Italy Soccer Missionary

Email: June 18, 2014

Well Italy loves soccer WAY TOO MUCH! It is great! There is a big stir about the world cup....only bad part is I dont understand one thing about soccer! I am sure I am the only person in Italy who doesnt like soccer....

Not sure what to say this week. Went to church. Taught some lessons. Our less active brother passed the sacrament and the bishop is working on getting him to the temple next week with the ward!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So cool! 

Got to go ciao!

Happy belated fathers day to you dad!

Love your happy smiling missionary!

Anziano Edwards

Summer scarfs. They are the new fashion...just like every single summer.

My District Leader, Anziano Berg. First class! 

Zone Conference. Modena Zone combined with the Bologna Zone in Bologna. It was great to return to my last city. Good memories!

English Class, Fast Trains, and Church Leaderes

Email: June 11, 2014

I knew you recieved my flight plans because I recived a letter from the office titled, "Customs Bulletin" When you get this you know you are near the end! It was a bunch of legal just about US customs and declarations, then a letter about working hard and another about my mission finacnes and final interview with Pres. Dibb. Nothing that important but it seemed fancy. haha 

I am not trunky but super excited to end my mission. I love it for sure, but Aug. will be great. I get to see all of you! Not to freak you out, but I will send you 8 more times, the 8th being two days before I come home. Its nuts!

ON tuesday we are going to Bologna for a zone confrence.  Modena and Bologna zone combined. We are taking a fast train, (frecciarossa-google it!) We got tickets on sale for 9 euro. Best part is the tickets are in first class! We take a 15 min bus ride to the high speed train station on the north end of the city. So that will be fun. 

We had 10 new people in our english class. We printed out fancy flyers for it. We printed 2500 for them for only 40 euro which the ward reimbursed. Pictues wil come.

ON sunday we traveled to Modena for stake confrence because reggio doesnt have the means to show it. They failed to mentiont that Pred. Uchtdorf, Pres. Anderson, and Elder Teixeria were there. It was held in Bern Swizerland and included 30ish stakes in france italy, Swizerland, Belgium, and some other country. It was AMAZING! It was the best in every sense! The talks were perfect! 

Well I love you all more than you can imagine.

Anziano Edwards

Companion with all our English class flyers 

Legit

Just riding through town and for no reason it broke...I didn't crash though 

The tire and wheel 

The wheel 

Reggio Emilia District

Go Visit the Temple!!!

Email: June 4, 2014

I may be slightly evil to be happy that you were miserable in the hot humidity (of Florida)! Now you have a small taste of how much Italian summers suck as a missionary! 

Recently is has only been in the mid 20's, thats like 70/80s. Its humid, but not too bad.....yet that is....

We have a small teaching pool. Kofi hasnt answered our calls for weeks nor came to church the past month. We have no idea what happened. Is really sad to have such a cool man just disapear. We will keep praying. I know he has a good reason, but it is weird of him not to answer. But better news is other other investigator, rather our only other who makes progress and we can meet, Samuel (Pakistanian) came to church with his girlfriend(a member of two years) and he loved it! He will be baptized in July. He accepts everything without questions. He is just simple prepared! The only thing he really wants, is to go inside the temple. I have never worked with a new convert, let along an investigator that has such a burning desire and goal to make it all the way to the temple. 

Speaking of temples, the ward is going on the yearly temple trip the end of June. The coolest part is seeing all the buzz and excitment of the temple within the members. They sacrifice SO MUCH! Its crazy! They are stunned when I tell them I can see the temple from my house and its 10 minutes away, but yet I never went all that often. Its true, we are blessed so very much to be so close the the temple to do everything we need to do to be together forevrer. I am so blessed to have a family like you. Thanks! Go and visit the temple! 

With all the love in the world,

LOVE YOU

ANZIANO EDWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look! I can still spell my name! (Kinda!)

Let's just say that my shirt was greasy! 

A.J. at the Castle

Castle and Beautiful Italy

Art Major = Pointless Major
The painted walls were cool, but I just can't appreciate it. It's just weird.

Fancy art that I didn't understand

Castle Courtyard

Classic Italy!

Full Shot of Castle

Fancy Flyers

Email: May 28, 2014

Well we didnt teach many lessons, but the week was great. We make some fancy flyers for our free english class! Hope we have a good turn out.

Send me lots of pictueres!

WIth all the love I can send through this email, 

Love you all and cant wait to come home!

Ciao!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Edwards 

Climbed down some stairs that were roped off...didn't see any sign that told me not to go...haha

So a few weeks ago I found a cat....Anz. Finnerty wouldn't let me bring it home :(

This is my new district leader. He is Canadian so we don't judge him. Hahaha jk

Happy Birthday to me! Grazie. I got both packages: Angie's and the Family's

Amazing Mission!

Email: May 21, 2014

My new companion is Anziano Espinosa. He is from northern California. He has mexican ancestors. His previous city was Modena, litterly 10 min east... He will hit his year mark in a month. He is really good at the language and being creative. We get along well. 

It has been weird having Anziano Finnerty out of the appartment. We all miss him for sure. I am postive that I will never have an appartment, or college room that will be so fun, loving, funny, spontanious, understanding, and overall super spiritual. I loved the past 3 months. I hope the next three months will be similar. 

The new sister in the district is Sorella Jackman or somthing like that...you all know how bad I am with names. ps, a skill I have aquired during my mission is the ability to not remember unimportnat things....but I also forget the names of the misionaries I serve with...hahaha  My district is a very experianced district of older missionaries so I am looking forward to some great things here sooner than later!

Anz. Finnerty did stay the night here monday night as he had to pick up his permesso di soggiorno tues morning at 8:30 so that was a bunch of fun to see him again. He is in the same stake as me so I assume in the next three months there will be a misson confrence or stake confrence to see him again.

Not much has happened over the past few day. Our baptimal date is doing very well and will come to church with his girlfriend who is a member so we are pumped for that! He reads the BOM (Book of Mormon) everyday and even better, understands it all!!! I am so thankful for the BOM being available in nearly ever language in the world! ps, I could never learn Urdu. crazy looking language! 

We had family home evening with our The Elders quorum pres and his family of 4 kids, ages 12-18 on monday then tues. evening, we had FHE with our ward mission leader and his family of two young boys ages 6, 8. IT was a blast! Super spiritual too! This friday we are having FHE in Parma with a newly retired husband and wife with a less active Peruvian brother and sister! FHE rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love you all tons and tons. I miss you daily and always pray for you all! My mission is amazing. I love Itlay and all the people here. 

With all the love from Italy, 

love, Anziano Edwards! 

Mother's Day Skype Session

Missionaries are allowed to talk with their family only twice a year -once at Christmas and again on Mother's Day. We are lucky enough to be able to Skype with A.J. instead of just a telephone call. This was the last time that we will talking with A.J. as a missionary (back to the weekly emails) because he is coming home the beginning of August!!!!!

A.J. is happy as ever and absolutely loving Italy and everything about it -the people, the language, the food (particularly pizza and gelato at the moment), the missionary work, the country, his companion and other Elders he lives and serves with, and on and on and on......He is excited to be coming back home to Utah, but will definitely miss Italy and being a missionary. He can't wait to show everyone all of his pictures and tell all of his stories face to face. The personality and sense of humor has not changed or gone away one bit!!! He says that the mission hasn't changed who it is, just improved him as a person and made him "a better me!"
He ended by bearing his testimony in Italian and though as a family we couldn't understand all of it/most of it, the Spirit was still felt strongly and his love for this Church and gospel is intense!

Faces of A.J.-

*Important Contact Information!*

A.J. has about 2 1/2 months remaining as a missionary in Italy. Due to this, if you would like to send any "snail mail" letters and/or packages the last time to send them would be late June or early July so that it has time to travel and be received and processed in Italy and the Mission Home. A.J. would seriously love to have some more mail and love sent his way.
For more information check out the Contact Page :)