Plentiful Plethora of Questions: Answered

Ciao famiglia!

Come state? Tutto bene?  Sto benissimo qui in Italia.  Mi piace sempre sentire da voi.  Come va con la scuola? Come potete vedere il mio Italiano è proprio perfetto.  Scriverò tutto questo email in Italiano.  Sto scherzaaaaando! (How are you? Everything good? I'm fine here in Italy. I always like to hear from you. How's school? As you can see, my Italian is just perfect. I will write all this email in Italian. I'm kiiiiiiiding!)

Anywho before I get in to the nitty gritty let me answer some of the plentiful plethora of questions that Mom sent me.  Yes, let me shed some light on that valuptious volley, that bountiful barrage, that rapid rally.  Let me reluctantly rectify that raging rampage of requests that Mother so readily reminded me of.  

Woah guys... I don't know where that came from.  I'm a poet and I didn't even know that I was one.  (By the way I'm kiiiiiding Mom I'd love to answer your questions).  Let's see the best meal I've had was probably this pizza that we got in Bologna that was amazing.  In Italy when you order pizza you don't order one to share.  You order one per person.  It's great.  The weirdest thing I saw was definitely when we went to this opera concert a couple days ago.  It was all going pretty well and then these two pretty girthy women walked on and started singing.  Literally the whole entire song was them singing the word 'meow' back and forth to each other.  It was supposed to be a "cat fight" I guess.  It was really weird.  The most surprising thing about being a missionary is probably that I really like it.  I was worried that I wouldn't.  There are definitely hard times, but hard doesn't mean bad.  The thing I miss the most is you guys.  Cheesy but true.  

Anywayz It's good to hear that everything is going well there.  I repeat once again to Audrey to get outfromwayfrom round them boys.  Also Eliza you better get me that Mario picture proprio presto!  (pronto!)

I'm glad that my letter got there finally.  Did you guys like it?  I don't even remember what I said in it.  I'll try to write another one soon, although it might be harder to mail it.  I always like getting your letters so don't stop writing them.  I can only get them certain times so I got like three all at once.  Anziano Leavitt liked his too.  He said too me "Wow she must have hard-core stalked me on facebook" and I was like "yup" haha. 

Fabrizio was confimed this last Sunday so we officially have a new convert.  L... is on her way too but she has some concerns about weird things.  Like for example she keeps saying that she thinks God doesn't love everyone equally because not everyone has equal curcumstances.  We keep talking about this in like every lesson and keep stressing that God loves everyone.  It's weird because we'll say "Dio ama tutti i suoi figli lo stesso" (God loves everyone the same)  and she'll be like "Sì sì, Dio ci ama e posso sentire il Suo spirito" (Yes yes God loves us and I can feel His Spirit) but then she'll go back and say "Ma penso che Lui ama una persona più di un'altra" (But I think He loves one person more than another) It's frustrating.  And it seems like she has concerns with the law of chastity too.  She was like "so if you're not married you can't have sex?" And we were like "no" and she was like "ahh"  and we're like "lady you're married with two kids!"  It's weird.  She's really nice though and I think she'll still be baptized.

Well that's basiacally what's been happening over here.  Hows going on back in good'ol'Merica? Any crazy stuff? Any awesome stuff? Any funny stuff? How's the economy? What war should we do? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Also Mom, I'll get those pictures of my apartment and stuff later today because I'm actually in Milano for a new missionary training.

I think that's it for today.  Thank's for being awesome! Ciao!

Elder Tagg

Raging Rampage of Revelation!!

Ciao Famiglia! 

How arw you guys doing? I hope all is well. How is school? 

This week was really cool.  Conference was awesome as you know.  But it was even awesomerer in Italian.  The translaters spoke really fast but I still got the point.  The point was that President Nelson is on a raging rampage of revelation!! (aliteration) So yeah two hour church that's crazy.  Make sure you guys do that stuff at home still so you don't go apostate okay.  12 new temples is also crazy!  I personally thought that they would announce street clothes for missionaries so I wouldn't have to wear this silly shirt and tie but I guess that will come later.

Yeah so I've been pretty busy this week with a bunch of random stuff.  It's no big deal we've mainly just been IMMERSING PEOPLE IN THE DELICIOUS JUICY SWEET WATERS OF BAPTISM!!  That's right, Fabrizio was baptized this week and it was amazing.  It was such a miracle that we were able to put it all together with two days notice.  He wanted one of his original missionaries to do it so that's why we had to do it specifically when Anziano Baker would be visiting.  The members here are so amazing.  They really pulled through for us with preparing talks, food, and the font.  They are a small Branch but they accomplish more than most Wards.  

So yeah, the baptism was really cool.  I played violin.  I played the song 'I Know That My Redeemer Lives' and it went really well.  I'm so glad I brought my violin.  I think I'll use it to go finding.  What I'll do is I'll play to distract people while my companion walks up from behind with a bowl of water.  Things get a little frisky, things get a little wet, a little bounce boogy and bump, and bam! We get a new convert!  Yeah... that will work out great. 

The work is going well here in Pesaro.  We have a lot of people coming to our English class.  What qualifies me to teach the English language you ask?  I dont know.  What qualifies me to preach the Gospel you ask? Couldn't tell ya.  But I'm out here doing it anyways and that feels good.  Hopefully after a year or two I'll be fluent and I'll know a boat load of crap about the Gospel. 

But yeah our English class is really fun.  There's this really old short lady named Paula who comes every time and she is hilarious.  She had us over to change a light bulb and she was showing us around the house and when we got to the top of the stairs she said, "there are weapons in that room do you want to see?"  And we of course wanted to see.  So she unlocked the door and we went inside and there were a couple guns on the wall in front of us so we were like, "Wow"  but then we turned to the right and the entire wall was covered in rifles, machine guns, hand guns, broadswords, katanas, the other wall had knives. She had a boomerang, and my favorite was when she pulled out a harpoon gun.  So hilarious.  I was just so shocked.  I had no idea that was coming.  Apparently her husband used to own a shooting range and collected guns so that's why she had them.  

Anyways so yeah, the mission has been really good so far.  Adjusting to mission life was weird at first but I really love it now.  My prayers in particular have gotten so much better.  I always go out on the balcony and pray for real for real every night.  Now every time I go out there, I just instantly feel the Spirit even before I start praying.  Prayers are important guys.  For so long before the mission I got into the same habit of impersonal and apathetic prayers without even knowing it.  These last couple of weeks though I've realized that prayer is such a powerful thing.  It's something that I look forward to everyday.  

Anyways I think that's it for this week! I love you all and miss you a lot. Ciao!

Here are some pictures from some random castle I went to today.  This country has way too many freaking castles.

1: castle picture

2: castle picture

3: nude babies beating the life out of animals

4: a Saint with a headache

Creepy Babies

Ciao famiglia!

Ok so this week has just been soooo crazy.  But first to answer your questions Maham.  I haven't bought any weapons yet (key word yet) and I haven't used my card from home.  I'll probably use it this week and hopefully it won't be frozen.  Our bikes are ok, they aren't great but they go forward mostly so that's good.  And yes, Maaahahaham I'm wearing a helmet.  My Italian is coming along well, I can understand a lot more than I thought I would. However, I still have trouble speaking.  Mostly because Italians just speak over each other the entire time and I can't really get a word in.  But it's coming a long and getting better each day.  

As far as investigators go, buckle up because it's gonna be a bumpy ride.  So we have probably about four legit simpatizzanti.  There are more but these four I think have the most potential. There's Jesus who's a 16 year old kid and super cool.  He's too cool to come to church though :(. He reads the Book of Mormon and I think he has a testimony of it.  There's Claudio who is an ex J-dub (Jehova's witness).  Ok, side note: there are J-dubs EVERYWHERE, and all of them are really old couples it's pretty funny.  Claudio is interested in the church and we left a Book of Mormon with him and he said he'd read it.  Then there's Luciana who we've had three really good lessons with her and yesterday we made a baptism date with her!  She's awesome.  Ok, and here's the last one.  His name is Fabrizio and we met him like two days ago and talked with him a bit.  He's an investigator from the old anziani.  The day we met him, he met with the Branch President and told him he wanted to be baptised.  But he wants to be baptised by his original missionaries one of which is visiting pesaro this Thursday so he's getting baptised tommorow! We've been scrambling to plan an entire baptism in two days and it's been soo busy.

So yeah I'll probably see two baptisms by the end of this month which is amazing.  It is so awesome to see the Lord's work in action.  My trainer is a really great missionary which is why we've seen this much success. 

Today we went to Rubino which is this really awesome walled city.  We went to this museum with TANTO catholic artwork.  I took a lot of pictures of creepy baby angel creatures so that was really fun.

I really miss you guys.  I hope you got my second letter, I sent it from the MTC right before I left.  It sounds like you all are doing well.  That makes me happy.  Nathan you better take care of Patrice.  Evan thanks for all the advice you gave me.  It really helps. I hope you're having fun at USU.  Tell the girls to don't do school and stay in drugs... yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right.  

Ok I think that's pretty much it for this week!  Here are some pictures. Ciao!

1. me and Anziano Miller

2. A Priest giving me the greedy eye (that just means evil eye in our family)

3. The back of a bald guy's head

4. The ceiling

5-8 and on are creepy babies
9. A nice view
10. A thingy thing

He looks so GOOD! (this is Kelly T, his Mom)

The "Greedy EYE"

A thingy thing