Wheres Waldo!

This past weekend we went as a group to visit Torin! Torin is part of Northern Italy, and it is where Lorenzo Snow and Joseph Torino came as missionaries to share the gosple! We went on a little "LDS History Tour" and got to see where the Church had an impact on the country of Italy. It was actually really interesting. Back in the day, everyone was Catholic, and you could ONLY be Catholic by law. There were a couple of people who did not like the Roman Catholic belief system, so they ran away to the alps! The man who started this Revolt was named Waldo. He said that when he was reading the scriptures one day, he came across a passage that said, " Abandon all of your money and follow me." He took that literally, and gave up all his possessions and went to preach the gospel. Because it was against the law, they hid themselves in the alps of Italy and started to make their own city. They call themselves Waldensians and are a Prodestant Religion. When Brigham Young was deciding where to send missionaries on the first International Mission areas, an idea of Italy came into his head, and he knew to send the missionaries, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph Torino to preach to the Waldensians. Because they were in poverty and had bad living conditions, they knew they would get the most success of missionary work. When they got there, they were welcomed by the people, but they had very little success. One night, they were told by the villagers that a little girl was sick and dying. They prayed to use opportunity as a way to get into the people's hearts. They gave the little girl a blessing and the next day she was healed. Word spread all around the area, and then they had better success. I think in the first 10 years in Italy they only baptised 172 people, but work here is getting better and the wards here are very big! Suprizingly, the religion we have the most success baptising is Catholic! I don't know why. Oh, I also saw Christopher Columbus house!

After we were able to see all of that, we got to stay in that city and spend the night. It was really cold ( because we are in the alps) and all I had was an Aeropostale Jacket. I was so cold. The next day we climbed the alps and got to see where the Waldensians had school and where they hid. It would have been a horrible place to live because of the weather. RANDOM COOL FACT! The people back then were not allowed to read or write. Only the priests or the pope could, because having the people be "ignorant" made them more humble. The waldensians would teach them reading and writing in the schools, which was Illegal. Back then all you could write was a circle to sign your name if you were a woman, and a cross if you were male. 150 years later, and now more than 90% of all Italians can read or write. Crazy.

Anyways, after the AMAZING hike, we took a trip to another city. We came to this HUGE monestary,( which is the picture attached to this). We got to learn all about the building and the popes that live there, and then we got to stay the night there. Isn't that crazy? We stayed in the pilgrimage building and it was so cold. I slept with 2 wool blankets on. At night, we were scheduled to have dinner, so we were trying to find the third floor. We ended up on a random floor and it was the creepiest thing of my life, I'm still scared. The elevator randomly opened on this floor to a room that had flickering lights. There were old paintings on the walls which candlesticks and a set table. We walked into the room, and I got scared so I ran back to the elevator. On our way back there was this old man just standing in the dark pointing at us telling us we needed to get off this floor. He was drooling and shaking. ( And then he tried to get in the elevator and it started to shut on his head. haha, it was funny, but scary) . I am still scared of that building, it was really weird. Not a holy place at all.

On sunday we spent most of the day driving home. It was a 7 hour bus drive. We went to Sacrament meeting and now I am getting ready for bed. Anyways, it was a crazy weekend!