Members want to do missionary work

Dear Family and Friends,

So I’m trying to get better at writing every week. So to do this I am starting my letters a couple days early. I also bought enough stamps for the rest of the transfer. 

The ward is fantastic. Just has a couple problems. After our last week here, I really think I was sent here to work and more importantly to learn how to work with these members. I learned in like 7 days that members want to do missionary work, they just need to be invited. I always glanced over the member sections of PMG without very much care. I learned that member work extends outside just visiting members … it includes going out with them. The member here (at least some members) want to help with the work… they just need to be invited. Also when we bring people to church, we need to arrange for people to sit by them and such.

This last week, we went out with this member, Fillo Beto to see less-actives. The two families we saw both wanted us to come back. One of the ladies came to church with her nonmember granddaughter. We called the relief society president the day before to let her know and to have her surrounded by sisters and she was. We didn’t know the granddaughter was coming so after sacrament meeting I had some young women to talk to her. I don’t know how that went. We are just trying to make the ward family bigger here. We also had the EQP sit by another less active. People just need the invitation to act.

We are finally starting to pick up new investigators. We started seeing more results from doing house. So far we have 5 days this week completely filled with appointments. Hopefully they all go through.

We started teaching this guy names Aka from the Ivory Coast. He wants to be baptized, so we are going to set a date with him tonight. Right now he is homeless. The police wrongly accused and put in jail. When he got out he had lost everything… his home, his clothes, everything. We had him meet with the bishop and the bishop is going to help him. Not with money but with shelter and clothes.

The Bishop here is wonderful. Convert of 4 years and really reminds me of Dad … just a bit younger. He is really on top of things. We didn’t tell him who would be coming to church and after he was doing interviews with our less actives and investigators. He is really great.

We don’t have other investigators worth mentioning. We have some sweet contacts and hopefully by next week I will be writing telling you about them. We are just getting this work started and it’s wonderful. We are starting to see the fruit of our labors.

Okay on to Mom’s letter

Sicilia is wonderful. Not really any beaches here, but we run in the mornings on this cliff that touches water. Only thing I really miss in Napoli outside the work is the pizza. The pizza here is still good just not as good.

Well sounds like things are going well there. Things are going great here. Just be nice if it weren’t cold. It would make getting up a lot easier!. Well, love to everyone at home. Can’t wait to hear from everyone. Love, Anziano Hosford

A couple comments from his UNEDITED emails:
Mitchell: pday. yesterday and last night it poured....and it was pretty nice today just really wet. we tried to go see this arcological park and museum...but the park was closed and we want to see them together. so we are going to try...not this next wednesday..but the one after...the last pday of the transfer. next pday we are going to a broque town called noto. i forgot how to spell broque in english. so today we went to ortigia to get a companionship tie...by the place was closed. i really like this place because they have alot of shirts with french cuffs and ties and cuff links that match. so we will be back there some time next week to get stuff from there.

Mom: If you're going clothes shopping I better check your account!!! I've been decluttering. Going through the storage closet, finishing old enrichment night projects, taking some stuff to Goodwill (Hayden's clothes -- we have way to many to save them all), I have too many dishes but don't know which ones to get rid of, etc. I want a simpler life. I also put a sticker with Good, Better, Best on my computer to remind me to say NO.

Mitchell: right now. i am looking at this. there is a deal for three french cuff shirts. 75 euro instead of 100. and the ties and links would be like 55 for 3 different ties and 2 sets of cuff links. one shirt would be a white shirt and the other two kind of colored. i havent decided yet.

Mitchell: by the way...some members here want to know if there is a way to print out a family history tree from that website? i told them that i would ask you. They want to do genealogy to go to the temple when it opens. I teach them what I can on the computer. just curious. how many generations back have you found with our genealogy?

Mom: Have them go to lds.org / menu / family history / getting started -- use this for basic info on starting your history. You have to have your access info to do research. Is LDS.org available in Italian? While in lds.org you can type pedigree chart into the search box to print out one. You can also order them through store.lds.org but they don't come in Italian just spanish.I'll see if I can find a link to print one in italian.

We have genealogy that goes back to the 1100s on dad's side. The Dutch were very good at keeping records. On my side I'm stuck in 1820's Germany on most of the lines. I think one line goes back to the 1400s but most I've deadended. Do you want me to mail your pedigree charts? With as old as Italy is and with the Catholic church records genealogy should go way back for them. I think it would be cool if the church would call missionaries to Italy to teach people how to do genealogy as they prepare for a temple in Rome. 

Mitchell: i just wanted to know with genealogy how many complete generations back you have completed. i saw like 7 generations back. the catholic church has been very good about keeping records. i was at the cathedral here and its the oldest catholic church in italy and the only one older is in greece.