Rome Time
Anziano Heder and Anziano Smith
Anziano Heder and Smith at New Years Eve dinner
Grilling eel!
Anziano Bird and Destiny
With Anziano Graham and Cremonese
So, I have big news that I was not expecting. I
thought I was going to be companions with Anziano Heder for the rest of his
mission (two more transfers), but not so. We got transfer calls on
Saturday afternoon and Caserta is going back up to a 4 man city! Anziano
Hatch is going to be my new companion and Anziano Tingey is going to be Anziano
Heders companion. I am so excited. Anziano Hatch and Tingey were both in my MTC
group. They are both great missionaries and I cant wait to work with them.
Anziano Tingey has been in Sciacca his first four transfers which is a tiny
city in Sicily and Anziano Hatch has been in Catania. Im grateful he has been
companions with an Italian for the last 2 transfers so Im sure he is a lot
better than me at Italian. This is good news. Having a 4 man house will be fun
as well. They come in Wednesday night. Looking forward to it.
This past week I have
gotten to know the missionaries from our district a lot better and really look
up to them in many ways. So every Tuesday we have a district meeting
in Napoli which consists of opening prayer/song, fun fact, italian tip,
spiritual thought, 20 minute training, and then pizza at Sorbillos. Anziano
Bennet is our district leader so he runs the show every week and blows my mind
without fail with how amazing his lessons are. Anyways, he asked me to give the
addestramento (lesson) last week. He is sure no easy act to follow, but he and
the other Anziani made me feel good and seemed to appreciate it. I gave it on
consecrating ourselves to the Lord based on a talk that Anziano Bednar gave at
the MTC in 2011. That talk has really helped me understand how to fulfill my
purpose as a missionary better and Im so grateful for living prophets and
apostles who help us know how to be successful in happy as missionaries and
throughout all of life.
That same night was
New Years Eve, and Joe and Vincenza invited us over. It was a lot fun. Vincenza
went to college in the states back in the 90s and majored in art. She took us
upstairs and showed us her portfolio which was super impressive. We then
proceeded to eat the biggest meal of my life. We started of with some
mozzarella di bufala with bread, ham, and salami, and olives, scones, green
beans, and I ate a couple really good chocolate truffle things. Then we moved
on to spaghetti which was followed by all of the sea food: clams, fried cod,
fried squid, and fried/grilled eel. By that time we had to go, so it was
probably a good thing I didnt get dessert. Joe is really nice and always drives
us home even though they are only about a 20 minute walk away from our
apartment. That was nice of him because it was a little dangerous here in
Caserta on New Years Eve. Definitely the first time in my live I have heard
legitimate bombs going off.
So last week Anziano
Birds companion had to get transferred early to fill another missionarys spot
in Sardegna, so he was companionless. So...Anziano Heder and I went to stay
with him all day on Saturday which just so happened to be the day
that they had a baptism! It was easily one of the best days of my
mission. So we met Anziano Bird in Napoli that morning and then went to Pozzuoli
and we were getting everything ready for the baptism all day. We cleaned to the
church, made the program, got the clothes ready, and then filled up the font.
It took 3 hours for the font to fill up and we couldnt leave it, so we just
picked up some pizzas and ate while the font was filling up and talked about
our missions for a couple hours. It was really cool, cause we never really have
time to do anything like that ever. The Sister missionaries and Anziano Graham
and Cremonese came down a little later as well. I feel so lucky to be able to
serve with these missionaries here in the Napoli Zone. The longer I stay here,
the more I realize that these kids are the most incredible people on earth. I
love them all a ton. Anyways, the baptism was slated to start at 5 and Destiny
showed up at 4 because he was so excited. He got all dressed and stuff and we
just talked for a while and it was great to get to know him better. Everything
went perfectly. A ton of members came and it was a really diverse crowd. The
branch in Pozzuoli has a good amount of Nigerians, Ghanans, Americans (because
of the military base), and obviously Noptons (not Italians-completely different
thing).
This week was also
very exciting for us because we made a lot of progress with Salvatore and
Alina. They accepted our invitation to be baptized at the end of this month on January
25th. We are going to have to push it back maybe a couple weeks because they
have to attend at least 3 sacrament meetings first. Alina works Saturday night
until 3:30am and has made it to church the past two Sundays at 10:30 which
is right after sacrament meeting. She is so amazing for making that effort to
come, however, we know they have to come to sacrament meeting as well. Overall,
everything is growing great with them and the rest of Caserta. Definitley look
forward to the new Anziani which should give the city a really big lift. Happy
New Year everyone!
Anziano Smith
