Two More Baptismal Dates!!!

More Pictures from Cefalu



Hey! Thanks for writing! I received your letter! Thanks a ton it was really great to hear from you! I loved that story that you attached as well! It makes me want to become a better missionary. And Thank you a ton for your testimony! It is really great to have such a supportive family with strong testimonies! In the MTC one of the speakers at the devotionals called up a few of the converts who have only been members for less than 2 years. One of them was a boy and he bore his testimony about The Book of Mormon and said that he was reading The Book of Mormon to try to find flaws with it and he prayed to God and asked Him to tell him The Book of Mormon wasn't true and he said that he didn't receive the answer that he was looking for and now, a year later, he is serving a mission. Another girl talked about how her family was a very anti mormon family and always preached against The LDS Church reading alot of anti mormon literature. She read The Book of Mormon and prayed and she knew it was true and her family disowned her and said that they would never talk to her again. The last thing she heard from her mom was at the airport going from California to Utah to serve a mission and her Mom was begging her to not  do this and she went anyways because she said she could not deny the power of the Holy Ghost! That would take a lot but I know she will be blessed! So I am very grateful that I have a very supportive family! Thanks! This week has been great! We have been teaching a lot and this week we got two more Baptismal dates! One is another young man from Ghana! He is so great! Two weeks ago we bought a pizza and all four of us missionaries were extremely happy that we would be stuffing our faces with pizza in a matter of minutes, so of course we had smiles on our faces and we walked passed this African guy and I said Hi to him and he smiled and walked by. Then he yelled back to us," Are you from the LDS Church?" and we said yeah and he explained how his uncle and his friend are Stake Presidents in Ghana. We were all excited and got his information and we have been teaching him the past week and he is great! We got a Baptismal date for him on the 9th of next month and he came to Church and said that he wants to bring his friends to Church! He is awesome! Then the next day we went to teach a family of 4 that we have taught for quite awhile now and the son who is 21 accepted the Baptismal invite! He is also very great and I know he is being a great example for his family! The work is moving along down here in Sicily and I love it! The People are so Great!! I'm so happy to hear everyone is doing good! I'm glad you got to look up the prices of hotels and stuff! It is great here! The food is the best! I Love the Canoli, Gelato, Pizza, and Pasta! You will love it too! My favorite pasta has big chunks of salami and bacon in it!!! You will have to try it! Wow I'm so glad to hear the Heat lost! I hate it too how teams think they can just buy a championship DIRK Is a beast! That is so cool for Austin Lee! He is such a stud! He will do good there! I'm really happy for him! I hope that the Jazz pick up Jimmer how cool would that be! GO UTES AND GO JAZZ!  I love to hear about all of the great things happening at home! LOVE YOU ALL TONS!! THANKS!! P.S. I will try to send those pictures again, there are only two and you might have to download them from the email but I can send a flash drive home sometime soon!

Counting Pizzas, Canoli and Gelato!

My first Pizza!

American Pasta

My first Cannolo

My first Briocches- Gelato in a Roll

Hey Dad! Thanks for writing! Everything is still going great here! I'm loving it and this week we taught a lot so that was good! Believe me I'm keeping track of all the best places to eat! It's the best! You will love it!! I heard that some Anziani in the past have made a count of how many pizzas, canoli and gelato they have eaten on their mission so I'm doing that too haha! One Anziano took a belt at the end of his mission and made stamps into it for every pizza he has eaten, like it's a trophy or something! Haha pretty funny! Our Baptism is scheduled for the 25th of this month and things seem to be going good! This week we taught him about obedience and fasting and he just loved it especially fasting he already fasts and did it for three days when he was going through a hard time! He is the man! I'm so excited for him! He is great and I know the gospel will bless his life so much!  The other people we are teaching are great they are all moving in a really good direction! Some faster, some slower but they are all making an effort, so thats what is important!  That is great news! Tell Tayler Congrats for me and that I love her!  Tell the kids Congrats for surviving another year of school and that I love them and Colton that I'm proud of his hard work and that it will help prepare him for a mission and that I love him! And Thanks to You and Mom for being such a Great example to me with all your hard work and that I Love You and Love Mom a ton!!!!

Doing lots of Teaching!

A beautiful city called Cefalu

Hey! Thanks for writing! I am glad to here that everything is going good at home! This week has been very busy and we have been doing lots of teaching which is great! The weather here is perfect! I love it but it's starting to get hotter and hotter. How is the weather at home? Is it pretty hot yet? Wow I can't believe the kids are getting out of school this week! Thats Crazy! I hope they won't be to overwhelming! Im glad to here Jansen is doing good! You will have to send me his information so I can write him! I am able to communicate with my companion, it is sometimes hard to understand everything but it's coming along. He really wants to become fluent in English and I need to learn Italian so that is what is happening. He is not a convert to the church he grew up in the Church but his parents were converts when they were younger, so his family is very supportive of him! He is from Northern Italy, a city called Genova... I think. I have not heard of the Catacombs here but I will ask my companion! That sounds like a lot of fun! Today for P Day we went to a city called Cefalù. It is an amazing city! You have to see it! I loved it and took lots of pictures. I hope you got my pictures I sent in that email!  There is alot here that I want you guys to see so start saving up! haha  The food gets better and better every day! The people here love to see pictures of Utah and of anything American here haha its pretty funny! This week we met a Priest of this Church and he wants to hear more about our message so we get to teach him this week! I hope everything goes good with that! The members of the Church are really nice and also love to hear about what we have to share. It's great!! Love you tons and hope that everything is going well at home!!

Love the City

Our Bus Station in Palermo

A Cool building near our house

You can get everything at the fresh markets on the streets

Seafood Anyone?



Hey Dad! Thanks for writing! It's good to hear from you! I am glad to hear that everything is going good! When we rode the train it was inland at the beginning and at the end it was next to the coast so we got to see a lot of cool stuff! We get around the City mainly by bus, you can get anywhere by bus here and then we just walk the rest of the way. Our apartment is kind of in the hood but it is really nice and big inside and I love it! The more I'm here the more I love the city! We are probably about 6 blocks away from the ocean I think.. We don't go over towards the ocean much so I'm not positive and the buildings are so tall that you can't always see it. Shopping is awesome here! We go all over the place and the food here is to die for good! I love it! You can buy everything fresh off the street! The one thing I don't like is how they don't have good deodorant here so I'm trying to make the good stuff last! haha Our Baptisimal Contact is doing great! He is awesome! Every lesson we teach him he just talks about how true it is! He is awesome! We have alot of progressing investigators that are moving in a great direction! The Africans here are great and humble the other day we contacted one on the street and I was explaining as much as I could to him in the little time we had and he was saying how he loves how the church sounds and he invited himself to Church! Haha it was awesome! He already knows how to act in Faith! I have everything that I need for now but thank you! Right now it is perfect weather but each day it gets hotter and hotter. It has that humid heat here. I'm sorry to hear about the car but glad to hear the great love everyone has for each other at home! It's good to here that Miguel did good in his pinewood derby too! That's awesome and sounds like a good time! Wow I can't believe Ridleys about to go to college! That's awesome! You will have to tell him congrats for me or send me their address so I can write him congrats! I can't believe Jansen and Taft are in the MTC now! It seems like I was in there yesterday! I hope they are doing good and can't wait to write them! Glad to hear that work is going good too! You're awesome and I'm always thinking of you all too! My prayers are always with you! LOVE YOU TONS!!!

Teaching English

Gratteri



 Hey Sorry I'm late to write today! It is our P-Day but we went to a city in our zone that was an hour and a half away and we taught for about two hours and then an hour and a half back so our P-Day is almost over but it was a good experience! I'm glad you got to see Palermo! It is a great city! We kind of live in the Ghetto but there are so many different parts of the city that you really start to love it all! We are still teaching a lot and I feel like our investigators are moving in a good direction! One lady that we were teaching who was ready for baptism is moving back to the U.S. so that was kind of hard but it's best because she can't find a job here and her husbands a member and they said they are contacting the missionaries right when they arrive in the States. Haha funny story! This week we had the opportunity to teach an English class! This week we were teaching numbers. It was funny hearing all of the Italian people try to make out all of the numbers and failing pretty bad! haha I think it was nice to have people see what I go through and how difficult it can be to learn a different language! Haha anyways we wrote up the number 77,777,777 and they started freaking out! Haha I don't even know what they were saying but they weren't very happy! After we taught them how you can say the word dollars to express how much something costs. An old man in the front, asked if he could say the word bucks instead of dollars! Haha it was pretty funny! Other than that it has seemed to be a pretty normal week. I think thats great that you had the missionaries over! Referrals like the Mota's are the best and what missionaires are always looking for!  Just teaching a ton and contacting! It's good to hear that Colton is making money and Taylers dating and the little ones are doing good in school! Im glad that you and dad are doing good with work! I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing good at home! I hope that everything continues to go that way! I love you all tons!   P.S. Im not sure but I might be able to write tomorrow for a little bit really quick cause we didnt have alot of time today! LOVE YOU!!!

My First Area is Palermo!

The Mission home is a historic home once owned by Mussolinis daughter

Trip down to Sicily

First Italian LDS church the missionaries saw



MY FIRST AREA IS PALERMO!! The first day we were picked up and taken to one of the wards in Rome where they fed us pizza, which was pretty good! Then they took us to the mission home... It is the coolest house! It was built by Mussolini (spelled that wrong) for his daughter and was super cool! Then Sister Kelly made us an Incredible meal followed by where we would serve for our first area. I was so happy to serve in Palermo but didn't know anything about it other that I was about to serve in SICILY! Lindsay guessed right on the dot! Then we went to sleep and Me and a few other Anziani and one Sorella that are all serving in different cities in Sicily had to wake up super early to take a train to Catania which was a ten hour train ride but was awesome because we saw a lot of the country! The train got on a boat and sailed down to Sicily. Then we had a 2 hour bus ride into Palermo. When we finally got there we were pretty dead. I met my companion, Anziano Tinoco, my first trainer! He was born in Peru and moved to Italy when he was 5 so he is pretty much a native to the country. His Italian and Spanish are perfect and speaks a little bit of English which is difficult to understand but I am so Blessed! He is great! I have learned so much Italian from him and he is strong at bringing the Spirit! The first night in Palermo we went to our apartment which is pretty sweet and our trainers decided that we needed to try our first pizza in Palermo. The guy in the pizza shop was as Italian as you can get and very friendly! It was literally the best thing my mouth has ever tasted!  It was great! The next day we got to work and started to prepare for our week. We did some street contacting which was awesome, I was finally putting all the stuff from the MTC to work for real! I struggled but got the points I wanted across. Then we had our first lesson with a man from Ghana who has had two lessons and we were teaching him the third. He speaks a little bit of Italian but mostly English so we taught him in English and the Spirit was so strong! He is such a great man and he is totally one of those people who The Lord has prepared! He Committed to Baptism!!!! It was so awesome!! We came out with the biggest smiles on our faces! Haha Then we went to our second lesson with a husband who was just baptized 2 months ago and his wife hasn't been baptized yet but I'm sure she will be soon! They are incredible and both speak English so we taught them and the lesson and the Spirit was very strong! They are both great and I haven't seen too many people get as excited about this message as the husband has. He has already read like every book the church has published and already knows deep doctrine! He is great! We have been teaching a lot and all of the people from Africa have been interested in hearing about the Church and are extremely humble and will follow the commitments you give them! They are great! The people here are so nice and you can talk to anyone for hours if you wanted to. The city of Palermo is incredible and so beautiful! There are so many amazing statues and buildings! They drive so crazy here! They would put L.A. to shame! Haha its insane! When crossing the street you just have to act like your a car and walk out into the middle of the street with a prayer in your heart that you aren't going to get destroyed by a car! Haha its awesome! The food is to die for! I didn't like pasta before my mission and now It is like my favorite food! We have eaten it every day! Sometimes twice a day! Sunday we went to Church and that was great. The members are so kind and I got to bear my testimony, which was a little scary but I survived. The members cook the best food too! Here in Italy there is no such thing as a portion of food! They give you so much food! The Gelato I tried for the first time last night and also a few canoli! They are incredible!!! I love this city, the building, the craziness, the people and most of all getting to share this great message with them! Every day I know more and more that this country is the perfect mission for me!!   That is so great to hear my friends are doing good! I can't believe how we are all serving in such different places!! 

                                                  Caleb

Caleb Arrives in Italy



Caleb with President Thomas Kelly and his wife




Caleb arrives with his district in Rome, Italy





At the airport the missionaries all happened to run into Elder Holland (an apostle in our church).  They said he was really wonderful and took the time to talk with them all.



We finally received a call from Caleb the night before last from the London airport.  It was so great to hear his voice and to also get a sense of his excitement about finally getting to Italy.  He was really cute and even spoke some Italian for us.  Today his mission President emailed us to let us know that he arrived safely there.  They even sent pictures.  His first area he'll be serving in is called Palermo.  All of the pictures we've pulled up look beautiful.  It is the capital of Sicily and an island on the southern tip of Italy.  We know he will love it there.  We are all very happy for him!