Reading and praying as a family -- incredible!

Hosford Family,

Yes, I know I am writing a week late, but at least you are getting something.  We just finished our p-day and another appointment. I finally found a bit of time to shoot off a letter. It’s the end of 19 months. I start 20 months tomorrow. I also am way past being here for 600 days. However, I am really enjoying myself. We go transfer calls last Saturday. I am staying with Anz. Prieto again which I am happy about and I am not district leader which is really nice. Unfortunately, Sister Rosato is leaving Catania for Bari. But to celebrate we went to Mount Etna again today. We went sledding with air mattresses today. They work very well and they go very fast. There were a lot of people there today, so we found our own personal hill.  Only problem was that there was enough room to stop. We dug a couple ditches to slow us down and we also used the bail-out strategy. I will show you the videos after the mission. Honestly, it really hasn’t felt like Christmas. I am enjoying the season as much as I can, but you only enjoy it so much as a missionary and I am ready to get back to work. We have a lot of investigators and contacts that told us to call after the holidays. In like a week, things will be getting back to normal.  We did see Francesca once last week.  She thinks she found her answer. We did a fast with her and left her some verses to read. She did the fast , read the verses, and nothing. So we left her with Joseph Smith history 1-20 after one of the following appointments and she read it and prayed.  She felt like just reading the scriptures after praying and asking about Joseph Smith. Well, she opened up to D&C 75 and read the introduction the same … the prophet Joseph Smith… she looked at it and laughed a little bit them read the rest of the section.  She thinks its an answer.  We told her to think about it more and to continue reading.  She is doing reall ywell.  Then we saw this other family.  The Zappala family. He wasn’t there but the kids and his wife were there.  They shared with us a couple things they are doing.  They are reading and praying as a family.   Which is incredible, them the mom by herself is really searching all these things. We just haven’t been able to see them as much as we want.  However, we are doing just fine.  Hope Christmas went well at home.  Love you all very much.  See each other soon!  -- Anziano Mitchell Hosford