Elba Island.  This is Napoleon Bonaparte's villa where he was exiled.

Napoleon

Portoferraio

October 30, 2013

....sorry mom once again I can't write a big email because today we went to Elba Island!!!!!!! Hahah I've wanted to go there for my whole mission and I finally got to go I really enjoyed it!  This week went pretty good we had an activity but unfortunatly no one came.. it was an open house we'll do another one in 4 weeks so hopefully this one will go better!  Not much happend this week we found 2 new investigators but both of them didn't come to church.  This Tuesday, we'll be going to Florence for a conference with Elder Texiera so I'm excited for that.

A Tender Mercy on Ben's Birthday

On the morning of Ben's 21st birthday his mother received this text:
"I met your missionary at the train station in Florence, Italy.  He looks great and says he will
see you in one month.  Best, Greg Mclff, Draper UT.  - My sisters, Jill Lyon and Cathie Burnham
live in Mesa, their kids go to MV high school.

Ben turns 21 years old - October 24, 2013!

Some wine (juice), cheese, Tuscan meats and grapes in celebration of Ben's birthday!



Davide

Donatello's grave

Michelangelo sculpture

Scary/Funny Story

Ciao!

Another good week in Livorno!!  I'll start off with the scary/funny story I had here.  So last week we did a scambio (exchange) in Pisa it went really well and I learned a lot I went with Anziano Gessel who is going home next week and it was cool because he's the group right before me.  Anyway,  when we finished the scambio we came back to Livorno and the other Anziani were not there at the station.  We thought they we're suppose to be there but in the end we took a bus to get back to the apartment thinking they would be there.  We got back to the house and it turned out that they weren't there... so we decided to get a payphone and call them.  We walked around for about 5 minutes going to two different payphones until finding out the payphones in Livorno are no longer available at least where we were... so we walked back to the apartment and decided to wait for them.  We were standing in front of the building when we see this elderly woman on the second story wave us over.  We walked over and she said nothing that made sense just random words.  We were like uh... then a another woman walks out and says that this woman has Alzheimer's and we were like ohh it's fine.  As we were walking away I asked her if she's seen any other missionaries like us around and told her we couldn't find the other missionaries because they had the keys to get in.  She offered to let us use her's and we were like nice!  We go up to the second floor and the woman quickly hands us the phone as we start making the call, the woman with Alzheimer's starts screaming "Aiuto!  Aiuto!"  Trying to get out the door.  It was sad because she didn't know where she was.  We make two calls but the other Anziani don't answer us and she's screaming louder and louder.  We kept trying to tell her "tranquilla signora, tranquilla" (Relax or everythings fine.)  I saw each time I made a call it used some of this woman's credit so I told my comp to grab some change to give her .50£ The woman who lent us her phone was on the other side of the door trying to hold this woman in so I reached around to door to give her the phone with the change.  As I'm doing this the woman is screaming in my ear "Aiuto" the woman took the phone but didn't want the change as I was telling her to take it I look to the old woman whose right in front of my arm and she takes a huge bite into my arm!!!  AHHHH!!  I dropped the .50£ and we took off it was a traumatic experience as we walk out the door the other Anziani pull up in there bikes and we're like answer your phones haha but it's just funny to think how some missionaries get bit by dogs but in this mission you get bitten by people... 

Other than that traumatic experience haha the week went well.  We had a district conference in which Anziano De Feo from the 3rd quorum of the 70 came to talk to us.  What's weird is this last district conference was ALL focused on missionary work.  At the beginning of the mission it wasn't like that but it's really changing.  The talk given by Elder De Feo was great though I really enjoyed it he's a really young guy so I wouldn't be surprised if one day he gets into the 70.  This last Monday we did transfer cleaning.  We had transfers and no one is getting transferred so it will be the same.  We cleaned the apartment and it looks great.  As for the work it's still going slow we did find a new investigator this week and hopefully we can help her she's from Romania and been here in Italy for some time now.  Things are going well thanks for all the support and love!

Anziano Thomas

Ben's 2nd companion Anziano Marino he is from Pisa.  He was released 1 1/2 yrs ago. 

Volterra- Ben in front of the place where they filmed part of the movie Twilight.



Right in front of the main door at Volterra.

The rolling hills of Toscana (Tuscany)

Roman Theater

This is Ben's room (his bed is the closest one)

October 9, 2013

Ciao tutti!

This week went well as usual.  The highlight I would have to say was watching conference.  I feel like all the conferences throughout  have been amazing all of them really powerful.  Ones that come to mind were the talks given by Holland talking about depression.  I don't know I always enjoy talks that have a different topic than that of usual.  I would have to say my favorite talk of all was that by Elder Uchtdorf talking about when we fall to get up.  For conference we went to Pisa to watch it which was great.  I ended up seeing half in English and the other half in Italian.  It's great to know we have a living prophet which really made me thankful.  Something cool that happened this week was we've been talking to a ton of people and now we are getting some numbers so hopefully this week we'll see some of the fruits of all this hard work!  Yesterday we taught English class I teach the intermediate class which is pretty simple I like it a lot because it's conversation.  Monday I had a scambio with the zone leaders and really enjoyed it.  It seems on scambios more miracles happen and we were able to get into a less active members home and teach them a lesson so hopefully we'll be able to see her more often now.  Tonight I'm going to Pisa to scambio so I'm excited to go again. As for Anziano Larson things have been going good as well he's learning Italian quicker than I thought and he's working really hard to learn.  Things are going good in Livorno every so often it rains but it's starting to get cooler.  The branch president here is awesome his whole focus is missionary work even though there are some problems here with the branch things are slowly getting better.  We are trying to see at least 3 members a week.  Well hope all goes well this week love you all!

Anziano Thomas

Today went great! We went to Gli Uffizi which is the most famous gallery in Italy of art, so we went to Florence. It was really Fun!

Engraving by Donatello

Michelangelo's burial place

Galileo's death tomb

Davide

October 2, 2013

Ciao!

Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write today but this week has been pretty good.  Something I just finished with was a member map and it looks great.  During lunch and it the morning I've been working on it and it's finally finished so it will help the work with both missionary companionships since we spilt the city.  So we'll be now be able to pass by more less actives because we know what area they live in.  Also the apartment is almost totally decluttered!  I cleaned off both balconies of pigeons and once again it reminded me of working for Wayne but instead of cats, birds haha.  Sunday went well once again for the 2nd week in a row we were without lighting (no lights in the church) because there was a problem with someone forgetting the payments but this next week it should be resolved.  Right now the branch is facing some major problems and we are focusing on working with them I feel bad we are so close to becoming a ward/stake and you can just see how Satan is working it's frustrating but we are praying for them.  We are still trying to find new investigators a lot of finding work but hopefully soon we'll be able to get things going here in Livorno.  Our branch president is awesome he's really pushing for missionary work/reactivation just pray for the branch of Livorno that there can be some miracles we are so close!  Cool thing that president did in church last week he printed off names of less active members and gave every member 4 names to call for that week so hopefully we'll see some new people.  Hope all is going well at home the weather is great here in Livorno still a lot of Mosquitoes but it's cooling down so they should go away thanks for everything love you all!

Anziano Thomas