Howdy,
>
> Well its december and today i was riding my bike with a short sleeved shirt on. We had to do some work at the church and so we wore normal clothes and my jacket has dog poop on it from when we helped some italian members move. It was a little cold but still the weather here is not too bad. Usually people stare at us because we are in suits and ties on and helmets. But today people were staring at me because i was the only person in the town with a short sleeve shirt on. It was funny. Anyway this was a pretty good week. Last Preparation Day i went to the american base and hung out with the Marlors and also Anziano Mack. It was pretty fun. And i had an A&W bacon cheeseburger that was really good. We also had Zone Conference 2 days ago and it was really good. Sister Acerson cooked us a nice christmas dinner and all the trainings were amazing. Our assistants anziano deruvo and steiner gave a great training on the Saviors mission and our mission. Anziano Steiner has only one more transfer after this so i will be sad when he goes home. But it was good to see him and also i got to see Anziano Herrick. This week we saw Arcangelo and he was doing really good. He has been coming to church when he can and he doesnt have soccer games. He told us that he invites his friends to our church. He is such a nice man. It is still hard to help him progress but i think slowly slowly he will. We also saw Adam, Jacob, John and Francis this week. Francis was the first one we met and so it was good to finally see him again. But they are all very busy with work in the christmas season and didnt make it to church but we did get to teach the plan of salvation to them and it went well. Antonella Gervasio came to church and their babys heart surgery went well. They asked us to come with Brother Donadeo to help give the baby blessing in a couple weeks. This Saturday we are having an open house at our church for the comunity. We are hoping we will have a good attendance and we have been working very hard to get it prepared. It is going to be a Mexican Fiesta with music, talent show, an explanation of our church, food, and a pignata. I am very excited. But our preparation today was spent in the church cleaning and setting up. Also a couple days ago we had a family home evening with Brother Romano and Emilda. Emilda is the recent convert from the Philippines and Brother Romano is one of my favorite members. His wife is very inactive and she joined us in the FHE. It was really good because Emilda is such a friendly person and i think she softened Sister Romanos heart. So we are going to go back with Emilda. It was really neat. Brother Romano said to Emilda as we were going home that Emilda might be his salvation for his wife. I hope so. Ok one more story. There was an old man who lived across from us. He always was on his balcony and always waved to us and was very nice. About 2 weeks ago he passed away. Yesterday we went and talked to his wife. She is very sad and lonely and we couldnt enter because there wasnt a man in the house but she said we could come back and talk to her about the plan of salvation. She is probably 70 as well as her husband. She was very sad as we talked to her but also very grateful. I am very excited to teach her the plan of salvation atleast to bring her some comfort. Well i really enjoy this city and also my new companian. I could stay in napoli area the rest of my mission. Anyway i love you all and hope that this christmas season goes well. The marlors the other day at zone conference gave little talks and they talked about the importance of gifts during this season. They both talked about how the best gift we have is the atonement and how the best thing we can give back to our Savior is to share this great news with everyone. So thats my invite to you. During this Christmas season to find someone and share this great message with them. I promise it will be your favorite Christmas you have ever had if you will do this. Well i love you all. oh and my thanksgiving was really good. it was with the lord family. It was american food. She is italian and he is american so it was so comfortable because we were all speaking both languages and we understood everything that was going on. it was cool. and the turkey and all the rest of the food was good. ha. ciao
>
> Con affetto,
> Anziano Hale

> La mia famiglia!
>
> Well the palace that i went and saw last week was amazing. Probably my favorite thing i have seen in italy. Old building are really neat but it was the most gorgeous place i have ever been. It was raining for alot of the time so we got our selves pretty wet but it was really fun. I will send some pictures. This is also where they shot part of the star wars movie. Anyway this week went pretty well. It was a little slower but this next week is looking really good. No one came to church but we were able to see a couple people. We saw arcangelo and talked about scripture study and prayer. He will not commit himself to do anything and so it is hard for him to progress. He wasnt able to come to church because he had to coach soccer. So we invited him to read 3 verses and thats it. Hopefully he can slowly gain the desire to read the book of mormon. We had a great appointment with Jacob this week. He has a little eleven month year old daughter who lives in ghana with his wife. We talked about the plan of salvation and baptism. He feels good about the book of mormon but he says he needs to be patient to recieve his answer. And he has commited to come to church this Sunday along with his 3 friends. So that will be wonderful. He is a great man. We had Emilda who is a recent convert help us teach and it went great. She has such a strong testimony and it was helping here understand some of the doctrine better also. It was so neat we were walking on the street with her and we started talking to some young men who were in their 20s. After we invited them to english class and we were walking away emilda had stopped and was digging through her bag. She grabbed out five cards that had the articles of faith on them and proudly handed them out to the young men. It was so neat. She has such a strong testimony and such a great desire to share this gospel. She is a great example for me. We also were able to teach Emilda this week about Temples. She is very excited to go to the temples. She did not know about that she could be baptized for her deceased ancestors and when we told her she was so excited.
> This last weekend we had to go to Rome to get the permesso for my companian. Its the card for his permission to be here. We did not have the receit for his card and so they did not give us the permesso but the trip was not wasted. Right after we left the permesso office, a little down, we met this really cool man from tanzania. He has a family of 8 children. He was in rome for a couple of days on a business trip. He had heard of the church but he did not know very much about it. So we had broughten with our luggage a book of mormon in english and italian. So we gave him the english book of mormon after we had explained the restoration to him. He said, well that would be important to read this book. We got his email address and he was very excited to read the book of mormon. It was such a neat experience. My companian said after it happened, its funny that he had to come to Rome to hear about the gospel. The lord is in this work. So this week went really well. Next week are transfers. I will probably be staying here in caserta and be recieving a new companian but we will see. Well i love you all! I love this work and there is nothing i would rather be doing. Thank you so much for all the prayers.
> Anziano Hale
>

Hello!
> Well today we are going to the regia which is a big palace here in caserta so sorry if this is kind of short. I will send a few pictures next week from halloween and the palace. Well we were pretty busy this last week which is always a good thing. We were able to teach arcangelo once. He wanted to learn about the 2nd coming so we had a pretty good lesson. He has been harder to get ahold of lately because he kind of has a girlfriend. He also has a hard time keeping commitments but he really likes coming to church. He says he would come even if we didnt ask him. Then we were able to teach John Adam, Jacob and ebenezier from ghana. It went really well. We went to teach Jacob and then the others were all at the house. We watched the restoration together and then we talked about the book of mormon. We had a really neat american member there with us that bore amazing testimony. They were all really excited to read the book of mormon and they are going to try to come to church next week. I am so excited. It was such a spiritual lesson becuase they are so humble. This week my testimony was strenghtened on the power of the priesthood. We were able to give alot of blessings this week to members who needed them for sickness and also comfort. We were also able to give one to Rudolfos mother who is not a member. It was really neat. Sunday evening we called an inactive who we have been trying to get a hold of. We got through to her and she did not sound good. She said she wasnt feeling well. We asked her if there was anything we could do and she asked for a blessing. So later that evening we went over there. Luckily, well there is no luck in missionary work, but i was able to memorize how to give a priesthood blessing in italian earlier in the week. She asked me to give it and i was very nervous. It was a very simple blessing but Sister Russos faith was amazing. The spirit was so strong. It was a really neat experience. I have gained such a love lately for my studies in the scriptures during my mission. I am so excited every morning to study and am always sad when the studying time is over. The scriptures truly can give us a power that we need throughout the day. oh other good news is sister bove came to church again this last week and bore her testimony. it was so awesome.
> Oh yes on halloween I made a pumpkin pasta. The pumpkin that we cut out from our pumpkins with faces i put in the freezer and then on saturday turned it into a pasta. It was delicious. Hope everyone else had a wonderful Halloween. Well I love you all. I know this Gospel is true. I know its not always easy to endure to the end but i know as we search ponder and pray every day that we can become the people we need to. Ciao!
> Anziano hale

So italians are just starting to pick up this tradition of halloween. me and my companian carved some pretty cool pumpkins. his pumpkin ways 36 pounds and mine is named shades. i will send pictures next week and maybe it will help you understand.
> Well how is everyone? I am doing great. Another great week at Caserta. Well nothing really new this week. Oh accept today i am officially not a teenager anymore. Unfortunately. Ha just kidding i guess its cool. Today has been a great day. I got franks sauce from the american base and made chicken wings, and had a cake, bunch of little treats from my companian and a tie from my ward missionary leader. Its been awesome. And now i get to hear from my favorite people! Well this week went pretty good. Arcangelo came to church again but when we invited him to be baptized he said it needs to be a thing that comes from within him. But i have very good feelings about the future for Arcangelo. As soon as he can truly get himself into the book of mormon he will gain a strong testimony because he is a true seeker he just needs to commit himself. Also in church this week was sister Bove. 5 years ago she wasnt really wanting anything with the church and when i met her 2 months ago i thought she would never return. but the Lord works in certain ways to help his children becuase He loves each of them so much. Her families money situation is not good and her circumstances led her to come to church. Even if she was humbled because she had to be it was so good to see her in church and the members welcomed her so good and she is planning on returning next week. I love inactive work. It brings so much joy! We also got a new investigator from Ghana this week. His name is jacob and he has a little girl not even a year old who lives in ghana with the mother. He is very nice. This week we met with an old investigator named Louisa. She is about 45 and has a beautiful family. She is also very catholic. But she is great because she has a strong testimony of the bible and Jesus Christ. We are hopefully meeting with her and her husband next week to teach the first. There are so many wonderful people in this world with great testimonies of Jesus Christ. I just wish they could all have the fullness of the blessings that are available through the Restoration. Actually they can. We just have to help them find the truth. I also did an exchange this week in Naples with one of the Zone Leaders. It was really good. Naples is a crazy city. Really crazy. But i really like it. We got to teach a part member family. The mom is a member and the dad will be a member when he can quit smoking. It is so neat to see families who are ready for the gospel. We had the father right down the reasons he wanted to stop smoking and among them were getting baptized and getting married in the temple with his wife. It was such a neat experience. This last sunday was the primary program and it was great. All the kids are american accept for one little italian girl. But it was a great program and made me grateful for the humility and love of children. Well thats about all for this week. Hope everyone is doing great! Love ya all! And thank you everyone for the birthday emails!
> Arrivederci!
> Anziano Hale

Buon Giorno!
> Well it is finally winter here in italy. There is no snow but it is definately a little colder. We have been taking our coats with us everywhere. But maybe i will enjoy not having snow for a year since i cant play in it anyway. But these here are going very well. Zone conference was yesterday and it was great. I did not know where anyone in the mission was before yesterday because we find out at zone conference. I was really hoping that anziano Herrick would come down to the napoli zone, and i was guessing there was a fifty percent chance anziano Steiner would be the new assistant and i would get to see him. And both of them happened! So i was very happy to see them yesterday and the chances are anziano steiner will be assistant the rest of his mission so we will have served with eachother every transfer accept the last one. Such a blessing. Zone Conference was also very spiritual like it always is and we talked about gaining out own testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ. It was really good. Arcangelo is still coming to church and meeting with us but he is having a hard time reading the book of mormon. He says he is still not in the right frame of mind. So if you could please pray for him. He is such a nice man and everyone at church loves him. Being here in italy makes me so grateful for the restoration because just talking with italians every day and them talking about the way the grew up and the things they were taught some of just the smallest truths i grew up with that the world does not understand. There is so much i have taken for granted in my life but i am so grateful for the knowledge that i have and the life i have ahead of me to live. Also this week we went to a city called Mondragone. It is about a hour and 15 minute bus ride from Caserta. It is also the home of Buffalo Mozzarella which is the best cheese in the world. So we definately had some of that while we were there and it was the best in the world. We went to Mondragone to teach the Gervasio family. The father is a member but inactive because he doesnt have a car to get to church. He was not married to long ago and they just had their first child a little girl. She had problems when she was born and so the elders gave the baby a blessing and the baby started healing quickly. The mother was able to see the power of the priesthood and wants to continue learning about our church. They have come to church the past 2 weeks and the lesson went really well. Hopefully their daughter will be able to come home from the hospital this wee and hopefully next week he can get a car. As we went to catch our bus that passes not often at all we sat down expecting to wait a while but the bus came within 5 minutes. It was such a blessing and a good experience. I know that the Lord is in this work. I love you all and appreciate all your emails letters and prayers. Have a great week!
> Anziano Hale

Well it finally cooled down here this week. it is still not cold but i do need my suit jacket to stay warm. well we had a pretty good week. Arcangelo came to church and really enjoyed it. WE are trying to get him to read the book of mormon with a member because he is having a hard time commiting himself to do it by himself. but he is doing very well. we are seeing him tomorrow. we are seeing the family again this saturday because last saturday it didnt work out so we went to another family. the desimone family. they live below us and are very nice people. the mom is not too interested in our visits but he enjoys listening and really feels the spirit when he is with us. but with his family and not much work it is hard for him to focus on praying and reading the scriptures. but he is a wonderful man and i know that if he can commit himself to read the book of mormon he could get baptized. we also this week met with a part member family this week. it is so sad the circumstances of some people. we went there and the mothers job has not paid her for 7 months and she just has to keep working and hope that they will pay her. they didnt have enough money to go shopping the day before we got there and there electricity bill expired that same day. It was a miracle that we went to their house because anziano patrick and i were not planning on going there but things fell through and we went there. on sunday we were able to bring them some food set up a meeting with the branch president to help them with the electricity bill and we had a great lesson on sunday and after 7 , 8 years she told us she will come back to church. we are hoping she will keep to her word but it is so interesting to see the way the lord works. oh this week i got a letter from anziano herrick my last companian and he told me jhemil and sharlene ( the bolivian kids) were baptized and it was a beautiful baptism. it made me so happy. davide though from terni did not get baptized. i think it was because of family problems. he is still doing well though and they are working for another date so if you could keep him in your prayers that would make me happy. well this has been a great week for my studies. i have been able to study the scriptures this week and preach my gospel with a more opened mind and i have learned so much from the spirit. i love the book of mormon and i loved elder hollands testimony of it. i know it is true with all my heart also and i am going to do more to use it as a missionary. well hope everyone is doing good. Be grateful for your circumstances. be grateful that your family also has this gospel. i never realized how big a blessing the gospel is in my family until i came here to caserta. we are so blessed as members of this church to have the knowledge we have. we have a great responsibility with this knowledge. i am so greatful for this responsibility. well i love you all. arrivederci
> anziano hale

i cannot believe transfer 6 is allready here. well next week it will be. there are 16 total and it is going by way to fast. well good news. i am staying and so is anziano patrick. i am so happy. especially because we got some awesome new investigators this last week. so saturday night me and my companian watched one hour of conference at an internet point and then we raced on our bikes to an appointment with a family. this man works across from where the elder couple lives. we have talked to him alot and finally set up an appointment with him. he has 3 beautiful children who are 9 7 and 3. and his (massimos) wife is an awesome lady. we ate dinner with their family and then taught them the first lesson. it was one of my favorite appointments ever. they are a very normal amazing awesome family. and they said they will read the book of mormon and we can teach them the plan of salvation. it was such a cool experience. hopefully we will see them this saturday night. also we taught arangelo again this last week and it went very well. he also went to pozuoli to watch a session of conference with one of the members. he enjoyed it and we will see him tomorrow. he is such a great person. well for conference we watched it in English on sunday at the warners house. we watched 7 hours of it. it was awesome. i loved it so much. we havent seen it all yet but i am excited to hear the rest. well those were the highlights of my week but everything went well. oh we finally got hold of claudio who was supposed to be baptized and he says he is in north italy working until christmas so we wont see him for a while. well i love you all. i know this work is the greatest work ever and i am so happy to be doing it. ciao
> anziano hale

ok so i just wrote this letter and had about 3 sentences more to write and my time went out. so sorry if this letter is a little shorter this week. i dont have the patience slash time to rewrite everything. so this week was crazy. Friday we went to Claudios and his very catholic mother was very against him getting baptised. but when we left he still was planning on getting baptised. saturday morning when we went to pick him up he wasnt there. his mom said he went away and told us to leave. his phone was turned off. we still have not been able to make contact with him. it was very sad. but that just means that he wasnt ready. we still had a little meeting for all the people that came to the baptism. but i learned alot because of this experience. his week we got an amazing new investigator. very nice normal man. he has been prepared for the gospel. he came to english class coming to learn english but really liked the spirit he felt. he has been out of work for 3 years and has 2 sons. his wife left him along time ago so he raised his sons. we taught him last thursday the first and then yesterday the 2nd. he hasnt read the book of mormon but he has felt the spirit very strong. yesterday my companian invited him to be baptised when he gains a testimony. he accepted. it was such a miracle. He has been prepared by god and his angels. it is such miracle! i know God is in this work and this is His work. Ok last cool experience. yesterday we were in the park doing english class publicity and were were talking to these three 16 year old boys. after about 3 minutes talking to them they had atleast 10 other 16 year old boys come over to join them. we started talking to them and after about 5 minutes i asked if they were religious then they asked me what our church was and i got to teach the restoration to about 7 of them. it was so neat. they were all in a little circle just listenig so intently and asking questions. when i got to the book of mormon they asked how much they cost and i said they are free. some of the boys wanted this book and we didnt even have enough for the ones that wanted them. it was so neat. and then one inparticular who seemed so interested we got his number and hopefully we can see him next week. it was such a cool experience. People are ready for the gospel everywhere. i just need to have the faith to be lead to them. it was like a dream coming true teaching to these young men the thing that mattters most to me in my life. well i know this gospel is true and i am so so so grateful for this opportunity. i love you all. transfers are next week. hopefully i am still here with anziano patrick. bye!
> anziano hale

Hello from Caserta! Well my last week at Rome was really good. I am going to miss anziano herrick and the assistants and anziano deruvo who was anziano steiners companian slash the new assistant. But i love Casserta and my companian is awesome. Very smart educational and with the language and obedient and i dont think we will have any problems. I am very thankful because it is just the two of us in the apartment. He reminds me of my cousin Ben and Napolean Dynamite. He is great. Anziano Patrick is his name and he is from Florida. So my second night here i woke up at 12. i thought i heard bombs going off. I was very worried. It sounded very close to our house. I thought maybe already the mofia was after me. I woke my companian to ask him if the bombs close to our house was a normal thing. He explained to me that it was just fireworks. Italians always put off lots of fireworks for holidays of the saints and the next day was a day for one of the saints of this town. Ha so that was funny. So this town is pretty small but we do work in alot of the cities nearby also. And we ride bikes everywhere. No more bus. Last saturday i am almost positive i was on a bike for 4 hours. We went to a small city about 40 minutes away. It was really cool because the people in that city seemed very open that day. We knocked this door and this really cool kid of 22 years let us in and we taught him the restoration. We also talked with this investigator who is so ready for the gospel she just needs to realize and commit herself. The ward here is 70 percent american and 30 percent italian more or less. It is really interesting hearing talks in english again. The branch president is american and his counselors are one italian and one american. It is because there is an american base close to Caserta. We also have an investigator named Claudio who has a baptism date. He really loves america but also is a very good man. We are just trying to help him read the scriptures on his own. We also have a ward missionary leader named rudolpho Donodeo who just returned from Dallas Texas Mission. He knows Ben but not supper well. You should ask ben what he thinks of him. He is very on the ball and he is really picking up the missionary program here. It is a very good time to be here in caserta. I am very excited. It is very different being here but i am learning different things. Our finding work is just stopping and talking to people on the street. Its really fun. Well sorry if i just bored you all but i dont know a whole lot of specific information yet. But i am very excited to be here. Oh yes i will have the opportunity to translate often which will help my language. I translated on sunday in primary for a little italian girl who is 8. probably one of the funnest things i have done on my missions. This week i have really started realizing the importance of continuous prayer in our lives. Preach my Gospel has so many promises about prayer. If you get the opportunity read chapter 3 commandments(chapter 4) prayer. Like 4th paragraph i think but so many amazing blessings. Prayer is truly helping me become who i want to become. Ok well i have nothing else to say this week. I love you all and have a wonderful week.
> Anziano Hale

This might be a little short cause i am starving. So we had a good week. In august alot of italians like to leave for vacation for the whole month. So 3 of our investigators and alot of out contacts are on vacation. But we were blessed this week. we were finally able to meet with one of our investigatos named leonardo. it was my first time meeting him. He is a good man but he has some problems in his life that are distracting him from realizing the importance of this message. he wasnt very willing to commit himself and he showed too much doubt during the lesson but we will see what happens. we got to meet with Gemil and Sharlene who are 14 and 12 from bolivia. Because they have only been here for a couple months dont speak italian. but this week they understood almost the entire lesson. It was a really neat lesson. we had another missionary who was with us getting his permission to stay in italy. he stopped in rome for two days and stayed with us. it was fun having anther companian again because i learned alot from him. anyway the spirit was strong in the lesson, and they accepted to get baptized. The little girl sharlene was much more willing but we talked to their mother and she said it just might take patience on our part to wait to gemil understands and desires more. so i think that next transfer they will be baptized. And then we got a new investigator yesterday. i was on the bus and i smiled at me, he smiled back so i waved and he waved back. i guess i looked familiar. so i went and sat by him and we talked. he is actually a member of the Jehovah witnesses but is from the philipines and very nice. he is about 40 and lives here by himself. but we had the first lesson and it was amazing. he felt the spirit and we are meeting again with him this friday. Very very nice man. speaking of jehovah witnesses there is a convention here in rome and there are over 80,000 of them here. its crazy. Last experience of this week happened this morning. as we were getting ready to leave the house to do shopping we got a call from the patriarch. he said a man wanted to meet with us. so we went to the mission home where i am right now and he started to talking to us( the patriarch me and anziano herrick and sister acerson). he told us his life story and come to find out he is a member and has the priesthood. he has been inactive for 25 years if i understood right and his niece just passed away. it got him thinking and so he decided he needed to come back. so we set up an appointment with the bishop of the area he lives in rome and they are talking right now. It was a cool experience. I was very happy for him and i would not be surprised if he becomes a leader in this church. he knows the scriptures well and seems like the person that knows what things need to be done. anyway so now i am at the mission home writing you all. this saturday is called ferragosto where almost nobody works. we will be staying inside and cleaning ALL day. i am very excited. well i love you all. I know this gospel is true and we have the amazing responsibility of sharing it with others. oh one more quick story. i was on the bus yesterday and i asked this man if he spoke italian because i could tell he was foreigner. then a couple minutes later i asked english. he told me in broken up english why is it important. he said he knew who i was and what i was doing. i tried to talk to him but he just kept persecuting me. but then i just thought of how i am not the only person he is rejecting right now and it was easier. i was comforted and i was very grateful for the atonement which gave me that comfort. i know that atonement is real and ask we excercise faith in it our lives are changed. Ciao
> anziano hale

well i am physically exhausted so sorry if i sound weird ha. we did service this morning and then ran around this morning. so first of this week we taught jerry a new investigator for when i arrived. we watched the restoration in french. it was cool. hopefully he comes to church on sunday. he is not much of a talker but he did tell us that before we watched the restoration he was a little confused. we were going to teach him the second lesson but thanks to companianship study and prayer we decided not too. the spirit is truly in this work. cant remember if i talked about roberto who was a new investigator last week but he has a family and is italian and awesome. but unfortunately he goes to new york until september. then we taught slash had dinner with this couple below us. they are hilarious. it is so cool now that i can understand 65-87percent of what is said. it makes it so much more enjoyable. and it gives me enough so that i can respond. some people are still really hard to understand but i am definately improving. then we taught jonathan who is 26 and waiting his mission call. his family and friends are not members and not the best influence on him but he is so strong. he likes meeting with us to help himself have strength. i love him. he is one of the most humble and fun people i have ever met. i went on a short exchange with him and we did this survey in this park. the second person we talked to was elect. he is so kind and friendly and speaks the language so much better(he is from philipines but has been here for 15 years or something) and we taught her first gave her a book of mormon and got her information. she is a mother of 2 and the night before had been talking with a friend about the purpose of life. she lives in milan so we will be sending her information their. Ok this week me and my companian were blessed to have another elder with us. anziano cooper was with us this week. he has only been in italy for 1 month and a half but his companian was sick in bed so he came with us for a week. he was surving in batipaglia which is by naples. but he would talk with literally everyone. i learned so much from him and i have never talked to so many people in one week in my life. it was awesome. i learned alot from him.anziano herrick is amazing. i am so blessed to have him as my companian he is a twin and from utah and we are quite common. i love him. we are seeing so many blessings. then we also had zone conference this week which was such a spiritual booster. anziano and his companian gave one of the trainings and it was great. they talked about having the faith to find people. and lastly on wednesday i did a giro (tour) of rome. it was so awesome. so i will tell you the things we saw. first went to spanish steps, then pantheon, then piazza barberina, piazza navona, and the vatican and we saw castel di st angelo, and st giovanni ( huge church), sacred steps (for the catholics the holy of holies) and this church with human bones everyone, and trevi fountain and because there is the world wide watersports championships here we met these professional korean waterpolo players who spoke a little english. it was cool. we also did zone singing with like 35 missionaries at piazza del popolo this week. so we saw alot and alot of things. it was amazing. i took alot and alot of pictures. to the point that there is no room on my camera. but i will send them home on cds. well hope everyone is doing good. i will keep you all in my prayers and i thank you all for yours. i feel them every day. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true church on the earth. i know it. vi voglio bene.
> anziano hale.

Happy Birthday Megan and Happy Fourth of July everyone else! Well the mission is not getting easier but i am always enjoying it more and more as a i learn. ok the first of this week was really hard for me and my companian. we had george the week before and then a couple other investigators that we had worked a little with that kind of dropped us or just never answer the phone. so monday through saturday last week was almost discouraging. which is not how you should be. but we lifted eachother up and we are learning so much. me and my companian are so different but it is so fun becoming better and better friends. But on Sunday we saw John and it was amazing. We talked about the apostasy by doing a little object lesson with candles representing apostles and things and then we watched the restoration. We asked him to pay extra attention to his feelings as we watched. after we asked how he filled and you could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. he said i am so happy and i want to keep learning. we asked if he thougt joseph smith was a prophet and this gospel is true. he said yes. we asked him to be baptized and he said, again? so we tried to explain the authority that only belongs to our church but he wasnt catching it. but he said he will pray and ask God and if God wants him to get baptized -again- he will do it. so we are preparing on how to teach him this saturday about authority and baptism more but the lesson was so amazing. he didnt grasp the concept perfect but his testimony he has and his faith he has are amazing. i know everything is going to work out wonderful. ok then only other lesson i did this week was with the italian family. i was on an exchange with anziano steiner and we taught them. it was so amazing seeing how the gospel truly helps and strengthens and changes a family. it was the coolest thing ever. So the sister of Mirco-who is the father- is getting baptized the 18th. she is about 22 and has been taking the lessons also. her name is sara. she and the mother barbara help mirco out so much with understanding the scriptures. It was so cool to see the excitement they had about the scriptures and everything. their prayers were very specific and the whole thing was such a spiritaul experience. mirco the father is so funny. this small italian who loves cracking jokes and is so humble as we teach him. i hope i stay in terni next transfer. and on me andanziano steiners exchange we found this sweet family that we will hopefully teach this next week from nigeria and then also this very kind evangelist italian lady-rare-. and i learn so much from his example. it was such a great exchange. well this saturday for the fourht we are playing football so i have to go right now to find one. im doing wonderful. the gospel is so so true. love you all.
> anziano hale
>

Happy Birthday Megan and Happy Fourth of July everyone else! Well the mission is not getting easier but i am always enjoying it more and more as a i learn. ok the first of this week was really hard for me and my companian. we had george the week before and then a couple other investigators that we had worked a little with that kind of dropped us or just never answer the phone. so monday through saturday last week was almost discouraging. which is not how you should be. but we lifted eachother up and we are learning so much. me and my companian are so different but it is so fun becoming better and better friends. But on Sunday we saw John and it was amazing. We talked about the apostasy by doing a little object lesson with candles representing apostles and things and then we watched the restoration. We asked him to pay extra attention to his feelings as we watched. after we asked how he filled and you could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. he said i am so happy and i want to keep learning. we asked if he thougt joseph smith was a prophet and this gospel is true. he said yes. we asked him to be baptized and he said, again? so we tried to explain the authority that only belongs to our church but he wasnt catching it. but he said he will pray and ask God and if God wants him to get baptized -again- he will do it. so we are preparing on how to teach him this saturday about authority and baptism more but the lesson was so amazing. he didnt grasp the concept perfect but his testimony he has and his faith he has are amazing. i know everything is going to work out wonderful. ok then only other lesson i did this week was with the italian family. i was on an exchange with anziano steiner and we taught them. it was so amazing seeing how the gospel truly helps and strengthens and changes a family. it was the coolest thing ever. So the sister of Mirco-who is the father- is getting baptized the 18th. she is about 22 and has been taking the lessons also. her name is sara. she and the mother barbara help mirco out so much with understanding the scriptures. It was so cool to see the excitement they had about the scriptures and everything. their prayers were very specific and the whole thing was such a spiritaul experience. mirco the father is so funny. this small italian who loves cracking jokes and is so humble as we teach him. i hope i stay in terni next transfer. and on me andanziano steiners exchange we found this sweet family that we will hopefully teach this next week from nigeria and then also this very kind evangelist italian lady-rare-. and i learn so much from his example. it was such a great exchange. well this saturday for the fourht we are playing football so i have to go right now to find one. im doing wonderful. the gospel is so so true. love you all.
> anziano hale
>

Ciao tutti,
> well i am short on time so i will just talk about the main events from this week and some things i learned. Today we went to assisi which is about an hour and a half from terni. it is a very big tourist city. more english speaking people there than i have seen my whole mission. very weird. but we saw some old churches that were very big and pretty and just the city itself was cool. one cool church was San Francesco. i will send pictures next week. i felt like i was walking through a museum. but it didnt thrill me a ton. i just liked looking at the church. it is very amazing some of the things they built. it definately makes me more grateful for the true church and for the spirit we can feel in our chapels though. well this week was a great example in my mission of ups and downs and of putting my trust in the Lord. Last friday we went to georges. he seemed on tuesday to have doing farely well. But we had a long discussion with him, him doing most of the talking, and we will not be visiting with him any more. it was very very sad and hard. There were some things going on in his life that we didnt know about and he does not want us preaching to him anymore. It was so hard to hear him say everything he said, but the Lord truly comforted him during this time. I felt my heavenly father with me. so george is no longer an investigator. he said he might come to church if he ever desires. But i learned alot about free agency. I can always do my best but people always have their free agency. i thought alot about some of the things we might have done wrong teaching him but then i was reminded that the Savior Jesus Christ was the perfect teacher and people rejected him way more than i will ever be rejected. And we did all we could to teach by the spirit which is the most important thing. And at the same time i still have hope for George in the future. And i know i can not judge others about anything because God is the Judge. And God will use many factors to judge people. Not just because he didnt accept us as missionaries i can say means what will be his reward because God judges people according to their circumstances, the place where they live, the people they are around, the love they have for people, the desires of their heart. I know God knows perfect and so i do not even have to worry. I love George very much and that is what we told him when we left. So that happened this week. then the next day the Lord blessed us. We taught john an awesome lesson. He has been reading the book of mormon alot. And he told us since he has had the book of mormon in his life he has had so much more happiness. The book of mormon is true! He has prayed and feels very good about it. It was such a wonderful lesson. He has been attending some church in rome for 2 years but we invited him to church this sunday. And he came! and even though he doesnt speak italian anziano drury translated for him and he thought church was fabulous. we asked him to come from 10 to 12 but he came from 9 to 12. it was so amazing. well those were the two biggest things that happend this week. We also worked a little with this recent convert who this last week moved from perugia to terni. He is about 45 or something and is originally from peru. he has been here 1 and a half years for work. He is such an amazing person. So So humble and always trying to improve. It was so wonderful being with him. I also met an awesome kid this week named Giordano. which is jordan. it was so cool. he is probably in his early 20s and he played the guitar and i got his number so we can talk about the gospel hopefully this next week. The Lord blesses us so much. well i am really short on time and have to go do my shopping for this week but i love you all and hope everything is going well. Vi voglio bene!
> anziano hale
>

Ciao Family!
> Thank you all for your emails! it is always good to hear news from home. I cannot believe andy is home. that is crazy. i hope surgery goes well. keep me updated on him and tell him anziano steiner and i say hi. things are going well here in terni. last week we had a lot of new investigators in our district and it was really awesome. the members here in terni are getting really excited about missionary work because usually there are only 4 elders but now we have 6 elders in terni. Last week i forgot to tell you avout another way we find people. we have an english class where we teach english to people for free and then share a short spiritual message at the end. this last week anziano wald and i taught the advanced english class together. we felt like we actually contributed. its hard to feel like im contributing when i cant speak the language that well and when i cant understand people but the lord is teaching me so much. and i am contributing. it is scary to talk to people on the bus but the lord has blessed me so much. last week i was on a bus and i said this is so hard. then i just said i just need to talk so i talked to this lady i think i asked her where the best pizzeria was and i didnt understand what she was saying so she wrote it down but then we started talking and i gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet with our number on it because she had a family. it was cool. it was an answer that i can do something here. whenever i see people that look foreign i always talk to them. especially from nigeria because the chances are they speak english better than italian. and they are so friendly. i have met people from so many different countries. like albania, romania, russia, nigeria, afghanistan, germany and a lot more places i dont know how to say. its awesome. oh william is a less active member and he is doing all right but i think you might be talking about daniel who i might have told you the wrong name last week but daniel is doing pretty good. we think he found a job because we tried going back during the day and he wasnt there but we did teach the first lesson to him and his sons girlfriend rosana and it was so awesome. i might have already told you about it but i could truly feel the spirit testifying through me. right now we are doing a lot of finding work but have so many people we are just trying to set up anappointment with because they have so much potential. Oh yes last week we went to these waterfalls near terni and they were really big and really pretty it was awesome. today we are shopping. oh i cant remember if i told you we sing in centro on sunday to find people. we sing hymns and it is awesome. well i am learning so much here. thanks again for all your emails. oh we had zone conference yesterday and it was amazing. president and the aps and zone leaders and sister acerson spoke and i got to bear my testimony cause i am new but it was just a great experience. our mission president and his wife are amazing! oh one more thing. we went to this investigators house named mimo who fed us dinner and it was an experience. he is so funnny and has been an investigator for quite a while. over the years though with the missionaries he has stopped smoking and drinking.anyway first he fed us alot of pasta which was good, then when we were full he brings out these mozerella chesse balls that are almost the size of a raquet ball and says mangia tutti. eat it all. then a salad, chocolates, icecream and then he made us eat fruit. i had a banana and the biggest orange of my life. i was so full. it was so funny. well i will try to go send you pics right now. thank you all for your prayers i can feel them. i know this is the lords work. i recieve so so many tender mercies from Him everyday. i love the people in italy and am so happy i still have most of my mission left. love you all!
> Anziano Hale

> Mom i am jealous you are swimming with the dolphins and get to see myan ruins. that is awesome. well everything here is going well. when i look back i realize it really is going quick. this saturday will be my half point mark in the mtc. i'm not counting down or anything but i am super stoked to go to italy. yep the first lesson is in a week from yesterday. i am so pumped. I am learning so much each day and i love it here cause the spirit is always here and the teachers and speakers are amazing. on sunday the new president of the mtc spoke and i really liked his talk and then he came to our sacrament meeting. fast and testimony. it was cool. well we sure stay busy here. always something to do. i run a mile 4 or 5 times a week and then play basketball with anziano marris, divett, and romero. i love them. marris and divett are going to milan so that will be sad i won't see them on the mission. but hopefully after. I truly can see how the lord blesses me so much. i see blessing from him every day. i know that as we listen for the spirit he will always have things to tell us to help us with our days. this week when we were teaching in english i accidentally said an italian word instad of english. it was so funny. and last night i had a dream about studying how to conjegate (sp?) for the future. it was funny. well i am growing closer to my roomates and companian every day. it will be sad to leave them. oh yeah ann cochran or something like that from the washtonian news came to our class of 12 missionaries and we represented all the missionaires. she asked our class a couple of questions after we introduced our selves in italian. she is not lds but her son went on a mission to italy she is a writer and talked to two of the apostles before coming to us. she is doing a article on missionaries. it was pretty cool and an honor. well i get to watch a movie every sunday night and this week it was the testaments. it was such a good reminder that we cannot do this without our savior jesus christ. i am so so grateful for him. i am so blessed to be able to represent him and teach his gospel to the people in italy. i love you all. thanks so much for the letters. ciao! oh btw is paul married yet. and that's cool about the kids going to milan blessing eja i will be looking for him. Arrivaderci!
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> Anziano Hale