February 5, 2014

Ciao tutti!

Guess what?  The first of this month, I reached 9 months!  That's pretty crazy!  Only 3 more until a year.  Time goes by so fast.

Last P day we spent cleaning out the apartment in Livorno...it sounds like they're going to be finding us a new one before long.  Sounds like we'll be moving again then soon.

Last week was our first full week living in Pisa and working in Livorno.  It was a week full of frustrations trying to work around delayed trains and the rain.  However, this week was the best week that Anziano Scott and I have seen as a companionship.  We taught 12 lessons.  We've never taught that many since we've been together.  Maybe it's because we had to plan really carefully, but I consider it a miracle.

Sorry it was kind of a short one this week.  I hope for better stuff to talk about next week!  Love you all!  Ciao!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

I am adding a little bit more from my email for this week that he shared with me (Sandi):

So in the Livorno branch, there is probably almost 200 members.  But we have a lot of less actives.  There's not much holding us back from becoming a ward except we need more Melchezidec Priesthood holders and more fultime tithe payers.  And actually our whole district (the Firenze District) has to become a stake before we can become a ward.  So right now we really focus on reactivation and finding new potetial priesthood holders.  Our branch has a goal of 10 baptisms this year and like 3 temple sealings.  Pretty high goals but I think it's good to shoot for the moon and land among the stars.  Most of the members are Italian here in Livorno.  There are just a few members that speak English.  There are some American men who married Italian women who are members here and their wives speak a little English.  There are also just a couple of members that speak really good English just because they have put in the effort to learn it.  They help us teach English Class on tuesday nights.  The branch president is Italian but he's not from Livorno.  I think he's from Brescia.  He's a really cool guy and he's been a good help to us.  He's really awesome.  He wants us to start up the scouting program with the young men, so that's cool.

Well traveling back and forth from Pisa to Livorno isn't real fun.  This past week we ended up spending a lot of time in train stations waiting for trains.  That's not fun because then homeless people start to take notice of you and they think that you're their friend.  We have this one homeless dude who talks to us everytime we're there...he doesn't speak Italian very well and he always talks about weird random stuff.  Like how he talks to pigeons or how he talked to President Obama on the train the other night.  It's weird...he's crazy.  One night it was raining really hard and our train got delayed by an hour and half!  It was terrible!  But I think we're starting to get the timing down.  A member talked to President Dibb the other day and apparently they are looking for a new appartment for us...guess we just sit tight for a bit.

We haven't been able to see Saverio for a while.  We used to see him in the late evenings, but now that we have to be catching a train at that time, it makes things a little difficult.  We're going to try and maybe do lunch with him sometime.  New investigators are something have been a little hard to come by...I don't know why but it's been really hard to find anybody who will talk to us.  Anziano Scott and I have been working on developing faith to find.

The deaf member is cool.  I'm learning Italian sign language little by little.  There are some similarities between LIS and ASL.  It's been fun.