I'm trying not to want to serve in certain areas but it sounds like there's a spot in Sicily and that would be an amazing first area. I'd be happy with anywhere in Italy.

Ciao and I'll write again whenever I have P-Day and I'll have a ton of pictures ha.

Anziano Whiting

Our MTC teacher

Our MTC district with our MTC teachers

Our MTC teacher