Hello!

Well i think i have seen the hand of the Lord in the work these past couple of days more than i have ever seen before. Since i talked to you all on sunday a miracle has happened. well happening.

Ok but i will start with silvestro

silvestro came to church the 2nd time this week in a row. He was able to meet all the young men and women and really enjoy himself. then we watched the restoration with a young man in the ward and silvestro and then invited him to continue reading the book of mormon and when he gets his answer that it is true to get baptized. He is doing wonderful. He is doing everything by himself, already has friends, and is a spiritual kid. I am very very excited for him.

Ok then there is sharon. This week we taught her fasting and it went amazingly. she fasted on saturday and sunday and gained a strong testimony of it. as she fasted she prayed 2 times specifically and both her prayers were answered almost immediately. It was so neat. and then mother you told me that when i saw sharon to tell her that you want her to know that the church is true. ( i hope you all understood that sentence) So i did. and she responded with a i think it is true also!She said i feel that it is right. and then she told us that she eventually wants to get baptized but it is hard to explain to her husband in the philipines over the phone her feelings and so she wants to wait until he is here which would be next year. So that was great news and we think that with a little more work and time she can work things out with her husband and get baptized sometime this year. It was really good news though to hear her talk about her testimony that she has and is gaining.

We also saw baldo this week and he is about the same. Hopefully his talk with bishop will help him start progressing more.

We saw anthony 2 times the past 2 days. he is doing pretty well. he is praying about the book of mormon but does not feel that he has recieved an answer yet. he says it is very hard. we assured him that it is hard but as he shows his faith by continuing to read and pray he will get an answer.

OK now i want to tell you about the Miracle that happened Monday. So we had an appointment set up with Peachy and her family. Peachy had told us earlier that day that deacon vincent would also be there at her house. So we said ok. Then ten minutes before we left our house to go to the appointment i get a call from Rodolfo Donadeo. Rodolfo was my branch mission leader in caserta and one of my best friends. i was so happy to talk to him and he told me he was in town in rome. So we started talking about something we could do on wednesday and then my companian said to me invite rudy to our appointment tonight. Rodolfo said he would come. So we went and picked up Rodolfo and headed to the appointment. We were so excited. Now let me explain to you why we were so excited. Deacon vincent is a deacon obviously and is becoming a priest in 2 months. Rodolfo Donadeo was converted 5 years ago and then served a mission in texas( the same place where Deacon Vincent is from). so that was really ironic and a good conversation starter. But even better Rodolfo 5 years ago was also a deacon for the catholic church and was 3 months away from becoming a priest when he was baptized. It was a miracle that we even had this situation going on! we thought about how many members of the church could say that they have been in the same situation as deacon before. we thought maybe 15 in the world maybe. and one of them was coming with us to the appointment. so on the way Rodolfo asks me ok well what should i do and say. I chuckled and then said follow the spirit. He did. so we arrive and me deacon and rodolfo are sitting in the living room talking about texas and deacons ordination. rodolfo was playing dumb. then peachy had been talking to my companian in the kitchen with the others and peachy comes running in and says rodolfo i didnt know that about you. he says what. she says you were about to become a priest for the catholic church before you were baptized. at this point i had also been playing dumb and did not want to look at deacon(ha) so i faced rodolfo as he started to tell his story. deacon was like oh really! and then rodolfo said yes and answered a bunch of questions from peachy including what was it that changed your mind. Rudy responded, the book of mormon. Deacon was asking questions and then at the end said to rudy thank you very much for sharing your story with us. at one point he also said to rudy, you seem very happy with the choice you made. Then we ate dinner and had the lesson and then rodolfo and deacon vincent exchanged numbers and information and deacon wanted to see Rodolfo again. It was amazing. Today we are going with Rodolfo and Deacon Vincent to the vatican to do a tour. cool huh. well it was definately the hand of the Lord that set this up. We are hoping and praying that everything will work out. Please keep praying.

Well that was this week

i love you all

anziano hale

Hello!!

well internet is being silly today so this might be the only letter i get off. Well i will start with the big news first. Yesterday we got calls from Presient to tell us about transfers. I was 90 percent sure my companian would be leaving and i would be staying. Well it was not as i thought. The bad news is that i am leaving and i am very sad. I came to love this city in 6 weeks and i will miss it very much. i will also miss anziano gillespie very much. we got along great and did a great work together. there were definately hard times this transfer but in the end it was great. i will miss our investigators but i can trust anziano gillespie to take care of them (especially Salma). i will also miss Austin who got baptised and 3 other recent converts named lily, giuseppe, and nertil. so i am sad but the good news is where i am going. i am going back to Rome! infact the same ward and apartment and everything. That is where gemil and Sharlene were baptized and i havent seen them since so i am very excited. i really love the ward there. and something very interesting is this transfer at random times i have thought back to serving in rome with anziano herrick and wondered if some of the people i knew will ever get contacted again. but now i know they will. also we had the investigator Zang Bu Dong from china here in Prato that moved to rome so i am going to start teaching him again. my companian will be anziano morris who i have heard good things about but do not know him great. so i will be going back to rome tomorrow. crazy who fast things can unexpectedly change. well the work went pretty good this week.

I met this man named Alex from Brazil who was really neat. He is about 27 and is studying theology and is becoming a priest. But the good thing is he was interested in the book of mormon and he is now reading it in portuguese. And i know that the book of mormon can change his mind about wanting to be a priest because he will feel and find the truth. Hopefully my companian and his new companian can visit with him tomorrow or friday. We also got an investigator from knocking house. His name is samuele and he is italian and way cool. He is studying greek and is very smart. He really liked the book of mormon and was excited to read it and also to see us again. He is probably 27 or so. So those were two really cool miracles. Samuele had told my companian when we were on an exchange that we could come back later. And we did and he allowed us to teach him. I think he is only like my fourth investigator from knocking house. Salma was very busy and so she could not see us but she wants to meet with us tomorrow. She really wants to come to church and she is enjoying the book of mormon. I will keep hoping that everything will work out for her. She is so amazing. Sad news is the father named Donado that i met a couple weeks ago let satan get into his mind. When i met him he really wanted a book of mormon and seemed so sincere. But then i finally got hold of him and he just hung up on me. So we sent him a text message with a pay phone (cause we dont have text) and bore our testimony of the book of mormon. It is so sad who powerful satan is. He truly has a knowledge of the importance of this message that we have and he does everything he can to get people to not to listen. We also found a cool albanian family knocking house and hopefully they can start investigating the church. Had an appointment with lorenzo and stefano that went pretty well. We have still not seen the pakistanian family allthough they still really want us to come over the dads work schedule is just very random so we have to call every day and see if they are available that day. So i have seen so many miracles in this city. The second week of this transfer after austin was baptized we had no investigators. Now we have quite a few and some who are promising. The Lord has truly blessed us and i hope i can put into practice the things i learned here in rome. Eric from nigeria was baptized on sunday. The sisters here in prato had been teaching him. It was a great experience and he was so happy. He bore his testimony and said he has never been happier and he will never forget his baptisimal day. It was great. Well that pretty much sums up this week. So next week i will be talking to you all from Rome. Love you all. Ciao Ciao

anziano hale

Subject: Ciao Ciao
> From: jhshades@myldsmail.net
> To: lisahalej@hotmail.com
> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:45:44 +0000
>
> Hello!
>
> Well this week went pretty well. I think this was the best week of my mission. Last Tuesday we had zone conferene like i said. I cant remember if i said what the zone leaders talked about. They talked about changing. Their invite was “will you change?”. My companian and i were pretty pumped and really wanted to change. I think our desire to do better opened the door for alot of miracles. We started changing just the little things we do and we saw many miracles. I personally was able to focus more on other people and i have never been so happy before.
> Ok the first miracle happened Thursday morning. This wasnt even me and my companian. The Warners ( the missionary couple here) met this lady in caserta named Silvana. The warners were taking english and she overheard them and thought they were tourists and started talking to them in english. After a little discussion she said she wanted to learn more about Jesus. The warners gave us her phone number and we invited her to come to church. She came near the end of sacrament meeting. In the gospel principles class we talked about the plan of salvation. This was her first learning of the church. She is a very open person and is good at taking alot of information in quickly. She is also not afraid to express her feelings. Any way, in gospel principles we had alot of italian members there and the lesson went really well. The topic of baptism was brought up and she said, wait a minute do i need to be baptized into your church. Then brother rudy donadeo explained very quickly the restoration and she said, well this is an important thing to me so i will keep studying with you and coming to church and then i will make the decision if i should get baptized. It was so funny how open she was. She is not your typical italian. But it was really cool and she took a book of mormon, gospel principle manuele, ensign, and a bunch of pamphlets. We are meeting with her on Friday and i am very excited.
> Thursday afternoon me and my companian were on the way to the church. We were also still pumped from zone conference and wanted to find a family. We saw a father with his little girl and walked past him and said hi. His response seemed pretty kind. We walked a little farther and then he turned and went into this inside basketball court. We turned around and decided to try and talk to him. We went and asked about the basketball court and if you needed to pay to use it. We started up a conversation and then another girl who was in the basketball court came outside. She started in on our conversation. At one point we went and checked something in the court and were about to leave but then this girl started talking to us again so we kept talking and then not too long later the church was brought up. The father was listening at first but then had to go. So we stood there and taught the talked to this girl for about 45 minutes about our message. She was very sincere and was excited to read the book of mormon. She was upset she was baptized as a catholic because she didnt think she had any free agency. She is coming to church this coming sunday and we are very excited to start teaching her because she was such a sincere person and seemed so ready for this gospel.
> Friday afternoon we started to do private english lessons. We are all in the same room but we speak to one person at a time. All 3 people my companian talked to asked him about the gospel and that was the main subject of their lesson. Rudy also gave away a book of mormon and gave a talk by president monson to this lady who really loved the talk. I didnt have as much luck but i was really happy about the others. One lady my companian talked to is named Anna. She sat down and my companian asked her ok what do you want to talk about (asking the question in a sense of what english topic). She responded that she wanted to know about our religion and that in our church she felt something that made her really happy. My companian told her that was the spirit and she started crying. They went and to talk about the gospel. She has alot of problems right now in her life and wants to be happier. We are meeting with her tonight to talk to her about our message. I am very excited.
> Satuday evening we taught two of emildas friends from the philipines. They really liked our message and were excited to read the book of mormon.
> Ok these are just some of the miracles but i want to share my favorite right now. We went to Augustins house friday night. Augustin is from Ghana and we have taught him about 5 times now. We wanted to invite him to be baptized because he feels the book of mormon is true. We had invited him before and he said that he had allready been baptized. But last week we had explained to him the restoration with candles and it went well. Anyway friday night we asked him to get baptized and he was really excited. He said yes. Then he said “i know that you are sent from God . I know that you are his servants because every time you come here i have problems or things that i need to stop doing or become better at. When you come here i want to change and stop doing those things. I want to be a better person because of your message.” He said it so sincerely and i cannot explain how happy i was when he told us that. We then watched the restoration and after the movie was over there was a pause and then he said, “I understand. I know this is the true church of God.” He said it with such a big smile and he looked like the happiest person on earth. So augustin will be baptized after he comes to church 3 times. It is not always easy for him to come because work is hard to find and what he does have he sometimes has to do on sunday. So we are praying very hard that he can start making it to church. And he really wants to come to church its just that sometimes he gets called saturday nights and is told he needs to go to work the next morning. But we are very excited for Augustin.
> Well i want to testify that as we show our desire to Heavenly Father to become better people and to serve him that he will shower blessings upon us. I also know that the greatest happiness comes from serving others.
> Vi Voglio bene.
> Buona settimana!
>
> Anziano Hale

well my new years eve was pretty exciting. lets just say there were alot of fireworks here in italy.Wow its 2010! And tomorrow is my one year mark in the mission. It is crazy! Mission goes by way too fast. This was a good week. On sunday we had four investigators come to church. And we have continued teaching jacob, richard, and agustine. They are such great men. They are all going to try and come to church this week. We had a great appointment with them on Monday and they are just so grateful for the message we have. They once again asked amazing questions. Yesterday we saw Francis and it was one of the coolest appointments ever. He told us last week that he will become a member of the church. This week we found out that he is one of the most faithful men in the world. After we talked about prayer and scripture study he really opened up to us again. He told us of a story that has recently happened to him. He has 2 kids and a wife to feed in Ghana. He also has to pay for rent and he struggles to have food for himself. But not too long ago a friend of his offered him a job. He practically has nothing so you would think that he would have taken it but the job was selling drugs. He wanted Francis to be a guy that travels to get drugs and bring them here to italy to sell. He promised him good money. But Francis looked the guy in the eyes and said no, i will not. I am a Christian. I know God lives. No i will not. The guy kept bothering him but Francis just talked about how he could never do that. Then he started telling us about his life. He told us that ever since he was a kid he has been raised with the bible and with a christian background. He said that the thing that he wants to do more than anything is preach the gospel for the true church of God. When he told us you could truly see it in him that this was the biggest desire of his life. And some day he will be an amazing member and missionary. He went on to bear his testimony of God and the scriptures and eternal life and i have never met someone more faithful than him. It was such a neat experience and i will never forget it. He then said the closing prayer and it was one of the most sincere and powerful prayers ever. He was praying for us and i felt his love and Gods love so much. He has allready done more for me just through who he is than i could ever wish to do for him. He is great. He is going to try to come to church if he will be in town but he is going to come to a fireside we are having on saturday with President Acerson (mission president) about the book of mormon.
> This week i also gained a greater love for the fist members of the church. My companian has been sick so yesterday morning we stayed inside. I have been reading our heritage and i had quite a bit of time to read it yesterday. It is such an amazing book and i am now so much more grateful for the first members of the church and for their faith and examples for me. I advise anyone who has not read that book to do so.
> Oh yes on Sunday we went to Napoli and we had zone singing. It was such a great experience and i was so happy to be doing it again. I had not done it for nearly 5 months. But it went great. It worked better here than any other place i have done it. When we first started singing truly like 25 people stopped and just listened to us sing hymns. During the whole hour of singing i met 2 amazing people. One of them is named maria. Her friends were ignoring me but she was truly listening and i told her about the restoration and she wanted to learn more. So she gave me her number and hopefully the missionaries in napoli can start teaching her soon. The other was a lady about 40 years old named michella. She was really neat and also sounded very interested. I didnt get her information but i did give her a book of mormon and she promised me that she will read it and also study more about our church on mormon.org and if she feels anything special she will call the elders or come to church. It was such a testimony builder for me that there are people here who are ready and willing to listen to this wonderful message.
> Well i hope everyones christmas vacation went great. Hope that going back to school and work is not too hard. I love you all. Have a wonderful week.
> Anziano Hale