Until Next Time Italy!

Ciao everybody! Sadly Today is my last day in Italy! :(. Italy has been such a amazing experience these past 2 1/2 months. I have learned and grown so much while I was here.  Out of everything that I will miss, I will miss the Bologna English Congregation and the ministry the most! They are all so loving and kind and have shown us so much hospitality while we were here. They encouraged me so much! I have made so many good friends here, I will miss them all dearly. And The ministry has been so amazing! Seeing all of the studies progress so fast spiritually and getting to know them as my good friends has really renewed my zeal for the ministry, and has strengthen my faith.  I have made so many great memories and lifetime friends here in Italy, it's so sad to leave them.  So this is a shout out to the Bologna English Congregation saying "Thank you all so much for everything you have done for us! May Jehovah continue to bless you all for the fine work you are all doing! I love you guys!"

Now that this part of my Journey is coming to a close, now a new chapter is about to begin......

ISRAEL!!!!!!!!! 

When I am in Israel I'll try my best to keep posting. I may not be able to post "certain things" because there are "certain things" that are banned in Israel. So with that in mind, this might be my last post or if anything I might post about all the other cool things in Israel. We will see. 

If this is my last post I just want to say, Thank you all for following my blog these past few months! Really appreciate it! I was very happy to share all my wonderful experiences with you all. So take care and keep praising Jehovah no matter where you are! Ciao for now everyone! (This post would've been longer but I wrote this while waiting at the airport and now I gotta go! CIAO!!!!)

Oh and 1 last shout out to my boyz Zech and Trevor!!!! I love you guys!!!! I will see you guys soon! So this is not good bye but just for now! So take care and Love you bros!!!!!

I Love You Bologna English Congregation!!!!!!

Preach Da Word!

 Ciao everybody! Sorry small kine late again with my posts, this week has been so busy, especially in the field ministry.  All the boys have been starting studies left and right and just pounding the ministry choke! We are all pretty tired everyday but a good kine tired. One new thing that we have been trying to start up over here these past weeks is the University Witnessing. Because everyone in the congregation is so busy with studies, they don't really have the time to do University Witnessing, so it hasn't really been touched yet.  We already made some signs and our Service Overseer is going to ask permission from the University for us to set up a table over there. Pretty excited about it! I'll let you know how the progress is going.  Overall the ministry has been so awesome these past weeks! And yet there is still so much work to be done here! The words at Matthew 9:37 are so true where it says "Yes, the harvest is great, but the workers are few". Thats about it for this post everybody, this is a short and sweet post. But don't worry I'm going to make it up with a bunch of pictures of our ministry. Enjoy! :)

Upper Refugee Camp 

Lower Refugee Camp

Starting Up University Witnessing

Early Morning Witnessing

Studying with my friend Collins

Getting a tan while waiting for our study

Esselunga (Another place we do our studies)

Random Jumping Picture! CHEEHOO!!!

This Is Too Good To Be True!!!!! :D

Have you ever heard the saying "This is too good to be true!". Well if you have or even haven't heard it before, thats what was going on inside my head this past Wednesday night at the meeting! Before I start my story though, let me give you some info on what was happening before.  From the beginning of this trip, 1 of my goals was to start a bible study here. Jehovah sure answered that prayer because I started many studies! Only problem was that half of the people I started studies with, are not that interested or should I say none of them REALLY want to learn and study about the bible. I say this because Trying to get a hold of them and to meet up with them was always difficult because they always seemed to have an excuse or reason to not study.  So for the last couple of weeks I prayed to Jehovah day and night, to not only start a bible study but to start a study with someone who was truly interested and wanted to learn more about him.  Wednesday night he did just that! Now here's the story....

This past Wednesday night at our Theocratic Ministry School and Service meeting, Luke and I just so happened to be attendants that night. We noticed right after the meeting started that a short Arabian man came in and looked kind of lost. So as attendants, me and Luke helped him out. For the 1st half of the meeting Luke sat down with him and helped him to follow along for the Congregation Book study and Bible Highlights. After I did my bible reading, then I sat down with him and helped him follow along for the next talk. I told him if he had any questions to just ask away and I would try to help him out to the best of my ability.  5 minutes later he tapped me on my shoulder and asked me to go and talk to him in the lobby.  Right when we got into the lobby, he told me these exact words.... "I want to learn more about the Bible! Will you please study with me?" and he handed me a Italian study slip with all his information on top and everything. In my head I was like "Is this really happening?!?!" and then I looked up to the sky and said "THANK YOU JEHOVAH!!!!!!" (In my head of course). But for real you had no idea how stoked I was at that moment! and it even gets better! So I told him "SHOOTS! We go study!". So after getting all his information and leaving him a Bible and Bible Teach book and we arranged to study the next day at 3 PM at his house. For the rest of the meeting I was all smiles! :)))))) CHEEHOO!!!!

Now the next day, Luke and I went to this mans house (his name is Faisal btw). Now we get into Faisals's house and sit down in his kitchen to begin studying with him. But before we start he said he has something to tell us.  He tells us that he is from Pakistan and that he used to be Muslim but now he wants to be a Christian and learn more about the bible. The thing is that their is a HUGE conflict between Christians and Muslims especially in Pakistan. I just learned that in that country and a few others that if you are a Christian, then anyone in that country can kill you just for being a Christian! CRAZY! Anyways His whole family back home is Muslim and so are his 4 roommates that he is living with, so he doesn't want any of them to find out that he is studying the Bible with us. He told us that when his family found out that his brother became a Christian, they beat him! So it is very dangerous for him to be studying he said. Right after he told us that, 1 of his roommates just so happens to come home! So me and Luke both quickly grab our Bibles off the table so he wouldn't see. We talked story with his roommate for a little bit and then left his house to continue our study else where. We ended up continuing our study at a Cafe by his house. PHEW! Now that was close!

Now when we were studying together at the Cafe, I noticed that his english wasn't too good, it wasn't bad but it was ok. So we asked him if he would like to study in his mother tongue, which was Urdu, (Pakistan language) so that he could fully benefit and take in everything that he was about to learn. But no, he insisted he wanted to learn more about the Bible by english. So we agreed we would study with each other every Sunday morning at 9 at the Kingdom Hall before the meeting because that was the best time for him. After the study and everything, I can really tell that this man is really interested not only because he came to the meeting but because he's risking his life and everything he has to learn more about Jehovah God! I give him so much props for his faith and courage that he has! One of the things that Faisal told me which I will never forget, was when he told me that when he first came into the Kingdom hall, he noticed how happy and kind everyone was and after seeing that, he really wanted to be a part of the Congregation!. Brah! You guys have no idea how happy and how big of a smile I made when he said that! :D

Now that I finally found someone who is truly interested in learning more about the bible, I just hope I can do my part and be a good teacher for him so that I can help him strengthen his own personal relationship and love for Jehovah and to be a part of the Congregation as a worshipper of Jehovah. But I thank Jehovah so much for blessing me with Faisal! Jehovah literally gave me a bible study right into my hands! I barely did anything! So thank you so much again Jehovah for listening to my prayers and answering them and for really blessing me in my ministry!

Thats about it everybody! I will let you all know how Faisal progresses during the next few weeks. The only junk part about all of this is that I am leaving for Israel in 2 weeks! So I don't have that much time to spend with him but I am going to hand him over to another brother to continue to study with him when I leave. But I hope all of you enjoyed my experience that I had! This 1 was so good, I just had to share it with all of you! Before I go, I just want to Thank all of you readers for following my blog! I really appreciate it because I love sharing my experiences with all you. So please feel free to comment and ask questions and I will be happy to answer them. So thank you again guys! :)

Cruise Control

Adventures! Yea! 

Hello everybody! How have you all been? I know it's been awhile since my last post and I apologize for that. This past week, honestly, has been just a cruise week. So I'm gonna try my best and make this post as exciting as it can be for all you readers! (Don't expect much).  This past weekend Javan, Zech and Trevor went to Napoli (Southern Part of Italy) with some Italian brothers.  Me and Luke would of gone but there was no room :(. But it's ok! We made the most out of it! So while the boys were having a blast in Napoli (You can look at there blogs and see all the awesome adventures they had without us) me and Luke had a whole bunch of our own little adventures right here in Bologna haha! So here we go!

Venice

The Friday the boys left, me and Luke joined up with the new Hawaiians that are now here in Italy helping out the Bologna English Congregation! They are Carlos and Lisa Ventura and Curtis and Denise Laa. Anywho that day we caught the train too Venice! How was Venice you ask? Venice was beautiful don't get me wrong but To tell you the truth, Venice was very disappointing haha. After all the water, canals, gondolas and glass stuff, there is nothing much. But thats just my opinion, you can come see it for yourself and say what you like. But Even though Venice was not the greatest, I still had a great time with the other Hawaiians.

The best part about Venice.... CHOKE GELATO!!!

The next day me and Luke got sick haha. How come? Well what happened was the night before when we got back from Venice, me and Luke decided to have milk and cookies. Now we thought the Milk was ok, at least, because it smelt alright. But when we tasted it, it didn't taste bad but at the same time it didn't taste good. So what we did was we covered up the not so good taste with Nesquik hahaha not the smartest idea. So Saturday me and Luke were forced to stay home for reasons I will not say haha.  That evening but we felt better and went to the where the new Hawaiians are living to have dinner with them and some other brothers and sisters. Only problem is we did not know where they lived. Did that stop us? No. But What happened after that? We ended up getting lost for like a hour somewhere in Bologna haha (I tend to get lost here alot). Thankfully Carlos helped us and we made it there alive haha. I'm so glad we made it because all Carlos them ended up making Hawaiian food! Like Poke, Pansit, and Adobo! Felt right at home :).

Cruisin @ MOKES House

Now Sunday! We had our meeting and at meeting Luke had microphone handling and I had Watchtower reading. So we were both pretty busy that meeting. That night we went to Andrea (The Moke) Burgo's house for dinner. At the Mokes house another new Hawaiian is there and he is Uncle Tom Arakawa! He served here in Bologna English Congregation last year with Javan and Zech, so he's technically not new. That night we ended up watching the European basketball Championship and then NBA basketball (They only show NBA games once a week here, so sad) and played an awesome board game called Scottland's Yard. Woot woot! haha. Overall It was a really fun night with them 2.

Board Games FTW!

So yes everyone that was my fun filled weekend with Luke! I hope all of you enjoyed reading about all the small adventures we had. I know your use to me posting more exciting and fun things but this was it for this week, so take it or leave haha. I promise more exciting posts sometime in the near future.  So until the next post, take care, serve Jah and see ya everybody! CIAOOOOO!!!

Meet Uncle Tom!

Are You Ready For Some FOOTBALL?!?!?!

EH! EH! DIE BOLOGNA! DIE BOLOGNA! DIE BOLOGNA! EH! EH! This was just 1 of the many chants which were being roared throughout the football stadium in Bologna today (Just to let you know, in Italian DIE means "Come on!" so don't worry they weren't literally telling the Bologna Football team to die, that would be just awkward) so in translation they were yelling GO BOLOGNA! GO BOLOGNA! GO BOLOGNA! Some of the other chants I can't repeat because they are bad haha.

Sitting in the Die Hard Fans section! CHEEHOO!

Anywho this post is about FOOTBALL! Not American football but football as in soccer. Today I got to go to my first ever Italian football match with my good friends Paolo and Andrea (AKAThe Moke and also the biggest Bologna Football Fan out there! haha). Todays match was a good 1! It was Bologna VS. Napoli. I'll be your sportscaster now and explain why it was a good game, HERE WE GO! 1st off Napoli has a good team this year, they are 3rd in the Italian league while Bologna is 9th (the league is out of 20 teams) so as you can imagine this is a big game for Bologna. On top of that this was the last game for the Team Captain of Bologna because he got a good deal from a Canadian team, so he is leaving. The fans are very sad about this but at the same time happy for him, some fans were even crying next to me! haha Football is huge here in Italy. This is also the last game here in Bologna for this year because it's the end of the season. So the fans wanna go out with a BANG! Btw All this information was provided by Andrea and Paolo hahahaha!

Singing

Cheering!

But yea This football match was so much fun! We were singing Italian football chants, cheering our heads off and overall having a blast!  I got to enjoy a very good match with my 2 friends. It was even especially good because we won! haha! 2 to 0! Andrea was soooo happy! haha. After the game we waited on the street by the players gate so we can see the Bologna football team leave, pretty sweet! Now I am officially a Bologna football fan! CHEEEEEHOOOOO!!!! Anyways Thats it for this blog, the next 1 I am not  too sure what I'm gonna write about, so if you have any suggestions just let me know by commenting or emailing me. I would like to get your opinion. But I just want to say Thankyou all for following me on my adventures! I appreciate it! I'll try my best to keep posting often. Today I posted 2 blogs, don't expect that often because I only did so because I had choke time haha. But yea thanks! Take care now. Ciao Grazie! :)

We Won! Thats Wassup!

Backpacking At It's Finest

Backpacking- Traveling with just your backpack and whatever can fit in it.  Well ladies and gents, thats exactly what we (Luke, Javen & Me) did this past week in London and Ireland! My backpack was my home for the past week! haha And what a adventure it was!

Saying good bye for now to our friends Effie and Charles

First we started off in London. In London we got to see Big Ben, The Tower Bridge, The British Museum and even rented bikes around the city for just a pound! Oh and we also lost Luke on the 1st day! hahaha (Don't worry but we found him a couple of hours later) but even though that happened we still had choke fun! During our visit we stayed with a local brother named Charles. Awesome guy! Super funny too! And also we got to meet Effie, a local sister in London. We had dinner with the both of them at a really good Japanese restaurant. We had a great time with them. And on top of that the food was soooooo ONO! It reminded me of home in Hawaii  (Oh how I miss the food back in Hawaii).

Master B Boy himself.... Alan!

London Bridge! YEA!

Anywho The next place we went was to Dublin, Ireland! We stood in a hostel the 1st 2 nights and got to explore the city of Dublin. We got to go and see a lot of the sites in Dublin like the Guinness factory, Temple bar and even the oldest bar in Ireland which was made in 1198! 1 night we met up with a brother named Alan who picked us up and took us to his meeting, really great guy and an awesome break dancer! haha.  It just so happened that it was his C.O. visit this week, so we got to hear the C.O.'s talk! and on top of that they showed a special video that the organization had made not too long ago which talked about the history of Jehovah's Witnesses in Ireland and how it all started! That was amazing! Afterwards Alan took us out with a group of brothers and sisters which was really fun.

Da Sligo Crew!

Towards the end of our trip we went to the country side of Ireland in a area called Sligo (It's on the west side of Ireland). Beautiful place! Cruised with a bunch of really cool brothers and sisters from Sligo and even 2 brothers visiting from El Salvador all day! They showed us Conney Island, The town of Sligo and to top it all off have a camp fire in the middle of the woods underneath a big fat full moon. Pretty sweet! On a random note,  these brothers and sisters love to surf too! CHEEHEE! Really great group of friends.

SUCCESS!

Overall this trip was AMAZING!  but even though we got to see so many amazing places and do so many amazing things, thats not what made this trip so amazing. The really amazing part was all the new friendships I had made! Before this we didn't know a single person on this trip, nada! But with the help of Jehovah through some of our friends back at home, we got to meet up with these wonderful brothers and sisters and form great and lasting friendships! They all showed us so much love and hospitality to us while we were there, From showing us around there area, to taking us out and even giving us places to stay! We went from being complete strangers, to close friends in a matter of a few days, for others a matter of hours! I am so grateful to be part of this united worldwide brotherhood that our loving God Jehovah has provided! Really, if it wasn't for Jehovah our trip would not have been this great and successful. So to conclude I just want to say Thank you all again, our friends in London and Ireland, for the wonderful time to you have showed us this past week! I will never forget your great love and hospitality you have shown us and I will always remember the great times we had! Keep in touch and take care! See you later! and Thankyou again once more! 

Back Pack Buddies!

SUPAH Week!

Ok everybody this week has been so SUPAH crazy and busy, I apologize in advance if it seems like I'm writing a novel haha. It's just that everyday has been jam packed with events, which honestly I can barely even remember them all. So let me recap for all of you of this SUPAH week.....

Welcome to Urbino!

This is how we roll

The weekend before we took a trip to Pesaro and Urbino to meet with some of our Italian friends! We had lunch at there house and Their food was sooooo good! Ate so much! actually too much haha. Afterwards we went to a small town named Urbino, which has a GIANT castle! Pretty mean! Then afterwards we went back to there place and had a pretty good size gathering at there house for dinner. It was so much fun because the only way I could communicate with them and our other italian friends was through my google translator because they know very little english and I know very little italian, put the 2 together and you have a very confusing conversation haha nah we could still have a conversation, it just took alot more gestures, explaing and typing haha. Then afterwards they were kind enough to let us stay for the night and in the morning even cook breakfast! They showed us so much hospitality it was amazing! We appreciated them so much.

Yeeeeeaaaaaa

Bro. Hodson

Next this week was Circuit Overseer Visit! Our Circuit Overseer is Brother Julian Hodson and his wife is Vivian Hodson.  He has been in the circuit work since 1998.  Really cool guy and an awesome speaker. His favorite word to say is SUPAH! hahaha (thus adding to the title of this post). But anywho This week we had a weird meeting schedule. We had our Theocratic Ministry School, Service meeting and C.O. Service talk on Tuesday night. Wednesday afternoon at 3, we had our Pioneer meeting.  Friday night we had our Public talk, Congregation Book Study and C.O. Service talk. This is not even including all of the meetings for field service we had everyday.  Now your probably wondering why we didn't have our watchtower study and 1 more C.O. service talk, well I'll tell you why..... in a lil bit haha it's a surprise. But anywho On top of this SUPAH schedule, we had the privilege of serving him and his wife lunch in our house! We had salmon, shoyu chicken, white rice, salad, spinach and chocolate covered macadamia nuts. SUPAH Great lunch haha.

Feeding the C.O. 

Getting PUMPED!

During all of this Circuit Overseer activity tho, we were also working out everyday! Thanks to our personal trainer Luke Hernandez.  My body is SUPAH sore every single day! haha.  But it's so worth it. He knows his stuff. and We are determined to get in shape! haha.  So to stay healthy we are working out and also watching our diet, meaning grocery shopping together, getting healthy yet cheap food for the whole family.  Thanks to Zech and his SUPAH cooking skills, we barely have to cook haha.

Stretchin

Epic grocery shopping

On Saturday night, we had a farewell party as a congregation for Brother and Sister Hodson at the Cornetti's residents.  SUPAH great association and SUPAH food! At 1 point we had Ricardo and James (my little Italian brothers) interview them both asking them some pretty funny question like you know how they met, was it love at first sight, stuff like that. And then we played a fun bible game, which we did not do to good at, even though we had brother and sister Hodson on our team haha.

Bologna Boyz

James and Ricardo Interrogating Brother and Sister Hodson

Now for the SUPAH surprise! This Sunday we had the privilege of attending Italy's Zone Visit! Totally did not know until we arrived in Italy that they were gonna have 1.  But to have this SUPAH event, they had all the assembly halls across Italy video tie-in to Rome, where the brothers were giving the talk. This was the 1st time they ever did this! But only certain circuits were invited, and fortunately for us we were 1 of them haha.  We were assigned to the Imola assembly hall.  5,000 of our brothers and sisters were with us at that assembly hall. The total attendance which tied in was 55,409! SUPAH! The only thing that I could think of that kind made it not so SUPAH was that the 1st half of it was all in ITALIAN! even the watch tower (if you don't know me, I don't know Italian. Well very little actually but not enough for a assembly) So yea I was basically lost for the 1st half of the assembly and taking a little recess break somewhere with the boyz (not saying where but they had good chocolate milkshakes haha just sayin).  The last talk on the other hand was awesome! (partly because it was in english and translated into Italian this time). But really the talk was amazing. Such great reminders for us all. Overall the zone visit was SUPAH! Just being in that warm and loving atmosphere of our fellow brothers and sisters. Making many new friends, even if most of them didn't understand a word I was saying and vice versa haha the brotherly love was still there. A united brotherhood :).

Breakfast before Zone Visit

Outside seating

Inside seating

English talk being translated into Italian

So yea that was basically my week.  There were many more stories but it would of made this blog way too long.  Thank you all for following my blog! If you have any questions and comments just comment away or email me, and I will be happy to answer them.  Also if you have any suggestions on what you would like me to post, let me know! Other than that, that's all I have to say about this past week. So now I'm off to London and Dubland for a week! CHEEHOO!!! That will be my next post, so stay tuned! Oh and don't forget the SUPAH!!! :D hahaha



Oh yea and Zech gave me a awesome hair cut too haha.

good bye hair