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 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

Brindisi | week 17 {English course moves to Mesagne, usher fail, Rome Temple}

So this week we got some exciting news. Our members so how big our English course was getting and so they found a space where we can do it in Mesagne which is a little city that is about a 15 minute train ride outside of Brindisi. We got permission for the space this week, so on Wednesday we went to put up flyers all over the city we made in 10 minutes. We have already received several phone calls confirming the time and place so we are looking forward to starting it up this Wednesday. We have 1 member that lives in Mesagne (Sorella Crudo) who gives us an awesome lunch everytime we go there. It is a way cool city and cant wait to start working there more. Some of the best relationships I have formed have come from teaching English course and it is always a prime atmosphere to share a gospel message at the end of each lesson.

We have continued to visit Victor and Blessing on Saturday nights to teach Blessing the new member lessons and I continue to grow in awe of the faith of that family. I was talking to Victor after the lesson before we ate dinner. He told me one of the most touching things I have ever heard. He said his brother was really sick in the hospital a couple years ago, and he was visiting him. He told him, dont pray that you will be healed. God already knows that you are suffering. First pray for forgiveness and ask God to teach you how you can be better. Then thank him for the many blessings you have received. It reminded me of the story that President Monson told in his last General Conference talk. He is one of the most grateful people I have ever met, and because of that he is always smiling and having a good time.

Yesterday we had an awesome day at church. The Stake President came down from Bari and he is one incredible man. He started teaching about the "Hastening the Work" broadcast and the other missionaries told him I was there during it and he asked me to share with the ward what was said for a minute. His urgency to spread the gospel was inspiring. All was going well at church until sacrament meeting was about to start (we have sacrament meeting last) and President Casti asked me to be the usher. I was told that this included standing by the door to welcome people and step outside the door to make sure no one interrupts prayers or the sacrament. I did not think it would be that hard or I would make such a fool of myself. However, both times I stepped out no one came give me the sacrament so I had to walk all the way to the front both times. The second time, Samuelle (16 month year old baby) tripped on my foot and started crying. I started to help him up and lost my position on the door and people started coming in. It was unreal. It literally could not believe it. Anyways, the Stake President covered for me cause he gave an extremely powerful talk right after and the meeting was really spiritual.

Right after sacrament meeting 10 people from a branch got on a bus to go to the temple up in Switzerland. I would have given up my right arm and a leg and couple toes to go on that trip. They will be up there for 5 days or so. Im so glad for them. I also heard that the temple is projected to be completed my last transfer of the mission. It has been pushed back like 3 or 4 times but I really hope that this time it is accurate. There will be a 3 month open house or something crazy like that. I hope more than anything I can be a part of it, but more importantly help others get ready to go for themselves!

I am growing to love missionary work more and more. I meet many awesome and also interesting people each day. For instance, yesterday an old lady asked me how long the train ride was from America. I was not sure how to respond. Conversations like that always keep me smiling.

Anyways, I have heard it said that sacrificial love opens the windows of heaven I am certainly starting to see that here. It is a privilege to serve here each day and do my best to share these wonderful truths that have blessed my life in so many ways. Serving with other missionaries and members and getting to know the people of Brindisi has been the experience of a lifetime.

Love,

Anziano Smith

Brindisi | week 16 {zone conference, 2 funerals, still loving Brindisi}

Another week in Brindisi has come and gone. It seems like I am writing home every other day. My time here has been much enjoyed and it is incredible to look back and see how I have grown in these past 4 or so months. I have never been much of a talker or socializer in my life, but that is certainly beginning to change. I remember always being in my car 5 minutes after church ended or like 10 minutes after school got out. I am not like that anymore. It has become so evident to me that our relationships with others are so important and we should always treat them with a ton of care and love. I say this because we often go through our branch list to contact people to go visit. There are about 25 or 30 active members here in Brindisi and about 70 inactives. We have spent a lot of time and effort to reach out and contact all of them. I have met with many of them and it always saddens me and fills me with compassion to listen to their stories. Many have been through heart-wrenching experiences that I certainly cannot relate to, but I know the Savior can. Anyways, I have learned that everyone in the church needs good friends and support/encouragement throughout their whole lives. Visiting so many people and listening to just a part of their life stories has made me want to be a lot better listener and more concerned about their circumstances.

In the past 10 days we have gone to 2 funerals. 1 was for the mother of a lady in our ward and another was for Fratello Frascaros father. He is a really bright and funny guy - always making a joke or doing something funny. We had no idea his dad was in bad health condition, and we got a call on Wednesday morning saying that his father died the night before and the funeral would be that afternoon at a Catholic church right down our street. We went to the funeral and we saw the really rude guy I wrote about last week and probably my favorite English course student (Pietro). They were both his nephews. We had no clue. It was actually kind of cool because Anziano Alvey gave an amazing spiritual thought the night before at english course on the plan of salvation and what it means for our families. The funeral was actually the first Catholic Mass I have ever attended, and it was a neat experience. It was certainly an eye opening experience to see a lot of people who were suffering and sad and think of the message of glad tidings we are called to teach. It really made me want to be better.

The next day was Zone Conference up in Bari. The assistants gave an awesome lesson on introducing the Book of Mormon to people on the street. The key that stuck out to me was giving other people a chance. It is way cool to listen to missionaries who have been out year 18 or 20 months and listen to their teaching skills/the people they have become. Always inspiring. I have to go now. Sorry this letter is short. Missionary work is the best and I am truly loving my time here. These truly are the best two years! At least so far.

Love,

Anziano Smith