Catania, Sicily - 6/22/2011

Ciao Ciao

Well what a week this has been. I'm just gonna start out by telling you a little something I learned this week. When you plan appointments, they will most likely fall through, so what do you do? you find of course, but no one wants to hear you at all. When all seems lost and you and your companion are on the way all the sudden a man approches you and says, "who are you? Why are you dressed so funny?"

Well Sinore, we are missionaries

Are you Catholics?

No, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ.

Oh good. What do you teach?

Well that’s a great question!

We commenced to teach him a little bit about our church and he just so happened to be very interested. We are meeting him again next week. WOOO!! So the moral here is that even though you work for hours and find no one the Lord is preparing people and if it wasn’t for all that wandering around we would have never found this guy. Woo!!! I can’t wait to teach him more.

So I had my first zone conference last week and that was excellent and nuts. Elder Teixeira of the 70 talked to us and he taught us some way awesome things. That was the excellent part. The nuts part was that we set the alarm of in the church building because Aci, our church maintenance guy, forgot do disarm it and we sat through the whole conference with the alarm on. Also we had 22 elders in our apartment and we had to drive them everywhere. That was crazy. But other than that the conference was great, we all learned some awesome things and had a great week.

We saw some crazy stuff today. We drove with some members of the american branch to Palermo today and saw to AMAZING old churches and some catacombs. These catacombs weren’t normal catacombs though, they were freaky. Dead bodies everywhere. Way scary, I'm not gonna sleep for a while. You can look them up because I couldn’t take pictures in there. Google Palermo Catacombs. I got some pics of the two churches we saw though. Both are very old and filled with ancient mosaics from the byzantine era I think. One of the churches was huge. One is Duomo Cefalù and the other is Duomo Monreale.

Well I gotta go. Have a great week everyone and I miss you all. I sent a letter to you dad for fathers day but you might not get it for a while so I’ll say happy fathers day now .=)

Vi voglio bene e ci sentiamo,

Anziano Hill

Catania, Sicily - 6/15/2011

Ciao!

I'm going to start off by saying I can't believe I've already been in the field for a whole month. Only 21 more to go! haha But sometimes it makes me sad to think that I have to come home eventually. I love Italia and I love Catania. We have transfers in two weeks and in one week I’ll find whether I'm going or staying. I don't want to go yet =P I'm just starting to gain good relationships with the members and stuff. Even though with most of them, I can’t understand a word of what they're saying. The language is coming very slow. I feel like I can speak it and share ideas decently but when it comes to understanding and listening it’s pretty much me just listening to a moosh of words I don't understand and I just smile a nod. Whenever someone asks me a question I either say yes or ok haha. My trainer says I'm no different than any other missionary who’s just entered the field, and that he was the same way. So there's hope for me!

I'm sending some pretty cool photos I took last Wednesday. We went to a very old Greek/Roman theater here in Catania. It’s one of a kind. We are going to another one today in another city that’s supposed to be even cooler so I'll be sending some pics of that next week. Next are some pictures of the piazza duomo and the duomo. The duomo is the cathedral here in Catania. It’s huge and I have some way cool pictures of the inside. Outside there’s that picture with the fountain and the elephant on it. The elephant is the symbol of Catania. And that elephant statue is some 1500 years old and has survived earthquakes, wars and volcanic eruptions. It’s a sign of the resilience of Catania. There are two statues that I want you guys to pay special attention two. There’s the bearded guy with the key and the book. He’s Peter and he holds the keys of the priesthood here on earth. Wow, what a doctrinal truth! If only people understood their own doctrine, than it would be so much easier when we teach of authority and need of the priesthood of God on earth to do his ordinances. Then the other bearded guy with the sword and the book is Paul. The sword represents him as the defender of the faith! It’s cool to see statues of these awesome apostles because they are my forerunners! 2000 years ago they were doing the same thing as me in the same country! Awesome huh? The pictures of the inside of inside of the duomo are spectacular too. I found a cool little song carved into the wall of a tomb. I was wondering if someone back home could learn how to play it. It’s in treble clef. I have a lot of pictures and I realize I will have to send another email to get them all to you haha so be ready for a couple. Oh and I have a couple pictures of my companion taking a saw to a few of our mattresses.(Never found this picture in the ones he sent) Tomorrow night we will have 26 missionaries in our apartment and we don’t have enough so the Assistants instead of having us buy new ones our having us cut them into thirds. That was real fun

Other than that we found some really awesome people to teach this week. We do this thing called "gesso" or in English that’s "chalk" where we stand in the middle of the piazza duomo, the busiest place here, and draw on a sheet, with chalk, important events from the restoration and people come watch us and we talk to them. We have met some really cool people doing this, and have appointments this week. I will let you all know how it goes next week. We're pretty excited. It’s pretty interesting. Italians talk forever too. We have a couple members of our ward who just talk for hours. Italians can basically talk about anything, and I mean anything.

Let’s see. Uhhhhh this Sunday I got sick for my first time on the mission! It was miserable. I woke up with a way upset stomach but, trying to be a diligent missionary, decided I still must go to church! That was a bad idea. I sat there suffering the whole time and felt like I was gonna die. The Italians seemed to notice because they all were asking if I was ok, and I would tell them no. One of them, a R.M.(Returned Missionary) said I need to go home now. He said he didn't understand the deal with us Americans and always wanting to work. He said when he was on his mission his companion was rolling on the street and still wanted to go to an appointment. He convinced me to go home where I sat in my bed and starred at the roof for a couple hours. I had a fever too but all of it passed by the next day and I was good to go on Monday. It was just a fast stomach bug I guess. But I’m good now and that’s what's important.

Well I’ve written too long and must go. Have a wonderful week and I wish Scott the best of luck on the piano and Mike and Scott both good luck on the Pioneer trek. That’s quite the experience haha. Congrats on surviving elementary school Kristin. Feel old yet mom? haha Have a great week and I loved all the emails. It’s great to hear about all of you. Miss you all and Talk to you next week!

Buona Giornata! -Anziano Hill

Catania, Sicily - 6/8/2011

Caro everyone,

What’s up? No e-mails? =( at least Mike sent me something. (We thought we were supposed to mail letters not email them) So someone in my family still remembered me. Way to go Mike! You were always my favorite! haha I'm just kidding. I got the letters from Mom and Kristin yesterday. And no Kristin I have not eaten that thing you made. (Kristin did a report on Italy and made something called frozia; the internet said it was from Sicily) Neither has my companion. You should have asked me for something to make. The Sicilians eat these things called Arancini. It’s basically cheese, and rice, and all kinds of good stuff, fried into a ball. Look it up, it’s awesome. I eat a lot of pastas haha and a lot of pizzas. You can’t make an Italian style pizza in America because you can't find the right ingredients.

To answer some questions; Mom there are four of us in Catania, me and my colega and 2 sisters. In Sicilia there are 2 zones but we do zone conference together so next week there will be 24 elders staying in our apartment. We have companionships in the cities of Reggio di Calabria (on the mainland, tip of the boot), Messina, Catania, Siracusa, Gela, Argrigento, Sciacca, Trapani, and 2 in Palermo. And we have sisters in Mistreta, Ragusa, Catania, and Siracusa. And 2 companionships in Malta. So yeah, 24 elders and 8 sisters in the Sicilia and Malta zone. The mission is relatively small compared to most missions in the world. We have maybe only 110 missionaries for the whole mission, my group that entered from the MTC with 20 missionaries was the largest group to enter ever, so possibly the mission is growing. It’s difficult to have only 4 missionaries for a city like Catania with some 750,000 inhabitants in our area, we are hoping we can get more.

So this week was great. We went to the beach and saw something called the Turkish steps and then saw some cool Greek temples in Agrigento last P-day. They were huge. I'm sending you some pictures. Today we saw a cool castle here in Catania which I also have pictures of. Tomorrow we are going to an Opera or Ballet; we are not sure which, of one of the sisters’ investigators. It’s going to be in a very old theater in downtown Catania. It’s a huge theater too.

We have some awesome members here in Catania, and our bishop is a great guy to. We taught a lesson with him just yesterday. The bishop has the strongest Sicilian accent I have heard so far here. My companion says he sounds exactly like the guy from The Godfather; I'll take his word for it because I have not seen that movie, ever. Some members are way funny and especially at English class because the English they learn are from songs that they hear so they say some real funny things. Other than that this week was pretty normal. We have a couple investigators but none have baptismal dates =( But they are progressing =) work is hard here in Italy but its progressing and we are baptizing here! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! The church here is stronger than ever and it can only get better! FORZA ITALIA! haha yeah I may have a bit of Italian pride when I get home so get used to it.

So then I guess that’s it, I’m running outa time. I just found out that I can only send one e-mail but I can receive e-mails from anyone so feel free to send me e-mails =) anyone who wants. And on the Sundays where our ward does that thing where they put little segments from the missionaries’ letters in the program, send that to me, because I like to see how my homies around the world are doing.(I already mailed it last week) Ci sentiamo il prossima setimana. Vi voglio bene, vi amo, e mi mancite. Ciao Ciao

Con Amore,

Anziano Hill

Catania, Sicily - 6/1/2011

Buona Giornata tutti!

Just to start, mom you are right, there is a giant volcano right next to my home. It hasn't rained ash down on us yet but it is always smoking. I'm hoping one P-day I get to climb it because it’s awesome and there’s lava n stuff at the top. Today we are going to Agrigento to see a bunch of old Greek temples and stuff like that. Should be way fun.

So to answer a few questions I can only read e-mails on P-day which is today Wednesday but I have excellent news! I got your letters last Thursday. So it actually must only take about a week to get letters from you guys =). So I guess send as many as you guys want. I almost get them faster than the MTC haha. My living conditions are not too bad. We have a huge apartment; 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, a study room with a couch and desk, a bathroom and a laundry room. Plus we lucked out and our balcony just so happens to be the roof of another building so we have this huge out door area. It’s awesome. But some of the lights don't work, we are suggested not to drink the water, the shower works decently our neighbors above us are party animals and the air conditioning doesn’t work. Ohh and the toilets are weird here. We do most of our procelyting on the street at plazas or in parks. Catania has beautiful parks and plazas. The old people here don't speak Italian but Sicilian so it’s very hard to understand them if you can at all.

We have this Inactive member who sells fruit on the corner and we go visit him every week and he just loads us up on oranges. They are pretty bomb oranges but they aren't as good as those Ojai oranges grandma Nancy brings. It’s probably the only food here that doesn't taste better than something back home. Everything here just tastes wonderful. I used to not like tomatoes but the tomatoes here are like the fruit of the tree of life, they are amazing. So are strawberries and oh my goodness I can never eat an american pizza ever again. The pizzas here are the most amazing things ever. They have all kinds of cool foods here that they sell everywhere and they are all delicious.

We spent Memorial day at an american member’s home from the base. We ate hotdogs and burgers haha. Not bad huh? And on Saturday we went to a birthday party of a Filipino member where we ate some very interesting food like pig intestines and other assorted "meats".

The Italiani are very into westerns and cowboys and stuff. They have this game here called bang that everyone plays and let me tell you it is so fun. I suggest you look it up somewhere and buy it because you will love it.

We received 2 new investigators this Sunday and found about 3 new people to begin teaching this week. It’s very exciting to see the work starting to progress here. The members are very helpful and way nice

I love you all and miss you. You guys are all in my prayers. Remember that enduring adversity with faith leads to unimaginable blessings =) (I just read the book of Job) what a guy he was. Also read a bit a about Elijah, he’s my new favorite prophet. Have a good week voi =) vi voglio bene e mi mancate.

- Anziano Hill