I really like it here!

Bari is great! I really like it here! It is a lot more calm here than Palermo and Rome. The people seem really great and open to talking with us. We set  2 baptismal dates the first day here. We have been inviting everyone to get baptized its been working out great. In Malta we set a baptismal date right on the street and in Sciacca we set two right on the street as well. So the work here is going good. Hopefully we can keep it going. Anziano Alessandro is great. We seem to get along pretty good. It is nice to speak Italian all the time. It took me a few days to get used to his accent but I am pretty used to it now. The members are nice as well, at least all the ones I met. Everyone is on vacation. There is a ward here but it is the smallest one I have been in so far. I really like serving in the bigger cities, so I am pretty lucky to be in another fairly big one. I am in the same district as Sorella Comollo again. She has been in my same district for 5 transfers. The other Sorella in our ward is Sorella Clark. They are both great. Hopefully we can help the ward here grow. The food here is good! They have a food called panzerotti which are like a type of Italian hot pocket, they are amazing! Also Anziano Alessandro likes to cook and he makes some great pasta dishes. It has been nice having an Italian cook. Ha The weather here is a bit cooler than it was at Palermo. Plus everyone says it starts to cool down in september. We are getting ready to start an english course here. And I hear that we work with the young single adults alot here, so we play soccer with them and our investigators. Which reminds me, one of the boys came to it and we started teaching him and his family! We invited them to be baptized and he didn't yes but he didn't say no. So we consider it a success. Sounds like everything is going well at home. Anziano Miller is great! Haha How was it going out to dinner with his parents? Oh yeah I love mopping now! Haha... I want to send you some videos but I'm not sure how I could get them to you all. Well today for preparation day we are going to Bitonto to make and eat pizzas with the missionaries there. Should be fun! Anyway love you tons! Ciao!!

I am going to go to Bari!

Happy Birthday Mother!!! I can't believe it is your Birthday today!! What are you going to do?! Hope you have the greatest day ever! I can't believe next year I will be able to be there with you celebrating and eating lots of cheese cake! Tanti auguri a te! Tanti auguri a te! Tanti auguri cara Madre! Tanti auguri a te!! Be sure to do something spontaneous but try not to get into trouble with the law. I truly couldn't have a better Mother! You have always been there for me and have always strengthened my testimony. I am tooo blessed to have such a great family! Make sure that you spend the day together. Love you tons!!  So I am going to go to Bari! Anziano McMullen and I are both getting booted out!  Anziano McMullen is going to Terni close to Rome. I will really miss him! We will be friends forever. My new companion is Anziano Alessandero. He is from Bolognia, Italy! So I am so excited to be able to learn the language even more and we will be able to speak it all the time because we are in a two man house. I am not a zone leader anymore but I am very grateful for the chance I had to be one. I really feel like I learned a lot and I was able to be around a lot of great missionaries. I am going to be the district leader in Bari so that will be fun. Today we will be leaving at 3 to Catania and I'll be staying the night there and leave tomorrow morning. Sorella Comollo will be in my district again. It's crazy we have been in the same district for four transfers and this will be the 5th. It was really hard saying goodbye to all the members. They are all so great and I am going to miss them a ton!  But I hear that the members in Bari are great to! I think that I am really going to love Bari. I am glad you got the pictures. Haha Yeah that shirt was on sale for 5 euro so I figured why not. The girls in the picture with me are members the one on the right is doing her papers to go on a mission. Her uncle was my seminary teacher at Alta. Brother Jackson. Small world.  Should be fun going to dinner with the Millers. I love Anziano Miller I am going to miss him. His parents sound great! I can't wait to hang out with him after the mission! Well I better run I love you all a ton and I hope you have a great week!!! Ciao!!

Trapani Exchange Mistretta

Trapani

Malta

Enjoying pizza in Malta

Anziano Lemmon and the pizza arch in Malta Apartment
 

Anziani in Malta

Me with a cool hot dog we found in Sciacca

Anziano Miller with Salvo and our best great friend Laura from English course

Bowling with members and friends.  Me with Genevra and Micol

A float in Sciacca

Malta was great!

Hello! So this week was great. We have been from Scambi to Scambi! Malta was great! It is beautiful there but deadly hot! The air conditioning broke a few times while we were there to so we were roasting in the brick house all night. It was fun though  And the people are great. We set four baptismal dates! It was really cool! We were there for a while so we had the chance to do an exchange with all four of them. They are great missionaries and I learned a lot. In Malta they speak Maltese and English so it's kind of hard to learn the language because they already speak english most of the time. So they do not teach Maltese in the MTC when you get called to serve on that Island you just have to start learning from square one. After that we went to Gela to do an exchange with the missionaries there and now we are back in Palermo for a little bit so it's been nice to be back and we have been busy seeing all of our investigators. Saturday we get transfer calls, wonder if I'll stay or if I'm gone. Sounds like life is going good with all of you! Glad to hear that the Olympics went so well! Can't believe they are over already. Today the Gela Anziani came to Palermo to have there preparation day with us to finish up the exchange because we had to come back Tuesday night because Wednsday was our cleaning day so we are all enjoying a clean home. Well I don't have much time sorry this is so short but I love you a ton! And thanks for writing!!

I'm not in Italy. . . I'm in Malta!!



Hey! So yeah I'm not in Italy.. I'm in Malta!! President Kelly decided to send us here for a while to do some exchanges with the missionaries here! It is beautiful here! It is so different from Italy and everyone here speaks English and Maltese. The missionaries here are really great and keeping up the hard work here even though it is ridiculously hot. You will have to look up pictures on the Internet. The week has been really good. We went to Trapani this week. I went on an exchange with Anziano Simonetta and Anziano McMullen went with Anziano Lacey. They are great missionaries! We had some good plans set up but unfortunately all of our lessons got cancelled so we did some good old finding. Later that night we played some soccer with some investigators and members and had to run like 3 miles to get home on time. So that was fun. After that Anziano McMullen and I had to plan for zone conference and then we went to Catania on Tuesday to help set things up for the conference. We all ended up sleeping outside on the balcony because it was really hot. Tuesday morning was the conference. I felt like everything really went well. We learned a lot about inviting people and just having a good attitude in everything we do. Elder Holland came to our mission and gave our mission an Apostolic blessing. He blessed it that the work will grow and a lot of other really great things.  He also gave our mission the advice to find joy in the work. Find joy most of all in the rejections that we receive so that is why we talked a lot about discouragement and being happy. So that was cool that you taught that same thing in young womens. It really does help so much more when you just look at the good in everything. It may be hot down here but I am getting a sweet tan! ha So we will be here in Malta for awhile but President Kelly made sure that our investigators would be taken care of by our members. Our members in Palermo are great. They were more that happy to help out. So after zone conference we drove down to Pozzallo and took a ferry from there to Malta. It was pretty fast, it took about an hour and a half. We ended up spending our preparation day here so we saw some really cool stuff. I made sure to take lots of pictures. It is really weird speaking in  English all the time. I keep on saying Boun Giorno to everyone and get weird looks. Habit. Well anyway I hope you all know that things here are good. The work of the Lord is always pushing forward! Love you all tons!!! Ciao!!

Joe's Baptism



Hello! Excellent Week! We got home from Rome and had a great baptism of our investigator Joel! He is great! Had a testimony of The Book of Mormon from the moment he read the first little bit. We have been teaching him for about 4 or 5 weeks and he was just as elect as they come. He loves the church and he has a strong testimony. He really gets along well with the members and fits in perfectly! So that all went well! Except I forgot my talk!!! Can't believe I forgot my talk!! So I just tried to remember everything I wrote down and just went for it. I think it turned out well. The Bishop baptized him and his friend Christopher, the person who introduced him to the church, gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. So It was a really cool experience. Hope that we can find more elect people like him around! Anyway other than that we have just been staying busy and getting ready for the training that we have to do at zone conference next tuesday. Pray for us. Yes, the Pizzas in Naples were huge! They were amazingly good! Best Pizza I have ever eaten! And yes we always eat a whole pizza. Thats how things work around here. Everyone orders a pizza for themselves. Well from Rome we left at about 11 we stopped in Naples for a pizza for about an hour then we stopped in Batipaglia to buy Mozzerella di Buffola ( Buffalo Mozzerella), which is incredible and then with a wrong turn we got to Cosenza at about 8:30 slept the night there and then got to Palermo at about 7 on Thursday. So it was quite the trip! Sounds like Colton is working hard! That is good! It will get him ready for the mission! Anziano McMullens brother just got his mission call to the Chicago Spanish speaking mission. He leaves in December so Anziano McMullen will have a good month with him before he leaves. We have been hearing a lot about the olympics here. You will have to keep me updated on that. Well I sure love you all a ton! Thanks for writing! Tante Belle Cose!!