So well start out with a little bit of bad news, then some good news....
Vincenzo, one of our investigators had his baptismal interview this week and it dodnt go too well, in fact, im not even sure what the problem is yet, but, we have some work to do with him, and hopefully in the next few weeks, we can resolve the problem and he'll be ready to be baptized. Other than that, i've had this ball in my figer the past month, and its been really hurting this past week, so, we went to the doctor to check it out and it's just a cyst attached to the nerve and that's why its hurting. They said 2 options, take it out or leave it and take medicine, but, the medicine isn't working, so i'd rather them just take it out. Anyways, tomorrow i have an appointment at the hosptial, and i think they're just going to tell me somethings to do, im not sure.

On sunday, our branch president said something that i really liked. He said, in our lives, too often, we try to fight against Satan, instead of avoiding him all together. In the sense that we need to keep ourselves away from people or situations that could lead us to making a bad decision. It's really true. Then, over the past few days i've been in Catanzaro doing an exchange with a new missionary. I really like doing exchanges, many missionary leaders have the mindset, oh im District leader or im zone leader, im going to go change this missionary's mission, which, yes, we should think that way, but, we dont know everything, we also can learn a lot from these new missionaries.

We also have a few new investigators here in Crotone. I'll just talk about 1. She's one of the daughters of Stefania Zarfino, who was baptized a few months ago. She's a little 14 year old, but, she's already set a baptismal date and she wants to be baptized. so that will be sweet. It's for Christmas Eve. We actually ahve 2 people that are scheduled to be baptized that day, it'll be awesome, a white Christmas!

Tomorrw after the hospital, we're going to Taranto for Zone Conference. It's going to be different from the normal ones because Christmas is coming up. It'll be like a big Christmas party with all of the missionaries from the Bari Zone and the Taranto Zone.

At the moment, i cant think of anything else to share or to talk about, so, i'll go ahead and write my presidents letter.
Ciao tutti, love ya,
Aldste Lane

Hey guys,

not too much happened this week, but, MArgherita was baptized, and that was incredible! It was such a good day.

She has a really cool soncersion story, this is how it goes...

So 3 months ago, i was with Anziano Pettry and we were passing by an inactive member, but, she wasnt home, so, we decided to knock the doors of everyone in the apartment building. When we arrived at the last door, an older lady answered and we talked about teh book of mormon. She liked it and we told her we wanted to give her one, but, she was going to the funeral of her brother, so, she said to come by another time. About a month and a half later, we went by her house and whe was sick, so the next week we went by and she let us in with one of our members. How special of a lesson we had that day. Margherita just laid it on us. Everything negative that had happened in her life, we knew about it. About her husband cheating on her last year and how a group of kids killed her dad years ago and how she doesn't have a job, you name, we got everything. It really hurt me haveing to listen to all of that, but, i knew that if anyone at this time could help her, it was God. And we told her that, we explained that She would have the peace and happiness brought back to her life. In the next few lessons, we saw dramatic changes in her life. As she bore her testimony to us of the peace she had felt we almost wanted to cry with her. She was the happyiest lady in the world. She was so excited for ehr baptism. Then we had the baptismal interview and after, the district leader said, She's not ready, she's extreemly ready, and i knew it. So, she was baptized on sunday, exactly 1 month after we started teaching her. Then on monday, we went to teach her and she said, i had a dream yesterday, i found myself back in the baptismal font, and i looked up to see who was baptisng me, and it was the Lord. Then she started crying, and she just explained how happy she was and the spirit was so strong.

Then, as we were putting away our portable baptismal font yesterday (we had to syphen it, becasue we dont have a pump) we decided it was taking too long, so we tried to drag it outside and one of the sides of the font caved in and we flooded the church, well, not all of it, but, one of the rooms, and we spent about an hour moping it up, not fun.

I also did an exchange with one of the missionaries from my zone, and it went really well.
Really nothing else sticks out from this week, so, i'll just close there. But, Crotone is growing, the Lord is a God of miracles. It's amazing to see what he can really do for you if you jsut do what he says. Life's really simple, people make it too complicated at times. Like in 2 Nefi 2:25 says, we're here to be happy. If we're not, we're doing something wrong, and i really like what we read in Mosiah 2:22, it basically says that the ONLY thing that God requires of us it to keep his cammandments, then, if we do this, we will prosper.

ciao ciao, love you all,
Anziano Lane


Anzino Lane wrote about the Pictures:

"Margherita is awesome!!"

Hey guys,

sorry, i didnt do email yesterday. I was up in Rome for another Zone Leader council.

Anyways, this week has been pretty good. last wednesday i broke a serious commandment.. i'll explain....
we went to teach a lesson becasue we had an appointment with an inactive lady. We got to her house and we saw that there was a party going on. Her daughter was turning 15 and there was no way we were going to be able to teach a lesson. So, we decided to leave and they offered us some cake, and we didnt reject that, so i started eating and i noticed that something wasn't right, then i thought, oh,crud its alcohol. Then Salvatore told us to eat only the top part, so, we did, but there was still acohol. So, that was it, we left, threw the cake away and it really wasnt a sin.

then later in teh week we contacted the guiy who did the blog of us and we met up with him and he told us that if we want sometime, we can go to teh radio station to talk about teh church, so that would be really cool, a good way to find. He said also that if we want, we can write up some things for him to read on the air. then on sunday, all of our active members went up to the temple and we did a lot of finding. We went to the rich side of Crotone, about 3 to5 miles south of Crotone, and we did a lot of work there, but, it was really tiring because we were on foot, but, it was good.
the members here in Crotone have strengthened my testimony. The temple is about 1000 miles away for them, all the way to switzerland, and it takes 24 hours by bus to get there, not to mention, the members here in Crotone are very poor, not many of them have work, they have their families they need to pay for, and they really dont have any money to spare at all. However, they know that the temple is the house of the Lord and they know that they need to go there, so they pay, until they have absolutely nothing, 0 euros left in their bank account to go to visit the temple. I think we can all learn from these Strong members here in Italy. Even when the Rome temple will be complete. it will take them about 6-8 hours to get to Rome, and for the members in sicily, much more, but, they sacrifice, and when we sacrifice, teh Lord blesses.

Then on Tuesday, me and Anziano Schwing went up to Rome for the Zone leader council and it was fun as always. President Kelly really stressed the importance of finding new investigators, becasue as a mission. It's something we're struggling with. And if you think about it, the more investigators you receive, the more baptisms we'll see. Then, yesterday, we came back to Crotone, it was really bad though, i had the worst migraine and i couldn't concentrate on anything and i was in so much pain.

But, thats okay, we're alive and were excited for the baptism on sunday. Margherita is doing awesome. She is really happy and excited for her baptism, and i'm extreemly excited that Anziano Ginolfi gets to baptize her, it's going to be sweet, and he's stoked too.

love you guys tons,
Anziano Lane

Ciao from Crotone!

This week was a little slow, but, things are still going pretty well.

Margarita is on fire. We taught her the law of chastity and the word
of wisdom on monday and she accepted everything. She drinks a little
bit of coffee, but, she said that there's no problem with her
quitting. If everything goes as planned, she'll be baptized on the
20th of this month.

We also have a guy named Vincenzo, who is a good guy, not all-there in
the head, but, we managed to set a baptismal date with him. He cant
read, so, this is a problem, that he cant read the book of mormon,
however, he said that he'll pray and hopefully he does.

We had to drop a few investigators this past week and right now, these
are the only nonmembers that we're working with.

We're doing a lot of inactive work too. We're making some progress
with some of our members.

another cool thing that happened, was we found out that someone here
Crotone that works at a radio station found our General Conference
publicity that we put up a few months ago, and he did an article on
his blog site about our church. He said some good stuff about it to.
the blogsite is... http://byros.splinder.com/tag/ricordi
its in italian, but, you can go to google translator if you want.

not much else happened this past week, it was really slow, we're
workingon a soccer tournament right now to try to get some new
investigators, it wont actually start for a few weeks and i think it's
going to be really good.

that is all i remember, gotta go,
love you'll


Anziano Landon Lane wrote about the pictures:

just a few of us from last preparation day with salvatore at the beach
and at the port looking back at crotone

Hey guys,

not a whole bunch happened this week. It was a fun though.

We've been doing a lot of work with our inactives and our less actives
and they are doing well. Unfortunately, we have a few members who are
falling away and we're doing all we can to help them. It just hurts me
so much when we go during the week to visit these members, and we feel
the spirit, and then on Sunday, they dont come to church. Its so
annoying! But, its something they need to do, we cant take away their
free agency. On thursday, friday and saturday we did a lot of moving.
It was not too fun, but, now we're all set in the new place. Also on
Saturday, we got our transfer call and we're staying together for
another 6 weeks. I'm excited, it's gunna be awesome, im confident that
we'll baptize and reactivate some more members. Then on Sunday, we had
another meal appointment and we ate like kings like always here in
Italy. Our member gave me some beer, and it was disgusting, i dont
know how people drink that stuff.... btw, it was nonalcoholic, so, i
didnt break the word of wisdom. The members here, although not great
in number, are great at feeding us, and the Calabrian food is money!
On monday, we had our halloween party that me and my comp organized,
and we thought it was pretty fun, we liked it, and there were 10 other
teenage girls that came and liked it, but our old lady members didnt,
they kept complaining. But, its okay, the problem is they didnt play
any of the games that we organized. But overall, it was a sucess, we
had like 15 nonmembers and 10 members show up. It was a lot of fun.

also, a few days ago, during english class, some moron threw a fire
cracker into teh church and exploded right next to me and my
companion. It didn't do any damage, but, it was really loud. The kids
that did it took off quick, so, we couldn't do anything about it.
then, a few days later, on halloween, the spa right next to our church
exploded. what happened it the Mafia came down b/c of some issue that
tehy had with this spa and broke im, put gasoline everywhere, and blew
it up. Apparantly its the 3rd time in 3 years it's happened to that
spa, so, there's a problem there... anyways,

one of the bad things that happened this week was 2 of our
investigators fell away, and dont want to see us anymore, it was that
lady and her son that loved us. Like i've said before, the x-district
president, that fell away from the church is completely against it and
he lies to people and tells tehm that we're corrupt, and it seems like
a lot of our investigators are some how are contacted by him or
someone who is against the church and they lye and say false things.
We've seen this with 2 large families who we came in contact with a
few months ago. We had 2 incredible first lessons with baptismal dates
set and the3 next time we showed up at the lessons, they told us to go
away and never come back, it was really strange, and upsetting, but,
we know that The Lord is all-powerful and that Satan will not win this
battle.

on the other hand, margarita is doing well. she's super prepared and
is reading the book of mormon, and she came to church and she really
knows that the church is true. She feels the spirit so strong too. We
gave her a blessing yesterday b/c her health is a little lacking, but,
she's doing great.

thats basically it. have a great week guys,
love you all,
Anziano Lane


Anziano Landon Lane wrote About the Photos!


the halloween party