Final Blog From Italy

All these deaths are really saddening.  [Two missionaries from our area have unexpectedly passed away this month] I'm so sorry for their families.  It's hard to be happy when others are mourning.

9:23??  Whoa, I wasn't expecting that.  Lots of travel ahead, I guess.  And I have a room!!?  Wow, I wasn't expecting that either!  Ha!  Cool!  I had a dream last night that after appreciating the carpet, I literally flew to my bed and cried happily into my pillow.  Somehow I think it'll be even better in real life... even if I can't fly.

I'm excited too.  I'm so excited.  But... it's hard to leave Italy.  And this perfect school of learning. But I'll talk about that more in a minute.

Whew.  This is weird.

Well, here I am.  The last PDay.  The last time sitting in a nasty, creepy internet point and writing too fast for 90 minutes to a sliver of the people I love.  Yesterday was a great "last full work day".  We taught 2 lessons and found a new investigator, which is pretty awesome for an opening companionship in a city like this.  I'm proud.  And happy.

Yeah, you read that right, I'm happy.  I'm really happy.  But it's a... sad kind of happy.  Hmm.

There are so many things I look forward to in the next week.  Tomorrow I wake up early and head to Milano Centrale.  There I'll take a little train to the Mission Office where we'll get situated, interviewed, and then... I dunno, whatever missionaries do when they finish.  I've never gotten this far.

Then we'll eat and sleep and get on a plane and fly home.  Ha!  Just thinking about that makes me shiver and giggle.  It's weird.

I wrote a poem, and I think that's how I'm going to finish this final blog.  Well, maybe I'll say some closing remarks after the poem, but... anyway, here it is:

Fixer Upper

Oh, man.  I don't know what to say when it gets down to the wire.  This is my second to last email.  Sorry if the lack of missionary-y stuff makes it anticlimactic.  Believe me, it's boring on my end, too.

Last night I could barely sleep.  There's just so much coming.

I feel a lot of love.  I feel the love of God for me, for all of you, and for this whole big wonderful mess we're in.  I feel love from my friends and family, and I feel tons of love for them.  It's great, it's all great.

I'm going to miss Italy so much.  We went up to Città Alta and got a great view from behind the Fortress.  Wow.  Hopefully I get to the opportunity to send some pictures home soon.  Maybe later today.  We wanted to go to a cool island in the middle of a lake, but it's raining.  Uffa.

I'm freezing cold.  I should have brought my new coat that I bought last PDay.  I love it, dark grey peacoat, super skinny and European.  I'll wear it home.  In nine days.

Love Light

Sorry, here's a really short one.  I'm in a terrible position squished super close to the keyboard and I can barely type.  Ugh.

I saw Mattia Modugno on Sunday!  His girlfriend (fiancee!) lives here in Bergamo so he came to visit for the New Year.  He's like the bread around the sandwich of my mission.  He's also my Italian brother and we love each other a lot.  It was so great to see him.  I think I'll see him again today.

It was Anziano Hillyard's birthday yesterday, so we took some cool things (funicolare) up above Città Alta to a super nice restaurant with the greatest view of the valley.  Oh, it was phenomenal, and the plate I ordered was so good.  I'm going to miss that... I'm probably going to miss everything.

Two more emails after this.  I'll fill these two last weeks with light.  I have come to love light and understanding more than anything, especially when it comes to other people.  We fill each other with light through love.  Beautiful, isn't it?  I almost wish I could write a song.

Love,
Anziano Burton

Italian Snow

This week was better than last.  Christmas was nice -- even if it never really felt like Christmas, but I'm glad I got to Skype my family -- and then on Saturday it SNOWED!  One of the only things I wanted to see and hadn't yet was Italian snow.  It was beautiful.  We walked through centro and took the funicolare to Città Alta.  I was in heaven: huge, slow snowflakes falling among the ancient buildings and brave evergreens, while adults dared to finally smile and children shrieked and danced in the streets.  I'll admit I did a bit of skipping and giggling as well.  Okay, a lot, actually.  It was a dream come true, okay?

Thanks for your faith in and prayers for the work here.  When I saw Anziano Horrocks in Milano during transfers, he told me to find a man that he found a year ago while serving in this same branch.  We did find him in the Area Book and were able to meet him yesterday.  He's a worried young father with great morals and lots of respect.  I'm excited to help him find a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

A Truly Magical Moment

Buon Natale!

I got an onslaught of other envelopes from a bunch of people out of the blue, so I'll be busy responding to all of you kind folk over the next few weeks.  Thanks for the Christmas love and well wishes!  They are returned wholeheartedly, e per lo più in italiano.

We caroled several times this week.  I might pop up on YouTube somewhere: I stood up on a little stone column in centro and sang O Holy Night at the top of my lungs.  Passerbys took videos and the whole piazza got silent to listen.  A truly magical moment for me.

But now we're all sick, ha!  All four of us in the apartment have caught a little cold.  We finally taught our first lesson as a companionship this week, and I think the work will pick up a bit after the holidays.  That's a nice thought.  For now we're trying to rest and get our voices back so that we can talk to our families tomorrow.

Sing Up in Città Alta

I had tons of emails today and I'm technically out of time already.  But I'll write as fast as I can and answer some of these questions.

First of all, thanks to everyone for the kind words based on last week's email.  I got lots of compliments, encouragement, and love.  I appreciate it more than you all realize, so thank you.

Here are my mom's words:  So, tell all! The good, the better, and the best. Living quarters, companion in three adjectives, ward level, dinner menu, favorite line to say to strangers, areas you will be most effective here, just pour on the details.

Good:
Going to Milano for transfers was super fun.  I got to see Anziano Kessler!  I freaked out as I walked up to him.  He saw my smile and laughed, "Okay, just don't start crying!"  And we hugged like father and son.  He's headed to Ancona!  I hope he says Hi to Paolo for me.

Better:
This city is gorgeous, especially Città Alta, which is in MY area!  Yeah, of the 12 ways that Bergamo is divided, I happened to get the most gorgeous part of the city.  It's old and... just super cool.  Look it up.

Best:
The guys I live with here are amazing!  Everyone's so different, so fun, and I think we're all gonna get along really well here.  So that's nice.

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

Here's the last email I'll be sending from Reggio Emilia.  On Saturday we got transfer calls, and I was surprised to learn that our companionship is being closed.  Both Anziano Smith and I are going to different cities while Anziani Stoll and Vaclaw will take over all of our work and serve with only the sisters here in Reggio.

I'm going to be really honest in this email, so those of your with weak emotional constitutions may want to click over to YouTube and watch cute cat videos instead.

I can't believe this is happening.  My first emotions were all just sad.  A few times I've felt angry, but only at myself.  If we had found more, taught more, and baptized more, would the companionship have stayed open?  I don't know.

I've made dear, dear friends over the last six months here in Reggio.  And I only have six weeks left.  I thought surely that I would stay here to finish the mission.  Instead, I'm being flung from Roberto, Marco, Godfrey, Festus, Emanuele, Sebastian, Vescovo, the English class students... Sorella Quinton... Anziano Stoll......

And all right before Christmastime.

There's So Much to Love

Thanksgiving went fine over here in Italy.  They don't even really know what it is, so we tossed stuff about gratitude into lots of lessons and English Class.  That was a lot of fun, getting our students to think about and express in another language what they are grateful for.  Even in difficult circumstances, there's so much to love.

Love has been more and more important to me.  I think I really learned about love in November of 2014.  I'll be grateful forever to Heavenly Father for the lovable people He put in my path.  Those feelings were missing.

Now it's suddenly December, and you can tell in our apartment.  We're singing Christmas songs like nobody's business.  Anziano Vaclaw, the new guy in the apartment, is a really good singer and an excellent harmonizer.  He and I are like songbirds, singing about sleighbells and winter wonderlands as one of us hangs up laundry and the other makes a sandwich, ha!

Look Out

I've been writing lots of songs lately and thinking about words.  It's amazing how we can string together a bunch of lines and curves and communicate ideas beyond images: we can share emotion, questions, answers, and who knows what else?  Music is eternal.

My gut hurts.  I think it's stress.  I'm trying to zen and let things go and just keep going.  F'naaa.  It's hard.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for life back home, but the last thing I ever want to do is leave Italy. Conflict.  I guess there has to be opposition in all things.

Not much to say this week.  Thanksgiving is coming up.  I'll just write a list of what I'm thankful for.

I'm most thankful for God, and that He talks to me.
I'm thankful that I'm learning how to hear Him better.
I'm thankful for all the things I've learned out here.
I'm thankful for family and that I know what it means now.
I'm thankful for friends, and that they mean everything to me.
I'm thankful for love, because it's the reason for every good thing.
I'm thankful for music.
I'm thankful for stories.
I'm thankful for moments where life feels like a movie.
I'm thankful for sacrifice, and what it teaches me.
I'm thankful for all the missionaries who have reached out and loved me.
I'm thankful that I got to help other missionaries.
I'm thankful for the families that made me feel at home.
I'm thankful for understanding and wisdom.
I'm thankful for light.
I'm thankful for the internet.

Sento Qualcosa!

I heard that President Eyring went to the Vatican.  That's so great.  The weird thing about Italy is that there is not much communication from region to region.  There's really no such thing as an "Italian", just Veneti and Napoletani and Siciliani and Romani.  The members of the church here are an amazing example of strong family life.  

Sorry for not having emailed yesterday, but we went up to Verona for the conference.  We ended up only having about 10 minutes to practice as the choir, but they were all talented singers and the performance went fine.  The conference was fantastic, all about increasing every area of performance by just 1%.  It looks like nothing at first, but if we continue with 1% increases in every field, the eventual improvement is dramatic.  Elder and Sister Fingerle came from Germany for the presentation.  They were wonderful.

After the conference, there in Verona, I saw and heard from a few families I used to visit often, just about a year ago.  They remembered me by name and were so happy to see me.  I nearly burst.  I love Verona and its wonderful people.

There's a family here in Reggio I'm falling in love with, too.  They're from Venezuela.  The uncle, Elviro, is a member since two years ago.  The father of the family and his 9 and 7 year old children are not yet members.  We've been working with them as a family and I've been experiencing some of the best moments of the mission.  I loooove family, and I love children.  I especially love when little girls say a prayer, look up at their father, point to their chest, and say, "Sento qualcosa!"  I feel something.

It's true.  It's so true, and she knows it.  She felt it.  So can I.  I cried on the bike ride home.

Normal

I can't stand the wind.  It's funny you'd write about it, Mom.  The other week it was super windy here in Reggio and I remembered how windy it gets back in Pasco.  Yuck.  They say it'll snow here during the winter.  I sure hope so -- I haven't seen la neve in Italy.  I had a dream it snowed.  My dreams are getting more and more realistic lately.  I wonder if that's good or bad.  It's sure boring.

It's really weird to think I'll be bilingual when I come home.  Er, I already am bilingual, I guess.  It's cute to read through my first journals.  All I ever talk about is how badly I want to understand and speak Italian.  Now, as long as the conversation stays in regular territory, I can communicate as easily as I do in English.  My dreams frequently feature Italian.  It's all the things I wanted in the first months, and now it's all so... normal.

There Ya Go

The autumn days are cold and wet
In Reggio nell'Emilia.
The other elders here regret
The weather unfamiliar.
But I, from rainy Washington,
Pretend to be at home,
Even though my farming town
Is drier than a bone.

I just made that up right now.  Guess I've still got it, ha!  Reminds me most of English Class.  We've gotten to the point that people come just to hang out with us Americans, play games while they conversate in English, and hear the nice, feel-good spiritual thoughts we offer at the end of every lesson.  We've done classes on poetry and autumn lately, so there ya go.

I can't think of anything interesting that happened this week.  Oh, except TRANSFERS.  Heheh. Anziano Vaclaw is awesome.  He fits in super well and has a little bit of each of our personalities. Plus he's a really good singer, so we're harmonizing all over the apartment.  It's great.

Another 6 Weeks

(deep breath)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR GENTRY AND JEEEEEEEED!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOOOOUU!

I'd sing it in Italian, but I don't think you'd understand.  Besides, the origins of the word auguri are super creepy.

Anyway, happy birthday, little g and Big J!  It's weird to have both of your birthdays in the same week, but also super fun.  I can't remember when either of you were born, but I do remember how much I loved you both as babies.  Why, I still love you both as much as I love babies!

Gentry's 16 as of yesterday (I think you'll get my letter on Halloween, g.  Sorry it's late!) and Jed's turning 14 on November 2 (that's the last day of my 14th Transfer, so for one day we'll both for 14!).  I can't believe how old my gorgeous little siblings are getting, and that they're just gonna keep on growing until Jed's on a mission in France and Gentry's taking her kids to soccer.  Ha!  I'll probably be recording a new song...in Mom's basement.

Be Where You Are

We had a fine week.  The weather has been mostly cold, with one grueling exception.  Yesterday was too hot for comfort in comparison to the autumn chill settling over northern Italy.  Hopefully that doesn't happen again.  It's delightful today, even if my slow-moving fingers don't agree.

Parma, the city just 10 minutes away and that makes up part of our area, was flooded last week.  Lots of missionaries went to help clean up the mud that had devastated lots of the buildings and streets.  Thanks for previous engagements we didn't get to go, but I'm glad that there are so many missionaries and members available and willing to jump at the chance to serve.

Eterno is my Favorite Word

Well, I can't say I'm a huge fan of football... but I am a huge fan of light.  I'm basing almost everything I do and think about on the symbols I realize God has presented us in Light and Seeds.  I'm guessing Water and Earth are going to because important to me as well, but maybe that'll take a trip to Japan or something.

For now, I'm grateful for the light I have already received from God, especially that bit that taught me "there is as much to learn as the eternities will allow".  And that's a beautiful concept to me, because I have come to believe that progress IS happiness.

We had lots of rain this week.  So much that something was flooded in Parma and thousands of phones in this section of Italy stopped working for two days.  It's amazing how much society has centered itself around our feeble technology.  It seemed like half of life essentially shut down.  And though it was a little nervewracking not to be able to contact the District or our investigators for two days, there was something very... relaxing about not having instead communication access.  I can't imagine how people lived in the 1800s... or even in the 1980s!

Better Leads to Best

Yes, Mom, GenCon was wonderful!  We had several technical difficulties since the missionaries were suddenly in charge of everything, but we got it worked out and ended up listening to many beautiful talks.  I was thrilled with the foreign language speakers, and there's no way I could pick a favorite (although off the top of my head I'd say it was Elder Christofferson's on Justice and Mercy. watch it Amazing!)  

Unfortunately we don't get to watch the last session on Sunday Afternoon because of the time difference and the missionary schedule.  I've heard it was good, though.  I love Conference.  Weird to think that this was my last one in Italy.  I've already done four of these?  Unbelievable.  And the next time I'm inspired by modern prophets, it'll be in the comfort of a home.  And I'll get to watch the whole thing.  Weird to think about.

How goes the work, you ask?  Well, what can I say?  It goes.  Things are happening.  Good things are happening.  The District is having fun and working together.  We're enjoying the Fall weather rolling it and pulling on our sweaters and thicker socks.  I love that the bugs go away and the clouds keep it cool.  Goodness, I love Autumn.  Weird to think that last time this weather came around I was in Verona.  I love Verona.

Moving Forward

A fun thing: I saw your car this week!  It drove down the street I live on.  Exact same Volkswagon Passat, even down to the color.  It was really weird, because you almost NEVER see cars with a trunk here in Italy. My gut flipped.

I'm so excited for GenCon this week!  I've been pumping myself up for months... pretty much since last April.  I love everything about October, it's my favorite month for lots of reasons.  Especially because it starts with GenCon!  And it ends with my favorite Holiday!  And somewhere in there is the birthday of a very special someone who I love so very very much!

Things are going well here in Reggio Emilia.  A lot of our investigators are really starting to love and trust us.  I'm convinced that there's something about colder weather than pulls people closer together.  Maybe that's why I love the winter so much, because I'm way more interested in the warmth of a person's heart than that of the sun.  Besides, I hate being sweaty.

Bingo.

Oye, what to write this week.  Things just blur together.  I'm sure I had some cool experiences.

We casa'd into a group of 4 college age kids who actually listened to our spiel on the Restoration and accepted a return appointment to receive copies of the Book to read for themselves.  That was pretty great.

English class was fun, as usual.  We had everyone write letters to each other while I played nice songs on the piano.  They actually loved getting to practice reading and writing.  I love letters.

Anziano Espinosa and I did a scambio this last week.  An appointment of ours was cancelled, so we suddenly decided to hop on a tiny train that passes through the itty-bitty towns surrounding Reggio Emilia and get off when we felt like it.

We landed in a super tiny city and started walking around.  A young boy I guessed was Albanian was standing on the sidewalk using his phone.  We started talking to him and he didn't seem very interested. Then I started speaking the little bits of Albanian that I knew from Anziano Hallulli, and he seemed to like that.

We ended up teaching him about the Plan of Salvation after asking, "If you could ask one question to God, what would it be?"  His response: "What comes after this life."  Bingo.  We taught him.

We're going to bring him an Albanian Book of Mormon soon so that his mother can read along.  He was 14 years old.  Makes me think of Jed.  I love families.

Doing Good

You may or may not notice that I'm writing this rather late.  We went to the mountains today to check out a castle.  It was a great adventure, but also a long one that included missing trains and surprising separations.  All is well, and I'll certainly sleep well tonight.

I'm glad my family got my most recent letters.  My mom asked me how I am -- just like that, "How are you?"  The simplicity makes me think she's worried, but maybe I'm reading too deeply into things.

I'm doing... good.  Not well, but good.  I mean, I'm actually doing good things.  Not all the time, and not as good of things as I probably could be doing, but I do notice day by day how much good I am able to do for others.  It's amazing and humbling and beautiful.  I feel closer to God.

I love Mormon messages.  Anziano Espinosa has downloaded tons of them and we watch them in the apartment frequently.  Some of the more recent ones are terrific!  Especially "Hope of God's Light." video

Prepared People

This week was nice.  It got hot for a few days, but rain swept in last night and cooled my world down.  I'm grateful for that.  I'm grateful for so many things.

An investigator I really love -- the same one who gave me the typewriter -- came to church for the first time this last week.  I was thrilled to see him, and he was touched by several testimonies borne.

There is a great treasure of knowledge to find in the Book of Mormon.  One can read that book a hundred times and get new insights into the mind and heart of our Heavenly Father with each experience.  And what an experience it is!  I love the book and all I'm learning from it.  I encourage those of you who want a stronger relationship with God to study it and pray.