Caserta | week 1 {new city, new apartment, new companion}

Regan's new apartment! 

On pday, Regan and his companion visited Rega. He said there are 1200 rooms and it is even more legit than the botanical gardens! (one of Regan's favorite places to visit in Atlanta) 

Regan's new companion Elder Heder!

This past week has been kind of crazy with goodbyes, packing, transfers, getting into a new apartment, and getting readjusted to a new area. The night before I left Brindisi though we had an English Course party that we usually do every 12 weeks. Everyone brought in a different dessert and we played scattegories. It was way fun for the last week and a good way to say goodbye to everyone. I will miss Anziano Pizza, Jepson, and Alvey a lot. Brindisi is in good hands as long as they are there.

On Thursday I rode up from Bari with a couple of other missionaries going to Rome and I got off in Caserta. I was so excited to get here. Anziano Heder is my new companion, and he is so awesome. For example, we finished exercise Friday morning, and he asked "How do you like your eggs?" Yes he made me eggs for breakfast first day there. He is always looking for ways to serve. Our church here is about 70% Americans who live on the American Military Base and so Anziano Heder translated all 3 hours of church. I have no idea how he did it. He never complained or viewed it as a burden he just did it like a champ. Everyone in church wears headphones and Anziano Heder just goes from English to Italian and Italian to English depending on who is talking. No one slows down for him, he just goes. It is super impressive. He told me it will be my turn by the end of this transfer. Anyways, church was awesome this week. All of the members here love the missionaries, and it is definitely different to be around Americans. I really like it because everything is organized really well because these people are in the military. They make calls, they plan, they start on time. I am excited to work with them.

Ok, so a little bit about Caserta. They people here are a lot different than Brindisinos. There are a lot more youth and there is definitely a lot more going on here than in Brindisi. The people that have stopped and talked to us have been really nice and respectful. It is difficult for us to get any real work going right now because the missionary who I replaced accidentally took our phone down to Sicily and it is not suppose to get here until the end of the week. We have gotten a few numbers and have a lot of other people we need to talk to but we have no way of doing it. It is quite frustrating, but there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to do the best with what we have. Anziano Heder and I went through the Area Book yesterday for 2 hours and got the addresses of every person the missionaries of taught in the past 10 years and we are going to go stop by their houses and talk with them until we get our phone. It is a long list of people and surely enough to keep us busy this week.

There is a lot of rich culture here that will be fun to experience. This morning Anziano Heder and I went to the Rega which has 1200 rooms. It was easily the coolest place I have ever seen. I sent a couple pics, nothing to do any justice. They have miles and miles of gardens we are going to see another pday. The nopton pizza surpassed all the hype. It was straight up incredible. Tomorrow will be my first time going to Napoli. We have district meeting there every Tuesday, so I am excited to meet the rest of the district. It should be an exciting week. We are certainly anticipating the arrival of our phone. Until then, it is some good old fashioned street contacting. Sorry there is not much substance to this email. There will certainly be more to report next week. Take care everyone. Love you all.

Anziano Smith

Brindisi | week 11 {General Conference, more food, Pday is now Monday!}

Lots of amazing things happened this week. To start the week off, we had an awesome meeting with Verah. She is really diligent and really desirous to learn. She has been reading a lot from an old conference magazine and loves all of the talks by the apostles. We cant wait to show her President Monsons talk from last Sunday! It will be perfect. Anyways, she is growing a lot. We read Ether 12 with her and talked a lot about faith. We talked about how witnesses always come after the trial of our faith and she talked about how during hard moments she has never doubted that God is with her walking right beside her. She amazing!

On Friday President Casty invited us over for Pronzo and it was amazing as expected. It ended up going quite a bit longer than expected, but it was all good because we talked a lot about missionary work in the branch and how we can help. They truly treated us like their own kids. He and Sorella Casti love the branch so much and are extremely enthusiastic about missionary work. I couldnt dream for better leaders.

General Conference was definitely the highlight of the week for me. It was huge spiritual recharge. We bought some snacks and camped out in the computer room here in the church and watched Saturday night and Sunday afternoon/night. Sunday morning we went to the Christensens (an American family here) house and they made us an awesome breakfast and then we watched a session at their place. Monday morning we watch the last session for district meeting with the other missionaries in Lecce. When President Monson opened conference I cannot describe the emotions that overcame me. I have been sharing my testimony that he is a prophet of God almost every day since I have been here and listening to him speak melted my heart. I could not hold back my tears even just listening to his welcoming address that was only 5 minutes. I could talk for days about that conference, but I will mention two talks touched me the most other than the Prophets of course. First, Elder Bednars talk about tithing. Second, President Eyrings talk on Sunday morning about Gods purposes for our families and why we have trials. These two talks struck me to the core. I dont want to talk much about them since you all can go straight to the source and watch them, but President Eyrings testimony of love was one of the most powerful I have ever heard. It really made me want to be a better person. Speaking of the topic of love, there is one more amazing experience I had this week. My friend Joe left the MTC this week to go serve in Pocatello, Idaho. About one year ago we were in a bookstore together that was full of art of Christ and his life. There was one picture called "In Humility" by Simon Dewey that was a painting of Chirst washing his disciples feet. He could not get over how much he liked it and it really touched me. Last Tuesday morning we had 2 appointments fall through and we had kind of hard morning of street contacting. Not much really went our way. We got home for lunch at 1:30 and I had a letter in the mail from Joe. He wrote a super nice letter and it had the 3 by 5 copy of that picture. On the back it has Matthew 25:40 which says, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." He truly took pleasure in washing his disciples feet. He did it without being asked. He did it out of humility and love. It is a pleasure to try to follow his example and do the same!

So long until next week (pdays got changed to Monday so its only 5 days away!)

Anziano Smith