Bye Pisa!

Well this week has been a mighty fine one that ended with a bang. To not keep you all waiting, I am being transferred to the Napoli area to a city called Castellammare. It is on the other side of the bay from Napoli. So that will be a great adventure. Oh yeah, and I will be senior companion and the district leader. So lather on another layer of responsibility. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. I am only in the 7th transfer. But as Logan (Elder Baker) said in his last letter that I received (he went senior comp and DL) "who the Lord calls the Lord qualifies." It was a good letter.

Well the highlight of the week was that we set a baptismal date with that Filipino family for May 8th. That was really exciting, and we were really happy that they wanted to set that goal. Other than that, the week was finding work and usual member appointments and new member appointments.

This week was a week of accidents it seems. We were walking down the street in front of our house (which is a one lane road for those that like to follow the law) and a car goes zooming down the "2nd" lane and gets to an intersection where a motorcycle with a man driving and a woman behind him was starting to cross. Neither one saw each other till the woman was breaking the windshield and the man flying down the street 19 yards or so. The car stopped, obviously. The woman fell to the ground (didn't go through the windshield because of the new types of glass they use). There was no blood. The injuries weren't bad thanks to leather clothing and helmets. But the part that made me sick is the man got out of his car and started to yell at the injured cyclists. "What the **** are you doing?!! How could you have not seen me!!"

That made me sick. A man could have mutilated those people. Luckly they weren't. And he would have still got out and lamented the damages to his newish SUV. Another guy got out and chastized the man, luckily, telling him that he as no right to yell at someone he just speared with his car. In the end the ambulances were called, no major injuries sustained save the windshield that was of no use anymore and a motorcycle that looked like it had been chewed up and spit out be a Decepticon (for those who don't know, those are the bad guys on Transformers). That was a weird event.

Well to answer some questions, my companion is from Udine which is north of Venice. He has a very thick German-Italian accent since most of the Italians on that border are almost more German-Austrian-Croatian than Italian. But don't get me wrong. He is very Italian still. It has been fun serving with him. Pisa differs in missionary work like their populations. Pisa is about 100,000 people. Rome something like 2-3 million. So there are less people to talk to. You have to be creative because a lot of the population here are students that attend the university here. So you need to identify yourself quickly to attract them or at least to get them to listen to you. The language is coming along well. I translated sacrament meeting every week and taught some Gospel Principle lessons with little difficulty. Living with an Italian has helped me with the language a lot, especially with direct and indirect objects.

Dad, sounds like this is going to be a busy month for you. But then again, when are you not busy? I wish I could be there helping prune the yard. But I am busy pruning another vineyard for now.

Well family and friends, from what I hear you are all doing great! Keep it up!

Love,
Anziano Hatch