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
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