Catania, Sicily - 10/19/2011

Hello tutti,

I really am not quite sure what to write to you guys this week. Things are normal here and everything is just well... fine. Teaching goes good and so does finding. Nothing crazy happened this week really. Just normal missionary stuff.

We did scambi (exchanges) this Monday. So I was with Anziano Perry the zone leader from Messina which was really great.

We had a baptism for the sisters this Saturday for a lady named Lydia and she thought asked me to talk about the Holy Ghost during the baptism which was my first discourse in Italian but it was went by awesome. WOO!!

The refugees we have been teaching are doing awesome. =) They are actually from Ghana originally so they aren’t really Libyans. Samuel needed paper work to get his documents so that he could start working so he went to Rome last week and was able to get some help from his embassy there and it looks like everything is starting to go very well for them now. =) It’s really, in all honesty, a miracle how well things are going for them now, after what they have been through.

The Italians are great people just some are really not interested in us telling them that we don’t believe that Mary is a God and that we also don’t believe that saints do miracles. It’s a sensitive subject and their whole culture is based around this doctrine so it can make people very upset at our message.

Anziano Andersen loves it here. He has only served in little cities. Catanzaro in Colabria (the toe of Italy) and Olbia in Sardegna. So Catania’s a big change for him.

We haven’t seen Silvio anywhere for awhile, but I pray everyday that we will just bump into him.

President Kelly made sure during our last interview that I was aware to not trust that I would be staying in Catania for another transfer which in other words means I’m gone. So I should be leaving Catania in early November around the 5th so if you guys could plan mail accordingly so after October 26th send all mail to the mission home which is;

Anziano Kyle Hill

Missione Italiana di Roma

Piazza Carnaro 20

00141 Roma, Italia

So after the 26th mail stuff to that address instead of mine here in Catania. It will take a big surprise for me to stay but just know that I am probably gone. In all honesty I have done more time in this city than most missionaries do in any city.

As for letters and stuff I got an email from dad’s cousin John Keysor and emails from both you,mom, and dad. I got letters this week from you mom, Kristin my sister, and grandma Carolyn all very good stuff =) Thank you everyone for the letters I love them all. Oh and I got an email from aunt Kathryn, and that’s about it for this week. And thanks again I really love the mail. The port-man of our apartment who collects it all can bear witness of it.

I’m glad to hear those missionaries back home are committing those lazy bum brothers of mine to write me. Those missionaries must know what it’s like to not get mail from people. You guys should try and look up my old companion Anziano Medina and talk to him. He can tell you probably better than anyone how I was these last 5 months.

For this P-day we went down to Siracusa (Syracuse I think is what it’s called in English) We stood on the steps of the very temple where Paul taught the people there. Holy cow is it amazing to be in the same place as those guys and you can read about it too and it’s the same exact location. And to be doing the same thing in the same place just in a different time period. It all kinda blows my mind. I think I’m in the greatest mission in the world!!! I wouldn't give this up for anything!!! To stand along side the ancient apostles and bear testimony of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and the son of the Living God and how he suffered for all of our sins so that if we are baptized we can be saved from fault and be made perfect. That's about the basis of our message in a nut shell right?

Well I’m gonna go now. Nice to hear from you all and I miss you all. Vi voglio bene, Mi mancate e Ci sentiamo Più Tardi

Con amore, Anziano Kyle Hill

Catania, Sicily - 10/12/2011

CIAO!

Well I got ALOT of letters and stuff this week. Two packages this Sunday. One from home full of amazing stuff and great little letters. =) I loved them all and I've already eaten half the stuff in there and thanks for the sweater that will be sure to keep me warm this winter. The other package was delicious snickerdoodles from the Lindsays. I got a letter from Grandma Nancy too. As for emails: you, dad, Aunt Kathryn, Aunt Kristin, and Aunt April. Thank you so much for the letters and emails guys they are great. I especially loved the pictures Aunt Kathryn sent me. There was one of me as a baby with Grandpa Howard. It made me cry a little. I always like to think here on the mission that while I'm working, grandpa is right there standing next to me encouraging me. The truth is the spirit world is not too far away, in fact its right here around us, and sometimes like Brigham Young said the veil can get very thin. I always like to think I have an army of ancestors guiding me around. =)

So as for the work, we are doing pretty good things here. The sisters had a baptism last Saturday and will have another this week. Things are going very well here. As for Samuel and Rose we are honestly seeing miracles. As I told you last week he doesn’t have anything but faith that God will help him. He needs to get to Rome to go to the embassy to get his documents but the thing is that he has no money for a ticket to Rome. Us as missionaries can give him nothing which at times is very hard but it’s the rules. So we told him that by faith and prayer he will somehow find a way to get the 100 Euros to get to Rome. Well this is where it gets good. After a week of trying and trying, the embassy calls and says they will buy his ticket back home. And then on the same day a man at the hospital gives him money to by the rest of the ticket! The way literally just came out of no where. The guy has more faith than I have ever seen in my life. We will see good things come from him and his wife Rose. And God does provide a way and bless his children no matter how hard or impossible things may seem "YOU ARE NOT INVISIBLE" -Elder Uchdorf, he gave a great talk Saturday morning last conference. I'm amazed at how anyone could possibly believe there is no God when miracles happen everyday right in your face. You might as well live your life blind. Open your eyes and you will see his love anywhere at anytime in anyone or anything. He is there. =)

Here in Italy I have learned how to drive stick and do not want to ever go back haha. The brakes were broken in our car and we had to go get the discs and pads replaced at a mechanic. I asked the office if I could do it myself and they freaked out at me. =P I could have saved the church a couple 100 Euros but they'd rather have a professional I guess. I love you all and miss you all tons. I had a great birthday with the missionaries here and the ward. Vi voglio bene e mi mancate!

Con amore, Anziano Kyle Hill

Catania, Sicily - 10/5/2011

Ciao Tutti!

Come state voi!!! I am doing great. I am going up to the top of Mt. Etna again today!! WOOO!!!! Another awesome volcano trip!! I’m so excited. We have zone conference again tomorrow. I'm very excited for that also. This week has been pretty great. Me and Anziano Andersen have been doing work. We are going to start working with the ward list because we have about 110 active members here but 500 people on this ward list so we have quite a bit of contacting and finding to do. It’s pretty crazy. We found awesome new investigators this week too. Things are starting to move forward here again. Samuel and Rose our refugee investigators are getting ready to be baptized not this Saturday but the next one. I have never met someone with so much faith in my whole life. They are honestly in the worst situation they could possibly be in. Losing everything because of a war, escaping to a foreign country where you don't speak the language and literally having nothing. Finding work but not being able to be hired because you are waiting on documents through the Italian bureaucratic system, which if you thought the bureaucracy in America was bad you won't be able to comprehend it here. No food, pregnant wife, horrifying living conditions, they are honestly brought to the most humble level I have ever seen anyone be in my whole life but over it all they do not care about their situation. What they want to be is be baptized because they hope, no they know that if they are baptized the Lord will bless them and that they will overcome these hardships. They have more faith than anyone I know. They are truly putting their lives in the hands of the Lord. They are an example to me of true humility, true faith, and true and complete trust in the Lord. I aspire to be that faithful one day.

We were able to watch a bit of conference this week. I saw both Saturday morning and afternoon. I will have to watch the others at another time or read them in the ensign. So another temple in Provo? That blew my mind a little that they are turning the old tabernacle into a temple!!! Way exciting. Also the temple announcements sort of testified of the growth of the church in Africa. 2 new temples there. If there's one thing I know about Africans is that they are a very humble people and those are they that accept the gospel. My favorite talks were the ones by Elder Scott about memorizing scriptures because they all become like little friends you can always count on, and the other one I loved was Elder Uchtdorf's about how even though God has created every little thing in the universe and it seems that man is nothing, God's real purpose and all he wants is for us to return to him, he created it all for us!! I really liked those talks but all of them were great and I still have a lot more to listen to.

As for emails and mail this week I got one. An email from you mom haha. That was it. I'm glad to here that everyone is doing great back home and hope you are all doing well and having fun. It’s strange that kids can move onto our street and still have to go to high schools that are so far away when Hart is literally just down the street. Its way better too. I miss you all. Vi voglio bene e ci sentiamo

Con Amore, Anziano Kyle Hill

Catania, Sicily - 9/28/2011

Ciao Tutti

Hows it going? By means of letters this week I received one from my wonderful little sister. She’s really a great little girl and I miss her a ton. Miss you guys all a ton though. Got the awesome Race car video, haha go mom!! And the addresses and an email from dad. Me and Anziano Andersen are doing work down here. He’s served in 3 cities already with 3 different companions. He’s been moved all over the place. He started in Olbia on Sardegna and then in Catanzaro in Collarbria and now he’s here. Haha and don’t fret about the questions mom, you can ask as many as you want just make sure they are all organized at like the end of the emails you send me instead of just scattered through out the email so I don’t have to go searching for them that’s all. As for my birthday you guys can surprise me. A nice tie maybe, a sweater, I'm still short a pair of black slacks since my little bleach encounter haha. If you want to tell the Baes to keep an eye out for my package you can probably just tell them yourself because I know that sister Bae is friends with some of the sisters’ moms on facebook. We are going to their house this Sunday to watch conference in English. Not a bad deal huh? Well other than that, that’s really all I want.

I was not aware that dad would not be going back to Philly anymore! Where does he go now? Don't tell me he has to go to Europe more now? That would stink. I hope Scott and Kristin have a blast there though. You know how I love history and Philly is full of it.

I’m sending some photos of my last day with Anziano Medina. Excuse the P-day cloths, it was P-day and we had just got back from playing some basketball. There's one of me and Anziano Medina and another of me with Anziano Shaw. He lives in Pinnon Hills which is supposedly relatively close to us in Valencia. He goes home with Anziano Medina. (Unfortunately none of the pictures were in a format my computer recognized.)

Well I miss you all and hope you guys all have a great week. Vi voglio bene e Mi Mancate.

Con Amore!!

Anziano Kyle Hill

Catania, Sicily - 9/21/11

Hello

Another week and so another email for you guys. Got email from mom, dad and mike this week. I got the awesome little package this Sunday and that’s about it for this week. You still never sent me the addresses I asked for so I'm still waiting on that because if anybody wants letters I need addresses so its kinda important =P The wedding pictures look great.

Funny story haha. One of those. only on a foreign mission stories. I don't know how it was in Brazil for dad but were their certain drinks members drank that maybe shouldn't be drunken? haha last night we were having a little dinner with a member named Maira. She’s a great member and is subbing in as our Mission leader in our ward while we wait for the ward to call someone else. We were drinking this apple stuff and after a couple cups I noticed a peculiar scent. I asked her for the bottle and written on the bottom sure enough was exactly what I thought it would say. Totally alcoholic. Bene. Not a lot but enough. We had no idea. Not to mention there’s alcohol in like every flavor of gelato here too. Italians are crazy and I gotta be more careful before I start drinking things members give me.

My companion leaves back to San Diego today so I will be picking up my new companion tomorrow. Guess who? Anziano Andersen my old companion from the MTC!!! Crazy huh? I will be the district leader here too. I’m up for the challenge, just way stressed out. Anyways, I'm still just totally psych’d to be with Anziano Andersen again and we are gonna DO WORK here. I’m sad to say good bye to Anziano Medina but that’s how the mission works. I told him to hit you guys up when he gets home so we'll see if he does =)

I don’t have much time today and i gotta go so I wish you all the best. Thanks for the package and all the little letters. I miss you all. E vi voglio bene!

Con amore, Anziano Kyle Hill

Reggio di Colabria - 9/14/11

Dear Tutti,

I'm sorry but this is gonna be a relatively quick e-mail. Today I am in Reggio di Colabria. It is in fact the very same Reggio that Paul stayed in on his journey to Rome. This is by far the most beautiful city I have seen so far on my mission. Anziano Medina served here for 8 months and since he goes back home next week our President approved a super P-day here with some of Anziano Medina's old member friends and tomorrow we will do an exchange with the anziani here.

As for letters this week: I got a package from Dani and my friends this Sunday which was awesome, a wonderful letter from grandma Carolyn and I didn’t know you wanted me to mention emails too. I got one last week from Aunt April and about 3 or 4 weeks before that from Ashley. This week I got the 2 from you and 1 from Dad. Dad’s e-mails are the best things ever. I print them out and save them. And when you send me pics from your phone it works just fine don’t worry about it, actually send them more often. Hey and also I need Addresses of like EVERYONE. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandmas, All of them. I got a ton of awesome postcards but I need addresses before I can send them off. So if you could send me all that stuff next week that would ROCK.

Hey if there’s any cool Italian phrases you guys want to know or anything you want to be able to say in the most beautiful language in the world just let me know. Italian is the language of love. If Mike and Scott are interested in flattering the ladies I can help them out a little bit, haha just kidding, but really if there’s anything you want to know, let me know. I miss you all and wish mike HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BRO!! He is all grown up now! 17 MUCA SACRA!! That’s not an Italian phrase just a translation of an English phrase. Have a great week everyone and I will talk to you all later =) Ci Sentiamo

Con amore, Anziano Hill