Good morning my beautiful friends! I hope you are all doing great. :) This week was an excellent one. We found a super cool family of 4!!! Their names are Sam, Lisa, Samoan and Serenity. If you could all pray for them that would be amazing. Also pray for Samoan as she has sickle cell disease which causes a lot of pain. We are also working with another family of Cortez and Kesha. Kesha, in the past few weeks, had a son get killed. We are working on helping them overcome but they have a hard time letting us in with everything going on. But I know the message of the plan of salvation will bring them great comfort. Please pray for Kesha, Cortez and their family to receive comfort and feel of Gods love.

I hope you all have a great week, I love you all! :D

We had a great week here in Fairfield, Ohio! We are continuing to have a blast as we do the Lord's work. There are many times in missionary work where great things are happening and many times where everything falls through but as you align yourself with fulfilling your purpose of Teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts or Teaching progressing investigators and finding new investigators you find exceedingly great joy in the work and in knowing your assisting in doing God's work.

We had zone conference this last week where we were "chastened". It was excellent. We learned a lot about chastening and how is it part of the divine attribute of humility. Well, being able to be chastened is a part of humility. It is how we may grow and repent to become new souls in Christ. Learning about this and the Doctrine of Christ is knowledge to treasure in our hearts because the impact is everlasting as we live it. There must be a sense of congruety between what we learn, teach, and live or our lives and teaching will have no light and power. But as we align ourselves with the will of God we find great joy and light in this life and in the future to come. We received an invitation to find 10 things to work on to further motivate and improve ourselves. I would give the invitation for each of you to find 2 things to work on.

Hope you have a great week, love you all!

Good afternoon my friends and family! It is a beautiful 65 degrees and sunny here in Fairfield, Ohio! :D I hope Utah is just as good.

This week was a lot of fun. We went on exchanges 3x this week, which is quite a bit. We did exchanges with the other Fairfield Elders, the Assistants, and the Spanish Elders. All of which were a blast and I learned lots from each of them. I wish I had more pictures to show.

Rasheen and Anna could use some prayers. They are doing better at keeping commitments but have missed church 3x in a row now. If you could pray for them to have the desire to go to church and also to read together and be able to see a desirable light in each other that would be much appreciated. :)

We also began teaching a lady, Collett, 2 weeks ago, who is super great! She accepted to be baptized on April 22nd but needs to show forth some repentance. So if you could pray for her to overcome sin and temptation and desire to attend church that would be beautiful!

You are all so good. I testify that your Father in Heaven loves and cares about each of you and he has provided a way for each of you to overcome and become like him. Have a great week! Love you all. :)

We have transfers this week, I will be staying and my new companion will be Elder Fuller which I am super excited about, he is an incredible missionary! Elder Tingey will not be going far, he is going right next door to Hamilton, fun stuff! I am excited for next transfer, it will be a transfer of turning to God and allowing him to work miracles through us. I am excited to my best to humble myself and turn to God while aligning myself with my purpose which is to teach repentance and baptize converts, it is a great work!

 I love the scriptures my good friends, when we read them with real intent and with a prayer in our hearts, they open the windows to revelation and we may seek the will of God, and he will reveal things to us! I love the Book of Mormon, because this is Gods work going forth not mine. He has given us the Book of Mormon and commanded us to use it to share the restored gospel, to help others come unto Christ. In the process of doing so Christ has been changing me, he has converted me to his gospel and I love and cherish it with my whole heart. My good friends if you are not already doing so, I would invite you to begin to study and pray on the Book of Mormon daily, I promise if you do you will feel the light of God enter into your life, you will feel the joy of the gospel and repentance, and Heavenly Father will bless you with the ability to become like Christ. I love you all and hope you have a miraculous week!

What a beautiful week here in Fairfield Ohio! We have had some absurd weather, it went from 80 degrees one day to 35 and snowy the next, its making everyone sick! :P But it has been very enjoyable as well, change is nice.

This week Anna and Rasheen came to church!!! And they brought their 3 beautiful young children, they were all so cute and well behaved. They both loved church, found people they know pretty well and want to come back next week. We also had a member who knew them well go up to them and invite them to dinner at her home next Sunday, way for her to be a member missionary! We are excited, they are progressing and she wants to be sealed in the temple :)

I am now serving with Elder Fuller and it is great, he is a stellar missionary. He is so sincere and kind, I am very much enjoying serving with him, I am learning a lot. 

While preparing for a lesson with a couple of investigators we watched this video           https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/topics/standards?lang=eng       and I felt the spirit so strong as I watched it. I love being able to know that I am a son of God, it is amazing the change that has happened and is continuing to change as I feel my Heavenly Fathers love for me more and more each day. When we feel of Gods love we know that we deserve respect and love from others, we don't need to sell ourselves short. If you do not feel your Fathers love or the love of your Savior Jesus Christ I would invite you to ask him if he loves you, ask him to show his love to you. Be diligent, keep praying and asking and I promise you in the name of the Lord you will change as you begin to feel of his love in your life.

This past week I felt a great sense of humility, that no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we do on our own. Unless we turn to the Lord and do his work in his way, our time, energy, and efforts will amount to little. As we turn to the Lord he will show us how to do his work, he knows how to do it! As we align ourselves with his will and focus on our purpose we will feel the great joy of missionary work and see the hand of the Lord in every aspect of our lives and missionary work.

I love missionary work, it is so amazing and joyful. Rasheen and Anna are doing great! They came to church again and we had a lesson (10 Commandments +pray as family) at the Hoffarts home Sunday evening after dinner. It is so great seeing the members reach out to those non-members and less actives.  Sister Colonel came again and brought 2 sons this time Will and Henry, it was so great to see them. It is fun working with Will each Sunday morning in preparing him to be baptized.

The gospel is so great brothers and sisters, when we choose to live it (John 7:17) we come to understand why it is a joyful thing. I am grateful for the gospel, I am grateful for the change that Jesus Christ has wrought in my heart. I hope you all are able to witness miracles and feel of Heavenly Fathers love for you this week.

Love, Elder Silotti

Hello everybody!

I enjoyed this week. It sure was a lot of fun! There was quite a bit of training involved as well. We had a world wide missionary broadcast for 2 hours, then an 8 hour zone conference on Friday. If you have not heard yet there was a couple big changes to missionary work throughout the world. 1st change was the missionary schedule. Before schedule was: 6:30-7:00 wake up, pray, exercise. 7-8 eat and get ready, 8-9 personal study, 9-10 companionship study.  10am-9pm proselyte with 2 hours for lunch and dinner. 9-9:30 plan, 9:30-10:30 get ready and go to bed. The new schedule is a lot more free and our choice when to do things but between 6:30-10:00 we must accomplish exercise 30 mins, personal study 1 hour, planning 30 minutes, then 10am-9:00pm you must accomplish proselyting, 30 minutes comp study, 30 min lunch and 1 hour dinner.   From 9-9:30 write in your journal, 9:30-10:30 get ready and go to bed.  Pdays also start at 8am and go till 6:pm rather than 10am-6pm. It is really neat. It gives a lot more options and choices as to how you use your schedule.

The second big change is we used to track 9 key indicators of:  baptism, confirmation, on date, at church, member present lessons, other lessons, progressing, referrals received and contacted, new investigators, and less active or recent convert lessons. Now we only track b+c, on date, church, and new investigators. It really is quite nice.

Laura Smith is continuing to do amazing. She is studying a lot and has been to church 3x now, please pray for her that she will receive a witness that these things are true! Also that Greg(boyfriend) will not hold her back but continue to press forward with her.

Our new investigator Eva is amazing. She is from Africa and is real elect! She has been reading and praying. We called to set up a time and set 2 appointments this week. She called back a couple minutes later and said she is coming to church Sunday and will bring a friend. SO COOL!

Hope you all have a great week. Love you all.

Good morning! I hope everybody's week has been as great as mine. I enjoyed it a lot. :)

This past week was a blast. So much is happenning so I will give a couple highlights:

1) Missionary work is taking a new focus at working with youth/young adults ages 14-25 as this age of people is still open minded and more sensitive to the spirit. They have many friends, and they are at an age where they are still deciding what to do in life and are looking for direction. One of the ways we are going to be doing this is through social media! What??? Thats right. Sharing the gospel through social media. Its pretty tough, all you need to do is take a picture or write a scripture or quote etc... and post it on your facebook. Or if you are really daring, you may take a picture with the missionaries and post it on Instagram. ;) I would challenge all of you to share the gospel in some way over s.m. this week. The gospel is important. It is true and it changes lives!

2) We had our first appt. with Eva after giving her a Book of Mormon a week ago. She is doing great! Guess what page she is on... 521. :D Holy Goodness thats a miracle! She has had it 1 1/2 weeks tops. She believes it to be true, committed herself to come to church this week and is wanting to be baptized. We will be extending a date to her this week.

3) Laura is still pressing forward and being incredible! She keeps all of her commitments and then asks for more. She has been diligently studying and praying and pondering. We had a lesson with her this past week and with President Welch and Sister Jones another night. Both lessons were powerful. I have no doubt she will receive a personal witness and soon be wanting to follow Christ into the waters of Baptism.

I hope you have a great week. Love you all!
This week was a blast! Our investigators we are working with are doing outstanding. Laura, Eva, Rasheen and Anna are all keeping their commitments and progressing. They are excited about and loving the gospel. It is so much fun. We also found a few new people to teach this week. One of which is a part member family from Camaroon. We may be playing soccer or speed ball with one of them later.

I just want to bear a quick testimony on the Book of Mormon. I know it is true and I know it contains the word of God. In it is contained the fullness of the Everlasting gospel. The only way to Eternal Life and lasting happiness in this life and the next. If we read it regularly, as commanded by God, and hearken to its teachings, Christ will change us to become as he is. I know it is true. I know it was translated by Joseph Smith who was and is a prophet called by God. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

This week was a blast! Elder Tingey and I receive lots of opposition but we don't let that get us down and we are pushing forward. There have been miracles everywhere and it is wonderful as well! 

We are working with a lady named Laura. She is a champion! She has been reading and praying a lot and is loving it. She has come to church 2x now as well. When we asked her what she feels when reading the Book of Mormon she responded, "Thirsty for more". She also has said she feels her faith has grown a lot. A member had her over for dinner and called us afterwords saying that Laura told them that when she gets baptized she would like it to be in the Fairfield Ward. So much fun!

We have also been working a lot with members to receive member referrals. And we have been seeing some good success so far. It takes a bit of work and time, but the results are far better and more lasting normally than finding through personal efforts. Invitation: if you have people whom you love, help prepare them for the gospel by being their friend. You do not need to teach them the gospel. Let the missionaries do that. But provide opportunities where they can meet the missionaries so the missionaries can offer the gospel. It works. I promise!

Have a great week everybody. Love you all!

I was transferred to Fairfield Ohio this past week. I am serving with Elder Tingey. He is so great. I love that Elder. I have been learning so much from him as well! Our address is 11651 Norbourne Dr. Apt 216, Cincinnati Ohio 45240.

This past week we have seen lots of good happening, we gave a church tour to this wonderful Ghanaian women. She has such a great spirit about her and is progressing well. She is here and has her family (Husband and 1 or more kids) back in Ghana. This area is so diverse in the cultures. We have Brazilians, Africans, and lots of Micronesian's. At the end of the church tour she was expressing how great she felt and she accepted the baptismal date of February 18th. So please keep her in your prayers! 

We are working with another lady named Laura, and we had leadership council which is a training for zone leaders and sister training leaders. It was great. All about connecting to our purpose as missionaries which is to teach repentance and baptize converts.
This transfer has been a blast. Serving with Elder Westover taught me much. I have been humbled and changed a lot and I am grateful for it. Serving with new companions is always a growing experience and can change you for the better when you choose to allow it to. The same with each area and the people in it. Serving in Auburn/Kendallville was incredible. I loved my time here in this area of the vineyard but am excited to move forward. I am getting transferred to Fairfield, Ohio and will be serving with Elder Tingey. I love that Elder and have heard many great things about him.

A couple highlights from this past week!

1) We planned a branch activity and had around 45 people show up, 24 of which were non-members and a few returning members. Everybody LOVED the activity, it was a hit! After the activity one of our investigators who has not been to church in 15 or so years (been backstabbed badly multiple times and was scared to get hurt again) text us asking when our church service was and committed herself to all 3 hours of church, it was a miracle!
2) Sunday we had 9 investigators show up to church and 3 returning members. One of which is a part member family we have been working with for a little over a transfer. The husband is a returning member we reactivated and his daughter has come 5 or so times but the mother Amanda had no interest. Then we had a powerful lesson with her and resolved some concerns. She then came on her own to church last Sunday with no invitation, it was quite a nice and welcomed surprise! The work is truly going forth and it is a marvelous work.

Elder Westover is now training and will do a marvelous job. I am proud of him. I hope you all have a great week. Love you all!

Good morning everyone, its a beautiful -4 degrees here in Indiana this morning. Hope it's warmer for all of you. It's supposed to get to -20 today, I was just told, isn't that special? ;)

This week has been a week of miracles. We have found multiple new families to begin teaching and a couple of other elect individuals who are excited for the gospel in their lives. I am going to leave the miracles and share a neat experience I had though.

This past Sunday I had the special experience to pass the Sacrament with the youth. While passing the Sacrament, I handed the bread tray to a mother and her 2 year old son, with a look of "excitement" and "need" for the bread, thrust his hand out and grabbed a handful of the bread! Then, of course, his mother corrected him and he partook of the bread as he should. Well, while I know that his need and excitement for this bread was motivated by physical hunger, it made me wonder and think. How many of us have such a spiritual hunger and need for this bread that we feel similar to what this child was feeling? How many of us truly are excited and ready to partake of the sacred emblems of the Sacrament? And how many of us truly repent daily the week before in preparation of partaking the Sacrament? It helped me to realize how much more I need to be doing to prepare myself to partake of the Sacrament to truly make the Sabbath more holy. I leave my testimony that Christ has asked, and desires of us, to partake of this sacrament, but he desires us to do so worthily. As we worthily prepare and partake of his Sacrament, the spirit truly is poured out without measure upon the faithful.

Brothers and Sisters, I love this Christmas season. It is miraculous. Day after day, Elder Westover and I, have been witnessing miracles. I want to share one of my favorites with you. 

 We have been teaching a couple, Chris and Karen Crooks, who have been married 18 or so years but are on the brink of divorce. Karen was reactivated back in March, and Chris was reactivated as we transferred into the area we started to teach him because he took leap of faith and was willing to meet one time. Well, Chris and Karen have been arguing almost every day for years, they are pretty much just roommates at this point. Elder Westover and I, last Tuesday, urged them to pick up the scriptures and to read and pray together every morning and we promised they would see the fruits of the truth and atonement in their life. They committed. We went over on Saturday (Karen not home) and after sharing that they have been reading and praying together Chris covers his eyes and with emotion shares with us,"The past two mornings Karen has hugged me. That has not happened in years." As he uncovers his eyes, tears are strolling down his face. The Atonement is healing their marriage. It is a miracle. I know that Christ wants to heal us. All he asks is for us to come unto him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I love this gospel. I am grateful for it and I bear my witness that I know Christ lives and he loves you. I leave you with my witness of that and hope you have a happy new year. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

This week was a blast. This work is so much fun. I love it with all of my heart! This week Elder Westover and I had the opportunity to speak to many different people about the gospel. Many of our lessons fell through but the Lord guided us to many potential families whom we are excited to share our testimonies with! 

In the past 2 days we have received around 8 inches of snow. Which was perfect because we had our Branch Christmas party Saturday night! The Branch party was a lot of fun and we were able to see many less actives and non members come. It is exciting to see the work going forth as the members fellowship and invite their friends to come to these activities! For one of the activites we had a lip sync battle which turned into a bit of a dance off battle as well. Which was hilarious! They had 1 for women, 1 for youth and then they had myself, Brother Segovia, and President Powell go at it to the song, "All I Want for Christmas is You." It was great! Brother Segovia is latino and busted some real moves. It was great! He and I were going at it! :P I am quite sure though I embarrased 2 of our members during the dance by some moves I pulled. It was great!

Real quick spiritual thought from my studies this morning. It is a quote by Elder Thomas S. Monson. "Regarding ones testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses..." I testify of this truth shared by our prophet and I invite you during this Christmas season, specifically this week, to find someone whom you can bear your testimony to and do it! I know your heart will be filled with the warmth of knowing you have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior who died for you.

Have a great week! Sorry it was so long this time.