Ciao,

well I think I will just go through the week and get to the earth quake story in a bit.

But first I would like to start off to say that this city has been nothing but a natural disaster for me since my first week back in January with snow like 4 feet high and then after the snow flash floods and thunder storms everyday then  3 earthquakes within a week or so!! It’s been tough.

On Thursday we went to Verona for zone conference. Then Friday we went to see someone we found in the area book and a couple of other people we are trying to set baptism dates with them but we have only seen them once. Saturday we met with Claudio, this super awesome guy from Romania.  We have been teaching him for a week or so and he speaks english very well and his wife studied in America so she speaks even better english than him. She works a lot but we are still trying see her we see him a lot but we havent set a date with him yet because he has fear of what other people will think of him if he changes from his country’s main religion. He just needs a testimony and he will be fine. Sunday we went to see the Heal family, the rich guy who is the lead designer for the Formula 1 cars for Ferrari. His wife is brazillian and they are from England.  Her mom was visting from Brazil and so I talked with her from what I could, it has been a while since I heard someone speak Portuguese. Then Monday we saw a referal named Josephine from Ghana and her 8 year old daughter. The only thing holding them from baptism is the dad because he is never around for us to teach him and she doesnt want to be baptized with out him.

Then Tuesday morning is when it all happened.  It was just a normal morning just like any other, nice and calm, no wind and sunny.  I got ready, had breakfast, showered and went to personal study.  Then when we went to start companionship study at the hour of 9 o'clock the house started to shake a bit and so I said “hey guys you feel that another earthquake then less than a second after I said those words the entire house started to rumble and I just yelled oh shiz i almost cursed and said rrrrruuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!! and I got my shoes on and peaced it out! Let me tell you, running down 4 flights of stairs takes a while to get down. We got outside and everyone was laughing at me from what I said this time and last time. I just don’t know how I make everyone laugh all the time even in crisis. So we went to finish studying after the earthquake stopped and then we went out like normal but it wasn’t working; no one wanted to talk.  All the cell phone lines were dead so we couldn’t call.  Everyone was out side just freaking out people were crying, kids were crying, traffic was crazy. then President called us and told us to work as normal but come up with a way to use the situation to our advantage. So we did and it kinda worked. hen on our way home there was another earthquake but we didnt feel it cause we were  on our bikes.. When we got home, all our neighbors were outside and told us not to go in but we said we were hungry so we went up. Then we called the bishop and he told us to come to the church and help out and so we went to the church. Everyone was just crazy freaking out.  I have never seen soo many people with that much worry before. Then our President called us again and told us we had to spend the night at the church with the rest of the members so we did and and people came from Verona with water and sleeping bags and we slept outside it was great.  I haven’t been camping in like a year and a half and then later today we are going back to the church to help more. A member told us that a bunch of catholic churches fell over and crumbled to the ground but don’t worry about all this and us the world is not ending this year but I will warn you to start making a better food storage and keeping on top of it.  And I know we are protected so dont worry.

  

I’m not getting transferred but Anziano D'addabbo is leaving.  He is going to Mestre to be a zone leader.  So I don’t know how long I will be here.  My guess is another 12 weeks but I could be wrong.

Love you soo much and talk to you next week.

Missionaries at the church camping after Earthquake

Staying at the Church after the Earthquake

Ciao,
This is Strong’s companion,  Anziano D'Addabbo. He wanted me to send this last week but I forgot. Here ya go.
Well the earthquake was great! We live 4 floors up and got rocked pretty bad. We all woke up at 4am with everything shaking. But we all laughed because my companion cioè the strong man, woke up screaming Ahhhhhhhhhh whoooaaaaa whats happening ahhhhhhhh I've never been in a earthquake before ahhhhhhhhhhh. we were just laughing soooo hard because of the way he said it. Because we all sleep in the same room its just soo funny. Anziano Droghei, one of the other Anziani woke up to the earthquake ripping his covers off getting ready to punch someone because he thought we were trying to duct tape him to the bed. hahahah. Oh man it was great. After the big one, there were consecutive shocks for about an hour after that. We went to church that morning for church and come to find out everyone has been chillin in the building because it is anti earthquake or something. They had been there since 4am. the Italians were freaked out running out of there houses falling on the ground because they tried to run with the ground shaking. And we 4 americans who have never experienced a quake before and just went back to bed. But we are all ok.