Ansiano Hale's Mission

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
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