Catania, Sicily - 5/25/2011

Ciao!

Well I’m in the field now. I’m trying to figure out this strange Italian keyboard. The letters are in different places and my backspace button is sticky :P

Allora. So as you probably got the e-mail from president Kelly, I have arrived safely in Italia after many hours of plane travel and then took a 10ish hour train ride all the way down the Italian coast line to the città di Catania in Sicilia. Something to learn about Sicilians is they don’t speak Italia, they speak a dialect that sounds nothing like Italian so basically everything I learned in the mtc is pretty much useless. Not even the Italian anziani here from up north understand the people here in Sicilia. Pero sto provando. My companion is a great guy his name is Anziano Medina and he’s from san diego. He’s a zone leader of all of Sicilia and has a lot of stuff he has to do. He’s in Rome right now for a mission conference and gets back later tonight. I’m currently on a split with anziano botella. He’s Italian and doesn’t know much English so these last few days have been fun. Here in Catania me, anziano medina, and a companionship of sisters makes up all the missionaries here in Catania. It’s very difficult because this is a huge city for only 2 companionships. We finally got a car last night after having to walk everywhere this last week. People here drive like maniacs. At intersections they have theses blinking yellow lights that basically mean it’s a free for all. Everybody kinda just drives through the middle praying they don’t hit anything. If there’s space you go in it or you’re driving wrong whether or not it’s a lane. Everybody here is very poor and they don’t have many jobs here also. Most people are unemployed. Oh and everybody smokes here. EVERYBODY. Its pazzo. The number one problem we have with investigators is that they can never give up smoking. People here start doing it from a very young age around 13 and then they do it the rest of their lives til it eventually kills them. I guess people here don’t really know the effects of smoking and the reason why your whole family died from lung cancer is because they all smoked. They are so oblivious. How often do you find yourself teaching someone about the word of wisdom and they try to explain to you how healthy it is to smoke? Ignorance. Other than that the people are way open about everything. I love it. You just start talking to some random guy on the street and he spills his whole life story out to you. The Italiani seem to be in love with this guy named padre pio, we call him papa P or the anti-christ lol. Apparently he suffered for a third of the worlds sins when Jesus appeared to him and stabbed him 3 times in the hands and in the chest and the Catholic Church sanctified him. Everybody prays to him. It’s hard to explain prayer to the Italiani because they have always prayed to saints and never to god directly. When we teach them about prayer sometimes they pray and start praying to "Saint Joseph Smith" and we have to stop them and explain praying again. Praying to God is one of those things I guess that was lost during the apostasy and I think that the fact we can pray directly to our father in heaven in a huge blessing. No middle men. God cares about every single one of us and wants all of us to talk to him always and let him know how we're doing, like any good father would.

We have a ward here and a beautiful church building. The ward is pretty big and the members are wonderful. When I went up and bore my testimony in Italian in front of them all last Sunday they laughed at me so I guess I said something right. haha The bishop is a great guy. We taught a lesson with him the other day and his testimony could bring down walls because it was so powerful. Also here in Catania there is an American naval base so we have an English branch after the Italian ward. There are a good 40 members in the English branch and many are families. Its nice going to a church meeting I understand. Since we have the naval base here the American members bring us all kind of American food like peanut butter, oreos and many other wonderful things that you cannot get here. A sister there also said you could mail packages to her house on the base and you won’t have to worry about it being taken and destroyed by the Italian customs agency. She gave me her address but I left it at home so I’ll email it to you next time.

The weather here in Catania is basically southern California. If I closed my eyes I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between here and LA. I’m trying to think of what else I can say. I love Italians, I love this city and I never wanna leave haha. This place is wonderful. The parks and plazas are beautiful and the walls are covered in graffiti, but not bad graffiti, not like America where it’s profane the graffiti here is usually a message to a lover or a memorial to someone dead or really cool pictures. Many say "TI amo" or "Onore a" I’m looking at one right now that says Ti amo Popli.

Well that’s all I can think of for now. We have 5-6 investigators 2 of which a baptismal dates. FANTASTICO! I miss you all and hope you are all "State Sceliendo il Justo"

Vi amo e Ci vediamo

-Anziano Hill

Email from the Mission Home

He looks great and had a good night’s rest.

His first assignment is in the city of…

Catania on the island of Sicily!

Thank you for sending us such a fantastic missionary!

Sister Claudette Burt

Mission Secretary

Italy Rome Mission

Late Night Phone Call :)

Kyle called from London last night. He had a short layover there before his final leg to Italy. He sounded amazing. I woke up all of the kids to talk to him. Kristin cried this morning because she doesn't remember. (she was so tired) He bore his testimony in Italian and even though I couldn't understand what he was saying I could feel the Spirit touching my heart. I'm so proud of him and his choice to serve the Lord.

He told us there were 18 missionaries traveling together to the Rome Mission. Also, as his companion and him were waiting to go through security in Salt Lake Airport someone came up between them and put his arms around the both of them and asked where they were headed. When they responded Rome, Italy, he said, "not many missionaries get to go there." As he walked away they realized it was Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. =) They met up again a few minutes later and got pictures. He was actually on the first leg of their flight from Salt Lake to Chicago.

We can't wait to receive his next email. Here's a little excerpt from the last "surprise" email we received the day before he left....

...I can't believe I'm leaving already. This experiece has been one of the best of my life and I'm not even close to finishing. I wouldn't give this up for anything. My testimony has grown exponentially and even if I came home now I'd be 10x the person I was before I left. It takes about two weeks to get mail between Italia and the US and I can only send one e-mail to family when I'm in the campo.

Can't wait to talk to voy domani nel telephono! non aspeto niente.

Ci vediamo

Anziano Hill

Off to Italy

Kyle leaves for Italy on Tuesday, May 17th. Please keep him and the other missionaries in your prayers as they travel. I've updated his address so that you can write to him there. ---Tami :)

MTC - WEEK 8

Ciao!

Happy late mothers day mom! I hope you had a wonderful Sunday =) I'm sorry I didn't get to call but I have good news I have received my travel plans! Well this is my last e-mail from the MTC. Next Wednesday at this time I will be in an airplane.

We had Elder Andersen of the 12 speak to us yesterday; he gave an amazing talk about Christ and what he has to offer for us. But the best part was after the devotional I got to meet him! and I shook his hand!!! That was honestly one of the coolest things that have ever happened to me. He's such a nice guy and brought his grandchildren with him. Other than Elder Andersen and travel plans this week has been relatively uneventful. You sorta get into a flow of things and days just come and go. We've been counting down the days this week til we go. You can sense the excitement and nervousness around. I can't believe my time here at the MTC is almost up; these last two months have blown by so fast! I hope my mission isn't like that. If I could I would do this forever. The amount of things I've learned here in 2 months would have taken me 2 years in the outside world or "Babylon" as we call it here in the MTC.

Well I’m running outa time. If you want to send letters send them by Friday or I won’t get them.

Ciao,

Anziano Hill

MTC-WEEK 7

Ciao!

I cannot believe that it’s already week 7. We leave in two weeks from yesterday. Time goes by so fast its crazy to think that I've been here at the MTC for almost two months. Its almost sad how fast time moves here on my mission, my journal is practically a novel. I write in it every night. So to answer a few questions for you mom; I totally love the letters with them calendar phrases on them, but your little phrases you wrote all over them are horrible Italian and even my teach laughs when he reads them so stick to the calendar when it comes to the Italian and don’t try anything fancy. Anziano Andersen is going to Rome with me; I really hope we end up being companions in the field because we work so well together. We get our travel plans within the next few days so next week I’ll be telling you my schedule and when I have lay-overs so I can call everyone. So far it looks like I could have up to 8 hours of lay-overs. Hows that sound =). We'll wait and see. My ankle and finger are getting better. I didn't see anyone for it, it didn't seem like such a big deal and I didn't wanna make a scene. I can play on my ankle and stuff, but as for my finger, no fist bumps or high fives to my left hand and I’m ok.

I thank you all for your prayers for my zone. I can see them working. Most Elders are doing much better and everything seems to have returned to normal. We had one elder go home this week =( but it was out of his hands. The new elders are very oblivious and as a zone leader I’m constantly having to remind them to do some very simple things. It honestly drives me nuts sometimes. But its just one of the challenges or trials we talk about so much. God wouldn't have made me a zone leader if he didn't want me to learn patience. Patience is the 2nd hardest thing I've had to learn here, right under humility. There is no where in the world more humbling than the MTC, and there’s no group of missionaries that can test my patience more than the new group of elders that just came in haha. Although they are a bunch of slackers I still love every single one of them and they are funny guys, just need a little trimming around the edges and they'll be perfect.

I would like my mission call mailed to me, or just a copy of it. President Uchdorf talked saying that as missionaries we need to carry our mission calls with us everywhere here on our mission. So if I could get a copy of that I would love it. That’s all I need right now. I can’t really think of anything else I’ll need while I’m here. From what I hear Italia is pretty efficient and I’ll be able to find most stuff there if I’m missing anything.

Alorra, Mi mancite e Vi voglio benissimo. Nella boca del lupo. Avete una bouna settemana.

Vi amo

Anziano Hill