Transfer week. Still in Bari (meno male!)

Transfers came this week. Unfortunately, Anziano Gilbert is leaving. He's going to a little city near Naples. Transfers used to be somewhat predictable, but with the new mission president you never know. For example, he transferred both the missionaries in Bari-Poggio Franco out (actually, one finished his mission), and there are two new missionaries coming in!

Tomorrow morning I go to get my new companion. So far all I know is that his name is Anziano Tingey. I also have discovered that it's a very difficult name for Italians to pronounce, and I've seen some pretty funny reactions as I've told members the name of who's coming.hahaha. I've heard good things about him.

This week was totally awesome. We had stake conference! I got to see some friends from Foggia, some members that I met when I went on splits in Bitonto, and also tons of missionaries! Stake Conference was held in the Sheraton. 

Splits in Bitonto were amazing. I went with Anziano Gurney, and we had a blast. We had panzerotti for dinner, panzerotti for breakfast, and we were going to get some more before we left, but we were running late to the train station to come back to Bari. It was a nice opportunity to experience a small city again. I like it. We walked around in a park and talked to people on benches. I had practically forgotten what it's like to proselyte in a place like that. It kind of reminded me of Castrovillari...except that Bitonto has about 30 members! haha. (castrovillari had one or two)

Splits with Anziano Gurney and the Papagallo Family.

I think my favorite thing about Bitonto is the panzerotti. If you don't know what they are, they are kind of like a calzone that is full of only mozzarella and tomato sauce, and then fried. You can get big ones for a euro each in Bitonto, or three little ones for one euro. They're totally incredible. Anziano Rowland started his mission in Bitonto and he got one every night before he went home (it's right below the apartment there). They also have an awesome apartment with two bathrooms, and two people can shower at the same time!! We actually have two bathrooms in Bari as well, but you can only shower in one. If you're wondering why all our apartments in the mission are so sweet, it's because most of them used to have four missionaries, and then they went down to two (for cities I've served in this is true for Cosenza, Foggia, and Bari).

Today we played soccer and Anziano Garcia came up from Taranto. That was sweet. He's a pretty good soccer player, and his team beat ours 10-8. We were up until the last three goals. It was crazy hot outside, so we were all pretty worn out towards the end.

We're still doing a lot of finding work. We've gotten a few new investigators, and some are good, some aren't so good. haha. We have one guy that is pretty sweet that we taught the other day. We just have to find him a Book of Mormon in Persian or something. He also speaks Italian quite well, and a little English.

I was thinking about the parable of the Talents the other day, and how some people get more and less. Well anyway, I was thinking, I've sort of been given English and Chinese (from growing up). Now I'm getting Italian, so I think after my mission I need to learn another language to make it so I double what I started with. haha. I also need to review my Chinese, but I have been talking to a lot of Chinese lately.
In fact, the other day I had a guy that was really stuck on the word "jing." As in the book of mormon. Basically, he says that it's the bible of mormon. I tried to explain to him, but he was really stubborn. It's my understanding that the same word is used just to mean scripture. But then I was thinking, why didn't they just call it the "shu" of mormon? Anyway, this guy was being totally ridiculous.

Well, have a great week. I'm sure mine will be exciting with a new companion and everything. Thank you for all the stuff you gave me for my birthday!

Love,
Anziano Banks