A Trip to Bologna and a hike

Here are a few excerpts from Drew's latest letter:

Well, i just got back from Bologna yesterday. We were there for about a day and a half to get my comps Permeso di soguorno. (A card saying you have the right to live here for....however long) Its a very pretty city. Full of culture! 4th largest Duomo is there. 1st is in the Philipins 2nd Milano 3rd Rome 4th Bologna. I bought a pretty fancy green tie there. Couldn't resist! I wouldn't mind getting called to that city. (Bologna is about 180 miles to the east for where Drew is currently serving. Above is a photo I found on the web)

We went on our hike this week. That was a blast! I had a ton of fun! I got some awesome pics! The butterflies here are pretty cool looking. I also got an EPIC pic of a lizard on a rock with plants in the background. Pretty cool. (No I didn't get a chance to catch it, I did however catch one and the little bugger bit me! Stupidà cosà!(stupid thing) I also got a pic of a Italian Slug that was about 8 inches long. I took a picture...Anyway we did this hike in the Mountains of Limonè. About 15 kilo to the French boarder. It was awesome. On the way up we all were eating WILD STRAWBERRIES! They were so good! They grew everywhere and were all along the trail. So once we hit the summit, we found a nice huge meadow and hung out there for a few hours. I got the chance to wrestle and fool around with The Cicciò brothers, they also taught me how to do a side flip. So that was pretty cool. (I believe he is refering to Limone Piemonte. Google earth shows it is just south of Cuneo about 12 miles. I'll post the pics as soon as we get them)

Teaching is going ok... i guess...we had to drop the ones with babtism dates,(they had committed 2 people to be baptized in the coming weeks), one we think he never told his wife about this and once she found out, she forced him to block us. The other one wouldn't do anything!!!!!!! We leave her commitments and she wouldn't do anything!
We are going to invite Sabrina (Claudio's friend) to babtism this week or next week. She wants to be a member, but we want her to have a spirtual experience first. She's been converted socialy, but not spirtualy yet. And the spiritual one is the most important.

17 Jun 09

Greetings from Cuneo, Italy.

To the left is Drew (right) Claudio (center) Elder Wigant(left). This was taken at Claudio's baptism.

In the last post ( I know, it has been a while) Drew discovered gelato. Before I go on, just a bit of history about Drew. When our family gets ice cream, by the time I have passed out the cones to everyone and finally gotten mine, I can hear the cone being bitten into by Drew. For whatever reason, he has ALWAYS eaten it fast. Now, he has taken that habit to Italy and scolded by the Italians for eating his gelato WAY too fast. He says that is something he will work on.

Currently he has 3-4 people that are being taught and have committed to baptism. The branch is growing slowly and is on the brink of becoming a ward. They need more men to fill in leadership positions in the area so everything can function as it should.

I asked him if he had seen everything he wanted to see in Cuneo, he said he had seen the city 30 times over. It is a small town, but very beautiful. Google earth offers a great way to explore it without being there like Drew.

Some of you may know that Drew is an avid Airsoft player (guns that fire small plastic BB's).
He was at a dinner appointment when he spotted an airsoft gun, when he asked whose gun it was, a young man at the table spoke up and said it was his. Drew was in heaven. He can now say he has had his first Airsoft conversation in Italian.

Just a bit of trivia, he said he weighed himself and he came in at 76 Kilos, which is about 167.2 lbs. we will see how the gelato, pizza and pasta affect him over the next 2 years.

We received a package in the mail containing a DVD full of pictures. I have posted some for you to see. I will try to rotate through some of them every few weeks.