...Thanksgiving was amazing.

Ciao

Ok so I'm going to try something new. I will write this letter first, send it, then send ya'll some pictures. I don't want a repeat of last week where I had to rewrite my letter three times. I never learn. Ok, This Thanksgiving was amazing. It's a wonderful thing to have a dinner so good prepared only by missionaries all from scratch. Pumpkin pie, cheesecake, turkey, stuffing, and gravy are not common commodities in Italia. We had to do everything from the beginning. The amazing thing was that everything we ate was good. No one messed up. The food was good, but I was stupid and forgot the soccer ball so we just played ping pong, fuzzball, and watched cinderella. That's an awesome movie. After we had English course where we played games, and ate the deserts. I couldn't wait to dig my teeth into the cheese cake I made. It was soooooo good. This week we did a very cool thing. We went back to Matera. It was cool of course, but this time we found this path that goes out of the city into the ravine nearby. We crossed this creek, climbed the mountain on the other side, and found some caves that I was telling ya'll about last time. They were really cool, but didn't go down as deep as I thought. But out of good fortune I found a deep hole in the ground. I "fell" in (actually I was more thrust in by the other four missionaries with me), It was a little scary when the bat flew around, and a frog started jumping around. I all of a sudden felt a little like Joseph, except they pulled me back out. Then they made me go back in so they could make a video of this monster missionary pulling me out with one arm. Climbing back down the mountain was cool, and my companion has the footing of a horse on ice. He slipped all over the place, and even fell into the creek on the way back. Over all it was a cool day, and we did some cool stuff. This week we also tried to get another English course going. We put up all these flyers and had a lot of people calling us about it. When the night came not a soul came. We even made brownies. I also got a lot of practice on the piano. I know 3 notes now. Well things are going well. I'm always excited to share the gospel with people. I hear that Richie Dresser is leaving, and Phillip Sanchez is back. I miss those guys. I'm glad they're awesome. I love ya'll. Write me back.


con affetto,
Anziano Paul

... and the food was to die for.

Buonasera

Hey ya'll. So this last week has gone by quite well. We tried doing a lot of inactive work, but it actually went really bad. We missed 5 for 5. I could see why they were all inactive. They were all really scared to see us, or were out of their minds. I think I'll leave that stuff for the bishop to worry about now. This past Sunday was amazing. We ate with this massive family. Only two were members, and the rest of the family came; aunts, uncles, neices, nephews, the whole gamut. It was interesting to see this cause most of them were not members. Also my companion doesn't understand a word of Italian yet so it was really fun. They acted so funny, yelling at each other from accross the room shaking their hands at each other, and the food was to die for. Infact my companion almost did. It's funny cause he weighs 40 lbs. more than me, but he was dying through the whole meal. He almost threw up he ate so much. He asked me during the meal. "How do you stay so thin?" I hadn't really thought that it was that much food, but as I thought about it I realized it was a lot. I have just built an immunity to it. Anyway we are working really hard, and having a lot of success. It was really sad cause we just talked to a man (about 30 mins ago) that had lost the will to live. As we talked about the gospel he seemed to get more excited, and asked us why he had never heard these things before. It was really wonderful to see his face light up. I love how this gospel helps us so much. It's so clear, easy, and helpful in this cruel world.

The pictures- I know, they are finally here. The first one is inside a big church with a big cool looking window. I liked it anyway. The second and third are of trulli of Alberobello. The first is the Duomo (main church of the city). Alberbello is cool because it has a unique architecture that you can't find anywhere else in the world. I think they look like Hersheys kisses. Hope ya'll enjoy.

Vi voglio bene.

Anz Paul

How did you do it mom?

Grazie!!!!!!!!!

Hey thanks to all of you bravi. Your short letters were actually hilarious, and I almost died laughing in the internet caffe. I got a lot of stange looks. Thanks to all of you. So to fill ya'll in on this last month(sorry it's been so long). I started out with General Conference which is very hard to watch in both languages at the same time. We finally got only the english to work, but it was only for the Sunday morning session. It was still good. I was really suprised at how much I did understand. That week I had my 20th bday:( I'm so old, and I can really feel it. Then we threw a party for this member kid. His mother asked us if we could organize some games and just try to control the children. It was a mad house. I wanted to kill all 13 of those ten year olds. I now have a new respect for my mother. How did you do it mom? I also know now why I never got a birthday party. Also we made an amazing pinata for the party, but our stupid zone leaders thought it would be fun to play darts with it before it dried. So logically they popped the balloon, and the entire thing caved in. I wanted their blood as well. We also went to an amazing castle near Andria called the Castel del Monte. It's apparantly pretty famous, and Hans you can see it on the 1 cent piece of the £uro. The other really exciting thing that happened to us was that we had a General Authority come and talk to the missionaries here in my mission. It was really amazing, and he recieved some inspiration from the Spirit which told him that every companion ship would have a baptism in the next 30 days. It was really cool, and the Spirit was so thick there you could cut it with a knife. Well, the next best thing is that I recieved a brand new missionary from the States. He's like a baby fresh from the womb, completely helpless out here in this cruel world. He is awesome though, and I'm dying from laughter every two seconds. For those of you that have been keeping track(actually I'm sure only my mother has been), I hit ONE YEAR today! It's crazy to think that I'm now on the down hill slope. I actually don't like that feeling. Anyway I have to go right now cause there are alot of missionaies waiting for me so we can go festiggiare.

Arrivederci, e tante belle cose.

Con Affetto,
Anziano Paul