Dressed in white...

We absolutely LOVE beautiful Alexandra, dressed in white! She is full of light and goodness, and we all loved supporting her on her special baptism day. Our lovely GANS (YSA, young single adults) Angy and Anna were part of her conversion path, and we loved how important it was to them to see that every little detail was perfect and special. She was dressed in white, which symbolizes the purity made possible by the atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. "Baptism is a covenant—or a promise—that you make with God. When you get baptized, you promise to serve Him and follow His commandments to the best of your abilities." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/article/baptism

"Baptisms in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are performed by immersion, meaning a person is “immersed” all the way under water and brought back up. The Bible tells us that “when [Jesus] was baptized, [He] went up straightway out of the water” (Matthew 3:16).

Baptism by immersion is beautifully symbolic, not only of the washing away of sins, but of death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism signifies the end of your old way of life and birth to a life committed to Christian values (see Romans 6:3–6)."

Alexandra's sister, brother-in-law and nephew came to support her. They are all such lovely people! We really love our new friends.

Alexandra is very easy to love. We talked about her in our last post. She is the one who gave us the beautiful key chains from Peru and a canvas painting of our Facebook profile picture.

Everyone in the Napoli ward was so excited to welcome her and make her feel loved.

Everyone here LOVES brownies, which we make regularly. They were snatched up very quickly.

After enjoying the treats with ward members, our GANS began a celebration lunch for Alexandra. The missionaries joined in, and we had a wonderful time visiting together.

It is always tricky to feed everyone, because of hauling everything back and forth from Pompei to Napoli. Since we now have an InstaPot, it was pretty easy to do shredded chicken, then keep it warm in a crock pot during the meeting. Everyone liked the chicken sandwiches, and Angy's mom supplemented with potato pasta, which she had lovingly made for the elders.

Before the baptism, we had an amazing Sunday session of televised Stake Conference. Pictured is President Morris, our Mission Leader. He gave a phenomenal talk! Our stake (group of congregations) area runs from Ladispoli (where Stake President Poli lives) to Salerno and also encompasses the island of Sardegna. Thank goodness for technology!

This is President Poli. He is a wonderful leader with a big task. Church leaders and missionaries are not paid; time and service are given from the heart and out of love for Jesus Christ and desire to become like Him.

We have such great respect for all of our Church leaders. We do know from experience that service brings blessings, and a bonding love with those you serve. The Apostle Paul admonished, “By love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). We love these two quotes by Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of 12 Apostles."Our Savior teaches us to follow Him by making the sacrifices necessary to lose ourselves in unselfish service to others."and "Charity is something one becomes."

Speaking of sacrifices, meet Dennis. He is one of our GANS and is also about to graduate from BYU Idaho and currently serves as 1st Counselor in the Bishopric of his ward. His faithfulness is a complete and total inspiration to us!

These are more of our AMAZING GANS, who are committed to the Gospel and are ALL IN. Gabino, Kekko, Luisa, Michele, Angy, Anna and Isamar. We all watched the televised Saturday adult session of Stake Conference together at the Church in Napoli, then ate snacks and played some games.

As I said in the last post, these beautiful people are our "Why." We are here to serve, support, strengthen and love them! They are all so easy to love!

Speaking of easy to love, these three brethren are full of love for others and love of the Gospel. Anziano Bazan and Peter are legendary missionaries, and we love to watch them in action! You can see it in their eyes; everyone responds to the beautiful love of Christ which they so openly share. Those are two pretty basic necessities in my book - to love, and to be loved.

We love how deeply all of "our people" care for each other. For Sorella Castellano's birthday, we had a celebratory dinner and cupcakes. We were so happy Gabriella and her mom from Salerno rode the train to Napoli to join us! This was also our farewell to Paola, who moved after completing her mission.

And while we are on the topic of love, we love the sunsets here!

We go down to Castellamare to walk, and we cherish these peaceful moments. The beauty is captivating, and photos don't even do it justice. We wish we could blink you here to see it.

We had so much fun watching this rowing club of children!

We also loved meeting one of our new elders in Salerno. Elder Bruni is training Elder Rodriguez, who is from Ireland and assigned in the Rome mission as a Spanish speaking missionary. We find that quite historic, as well as very needed. In some of the wards/branches here, there are more Spanish speakers than Italian.

Cliff inspected their apartment and deemed it the cleanest in Campania! That big win deserved a gelato!

We are now taking a weekly p-day, thanks to the WONDERFUL influence of the Castellanos! In our effort to see the sites around us, we went first to the ancient villa of Oplontis, which contains 2000 year old ruins about 10 minutes from our house.

In Roman times, the villas of Oplontis, San Marco, and Arianna were built for aristocrats to use for vacations. At that time, each of these villas would have been sea side resorts!

Buried following the dramatic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, Oplontis is probably the one that offers the most significant monumental evidence of the Pompeii suburbs.

On our way to Villa Arianna, which is in the upper part of Castellamare, our car started freaking out. All different lights were flashing, the power steering went out, then it died. We were poised to go up a hill when it stopped, so the Castellanos and I got out and pushed it out of the way. Luckily it reset after turning it off and on. We took it down to the Hyundai dealer who said he didn't know what was going on, but to bring it back if it happened again.

So back we went to see the ruins. Villa Arianna is the most ancient villa of Castellamare di Stabia. It was built during the 2nd century. B.C. and occupies approx. 2500 square meters. The villa was named after a large mythological fresco. The villa was covered during the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD and was first discovered (well-preserved by ash and pumice debris) in the 1750's and then excavated in the 1950s.

Artemis. 1st Century AD. The statue can be identified as a depiction of the goddess of hunting.

Nike. 1st century AD.

We know it's not a coincidence that Heavenly Father arranged for us to serve at the same time.

We love exploring this beautiful region together on our p-days (day off once a week). It's really nice to share this experience with friends. CS Lewis said, "Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one." Today Sorella Castellano and I both needed a few moments of retail therapy. It was a beautiful day, 65 degrees, and a couple of new Spring things made us happy. Cliff was working at the elder's Napoli apartment. The kitchen needed some serious work, and he helped facilitate that. The elders are so grateful. They worked together, and the apartment (especially the kitchen) is in much better shape - fitting for our missionaries.

That's what it's all about, right - helping those who need help. Sharon Eubank said, "And remember that, in the same way as the Savior, you yourself are one of the best gifts that you can give to other people in need."

“Jesus said several times, ‘Come, follow me.’ His was a program of “do what I do,” rather than “do what I say.” His innate brilliance would have permitted him to put on a dazzling display, but that would have left his followers far behind. He walked and worked with those he was to serve. His was not a long-distance leadership. He was not afraid of close friendships; he was not afraid that proximity to him would disappoint his followers. The leaven of true leadership cannot lift others unless we are with and serve those to be led.” President Spencer W. Kimball

We are so grateful for a loving Savior who shows us the way. "..but I am among you as he that serveth. Luke 22:37 "We look to the Savior as our example of service. Although He came to earth as the Son of God, He humbly served those around Him. He came forth from heaven to live on earth as mortal man and to establish the kingdom of God. His glorious gospel reshaped the thinking of the world. He blessed the sick; He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. He even raised the dead to life." President Thomas S. Monson.

We do desire to follow him.

We love you forever,

La Coppia Montagnoli

Martha and Cliff