Hey Famiglia!
So it turns out that I won’t be with Anziano Burton anymore. He’s going to Cagliari in Sardegna! I’ll be dropping him off at 7:30 tonight at Napoli Centrale and he’ll be going up to Rome, then flying off to Sardegna. He’s been a good companion and it’s sad to see him go. My new companion will be Anziano Hoover! Last transfer he was in Pozzuoli so it’s not a very far move for him to come up to Caserta! I’ve already met him a few times because of Zone Conference and district meetings, and in fact went on a companion exchange with him last week, so I already know him quite well! He’s a really awesome guy and is very good at Italian. He’s been out about a year and six months already, so will have lots of good stuff for me. I’ll be meeting him at Napoli tonight as I drop off Anziano Burton.
Anyways, this week has been a ton of fun. We’ve been visiting a lot of people and saying goodbye to all of the investigators and members that Burton knows. He’s been in Caserta for almost 6 months now. We’ve been super busy going around to see all of the friends Burton has made. Anziano Faggioli and Morgan will be staying companions in the same house as us.
This week I got to see the Capua Amphitheater with some investigators, and also Casertavecchia with a new convert Burton had grown pretty close to. They were both so cool!! The Capua Amphitheater is apparently the second largest in Italy, only behind the Rome Colloseum itself. I took lots of good pictures of it. It was huge. Casertavecchia is up in the rolling hills just northeast of Caserta, and there are amazing views of basically our whole proselyting area. Our area is too big. We could spend a whole day traveling just to get to the edge of our boundaries (by train of course). Our boundaries don’t go very far south because of Napoli, but they go way far north. Regardless, I’ll try and upload those pictures. It may be hard because I’m using some sketchy public internet point and I haven’t tried connecting my camera to it yet.
Note: In the next three paragraphs, the names of the investigators have been changed.
Anyways, the work is going great. We had two of our investigators that we’ve been working with for quite a while now finally come to church. They’re the same ones that we saw Capua with. Their names are Sarah and Abraham. Sarah has basically successfully quit smoking (just a puff here and there) and Abraham will have quit at the end of this month, according to the program we made for him. I think Sarah is really close to accepting baptism, but the hindrance is Abraham because he isn’t quite so sure of the Church himself yet, and they both want to go to the same church together. We’ll see how it goes. Abraham is the one we play calcietto [soccer] with every Wednesday. He played on a semi-pro team a while back and so is way good. He’s actually bought the four of us custom jerseys to play with, with our names and numbers on them and everything. He gets crazy discounts at sports stores because of his professional soccer hook-ups. It’s awesome.
One more new investigator that’s been making quite a bit of progress is Matthew. He was a referral from the recent convert that took us up to Casertavecchia. He’s pretty sincere in lessons but just needs to ask and find out for himself now. But he is honestly seeking and reading the Book of Mormon.
We went to eat dinner at the house of one of our other investigators this week. His name is Luke. The food was SO GOOD! They just pour out the food. They brought out the first course (appetizer) which was like potatoes with fried zucchini, then the second course which was some fried eggplant and sausages. Then they brought out the mozzarella di Bufala and Fior di latte cheese with breads, and while we ate those they started grilling steaks for us with carrots and other vegetables. After all that they brought out gelato. It was incredible. I gained 7 pounds from that one meal. I loved it. Italian meals are the best. You just sit there and eat for hours and hours.
Well, that’s about it for this week! I’ll be hanging out here in Caserta for the next couple of weeks, and couldn’t be more happy about it! Napoli zone is the best. I won’t be able to get any letters until Zone Conference, which is on the 20th of September. So if you’re planning on sending anything do it in the next day or two before it’s too late. I hope everything is going well!
Ciao!
Anziano Jones
These first several pictures were taken in Capua.
Craig with his companion, Anziano Burton, at the Capua Amphitheater.
Craig said: “This is a pretty cool tomb. The beds weren’t very comfy.”
These two pictures are of models which demonstrate the kinds of events that took place in the coloseum in ancient times.
Craig said: “Anziano Burton strolled into the colloseum with the investigator.”
Craig said: “Here’s me and Busdicker! He got transfered up to Rome 5 because he has asthma and the air in Napoli is pretty horrible. He’s a good buddy though! I’ll miss seeing him on Mondays for DDM.”
Craig said: “Pictures from Casertavecchia. Everything in the photo on the ground is basically our proselyting area. The view was awesome.”
Anziano Burton walking into a church with a recent convert.
A baptismal font.
A view of Caserta.
Craig called this one a “selfy.”
Craig and Anziano Burton with the view of Caserta behind them.
Craig said: “We passed under the aqueducts that have been standing for hundreds of years that carried water to La Reggia and into Caserta. I snapped a pic from out of the car’s window.” [Craig doesn’t have access to a car, so this car must belong to the convert they were with that day.]
Elder Craig Jones 
If I didn’t know any better, I never would have guessed it was my son who wrote that paragraph about the Italian meal that he loved so much. He hates vegetables, and yet he mentioned them FIVE times in that one paragraph, including eggplant, and then said how good it all was, and that he gained 7 pounds from that one meal. I guess teenage boys and their taste buds do eventually grow up. I hope he still likes vegies when he gets home!