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

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