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