Brindisi | week 18 {Regan getting transferred to Caserta, thunderstorms, concert, and goodbyes!}

Sandra brought snacks for everyone in English course before she left for Australia 

Gerry and Dedy with Anziano Pizza 

Regan with Gerry and Dedy! Regan said he loves this picture of them 

Sorella Crudo 

Regan and Palma 

The Elders with Fratello Greco 

Samuelle. Wow this is one gorgeous kid...how cute! 

Regan with Fratello and Sorella Frascaro 

Sorella Arcaro and Samuelle 

Fratello and Sorella Colantonio (originally from Napoli) 

Concert at a Catholic church 

Regan said that when his friends from English course heard that he was getting transferred they wanted to do one last thing with him before he left. They organized all going to a concert at a pretty Catholic church in Brindisi. It is so cool seeing that Regan has made such good friends in Brindisi! 

Cool new pizza place they found! 

Castle in Mesagne, Italy

The big news for the week is that I am getting transferred this week to Caserta which is a city in the Napoli Zone! I am going to be companions with Anziano Heder who served in my district for my first two transfers and he is so awesome. I seriously cannot wait. Last night Anziano Pizza and I went to visit 2 less actives and they are both from Napoli. They ended up telling me about Caserta and Napoli for an hour. Im am so ridicoulously excited. They planned out all my pdays for me and told me all the food I have to get. Anyways, about the important stuff. There is an American military base about 20 minutes away and so about 30 of our 45 members are American. I will seriously need to start working on my translating. Probably the most difficult part of the language is translating from English to Italian, but Im up for the challenge. Anziano Heder has been on his mission for 20 months so he is perfect. He will definitely help me a lot. I also heard their English course has about 70 students which is unreal. I seriously doubt it will be better than Brindisi though. We shall see. Oh, one more thing about Caserta. So there are a ton of strikes in Napoli which includes the postal service, so mail gets lost there more frequently than it arrives. So...for all my favorite people in the world that send me mail, send them to Rome please.

This week started off pretty interesting. We had District meeting in Lecce and their house is about a 45 minute walk. So there was a typhoon in Sardenia that day that killed like 16 people or something. There was a crazy thunderstorm that day in all of southern Italy because of it, like the worst I have ever seen. It was about 50 degrees and it was absolutely pouring and lightening everywhere. The street we needed to take was flooded so we had to walk around the whole city. We were walking for at least 75 minutes in this. Anziano Jepson started singing this song from our missionary cd and was like "Its gonna take work...and sometimes hypothermia." We were all cracking up and it was actually really fun and memorable.

Tuesday night at English course we had a student named Ilaria who was leaving for Australia for work and she brought an awesome nutella cake which was absurd. It totally made my night. Our whole English course is so tight. We have had so much fun together. When they found out I was getting transferred they told us we had to do something together one last time...so Sunday night we went to a concert together at really big Catholic church right across the street that is super pretty. The concert was amazing. It was people who travel around Europe and they were way good. Anyways one of the ladies who came was new to our English course (I forgot her name and I feel really bad) and she brought her friend. It was so touching to me because she started telling her friend about what we do as missionaries and she remembered my spiritual from Thursday night and told her friend about it while we were walking together. It made me feel like a million bucks. I told Anziano Jepson to ask them if they want to meet with us and take the lessons sometime this week. Im so sad to be leaving!

On Wednesday night I had one of the neatest experiences of my mission. So my second week in the mission I made a rule. Never ever under any circumstances talk to a teenage girl. Nothing good ever comes from it. At least from my experience. Anyways, there were 2 teenage girls and a boy hanging out by the station and Anziano Pizza just said ciao when we were walking by. They guy said, why did you just say hey to us? We stopped and told them we were missionaries, but they all said they were atheists really quick. However, one of the girls (Ilaria) stopped us after a few minutes of talking and asked some really deep and thoughtful questions, like "what does the glory of God" mean? It was easy to tell that she was sincerely listening and was truly hungering and thirsting after spiritual truth. We talked for a solid hour and then she said, "I dont believe in God, but I am a good person. If he exists he will know that and judge me for it. I wish he was real and there was some way I could know it though." It literally broke my heart. We gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet and she committed to pray about it. That conversation made me want to be such a better missionary because I know there are people here who are looking for the truth and I cant just walk by them and miss that opportunity. Im so glad that guy stopped us. I guess my teenage girl rule no longer stands.

On Friday we said bye to Gerry and Dedy. They are easily two of my favorite Brindisinos (even though they are from Napoli). We have visited them every week the past 12 weeks and it has been a pleasure to read from the Book of Mormon and learn the gospel with them. They haven’t been coming to church for about 20 years, but they came 3 times in the past 6 weeks which made me soooo happy. My pic with Gerry is epic and I will have my whole life no doubt. I hope it is up on my blog.

Saying bye to everyone at church was tough, but I cant wait for Caserta. The branch there seems awesome. It will be fun to converse with Americans again. Working with Anziano Heder will be amazing. You best believe I will be sending a pic of my first nopton pizza next week. That is much anticipated.

Anziano Smith