Catania, Sicily - 8/3/2011

Caro Family and friends,

How are you all doing =) because I'm doing great! Today has been a week of miracles! MIRACLES I TELL YOU!!! Me and my companion have been DOMINATING the work here. We came up with this idea that we just need to kick butt so we set way ridiculous goals and well.... we're reaching them. We call it operation: CATANIA TOTAL DESTRUCTION AWESOMENESS. Of course we cannot credit this success to ourselves, for our strength is nothing and we know that we are but the dust of the earth compared to the might of the great God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in whom we put our trust and faith. We are planning on having 6 baptisms on the 20th... yes 6. That is mission record I think actually. We have taken a renewed diligence in our finding and teaching strategy and the Lord must be blessing us a lot. We are working a lot on our faith right now because if we don’t have faith for this success it will not happen, and there are many doubts but we are trying real hard to overcome them.

There is one man we met in the park just last Friday morning named Silvio. He was just sitting there reading a newspaper on a bench when we happenstanced upon him. We taught him real quickly about prayer and then did a prayer with him. We told him about an activity we were having at the church that night where we were watching "the testaments" and he said he would for sure come... which never happens. BUT he came there and we watched the film with him and some others and he really enjoyed it. We set up an appointment for the following Tuesday at the church again because there was a baptism of two 8 year old twin girls in the ward and we wanted him to see it and we wanted to teach him a little before the baptism. Just out of crazy luck we ran into him again at the park on Monday.... READING THE BOOK OF MORMON! We sat down with him and taught him about the restoration but we didn’t really have to because he had actually read the pamphlet and knew everything about it and best of all he accepted it and said it all just kinda makes sense!! FINALLY SOMEONE WHO'S EYES ARE OPEN! That was going wonderful when all the sudden one of our other investigators showed up randomly, and you'd think this is a good thing, but she’s a little strange and we got a little worried when she came that she would destroy all the progress we just made with Silvio. But Alas! Silvio stood firm in the faith after all her crazy Pentecostal and evangelical doctrine. Silvio even said after she left, "that lady doesn't get it, good luck with her" haha. We ended up giving her to the sister missionaries because she’s more suited for them. But back to Silvio. That day we set a baptismal date for the 20th =) WOO!!! After only knowing him for 3 days he believes it and wants to be baptized. We gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and told him to read it and that we would see him at the baptism. Well being the awesome guy he is he came. The baptism (of the 8 yr old twins) was awesome. A ton of our investigators showed up along with the whole ward. It was just like a Sunday meeting again because literally all 100 members of our ward showed up to the baptism. It was wonderful and I got to be one of the witnesses for the baptism. So yeah. The work here in Catania is doing great. We are actually leading the mission I believe, right next to our neighboring city Messina who is also dominating, practicing the same strategy as us.

I'm happy and doing great. I’m glad to hear you guys are all having fun. I got a bunch of postcards from Hawaii =) thanks everyone. Normally I would be way bummed that I'm not there but I’m actually pretty happy because well.... I’m in Italy =) I got a letter from Scott too and a couple from my friends, who I would like to give some praise to because they are doing a good job at writing me. Every missionary tells me that by the end no one writes you but I tell them my family and friends are so awesome and they won’t give up on me! I cannot believe Ashley is finally getting married haha. It’s not that I never thought it would happen, I just never thought about it happening. It’s just so nuts hearing that she’s getting ready to move out of grandmas and stuff. MUCCA SACRA! Send me pictures, videos whatever you want. If it’s from family I can watch videos or look at pictures. Just attach them to emails.

I miss you all and wish you all the best. I've got a lot of letters and post cards to write today so I should get to work on those. VI VOGLIO BENE! MI MANCI e Vi amo

Con amore =)

-Anziano Hill