Anziano Bunker is getting Transferred

Hello! Wow kinda crazy week. Everything has been pretty normal other than Sunday morning. We got a call from President Kelly saying that Anziano Bunker is getting transfered down to Crotone this Friday! I guess that some missionaries Mom is sick so he received permission to go home. So yesterday we received a third companion from Malta! We will be in a companionship of three until Friday when Anziano Bunker leaves. His name is Anziano Dugdale, he is from Joplan, Missouri. He is really great and I've already learned a lot from him! He has two transfers left and is really good at Italian even though he served in Malta for like 6 transfers. So that was news that really caught us off guard. Then at Church President and Sorella Kelly came and it was our missionary sacrament meeting, so I gave a talk and some new converts bore their testimonies. It was really great! We are also excited for Zone conference tomorrow! We will have 9 Anziani staying in our apartment tonight! Us three, Anziani from Napoli 1 and 2 and then Caserta. So we will be a little cramped on space but it will be nice to see everyone! So thats all the crazy news for the week. Oh yes I did recieve the package! Thank you so much!! Mac and Cheese is the best! Haha I miss that kind of food! So thanks a ton for everything! That is great that you went to Moab! Sounds like you had a blast! I love Arches national park. That is so awesome for Colton! What a champ! I can't believe that he will graduate this May as well! Time is flying!! So I'm pretty sure that I will stay here next transfer as well to show Anziano Dugdale the area but I guess we will see!  Well I hope you have a good week! Ci sentiamo! Love you tons!!!Hey Dad! Sounds like you had a good time at moab! That is awesome! Sounds like some intense hiking took place! Here has been pretty eventful with the news about Anziano Bunker getting transfered and all! Crazy huh! I'm pretty surprised that I have been here for so long. That was the last thing I expected but whatever happens, happens for a reason. I guess I will find out why I'm staying here even though I don't know why right now. Our investigators are good. I feel like we have been kind of battling with them lately! I'm kind of ready to drop them all, but we should still give them time to find an answer. I guess I just don't like it when they bring up things that they don't believe are true and we will show them in the Bible and the Book of Mormon where it says it and then they will still argue it and I am like "Bro, I didn't make the rules around here! You take it up with Luke or Paul, they are the guys who wrote it not me!" So it's been pretty wild but I am learning the Bible a lot and love it! So yeah. Wow Colton is a stud! I wish I could have seen him! That is really cool! Oh man I am missing church ball! That is some fun stuff! Thank you for doing that! With out church ball people just aren't happy! Legit I love church ball! I can't wait to play when I get back! Has it been hard to find people to help out with reffing and all that? I'll help when I get back if you are still doing it! Anyway I better run. Thanks for writing! Love you tons have a great week!!!

Good week of just Finding

Caroling on the Spanish Steps

A Castle

Making pizza at the church with the Sorelle and our investigator Luca

A Church

This week has been good. The mission has been preparing for zone conference next week, Elder Teixeira will tour our mission again! So we are all excited about that! President Kelly said that this will probably be the last mission tour for our group. That is crazy! I hope everyone at home had a great valentines day! What did you all do? I think Anziano Bunker and I forgot that it was valentines day until we were going to an appointment half way through the day and saw some guy with heart ballons. Haha The Mission! Anyway, the snow has been great but we are ready for it to go. It was pretty hard on the work and Church the last two weeks has only been one hour because of it, so we are excited to get back on a normal schedule. Yesterday night we had a great night! We went to a members house and taught her mom, who is not a member, The Plan of Salvation! She said that she felt like she had heard this plan before and she knew it was true! So that was awesome! She said she will be baptized when she knows these things are true, which confused us because she said she knew it was true already, So we will just have to work with her some more. After that we had a great Romanian dish. I don't remember the name of it but they were big red peppers stuffed with rice and meat in a delicous soup! It was a great night! This week has been a pretty good week of just finding. And no, the weather hasn't been too bad. The jacket is doing great at keeping me warm. I haven't gotten the package yet but I'm sure that I will get it soon.  Yes it is true our Sister missionaries do rock!  They just bake us goodies and are always bringing them to us and to district meeting! They are awesome! The other day when we were going to an appointment we stumbled upon a few cool looking churches so today for preperation day we want to go check them out. Should be fun! Hopefully we will find someone elect on the way! Well Love you and thank you for all you do for me!! Have a great week! Ciao!!!Hey Dad! How is everything? Did you have a good valentines day? I hope so! This week has been good! Kinda long but good! I'm excited for Zone conference this week! Should be fun! The missionaries from Napoli (Napels) and Sardegnia are coming to this Zone conference as well so we will have 6 other Anziani staying with us in our appartment. Should be quite the party! haha I'm glad to hear that the car didn't blow up! That's scary! Anyway! I can't wait to hear about Coltons wrestling match!! That will be awesome! I'm sure he will kick some butt! Let me know how he does! Also another thing next week zone conference is on Wednesday so our Preperation Day will be on Tuesday. So if you and Mom could write me before Tuesday that would be very appreciated! How is work? how are things for the wedding coming along? I hope all is good!  We keep running into this priest in termini and we want to have a lesson with him soon so we are hoping we will run into him even today. He is really nice just doesn't understand some things in the Bible very clear, Behold why we have need of the Book of Mormon! Hopefully he will find the truth! Well I sure Love you and am so grateful for you!! Have a great week!! Ciao!!

IT SNOWED!!!!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday! Kind of a long one but it was still great. First off we had church for only one hour because IT SNOWED!!!! It was awesome!!! Made me feel right at home! Anyway, after that we made a good long 2 hour trek to a members house for a good lunch/dinner appointment, where we ate more food than I have ever eaten in my life and then we had to head home for some finding. Oh yeah, the Sorelle made me a great cake! That was in the shape of 20! So that was really nice of them! It was a nice day! Other than that it has been awesome to see the Italians with the snow! They all busted out the brooms and dust pans to clear the snow off of drive ways and sidewalks and are all pretty scared to walk on the ice or snow in fear that they will slip to their death. Our ward mission leader walked with us to church and kept hanging on to me and Anziano Bunker as we were walking on it like it was grass cause we are so used to the snow. Haha I don't think that the Italians understand that they probably shouldn't drive their scooters around in this weather as well! The kids didn't really know what to do at first and finally started having snowball fights! Anziano Bunker and I were excited and ready to jump in a few of them but then we remembered that we are missionaries haha! Also this week a member of our ward passed away :(  We were going to go visit him this week but because of the weather none of the buses were working, so we felt bad about that but he is in a better place now. That is awesome news about Colt! What a champ!! I wish I could have seen it! That is a great goal that Tayler and Jared made together! Sounds like they are going to be good together! Thanks for writing and hope you have a good week!! Ciao!!! Love you!!!Hey Dad!! Thanks for the Birthday wishes! I had an excellent birthday! And Thanks for filling me in on the wrestling!! Wow!! That is insane! What a stud!! When does state start? Also thanks for the pictures of the wrestling! I love the one of Colton on that kid shoving his nose in the ground Haha! Priceless! How was your week?! Heard the Super bowl was great!! How was the Party? I miss football haha! Me and Anziano Bunker are always just walking down the street and want to tackle random people who are walking by us fast haha! We miss hitting! That is awesome you got the nintendo 64 back!  I'll play it when I get back Haha! How did they find it?? Did they find anything else of ours? Yeah it is crazy how fast things are happening and its true, before you know it I'll be home again! Mamma Mia!! This transfer has been good! It is kind of going slower, just because there hasn't been that much change for a while. But its all good. I think today for Preperation Day we are going to  Body Worlds  with an Investigator of ours! So that should be a lot of fun! We have seen pretty much everything there is to see in Rome. So I better get running but thanks for writing and I love you tons!!! Ciao!! Buona Settimana!!!

The Ward here is so Great!!!

Ciao Tutti! Another overall good week! We have been staying very busy
this week with member work. We have traveled all over our zone working
with members and doing some service. The ward here is so great and I
love working with them! They all have such strong testimonies and
sacrifice so much for the Church. On Monday we went to a members house
and we got to cut up a lot of fire wood and stack it in their shed. It
is alot of fun to mix things up with some service. It has been a lot
of fun being in a bigger district. This week the Rome 2 missionaries
came to our church and next week we will go to their church. Thank you
for the early birthday wish! I can't believe that I will be turning 20
also! Im growin up! Ha My birthday lands on Sunday so that's a plus!
Time is just flying out here! It feels like 4 months ago I was getting
ready to leave for the mission! Haha and in someways I still feel kind
of like a greenie, even though I have been out for almost 11 months. It
is nice that I'll be serving another one with Anziano Bunker, He is a
good guy. We pretty much never get sick of talking about football. As
for the weather, it is pretty cold here. It hasn't snowed but it is
raining right now and we get that cold humidity here. I think I'm
starting to love the pasta here even more! This week we went to a few
members houses and ate some amazing pasta! I don't know how they do it
but they just have the Italian touch! I love the food here! Also this
week we have been really trying to work with our investigators who
arent progressing and we have found out that we need to teach the
Priesthood. So It has been a lot of fun studying about the Priesthood
this last week. I have loved studying the Bible out here and want to
read the whole Bible in Italian as well. I'm honestly not sure about
the temple... the last I heard was that they had dug the holes, but
that was a while back. We got some really cool cards with the temple
on it and they talk about eternal marriage and how the Priesthood can
bless families in Italian so those have been nice to have. Talking
about the Temple is a good way to stop people and it has really been
raising some interest here! Hopefully when it is almost finished
everyone will know about it and want to talk to missionaires more.
Hey Dad! How was the Birthday?! I hope it was good!! What did you do?
Thank you for the Birthday wishes! I can't believe im turning 20! Mamma
Mia!!! It is fun learning the language. A lot of the missionaries try
to work around the vocabulary they know to say things but I have
really tried to study out all the words so I can word things just how
I want. At times it is very frustrating cause I get so sick of looking
up words and pounding them in my head but I feel in the end it will
pay off. I'm glad to hear that your talk went good! And yes it made
sense! In Italian you say (It has sense) kinda wierd. But that's
great! It sounds like it was a great talk! And don't worry about the
package! Italian mail service is terrible so every missionary here
gets their packages later than planned! That Priest that tried to
prove us wrong with the Bible was wishing that he didn't talk to us..
Haha I think he thought we were just two 19 year old kids who don't
know the Bible and couldn't speak the language but we kind of left him
with out words. We are going to give him a Book of Mormon and want to
set up a lesson with him soon! The sorelle are teaching a lady who
works in the Vatican as a chef and she tells the sorelle all about
what goes on behind the scenes. So this lady is looking for the truth
 and loves our church! I just wish that more people could recognize the
 importance of the PRIESTHOOD!!! Ha but all we can do is try! Well I better take off!
We are going to go see some big old Cathedrals here. Love you tons!!!
Ciao!!