More Pictures from Cefalu

Pictures from Palermo




An incredible cathedral in Palermo

 



The Catholic line of Authority

 

Hey! I am glad to hear you got all of the letters yesterday! I loved taking all of the pictures and am trying to get better at using the camera! And yes that picture with Anziano Banks was in our apartment which is really nice and spacious even with 6 people now. Last transfer there were only 4 but I still love it. Yes Anziano Longhurst is from Springville and he is funny and easy to get along with, I love everyone in our apartment. We attend church in a ward about 15 minutes away from our house and there are probably around 70 members in our ward so its pretty big. The roll with gelato in it is called a brioches and they are amazing! The other one is a cannolo it's this hollow shell thing that is filled through the middle with ricotta cheese inside and they are amazing. And in Italian when you want to make something plural you change the endings from o to i and from a to e. So Anziano goes to Anziani and Sorella goes to Sorelle and more than one pizza here is changed to pizze. Kinda weird haha. That's great to hear about all this fun you have had the last week in St. George. I love to hear about all of the cousins and everyone getting along! Grandma and Grandpa are so great! They and the rest of our family are so great! On a side note this week has been really hard. I have continued to have those crazy attacks where I feel terrible and my head gets really tight.  I told the mission doctor about it and they might fly me up to Rome on Friday to check me out but they aren't sure. He said it could be my nasal cavity but I really just don't know. If you want to try to look up stuff on it that would be helpful to. The symptoms are my head gets really tight and I feel like I can't breathe and my ears pop a little but I just can't figure it out.  Don't get worried it's just something I want you to know and that's why the doctor wants to check up on this. But I'm sure I'll be fine and just can't wait to get back to working 100 percent! LOVE YOU TONS!!!!!

Miracles



My  District



Elder Banks (an AP in our mission) came to Palermo and we went on splits since Elder Tinoco is a Zone Leader



Hey! Yes I am happy to be in Palermo! We have two new Anziani in here now so our house is full with six missionaries which makes it alot of fun. Anziano Scotschi (from Italy) and a new missionary Anziano Longhurst (from Springville Utah), they are great and fun to be around! Then we saw a miracle yesterday! The sons of the man we baptized, who at first didn't want to even say hi to us,  but then we did a family home evening with them and it opened their hearts up and the two sons and their friend decided to ask us some basic religious questions about the purpose of this life and what sets our Church apart from others. We taught the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ. The friend of the sons said he got chills from the Spirit when he prays and that he felt it throughout this lesson and wants this in his life. So now all three of them have a baptismal date! I'm so happy to see that through a simple thing, such as family home evening, the hearts of these three young men were opened up to the word of God and now it is leading them to come unto Christ through Baptism. I know that Family Home Evening is inspired by God and helps build strong testimonies and that it brings Families closer together. This change I saw in the hearts of these young men was a promise that I received and It is great to see that promise come to life. The new Anziano from Rome has an Ipod with tons of The Mormon messages on it and I have been watching them and they are great! I saw a few that really stood out that I think you should watch them. The first is called, Hope ya know, we had a hard time. Then watch voice of the spirit and last watch My new life. They are great and you can go on google and type in Mormon messages and watch them. Yes it has been getting hotter here and the humidity is bad but we just try to stay on the side of the streets with shade, because no one wants to talk to the missionaries in the heat so it's not to bad. I also have really missed our good long talks! It is so nice to just sit and talk about things to get it out of your system. That has probably been the hardest thing to leave behind. But I'm so grateful for you and being able to at least communicate through email. Oh and I heard that on Christmas we can Skype! So that's good news!  Anziano Banks was great to go on splits with! He really taught me alot! He is a machine with work and the best advice I got from him was that we need to talk to everyone and put fear behind us because it is either your fear or someone elses salvation and he said that has helped him feel more comfortable talking to people. He is a great missionary! I loved talking to the people by myself, it really makes you stretch yourself in the language and that was the best time I think I have ever spoken Italian. The Gift of tongues is real because when you need it The Lord helps you and it was like I was talking so fast and not over thinking the conjugations and it just flowed and they understood everything I said. It was a miracle, I know The Lord was helping me out! I hope you all had a great time in St.George and hope everyone is having a good time! Love you tons !!

First Baptism

Samuel's Baptism Day



Hey! This week has been a little slower, maybe because of the heat, but things are still great. It was nice getting the first Zone Conference under my belt and after this week my first transfer! We received our transfer call and I will be in Palermo for another transfer with Anziano Tinoco! So that was good news and they are sending two more Anziani down here to Palermo 2 so we will have 4 Missionaries in our Zone and we are really excited to have 6 of us in the apartment! Our first Baptism was great! Everything went perfect and you can truly see the change in him. He just seems happier! I am so happy for him and I think this has given us a good opening with his family and they are slowly opening up to us and asking questions, so I'm praying that we can teach them more. That is too nice of Grandma and Grandpa to do! They really didn't have too! But that was so nice of them! I have been thinking about buying a few more socks so I don't have to wash socks every week, plus they are very cheap here so I might buy a few! Be sure to tell them thanks for me! I can't wait to write them and thank them! Thanks for the referrals as well! We really will look them up! I'm so glad to hear that you all are going down to St. George be sure to tell everyone Hi for me!  I hope you all have a blast and I will be thinking of you all! Yes down here they are supposed to have Zone leaders  together but I guess they have to have them train because our mission is very young.  Elder Texiera of the 70 told the junior companions of the Zone leaders that we are assistant Zone leaders haha I'm not sure what that means but I think he just wanted us to feel better! I will always be ok with just being a Missionary, Invite everyone to come unto Christ and don't look for anything in return for yourself. I felt a little bit in the MTC some feelings of, Why am I not a leader, but that really is far from important and you will save yourself alot of stress if you put those bad thoughts away. I'm just happy with the great label of Anziano! I will try to send off a flash drive of pictures today so I hope it gets to you soon! DAD! Thanks for writing! I hope you had a great Fathers Day! The work is great here still the only bad thing is that it is getting hotter and hotter but it just makes you feel more like a missionary when things get hard and you just push through them! Wow that is great to hear about Tayler already getting Clients calling for her! Not a huge suprise, she is an amazing hairstylist! I just hope she can always fit her family in for haircuts! And Colt is just a stud worker! I'm glad that he is working hard and saving money! And You and Mom have always been hard workers so it shouldn't be a very big suprise to you that Tay and Colt are crazy little workers haha! Wow That is great to hear about the Jazz! I really hope that these young guys build the Jazz up this year and make a killer team! Thanks for everything you have done for me and I hope that you all have an incredible time in St. George and that you have a fun time hiking and being with the family! Tell everyone that I love them and that they are always in my prayers! Love you tons!!!!!!!!

Zone Conference Week



Cefalu

Anziano Tinnoco

Hey thanks for writing! This week has been a really great week! I got to go teach in the city of Gela with another companion because my companion is zone leader so we are always going to different cities! It was really nice in Gela, it isn't as crazy as Palermo, but beautiful! We also had zone conference this week  in Catania and Elder Texiera of the 70 came and gave us really great advice on how to find more people. So that was a great blessing. When we returned we got busy with teaching again and it was nice to be back in Palermo. Two days ago we were walking down the street to go vist a contact we had an appointment with. We knocked on the door and no one answered so we turned around and started heading down the street and we heard someone yell from across the street,"LATTER-DAY SAINTS!!" in english and we looked up and it was an African guy waving his hands in the air. So we hurried across the street to talk to him. We introduced ourselves and started to talk about our message and he told us that he knows all about our Church from Ghana and he wanted a Book of Mormon and to become a member as soon as possible! He explained that he fell and hurt himself and had a lot of time at home to think about his life and how prayer made him think of our Church. It was an incredible experience! So we were happy about that. The African man we are baptizing this Saturday is great and ready. On Monday we did family night with him and his family and we think his 12 year old daughter is ready for baptism so we are preparing our next lesson to try to lead into baptism. His sons didn't want to listen at first, who are 20 and16, but then we started to talk to them and be a friend and they started listening so things are going in a good direction with them as well. Thank you for sending the letters! They are so nice to receive and always make my day! I'm looking forward to getting it in the mail!  Unfortunatly I haven't gained any weight.. I wish I could but we just walk so much that it is hard to put on weight. We haven't played many sports, I have only played soccer once. For the most part our only excercise is walking around and any excercise we do in the morning. My favorite P-Day activity so far was when we went to Cefalù. It is really pretty there! WOW a new dog! That would be great! How do you like her? Does Coco get along with her? I'm glad to hear Tayler isn't going to have to wake up that early! Haha She was probably killing lots of Brain cells with how little sleep she got before. She's just a good little worker! It nice to hear everyone got together! I miss them all and hope they are all doing alright! How have the missionaries been? It is good to hear you meet with them! Miguel is playing basketball!? Thats great! Tell him good job for me and wish him the best of luck! Thanks for everything! LOVE YOU TONS!!!!

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!!!!