*[Tristan never explained the title of his letter this time, and it’s an Italian term I didn’t know, so I looked it up. “Mizzica” is an expression of surprise, like “Holy Cow!” or “No way!” or something like that. However, it’s also the name of a hotel in Catania (where he was last week) and a pastry shop in Rome (note the pastry below). Your guess as to which meaning he’s referring to!]
Hey everyone! I hope y’all had such a great week. We are finally back in Rome and we have finished our Zone Conference rounds; it’s going to be great staying in Rome and being able to really focus on our work here. It has been absolutely incredible to travel around the mission and do trainings. Like I said in my last letter, we went to Catania last Monday and were there for two days, after which we drove to Palermo through Sicily. It was an amazing drive and brought back so many memories of being in Sicily and busing through those roads to go to DDM's [district meetings] from Trapani. It was also so great because in Catania I was able to see Anziano Berger (who was my companion three transfers ago) and Anziano Young (who I was able to train), both of whom are incredible missionaries who I have learned so much from. For Pday today we are planning on going to play calcio [soccer], which I am super pumped about, and hopefully we will have time to see the Trevi fountain. It’s going to be awesome.
Last Monday was great. We ended up arriving in Catania at around noon and going straight to the ward barbeque that they were holding. No one had told us, so we didn’t bring extra clothes to change into. We ended up playing a really fun game of volleyball with the ward and missionaries, while at the same time I was trying to not rip my pants because that would have been terrible for the rest of the week. The members there in Catania were so crazy and fun! I loved it. Right when we got there they sat us down and just filled our plates up with lasagna and all different types of meat. Just to give you an idea of how fun/crazy they were, I was eating my food and talking to Anziano Berger and the bishop (who was around 35ish years old) comes up and sticks his 5-month-old baby in my arms and just walks away.... Ummmm what?! I am not supposed to be holding children on my mission and all the missionaries were looking at me like, “What is going on?” Hahah! But there wasn't anything I could do with his child because I was just sitting there and there was no one to give him to, so yeah... Luckily after a few minutes some of the members started yelling at the bishop, saying that he had left his child with an elder, and he came and got his boy. That night I was able to have a great exchange with an elder named Anziano Rodriguez, from Peru. He has a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ and so it was a really fun time to serve together and go and find people.
After Zone Conference the next day, we drove around 3-4 hours to Palermo. It was so great to go back there after about a year. It brought back a lot of memories of when I had served there with Anziani Garrett/Olsen, Palazzo and Trejo. I was able to do two scambios [exchanges], which was great. I had a lot of fun that Wednesday afternoon, being able to serve with Anziano Bently and his friend named Dennis (a member there planning on serving a mission). We went out and had a good time finding together. I loved being in Palermo because everyone is so open and willing to talk to you. Literally, no one told us no, and we were able to tell so many people about the Book of Mormon and teach from it. One of my favorite moments was when we were doing finding across from the main opera house in the city center and we saw some other missionaries doing a gesso (the thing with the bed sheet and the chalk). They were kinda crowded around the sheet and not talking to a lot of people, so I was able to go bring two of them with me and talk to this guy that was sitting on one of the seats near it. He explained that he was agnostic but that he would really like to find the truth. We then read with him in Alma 32, which talks about growing faith as a seed but how we have to plant that seed first. He accepted what we were teaching him and then we were able to give him the Book of Mormon. He then expressed his interest in meeting missionaries up in Milano, which will be great. My most favorite part of it all was walking back to the gesso and looking over with the other two missionaries that I was with and seeing that he had opened to the title page of the Book of Mormon and had already started to read. It was powerful and a good experience for us. The next day was Zone Conference, which was our last time giving our addestramento [training]. I hope it went really well and we are seeing the fruits from it. We have gotten more messages from the missionaries in the mission letting us know that they are putting into practice what we taught and that it’s working, so that has been a really cool miracle! I love so much being able to interact with the missionaries. I had a great time talking with Anziano Haws (who served up here in Rome and who says I am his Godfather...hahaha I don’t even know what that means) and talking to the two missionaries that are now serving in Trapani and seeing how the branch/work is doing. After Conference, we took a plane and got back to Rome at around 11 o'clock that night.
As for our work, things are going really well. We were able to meet our main investigator’s girl friend, who is super nice. She has kinda been against him meeting with the missionaries and so it was awesome to be able to meet with her and just introduce ourselves. Something else that we have been doing is we are trying more house to house [door-to-door tracting]. We are doing our best to find a family and so we are hoping that we can find a family at home who is ready for the gospel. It’s been fun trying something new because I am pretty used to talking to people on the street or parks. We will see how it goes this week! We also were able to meet with one of the American families from the ward and eat with them at their house. It was so awesome to eat Mexican enchiladas and to be able to get to know them more. They have a son that is 16 years old, so it reminded me of being around my little brother and we talked about with them about how we want to take him out and do some missionary work. This week we will be able to do that, which will be great. Unfortunately, while we were driving home from the appointment, I [ended up getting really sick] (editor’s note: you’re welcome—I just edited that nastiness right out for you readers!). It was terrible hahah but Anziano Battaglia and I had a good laugh about it. We then got home and I was feeling awful and so I slept for a while and luckily I am now feeling a lot better! Anzaino Battaglia was able to give me a blessing, which just again reminded me of how grateful I am for the priesthood and how it truly does have the power to heal. I feel a lot better today, so I hope everything goes well with calcio!!
Well, I love y’all so much!! Thank you so much for your support and prayers! For my spiritual thought I just want to share some insights from what we have been sharing about the Book of Mormon. There is this quote from Ezra Taft Benson that says,
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