Pizza and wood ovens

Dear Family, 

So I finally hit my 300 day mark… today was the 302nd day. To celebrate we got pizza. It wasn’t as good as Napoli pizza, but it was a lot better than most pizzas here. In no time It will be a year.

So I learned the difference between pizza made with an electric oven and a wood oven. A wood oven makes pizza a lot more flavorful. A week ago we ate a pizza from this place with an electric oven and it was horrible. I felt like I was back in the MTC. However, for my 300 day mark we got a pizza from this wood oven place and it was a lot better. Lately we have been searching for a pizza place to eat at always … well I think we finally found it!!! Still not Napoli pizza. I also like this pizza place because there is this old couple who run it and they are very curious about the church which might be the reason we go back there.

Well the work is really what you probably want to hear about.

So the work has finally picked up. We did a lot of house to develop something. In about 3 or 4 days … we knocked about 1000 doors or like apartment intercom system things. We might have received 10-15 new contacts, might have given out 100 pass along cards, 30 pamphlets, 200 rejections probably a lot more, and a lot of still doors.

So our first day doing a lot of house we met this lady named Rita and she told us that missionaries passed by her like 28 years ago while her twins were still young. They gave her a Book of Mormon which she still has. While we found her she told us to come back next Tuesday. So we did and did a basic lesson and somehow taught the last half of the Restoration. We had a great time with her and were there for a while talking. After that appointment we got her number and on Monday set up another appointment with her. So we went and taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation to her, her husband, and one of her sons. They really liked us cause they want to see us again every Tuesday at 4:00 pm. They are wonderful people. They see life in a bit of a negative way because of the hard lives they have had. They see the bad stuff in the Catholic Church. It’s really the perfect situation. We are hoping they feel something. The wife is more open to our word and is more ready for accepting. The son and husband just see the bad things in life. I just bore testimony of the family and its purpose now and in the next life. I hope they understand that the family is where happiness lies, not in dishonesty cause we know that wickedness never was happiness. Either ways. I am very excited to see this family progress. 

Next we have a contact/investigator who owns a shop in Ortigia. He is very interested in learning about the church. We have mini lessons with him at his store and we are trying to move them to someone’s house. This last time before leaving, my companion asked, “if you learned that the Book of Mormon was true would he change? He gave us the answer about being born Catholic and it would be hard to change. Then I brought up the story of Paul which I think he liked a lot because it was from the Bible and it’s an incredible story. So hopefully things move forward with him.

We are also teaching a guy named Aka from Ivory Coast. We teach him twice a week atleast and he comes every Sunday. He is great cause he goes and talks with the members and I hope the members love him. He found a job doing construction and a place to stay which is wonderful. We got through the first and second lessons and set a baptismal date for March 31. We are pretty excited.

Things are going better here. We are hoping to hit the Standard of Excellence for the mission which is 21 lessons in a week. We have been seeing slow progress. Either ways. Jus t know I am working hard out here and loving every minute of it.

Love your son, brother, friend, w/e,

Anziano Hosford