Buona Pasqua!

 

 

 

 

HAPPY EASTER!!

I had an awesome Easter. Well, even better than my Easter was my “little easter”. It’s a special holiday that they have here in Italy. It’s on the Monday after Easter and basically everyone just goes to the mountains or the beach and has a barbeque. In Italian it’s called “Pasquetta”.

I had decided to go on exchanges that day, so we had to go to Crotone so I could serve with Anziano Cox there for a day. Well, Pasquetta is definitely the wrong day to travel, because everything is closed! Haha. There were hardly any buses or trains, and we ended up taking a train to Sibari and we had a 3-hours to chill there.

We decided to walk around and see Sibari….it’s pretty small. We didn’t find anything that was open (literally nothing was open), and the only people we saw was a family that was outside eating next to their house (in a little garden-type area). I figured…we can go back to the station and be bored there for the next few hours, or we can try and talk to this family. So I said to them “Excuse me! Is there anything open around here?!”

Response “What are you looking for?”

“Something to eat!”

“Come here and eat some of this fruit we’re eating!”

“No, that’s alright, thanks”

“C’mon! I’ll give you some”

“Alright, awesome.”

Hahaha.

So we started eating some fruit, then they gave us some frittata (egg and asparagus thing) and some dry, cut-up spicy sausage. Then Hans (the father) pulls out a huge bowl full of meat, and asks if we eat meat.

“Yes!”

 

He ended up grilling a bunch of meat for us, and we couldn’t finish what he gave us because it was so much (although we were totally starving because we showed up at like two-something), and then he kept grilling more and more and came out with a big tray of meat. We were pretty scared, but it turned out it wasn’t just for us, it was for everyone.

Haha. It was awesome.

Then we of course talked to them about the church, we taught them about the restoration, gave them a Book of Mormon and we each wrote thank you notes and testimonies in the cover page. Hans is the guy in the blue standing next to me.

I don’t remember what I did for Pasquetta last year, but whatever it was, this year was better. It was sweet because Hans (he was born in Switzerland, but he’s Italian) had just bought a new grill, and so he was really stoked on it.

 

Then we went to Crotone and met up with the other Elders to go on splits. It was raining quite a bit, but we still talked to people on the street. We actually had quite a bit of success too. We were looking for a 26-yr-old girl because we thought that would be good so that the new convert there can have a girlfriend. Hahaha. Anyway, we ended up finding a 36-yr-old girl instead, and she was really awesome. It’s funny because a lot of people just don’t really understand the restoration, especially when we teach it on the street, but she got everything right away. So we got her phone number and the missionaries there will start meeting with her.

 

On the way back from Crotone we actually took the bus, and my companion met a 26-yr-old girl from Crotone there! Haha. Who knows.

Now I have to tell you about something that happened a little bit earlier this last week. Last Friday. That’s when I met Pietro Paolo Audia. He’s a total stud. He had ordered a Book of Mormon and the Finding Faith in Christ DVD from the church website, and so we called him so we could go out and talk to him. Well, he lives about an hour from Cosenza, he’s only 18, and he wants to know more about the church. By the end he understood the restoration pretty well, and he was already asking us what needs to be done to open a branch where he lives!! Hahaha. We told him that we think you have to have two families, and then he goes “We’re two families!”

When we met with him he was there with a friend, his dad, another friend, and I think his little brother or something. It was pretty cool.

 

 

We also met this guy who is pretty sure that President Kelly taught him.

 

 

Love,

Anziano Banks