Aloha!

Ciao famiglia mia, 

La settimana scorsa è andata molto bene!

Well, I've been on vacation a little bit. Hahaha. 

These photos are up at the Waterfalls of Marmore (near Terni).

Also, I finally saw the Vatican! Wow. It is seriously huge. It's crazy. It's pretty nice. I think that Lia would probably like it a lot more than I do, but I still was happy to finally see it.

 

I know, I know, I've been really spoiled with my whole mission. Coolest call possible, and then I got to see almost the entire mission.  I actually figured out that out of the 39 cities in the mission, I've been to 29 of them.

So check this out: On Monday morning we had to come to the office so that we could get numbers for the mission. Around 9am this lady rings the bell, and wants to talk with us. She is AWESOME! She told us that she had a dream where she saw Jesus Christ, and then she saw a book that said Mormon on it, and then woke up and felt a peace and serenity that she had never felt before. So then she found where we were at on the internet, and wanted to join the church!!

She has a husband, and a 6-yr-old boy, and a 3-yr-old girl. They all met with us yesterday, and it turns out that the husband is totally prepared too!! When we read Moroni’s Promise together he said that he didn’t necessarily listen to all the words, but he felt that he is starting to find the answer to a question that he had never asked himself.

Yeah, I know. What a blessing! We’ve been praying and looking for a family for weeks, and then they just came to us! How awesome is that!

Anyway, I also played some volleyball today! BEACH VOLLEY!! It was a blast. I just really wish I could’ve taken my shirt off. You want to know what I love about America? We have free places to play tennis, soccer, volleyball, and it’s just awesome. Basketball too! (the church). That’s so great.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that things are going great. We have been really blessed. I really love my savior Jesus Christ because He has brought a lot of joy into my life. I know that He restored His church, and that has really blessed us a lot.

Love,

Anziano Banks

Roma 2

Ciao famiglia mia!! Okay, so I know you probably get tired of hearing this...but we’re really busy. Hahaha. And ...we’re having a blast. Haha.

 

Every time we pass through Napoli we stop and get a pizza!

Tomorrow we are going to SARDEGNA! We have a Specialized Training meeting there. We are going to be in Sassari.

 

 

 

Here’s a picture of us visiting the ward in Gela.

 

 

 

This last week was a lot of fun. We didn’t go to the Specialized Training meeting in Bari this time, that way we could do some work here, and that was really great. We met a lot of cool people. There was one apartment that I had felt we needed to go to, and we went there to look for a family. We met a really cool kid named Giovanni that said we can come back and talk to him and his family, so hopefully that works out well. I'll let you know.

One thing that we had to do this last week was take a Baptismal Font from Terni to L'Aquila because they had a baptism there. We took the font back to Terni yesterday, and we spent some time with them. We saw the Marmore waterfalls, which are the tallest in Europe!

They were really beautiful. I have to say though, the waterfalls at Havasu are even more beautiful. They are both beautiful though.  I think that nature is a lot more beautiful than man-made things. For example, I think that the waterfalls are more beautiful than the Colosseum. Another example, I've seen the great wall, but I still haven't seen Huang Shan. I really need to get over there.

 

 

So this is at an awesome place in Sicily called Mazzarò (it's right below Taormina, which we also visited)

 

 

 

 

 

Floriana Misseri (new convert), told us that when she retires she wants to move to America. (She's been telling us that since before she was baptized). I think she'd be happy wherever, but I'm guessing that Utah is going to end up high on her list. That doesn't necessarily mean St. George, but what I'm getting at is that you should work on your Italian.

This Monday we went to visit a couple families here in the ward. We did a multi-family, family home evening. It was great. We all talked about what touches us the most about the restoration. For me it was personal prayer. God knows each of us personally, and listens to all of our prayers. We then left an invite to watch the 20-minute film of the Restoration with someone who hasn't seen it before.

I really love the mission. I'm glad that things are going so well. Last week we hit an all-time high for new investigators (as a mission). There was once in 2009 that they had just one less.

Love!

Anziano Banks!

Last picture with my MTC group. The only ones left will be me and Anziano Garvin.

I made it!

Wow, what a crazy crazy trip. We went down to Catania, over to Gela, down to Siracusa, and stopped by all kinds of other places. What a trip! We had a great Specialized Training Meeting. It was a huge success. Tomorrow we have one here in Rome. I'm pretty excited.

A Specialized Training Meeting is kind of like a Zone Conference. The one in Catania had the Catania and Palermo Zones. In the morning President and Sister Kelly talked to us, and then in the afternoon everyone was split into 3 groups and there were three different classrooms: The Palermo Zone Leaders, The Catania Zone Leaders, and then us. We did our training on Lesson Zero. My favorite thing about lesson zero is that right in the beginning we ask the person what they expect from us. Then we basically explain what we expect, and it's great because then everyone's on the same page.

One of the highlights of the trip was that I got to go on exchanges in Gela. That was really great. I totally know that place like I had lived there for years. It was really great to be back in that little branch and bear my testimony to them. Basically I just told them how much the Gospel brings happiness, and that's why I like it so much, and that's what makes it so awesome. It was cool to bless the sacrament with Cristian because he had just received the Priesthood the week before and so it was his first time blessing it.

We got Anziano Garvin's permesso (green card type thing) from Catania!! That was exciting.

Anyway, I'm sorry that I can't stay and talk (type), but just know that I love you, I find time for you in my prayers, and I've taken hundreds of photos so don't think that you're missing anything, you just will have to see it when I'm home.

LOVE!

Anziano Banks