Week 23

Well I got transfer calls and I will be staying in Bitonto for another six weeks!!!!!!! I will be serving here for a quarter of my mission! That's alright, we had a miracle happen to us this week! A less active member showed up with her three unbaptized kids who are 7, 11 and 11 and they are all going to start taking the lessons once a week! We could actually have a miracle baptism after all the time I have spent here! I don't think my mission is any more rough than other missions but I do know for a fact that the Lord puts me in these situations to keep me humble and to strive to have His will be my will! I gave a talk yesterday in church about the principles of the gospel! It was super awesome to have the chance to speak in my branch! We went to a beautiful beach called Polignano a Mare, the pictures are below.  I'm super grateful for this time to be in Italy. It is seriously amazing, but I do miss alot of the things I used to be able to do.  I just think though that I would hate being in college right now! I feel like I'm learning how to learn out on the mission!!! Well I hope everyone has a good week! Tell Nathan to just stay outside and active! Being with friends is a good thing, it just becomes bad when he is embarrassed to talk to you about life and school. Just make sure he isn't on his phone too much! Those can be dangerous things if they aren't used correctly! I see people here on their phones and they look like zombies with their souls just being sucked into their phones! Well anyway, I love you all! Protect your families!  

Love Anz Goode

Polignano a Mare

Anz Bee and Anz Goode

Touring Polignano a Mare with the Sorelle

If only I had my board!

Another view of Polignano a Mare!

Rainbow over Polignano

Double Rainbow

In honor of Leah!

Week 22

This week has been good, I mean the missionary work is tough, we have been doing 5 hours of finding each day going house to house in all of Bitonto and also traveling to other cities which seems to be much more successful! We haven't had a lesson though with an investigator in over a month now which is rough, the rest of our district is doing fine right now but we are taking damage.  I will receive my transfer call this Saturday, I will probably be transferred because I have already done three transfers in Bitonto! Hahaha! Everyone thinks it's insane that I am still alive Haha!  I haven't seriously done anything that cool, to be honest, it was just another week! I also won't be moving before next week when I get transferred but it's fine! I Man the time is flying by though now that I have changed companions!  Well, sorry this is a lame weekly letter, but nothing happened and there are no pictures to send home either, but today we are going to a beach called Polignano a Mare that is apparently beautiful, so I'll send home some pics next week! Well, love you guys! Hope you have a great week! 
Love Anz Goode

Week 21 - Happy New Year!

Well this week was quite interesting! It snowed all over Italy this week and about 7 inches here in Bitonto, which hasn't happened in ten years!  Also this week was New Years which was exciting! I have never seen so many giant fireworks that weren't at a legitimate firework show haha! There were a ton of fireworks going off all day! This week we had to travel down to Reggio Calabrio for my companions permesso, which was a nine hour train ride, it had snowed there too!  Sitting on the train for that long was quite boring and I read everything I had about three times! But, the train ride was super beautiful once we got down to the southern coast! It was the first time I had seen any type of wave in about five months! The view from the train was so beautiful that I could hardly let myself sleep because we were in the most beautiful parts of the world! In Reggio we stayed the night and could see Sicily!  It was amazingly at night! I totally forgot to take good pictures though!  On the way back I sat next to a man from Gambia, who spoke English pretty well, he told me all about his village he comes from and his family of two kids and no wife I guess.  He saw that I had a magazine in English and was reading so he started trying to read it. It was a bit tough for him being the Liahona magazine with all church talks in it but he said he would try to read it. I gave it to him as a gift and he held on to it like gold. He didn't have a house or a place to sleep but he was happy that he now had something to read at least! I have learned on the mission that the basics are the most important thing! I love my time in  the morning for prayer and scripture study! They are essential for the nurturing of souls, both old and young, and to help feel of the spirit! My days are more based off of spiritual connection than anything else which is awesome! I was just assigned to talk in my branch on January the 18th.  My topic is missionary work which should be easy because that's all I do anyway as my job pretty much hahah!  I am hitting 5 months in the mission and the next ones are just going to get faster! I hope I left as an example to everyone and will come back an even better one! This is my calendar year as a missionary, where I will be out the whole time!!! I'll make it  good one! Well that's all for this week. Happy New Years to everyone back home! 
Love Anziano Goode

Snow in Bitonto!

Castello Ruffo (Piture from the internet)

Reggio di Calabria 

reggio calabrio (picture from the internet)

Tropea, reggio-calabria (picture from the internet)

By the way, the Flat Stanely pictures are for Kathryn's son, Nicholas! 

Love Anz Goode

Flat Stanley goes to Italy!

My New Comp, Anziano Stanley!

Happy New Year!

Week 20- Happy New Year!

This week was awesome! To start it off we had Zone Conference in which we acted out the nativity and everything fun like that. Then we played soccer! After that we had a ton of fun leading up to Christmas! For Christmas Eve we went to a friends house where we ate seafood as it is a traditional thing! it was my first time eating straight from a clam which was an interesting thing, hahaha! Then on Christmas we went with all of the other elders to play some ping pong, then we got to Skype home! The best part!  The call went by super fast and afterward I was feeling a bit out of it and couldn't stop thinking of home, so we got home anyway and made some food and went to bed. The next day was rough! We went with the other Anziani to watch a movie and relax but then that night we were supposed to work again, when we got home we started to do our planning but we both felt that it wasn't the right thing to do.  Neither one of us were not able to concentrate.  My comp and I had already gotten into to our warm pajamas and my companion said we should go outside and do some finding. I told him I really didn't want to but I had the same prompting. So we got back into our missionary attire, put on our scarfs and gloves and walked out into the freezing cold. We started off great and talked to everyone we saw outside. Everyone we talked to said they want to meet with us again! After about forty five minutes of success it started to get really windy and started hailing like the size of golf balls! We were still like a half hour away from the house so we started to run home, which was crazy because the hail was totally nailing our heads and we were like screaming throughout the streets and laughing. Then the lightning started hitting within a mile from us and it was the loudest and brightest thing ever! After we got home we were still laughing and had forgotten about our laziness and homesickness! It was really a great experience to see that when we follow His promptings, we are blessed in multiple ways. Well I hope everyone has some Happy Holidays! 

Love Anz Goode

Bari Zone Nativity

Zone Soccer Game

Our Christmas Tree and gifts!

One Extra Large Olive!

With my new Comp, Anziano Bee!
"Bee, Goode!!!"

Pasta Nativity

We visited a huge nativity scene room, and went to a cathedral to watch the church choir perform!

Week 19- Merry Christmas!

Thanks to everyone who has made my mission experience special leading up to this first Christmas season in the mission!!  I have loved every moment of it! 

Although it can sometimes seem embarrassing to share our beliefs, this is exactly what people are looking for in their crazy lives! Last night we went caroling in the middle of a giant piazza in Bari and we had hundreds of people crowded around just to hear our songs filled with the topic of Christ and his birth! Thanks again to everyone!  Remember this Christmas season as the Apostle said to not be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power unto salvation!!! Have faith, be courageous and have fun sharing what you know and believe! Last of all, Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope it is special!

Love Anziano Goode

Week 18

So the beginning of this week I started of with one companion and at the end I am here with a different comp!! This week my old comp wanted to say goodbye to everyone so we had been giving everyone visits in our ward and on Tuesday we stopped by this old lady in our ward that is like our grandma, she is an awesome member! She made us soooooo much food then at the end of our lunch she wanted to make us this hot chocolate because it was freezing out and she had gotten almost all the way done when all of the sudden she picked up the pot and it slipped, and all of this boiling hot water shot everywhere! It showered my head and back of my neck but it was all over her face and her arm! I turned around to hear her scream and panic! I told her to go and run her arm under cold water so she did. There was water everywhere, so we cleaned it all up. I was totally fine, my shirt was stained but it was not really that big of a problem. She even dropped her glasses and the lens popped out, but we fixed it without her knowing! hahaha! Well that was just a little crazy! She wasn't burned that bad and she was just grateful we were there! 

Then the next day I got a new comp from Torrance, CA which is like 40 minutes away from Huntington Beach and he totally knew everything I was talking about! He even went to the same Mormon Formal "Mormal" as me, like two years ago and I had no idea! haha! Well then we were taking a bus to this one member's house and these guys on the bus were just like smoking and all of the windows were up so we just like rolled them down and the guys walked up to us super mad with us!!! They started telling us all this trash and were like cussing at us in a Barese dialect that neither me nor my comp could understand!! We were just like, "Dudes, we don't speak your dialect!" So they started yelling at us and wanted us to pay them money for living in Italy! They were like super drunk too, it was pretty scary because they were out of control and there were like 6 of them in the back of the bus. We were almost to our stop and the guys were like standing up just screaming at us to pay them and they even were like running their fingers in my hair saying they were going to burn it off if I didn't pay! Everyone in the bus was just staring at us, so all of a sudden I said a little prayer for help and all of the guys turn around and the bus stops, right when the bus stops we just jump out and start running, luckily the bus driver saw what was going on so as soon as we got out he started driving off... I don't think we will ever see those guys again thank goodness! 

Well I have just been so grateful for these miracles in my life and I'm grateful to be ok! This week also my new comp came and was looking through the apartment and saying how crappy it is without hot water and with like only three lights working in the whole house, so we got permission to search for a new place, thank goodness! Well have a good week Love Anz Goode

P.S. I saw another car crash and took a picture this time. Hahaha!

Saying goodbye to Anziano Seiko

Week 17 - 4 Months have passed!

Well this week was awesome!! We have been working super hard and still trying to have some fun at the same time!  This week we had a couple of lessons! All with people who could be very interested in hearing more about our message!! This week we also received transfer calls and it turns out I will be staying here in Bitonto but will be getting  a new companion from Torrance, California!  It should be awesome! This week we also did a bit of cleaning around the house and I found this bucket of water in the laundry room that was like green so I thought it was a bit strange so I took it outside and dumped is out. I looked closer in the water and there were some baby mosquitoes and all of these nasty worm things in it just squirming around it was absolutely disgusting but I finally solved the mosquito problem I think! hahha! Oh, and my comp wanted to use the bucket to mop the house, so he said I had to fill it up in the sink, but then when he saw the worms he totally changed his mind and said that if I would have filled up the bucket in his sink he would have made me drink it hahah! Also this week in our English course we had over thirty students!!!! It was seriously incredible!! 

Last night we had a lesson with these two people in their 40's. One is a doctor and is super smart the other is his girlfreind who is a psychologist! At first I was a bit nervous to meet them because I thought they would just destroy every thing that i would say because my Italian is still a bit broken. Well we started teaching them and they were both super nice! She asked me why in the world I would leave my family AND California for 2 years to go on a mission? And that is my favorite question to answer! I told her, with all sincerity of my heart, that I knew the church was true and that we are all children of a Heavenly Father that loves us and who wants all of his children to be happy and to hear this wonderful message to be able to return with him after this life! Me and everyone in the room could feel the Spirit so strong it was undeniable. She started crying as well as this member of our church that was there with us, I hope she will remember that feeling for the rest of her life. I know that there is nothing that I could have said to them, with my little knowledge  to convince them of the truth of our message, but I know that the Spirit told her exactly what she needed to hear. I have come to see the change in my self as well as the change in others because of the gospel and I know it can bring happiness to everyone!

I am so grateful for this wonderful opportunity i have to be a missionary and a representative of the Lord! I am seriously so grateful for this time to learn and grow and change! If I have learned anything, it is that everyone can change and should change throughout life, but we should decide today what we want to become and how we can do it!!! Thanks to everyone for all of the support! 

Love, Anziano Goode

In this picture I cooked Sicilian food, which was amazing but the first bite I took was the hottest pepper I have ever eaten and I started coughing and choking and crying! It was incredible how terrible it was!! The member totally understood that i was dying! hahah! Everyone was staring at me! I thought the whole thing was going to be that hot! I got so scared to eat more! 

       The guy in the picture lived in Huntington and helps me with Italian! 

This picture was taken last night just chillin' in this member's sweater that she wanted me to wear because it was cold!  

Love Anziano Goode