Merry Christmas, Buon Natale

Merry Christmas, Buon Natale

Michael and Anna Kay Waddoups

and family

Missionaries in Training

April 4, 2016


We had family visiting and the two grandsons kept asking if they could hangout with the missionaries.  On P-Day two of the elders took them on the metro and sightseeing for a couple of hours.  They were pretty impressed.  Certainly they will want to grow up to be missionaries now.

Conference Sunday

April 3, 2016


Because Italy is in a different time zone than the one in Salt Lake City, Utah where General Conference is broadcast, it means there's an eight hour difference and we listen to Priesthood Meeting from the night before on Sunday morning.  It gets confusing, but we are grateful for technology that allows us to listen to all the sessions--even if it is later.

Terni

Rome

Visitor in Rome

March 29, 2015


Michael's niece was on a European tour and spent a day in Rome.  We were able to meet up with her for a few minutes.  It's nice to see family.

Surprise Visit

March 12, 2015

 A knock on the door resulted in a surprise visit from Michael's cousin from Idaho.  Her husband served in this mission 35 years ago.  He had spent many hours at the villa.  Luckily we were in town and had an hour to show them the villa and the temple site.  You never know who will come knocking!

March 12, 2015

No more chemotherapy

November 6, 2014

(Sorry I haven't been blogging.  I abandoned your sons and daughters for two weeks while I went home to be with my own children and grandchildren.  Our twelve year old granddaughter has battled leukemia for two and a half years.  She has finally completed all her treatments and was able to ring the bell at Primary Children's Hospital indicating she is finished with treatments.  It was a monumental moment for our family.  At one time during this long ordeal, she went through a very tough time.  We asked all the missionaries in the Italy Rome Mission to include her in their fast.  The result was another Italy Rome Mission Miracle.  God hears and answers prayers.)

I love you, Emily!

Entering Primary Children's Hospital for her last chemotherapy treatment!

Emily loved getting a new pair of socks every time she had to go to the hospital.  With the help of family and friends, she was able to donate 1,650 pair of new socks to the hospital.

Preparing to enter clinic for last chemotherapy treatment.

A new Italian watch from Nana and Popeye--because it's TIME for this phase of her life to "Bee" over.

While waiting for her final treatment, Emily made a bracelet to remind her of all the blessings she has received.

Patient and Doctor

This is the moment she's been waiting for--ringing the bell to signify she is through with chemotherapy treatments.

Doctors and nurses saying goodbye.

Happy family!

If leukemia returns, it's usually within the first year after the completion of treatment.  To quote our daughter "We're through with this.  Mom and Dad will still be on their mission during that time and we plan to reap the blessings."

*  *  *  *  *

Thank you to 

the doctors, nurses, staff and supporters of 

Primary Children's Hospital!

Happy Birthday Emily

June 12, 2014

Happy 12th Birthday Emily!!!

Rome Forum - Family History

This is the message to the missionaries that is included in the Rome Forum that is distributed each transfer.

Rome Forum

February/March 2014

Family History

I’ve had two things on my mind recently.  One is a recurring question by you missionaries regarding new or effective ways to do finding.  The other is using family history work in the mission.

Many times we feel our work is to baptize new members, and while this is a part, we are also to look at the bigger picture which is to build eternal families.

We have been taught repeatedly that our best referrals come from members.  Family history work is a non-threatening way for members to share a gospel topic with friends, neighbors, or casual acquaintances.

I encourage you to have a copy of your 4 generation pedigree chart with you to show members and investigators.  We have websites that we can share, ie. Mormon.org/family-history.  You might consider helping teach a family home evening to members or investigators on family history.  How about a white board tracting question of “Tell me about your family”.

We also have family history experts in the mission who are willing to help present a family history fireside.

We will soon have a wonderful resource at the new visitor center at the temple where the public can do research on their own families.  The church is currently involved in a huge indexing project with the Italian government to index millions of Italian city and church records for public use.

The possibilities are endless.  We all have interesting stories in our family history.  Let me share one of mine with you.

One Saturday in 1870 Anson Call asked William Waddoups to hitch up his buggy and together they would go to Salt Lake and pay a call on Martin Harris, one of the early benefactors of Joseph Smith and a witness to the Book of Mormon, who had just arrived in Utah.  This visit to Harris made a profound impression on young Waddoups.  Ever after throughout his own long life, he loved telling the story of hearing Martin Harris’s testimony of seeing an angel of God.  He told the story to his friends, to several congregations in church, and to his family, including his many descendants.  The story goes like this, quoting Harris:

    “Young man, I had the privilege of being with the Prophet Joseph Smith, and with these eyes of mine”, pointing to his eyes, “I saw the angel of the Lord, and I saw the plates and the Urim and Thummim and the sword of Laban, and with these ears,” pointing to his ears, “I heard the voice of the angel, and with these hands,” holding out his hands, “I handled the plates containing the record of the Book of Mormon, and I assisted the Prophet in the translation thereof.  I bear witness that this   testimony is true.”

Harris also told Waddoups that that frail man speaking to him was the “fruits of apostasy.”  “Young man,” Harris warned William, “always be faithful and obedient to the presiding priesthood, and you will always be safe.”

I bear testimony that the spirit of Elijah is real and can assist you in a new and fruitful way to find investigators and to retain new converts.

There are many ways to do finding.  Family history is one more way to add variety and to touch the lives of many Italians who love and are concerned for their family.

For more ideas read page 3 and pages 163-165 in Preach My Gospel.

I love each of you and pray for you daily.

President Waddoups

A Miracle for Emily

February 8, 2014

God hears and answers prayers.

Our eleven year old granddaughter has leukemia.  She was diagnosed a year and a half ago.  It was a tough decision to leave her and come to Italy, but President Eyring told us our family would experience miracles as we served.  We believed him.

Last week our daughter called and said the doctors were concerned because Emily's ANC counts (the ability to fight off infection) were extremely low and continued to drop.  That could be an indication that the cancer was coming back and she might need a bone marrow transplant if it didn't improve.

We made a decision to call family members and ask them to fast for Emily on Sunday.  We sent word to all the missionaries in the Italy Rome Mission and asked them to join in the fast.  We found out later that Stake Presidents and High Councilmen, home teachers and ward members in Italy found out and joined in the fast.

Three days later Emily went to the hospital for the determining blood test.  For this stage of her cancer, the doctors try to keep the ANC minimum between 500 and 1500.  The test results were astounding.  Her ANC  count had gone from 100 the week before to 4,800--AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE.

The next day, instead of going to the hospital for a possible bone marrow transplant, Emily got on a bus and went with a group of children her age on a choir tour.  She still has about a year of chemotherapy left, but we have faith she will be cured.

Thank you for your prayers.  We have a testimony that God hears and answers prayers.

Mickeyism

January 2, 2013

We bought a picture of the nativity in Caserta.  I love nativity sets and have collected them from all over the world.  We saw this picture in a store next to our hotel and couldn't resist buying it.  While doing face time with our children, we showed them the picture.  Our two year old grandson responded as only a two year old can.

Mickey, who is that?

It's me and mommy and daddy.

No.  That's baby Jesus.

They're killing him.

What???  He has two older brothers and a sister and the only thing we can figure out is that they might have rolled him up in a quilt and told him they were killing him.  Older siblings do things like that.  Anyway, we'll never look at that picture again without thinking about Mickey.

Thanksgiving in Rome

November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was a busy day at the Mission Home.  Transfer week was right in the middle of when we normally celebrate Thanksgiving.  November 28, 2013 was a scheduled departure date for 5 of our missionaries.  Two of them were from Italy and two of them were from England.  Only one of them was from the United States and understood the significance of Thanksgiving.  We made the decision to have the traditional going home pasta dinner.  We are missionaries serving in a foreign country and it is important for us to follow their customs.

However . . . after everyone else was in bed, we were able to do facetime with our family.  It was short and didn't smell a thing like turkey and pumpkin pie, but the grandchildren offered us some turkey and showed us their new, stylish shoes.  Under the circumstances, it was the best we could do, but we are so grateful to have this form of modern technology that lets us communicate with our children.

Anybody want a piece of turkey?

Oh, hey, we've got turkey, too.

Nana, look at my cool shoes.

Final Farewell

June 9, 2013

Waddoups' side of the family

We spoke in Sacrament Meeting in the Westland 9th Ward.  I talked about "Being the best you can bee" since that will be the theme of our mission.  Michael talked about being prepared to be a missionary.

We were overwhelmed with the support from friends, family, business and legislative associates.  All Michael's siblings were there.  All but one of my brothers were there.  We had lots of nieces and nephews and their children there as well.  Michael commented on how nice it was that we had legislators and lobbyists and inactives all in the same church and the walls didn't fall down.  The chapel and both overflow areas were packed.  I doubt we could have gotten anyone else in the room.  We had parents of missionaries who are currently serving in Rome and parents of future missionaries who will be serving in Rome soon.  It was great.

We decided to serve pizza at our house after church.  After all, we are going to ITALY.  We ordered pizza from Little Ceasars and put it in the fridge to be warmed up the next day.

I put the pizza in the oven and set the timer so it would be hot right when we got home from church.  I told the girls to hurry right home and take it out of the oven.  I should have known better.  Everyone wanted to talk to friends and family we hadn't seen in a long time.

I should have known better.  By the time Heather got home, one of the boxes of pizza was on fire in the oven and the house was full of smoke.  That was a near fiasco.  I don't recommend trying this unless you are going to be standing right there in the kitchen to keep an eye on things.  It really smelled like smoke.  Yuck!  My tutor said I should just tell everyone it was because of my burning testimony.

We have ordered cookies from the "Cookie Lady" for birthdays, mission farewells and baptisms and loved them.  It seemed only fitting that we should have them for our own farewell.  We've never had any problems before.  This time however, we were a little panicky because we were supposed to pick them up on Saturday night.  They called and said they wouldn't be ready until the next day.  Oops.  That was scary.  They told us they would personally deliver them to our house by 11:00 am since we had to leave by 11:30 to meet with the Stake High Council.  At 11:02 am he finally showed up.  I'm the one who is always super prepared so it was a bit nerve wracking.  In the end it all turned out fine.  (I loved the bee cookies.  Obviously, everybody else loved them, too, because they were the first to disappear.

We were walking through a store one day and Michael noticed some beautiful girl's dresses and decided we needed to buy them for all the granddaughters.