3 more things I like about Italy

5.  The Sister Missionaries are the best.  They live across the hall from us.  They are like our daughters.

6.  We live so close to the western coast of southern Italy.  Every view is incredible.  The mountains surround us and every little mountain town is in its own beautiful valley.  So many towns are built right up on the mountains so they could put some distance between themselves and conquering countries that were always trying to take control of their beautiful ports.

7.  Our English class is a highlight of each week.  We have come to love the kids we teach.  Each one of them are wonderful children of God.  Oh how we would love to see each and everyone of them join the church and help build up the Lords  vineyard here in Battipaglia.

4 more things I like about Italy

1.  Getting to serve a mission with Paul Scherbel is definitely #1 in my top ten things I like about Italy.  He speaks the language so well and is so friendly and outgoing. I can't imagine being here, doing what we are doing, without him.  He is awesome!  The word shark doesn't really fit but I thought the sign was cute.

2.   Pizza......this is my favorite kind, bitter broccoli and sausage and grated mashed  potato

3.  Old buildings and imagining what life was like for the people who lived here when they were new.

4.  The Anziani here in Italy are so enthusiastic.  We love everyone

I love to hear conversion stories

This morning after our missionary corrilation meeting at the church,  we met a man who came up to us at the church and said, "hi, this used to be my church." I came by to see if I could do my home teaching.  He actually still is a member and he is from South Africa.  He joined the church 40 years ago in Salerno, while he was teaching at the university there. He was branch president there for a while soon after he joined.  He heard that they closed the Salerno branch and he has come back to find some of the families who left the church, that he knew way back when, and invite them back so they can go to the temple next year.
I asked him how he came in contact with the missionaries.  He said that he was single back then and had no desire to get married or join any religion.  His mother came from a large family and everyone was divorced many times and no one had a happy marriage.  The missionaries approached him and told him that they believed that families could be eternal and that they could be married for eternity.  That idea seemed unbelievable to him, but he wanted to hear more.  He was baptized 3 weeks later.  He said that the missionary who taught him, got sick and had to return back home after only being out on his mission for a few short months. But  many many people have joined the church because of that missionary who taught the man we met today.
He told us that when he joined the church in 1972, one of his priesthood leaders told him that he should get married.  He wasn't interested in any of the italian girls in his branch.  He got his patriarchal blessing and was promised that he would know his future wife from the minute he first saw her.  He went back to South Africa to visit his family and went to church.  There he saw this girl, who had just joined the church a few months before he did.  He knew she was the right one from the first time he saw her.  They were married in the Swiss temple and have been together ever since.  His wife's family all joined the church and she has 6 brothers who all served missions and married in the temple and now have families that they are raising in the church.
He has a language school in South Africa and he knows 10 European languages + 3 African languages.  He was a very interesting man.

Gate, Water, and Path

2 Nephi 31:17 

The gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism

Doctrine and Covenants 10:66

Partake of the waters of life freely

Doctrine and Covenants 25:2

Walk in paths of virtue before the Lord

Psalms 24

This morning before we left for our day trip to the Amalfi Coast, I opened my scriptures and they fell open to Psalms 24. The first scripture I read was verse one.
    The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
I immediately thought of our upcoming trip today.  I knew that Heavenly Father knew me, and knew where I was going today.  He wanted to remind me that he made this beautiful earth, and even the Amalfi Coast in all its splendor was created by his hand.  And he created each of us.  We are his.
Verse two says: For he hath founded it upon the seas...(We were going to be traveling on the sea today.)
Verse three: Who shall ascend into the hill of The Lord? ( We are going to be climbing up many hills today.  And the Lord made them all) Or who shall stand in his Holy Place?  (am I standing in Holy Places?)
Verse four: He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,  ( a wonderful reminder)
Verse five: He shall receive the blessing from The Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.  (I felt like it was a rich blessing for me today to go and see this beautiful part of the world that The Lord has made!)

   

The boat ride to Amalfi

Here is our friend Alfredo, who is the organist for our branch alongside my favorite missionary of all, Anziano Scherbel.  Alfredo lives in Salerno.  He gave us the royal tour of the Amalfi Coast today.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, we had a snack at the Temple Bar, around the corner from the Salerno Train Station.  Alfredo is on the left, Paul is in the middle and Ivan, his councilor, is on the right.

The elders and the sisters also came.

Sister Kelly and the Steurers came also:

Lunch in Amalfi

We found a darling place to eat lunch.  It was up a back ally and we all sat down 

together.  There was a piano near our table, so sister Kelly played and we all sang our mission song. We had a yummy pasta with a lemon white sauce on it.  Amalfi is very famous for its huge lemons.  For
desert we had one of these lemons sliced up and we all had a few slices.  You dip the slices in sugar and you eat the whole thing, peel and all.  They were delicious and so different.  The lemon peel is very soft and not bitter like regular lemons.