tour of Italy

Well..I honestly don't know where to start! Italy was absolutely amazing! I learned allot over this tour. The first couple of days we were there we were in Rome. We were playing during a youth congress. Just a little comparison between Italy and the GNY Division... Officers in Italy 17, in GNY 90. Employees in Italy 10, in GNY 2,252. Number of corps in Italy 17, in GNY 40. Number of senior soldiers 240 in Italy and 2,518 ikn GNY. Nuymber of Junior Soldiers in Italy 34, in GNY 856. As you can see the Army is much smaller in Italy. it was a very different expirience. Anyway, Friday through Sunday night was the Youth Congress. There special guest was actually from Canada, her name was Sandra. she is an officer and was previously stationed in Russia. Throughout the weekend she spoke about becoming one with God and with others. We did not let the language barrier stop us from communicating with others. Sandra was very forward with her messages and told some deep stories and miracles that have occured in her life. Some brought us to tears and some left us in pure amazement! This whole expirience really got me thinking about doing some missionary work at some point in Italy and around Europe. Maybe for a couple months at a time. I actually spoke with some people to Captain Wong, there youth leader about going to Italy next summer and just helping them out. There is soo much work that needs to be done there. I am so lucky to have expirienced the Army in another country.

Anyway there was one particular session that I liked. Sandra talked about lines and how we always divide the world up into different types of poeple. Sandra made a line dividing the room in half. One half was over 25 and the other was younger then 25. Sandra asked us questions like what are our dreams and what is stopping us from persuing those dreams. Then she asked the over 25 group what would they have done differently when they were our age. Then she asked us what is it that makes us not trust the older people and vice versa. Then she asked us both what promises we would make to each other. Promises to listen and not judge, to not be scared to share with you, to realize that you have gone through similar things, to love you and care for you. Then we were asked to break the line and pray with one of the older people. It was awesome.

Anyway we played a couple of open air concerts and visited a corps in Briennza. The Popolardo's are the corps officers there. I actually remember them, they were in trainging here, they worked at star lake for a summer. Anyway, they are awesome people and were soo kind to us.

We had a good amount of time to go around Rome and we also visited Pompeii.. it was awesome. I will be posting pictures for the next couple days! Sorry if this didn't make much sense, JET LAG!