Pictures of Fog and Wearing Layers

David answers Mom's questions in his email this week...

What inspirational messages have you read recently?
I liked the March 2013 Ensign about Resilience.  And the Eyring talk about the Priesthood Man.  And Anziano Mata'u recommended I listen to Uchtdorf's Forget-Me-Not talk, and that was really good.

CONVERSATION STARTERS? When we meet people on the street, we might say:
"We have a message that the family can be together forever," or "God has always called prophets.  What would it mean to you if there was a prophet today?" or "Happy New Year! If I can ask, what are some of your goals for this year?  We have a message about how we can grow spiritually by coming to Christ."

FOG.  So I sent you some pictures of fog,

and of the Christmas tree in Bologna,

and since I sent everything, there are a few pictures of my reimbursements (travel costs are reimbursable so we don't run out of money for taking the train to district meetings, etc.)

Also there's a picture of a cool fountain of Milan, decked out for Christmas.

 The people are: in the first one, me, then Anziano Andersen (my missionary dad/trainer), and Anziano O'Riordan (Andersen's trainer, my grand-dad),

David, Anziano O'Riordan, Anziano Andersen

at transfers.

The other person picture is my district from the MTC.  It was nice to see them.

(Now answering his Dad's email...)
I'm glad you enjoyed visiting Grammie D and Poppa Dave.  It'll be cool to see them once I get back.

This past week we had 10 people in church, although I'm sure part of that was because people were away for vacations.

LIVING CONDITIONS.  It's not America here, but it's definitely not a 3rd-world country.  It was explained to me that 2nd-world means that they have a stable economy, but they can't provide for all their needs without imports/exports.  Something like that makes sense.

We don't have a dryer.  But most other things we either have or I've forgotten about, and thus clearly don't really need.

SLOW AREA: NOT MUCH INTEREST.  Here in Ferrara, I have to work on Persevering instead of Enduring.  Since the branch is so small and the work is so slow, I go through a roller coaster of attitudes/emotions...
A) This is depressing. Why don't they close this area?
B) They're not going to close the area.  I guess I'm going to have to resign myself to a miserable next 2.5 transfers
C) That wouldn't be any fun. I'm going to have to find a way to get excited about "finding" (people who are interested in talking about gospel principles).  I owe it to the Lord.  I could have ended up anywhere else in the world, but I'm so lucky to be here!
D) Yeah! Let's go talk to people!  We're going to do great today!
E) Wow, people are really not interested here.  I've never seen that gesture before (just kidding). Repeat.

So I read the Ensign conference talks and scriptures and try to stay motivated. And life goes on.

WINTERY WEATHER. It's pretty cold here, though.  I never had to deal with it much before since I could just go inside when I was tired or wanted to be warm.  Now, it's snowing gently and I need the sweater, fleece, jacket, scarf, gloves, and a second layer of pants.  Not much fog this past week, but a bit of snow after Christmas.

I sent more pictures via dropbox, and a talk by W. Cleon Skousen (BYU lecturer) I thought Teresa would like. Just the last 6 minutes, it's a fun story.

Love, Anziano Whitesell