Here I am in Italy!!
Email address:
William.hogan@myldsmail.net
My Trento address is:
Via Fogazzaro 3
38122 Trento TN
Italia
Mission Home:
Via Antonio Gramsci 13/2
20090 Opera MI
Italia
My companion Anziona Yee and me
Last Tuesday all 19 missionaries and I left early in the morning for the airport. We had so much fun being in the real world as new missionaries. All of the traveling went super well except for our flight to Frankfurt which was delayed 3 hours and we were forced to wait and sit on the plane. That all thankfully worked out and we got to Frankfurt just fine and hopped on a plane to MILAN!!
We arrived at the Milano airport and were greeted by our awesome mission President and his wife. We were pretty late so we didn't have a chance to proselyte at the Duomo which was kind of sad. After some orientation meetings and an interview we had the most amazing dinner ever. It was an awesome day but a very, very tiring day because we all basically didn't sleep for a total of 28 hours! We got some great sleep thankfully and a few hours after we woke up we were assigned to our new area and trainers!!
I was the last one to get assigned which was so brutal because I was so anxious. Sure enough I get assigned to Anziano Yee (who has been out for only 6 months) in the town of Trento! Trento is a medium sized town with lots of fairly quiet and devout catholics. The members here, which number to about 35 are some wonderful people. We are located very far up North near Austria. I hear it can get pretty cold here and it snows here sometimes. I don't really like the cold that much but I imagine this place gets sooo beautiful when it snows. I haven't seen that much of Italy but, too me, Trento has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. I got so lucky to serve here!
I was able to watch conference! But mostly in Italian and only 3 sessions. I loved how they emphasized the importance of the family. The family here is such and important topic to the Italians. We live just outside of the downtown part of the city. Our apartment is super nice and big! There used to be 4 missionaries in the apartment but they reduced Trento to only 2 missionaries so we got lucky. The food here is AMAZING!! It is absolutely unreal. We have the
best snacks from the store and not to mention the gelato we get about once a day. I am in food heaven here. It's a good thing we walk a lot because I would be a fat missionary if we didn't.
So my companion and I have been doing quite a lot of work and we are busy almost 100% of the day. There are a few refugee camps here with lots of Africans so most of our investigators are African! They are some of the coolest, nicest, loving people I have ever met. A lot of them speak broken English or pigeon so I have had to learn some terms to make gospel messages and principles more clear. It is so awesome. Right now, we really don't have any pure Italian investigators because they can be very hard to teach. Trust me we try every day as we go tracting and do casa in casa (knocking on doors). We do have many Italian speaking Investigators from different countries who are so
great!
The language for me is coming along. When I was in the MTC I thought I knew a good amount of Italian, but I was so wrong. They speak 1,000mph here and It is really hard to understand. My companion is super patient and very hard working so he helps me every second with the language. I learn more and more each day and the language is coming along!! He has made me in charge (most of the time) of contacting people on the streets so I can practice my introductions. He has also told me that ever since I got here, he has seen a lot more tender mercies happen. For example, He was teaching me how to do casa
in casa and the very first house we buzzed, and someone opened the gate and someone came out to talk to us. He said that never has he ever seen or heard of that happening. I Love being a missionary!! Working all day, bring the light of this gospel in to peoples lives is the most amazing experience ever.
This city is so beautiful and amazing with so much potential for the gospel. It really is not easy being a missionary in a place where the Italians are pretty tough to budge when it comes to discussing the church. We constantly get rejected but we keep on moving just waiting for that one person that will be willing to talk to us. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much with so many things. I hope this email wasn't all over the place. I love it here so much. It
gets hard at times but Heavenly Father helps so much. I know that this is the only and true church. Seeing the gospel change the lives of the people I teach is absolutely priceless. Till next week everyone,
Ciao!!
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