Anziano Jolley 5/26/10

Cara Mia Famiglia,
Allora, Stiamo faccendo un digiuno d'inglese. Ma voglio scrivere
questa lettera in inglese.

First of all... I love grandpa. I'm sad to hear that he's passed, but
I'm content to know that he's gone to a better place. It puts what we
teach in a more poignant light. We teach the plan of salvation, but I
don't often think about what it truly means.

This week has been amazing. Starting last thursday, we found 7 new
investigators before Sunday. And almost all of them are ready to hear
the Gospel.

Our investigator Ilmi dropped us wednesday night, but then on Saturday
came back, ready to hear the gospel. We taught him Sunday, and he
hadn't drunk a single beer, and had smoked only 4 cigarettes. Pray for
his strength, please! We also set a baptismal date with him for the
26th of June. I'm quite excited about that.

Vivian is getting baptized next week on the 5th of June. I hope and
pray that it'll go through. She has questions about laying on of
hands, but she should be alright.

I found an investigator a while ago that I may have mentioned named
Luis. He's Argentine, and he's asking all the right questions. We
taught him on Thursday? maybe friday, and after we taught the
apostasy, he asked, But... how can I know which church is right? We
just smiled and kept going. He came to church on Sunday and was very
happy to be there.

On Sunday, as we were walking to the church to teach a lesson about
half an hour later, we were going to just make phone calls and I
stopped a guy on the way, asking if he spoke english, because he had a
London England shirt on. He said yes, and we asked him where the
street our church is on was. We knew the way, but he took us there. We
then asked if he wanted a tour. yes. then if he wanted to know more.
yes. We teach him, and he asks if our spirits our immortal. He then
asks if that means we lived before this life... get where this is
going? His name is Paolo.

Basically, we're doing wonderful out here in alessandria. I'm enjoying
the work, and we're seeing a lot of success. Our Zone recently set a
goal of seeing 50 baptisms before the end of the year. There are 8
companionships, which means that we need to find, teach, and baptize
something like 7 as a companionship before december. The way things
are looking, that's VERY possible. I'm way excited. The Lord is
working miracles for us and through us.

We went to Asti, and went to the duomo there. It was cool.

Vi Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

18/5/10 Anziano Benjamin Jolley

Elder Benjamin Jolley (or Anziano Benjamin Jolley)
Via Placenza, 66
15121 Alessandria (AL)
Italy

Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:50 AM
Subject: 18/5/10

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been a long one, and sometimes hard, but always satisfying. We had 4 investigators to church on sunday, 2 of which had never come before.

One was our friend Mercedes, who has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ, but doesn't understand quite yet that there can only be one true church. She believes the Book of Mormon, and essentially taught us a discourse on Moroni 10 one of the times we taught her, but we need her to understand the last two paragraphs of the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. If the book is true, then Jesus is the Christ, Joseph is a prophet, his successors are prophets, and the church is the true church on the earth. We are trying to get her to that understanding. This week we taught her with the Campini family, who really helped, especially Sorella Campini. She saved us from losing Mercedes as an investigator. And got her to come to church, which she seemed to like.

The other was a lady who had been referred to the church by a friend in Torino. She'd never contacted the missionaries, just showed up to church. It was wonderful. We're teaching her tomorrow, the first lesson. Her name is Rita. Funny story in relation to that: During first hour, Relief Society/Priesthood, we passed around a paper of when members are available to help us teach investigators. Rita came up to us and said she was free Tuesday mornings. She asked how she could help. We're sitting there... Listen to our lessons! That was fun.

On Thursday, we taught Ilmi and his friend Massimiliano. We're trying to help Ilmi quit smoking. Pray for him, eh?

On Friday, we taught Mercedes, but I've already told that story.

On Saturday, we taught a member, a investigator family, Ilmi, Maria, and Mercedes. Unfortunately, we're going to have to give the family a drop lesson, because they've had missionaries for months, and haven't been making progress. We both felt on saturday that if they didn't come to church, we'd have to drop them. They didn't.

On Sunday, we had lunch with a really cool member family that lives like 10 minutes out of Alessandria. We also taught Ilmi.

On Monday, we had Zone Conference, which was focused on finding work. In our mission, we have three basic types of finding work. Casa, strada, and bus. There's others, but those are the basic types. The first one is the one I'm sure you all know, knocking doors. It's also the most effective one. We meet a lot of disappointment and sore feet doing casa, but we get more investigators doing casa than any other way. Strada is stopping people on the street to talk with them. Usually the excuse we use to start talking to them is that we're doing a survey, only about a minute. Then we ask the questions and just start talking to them, trying to get their number and set up an appointment. Bus is just chatting with people on the bus or the train. Train is slightly different, but very similar.

Zone Conference was good. We had some really good stuff in there. Believe that the Lord has put people in your path and in your life that are ready for the gospel. I challenge all of you who read this to just talk with a random stranger on the street, in the bus, somewhere, about anything. Then try to bend the conversation to the restoration, and give them a pass along card. That's what I do everyday. Several times a day. One of our mission goals is to invite 10 people a day to talk with you about the gospel, when we're not purposefully doing finding work. It's hard. Let me tell you, it is really hard. And awkward. BUT EVERYTHING I DO AS A MISSIONARY IS AWKWARD. so... I'm trying to get over that.

Yesterday, we taught a guy who I talked to in the park while Anziano Jones was making phone calls. When I talked to him in the park, I asked him what he was doing, and he answered "Non lo so" (I don't know). So I talked with him and got his phone number. We taught him last night, and he seemed very interested in our message. I'm excited. We'll teach him again tomorrow.

I got all of my letters for the past 2 weeks in the past 2 days. It was literally awesome. First I pick up my Zone conference mail (anything sent to the mission home), and there was a letter from Grandma J, and two from Mom. Then I get a letter from Mom that day in the normal mail. Yesterday, I got two more letters, one from mom. I felt very loved by my Mommy.

I love Alessandria. In regards to a question I got in a letter, we have several cities in our area, but we focus first on Alessandria, where we live, and then on Asti, a 15 minute train ride away, then on the other smaller cities. Asti used to be its own area, and about half of our investigators live there, so we take the train alot. And yes, there are a lot of cobblestone roads. Almost all of them. It's fun.
Vi Amo,

Anziano Benjamin Jolley

(PS, please address all letters to Anziano or Elder Benjamin Jolley. Our mailbox simply says Anziano/Elder, so the mailman won't know which box to put it in otherwise.)

18/5/10 Anziano Benjamin Jolley

Elder Benjamin Jolley (or Anziano Benjamin Jolley)
Via Placenza, 66
15121 Alessandria (AL)
Italy

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been a long one, and sometimes hard, but always satisfying. We had 4 investigators to church on sunday, 2 of which had never come before.

One was our friend Mercedes, who has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ, but doesn't understand quite yet that there can only be one true church. She believes the Book of Mormon, and essentially taught us a discourse on Moroni 10 one of the times we taught her, but we need her to understand the last two paragraphs of the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. If the book is true, then Jesus is the Christ, Joseph is a prophet, his successors are prophets, and the church is the true church on the earth. We are trying to get her to that understanding. This week we taught her with the Campini family, who really helped, especially Sorella Campini. She saved us from losing Mercedes as an investigator. And got her to come to church, which she seemed to like.

The other was a lady who had been referred to the church by a friend in Torino. She'd never contacted the missionaries, just showed up to church. It was wonderful. We're teaching her tomorrow, the first lesson. Her name is Rita. Funny story in relation to that: During first hour, Relief Society/Priesthood, we passed around a paper of when members are available to help us teach investigators. Rita came up to us and said she was free Tuesday mornings. She asked how she could help. We're sitting there... Listen to our lessons! That was fun.

On Thursday, we taught Ilmi and his friend Massimiliano. We're trying to help Ilmi quit smoking. Pray for him, eh?

On Friday, we taught Mercedes, but I've already told that story.

On Saturday, we taught a member, a investigator family, Ilmi, Maria, and Mercedes. Unfortunately, we're going to have to give the family a drop lesson, because they've had missionaries for months, and haven't been making progress. We both felt on saturday that if they didn't come to church, we'd have to drop them. They didn't.

On Sunday, we had lunch with a really cool member family that lives like 10 minutes out of Alessandria. We also taught Ilmi.

On Monday, we had Zone Conference, which was focused on finding work. In our mission, we have three basic types of finding work. Casa, strada, and bus. There's others, but those are the basic types. The first one is the one I'm sure you all know, knocking doors. It's also the most effective one. We meet a lot of disappointment and sore feet doing casa, but we get more investigators doing casa than any other way. Strada is stopping people on the street to talk with them. Usually the excuse we use to start talking to them is that we're doing a survey, only about a minute. Then we ask the questions and just start talking to them, trying to get their number and set up an appointment. Bus is just chatting with people on the bus or the train. Train is slightly different, but very similar.

Zone Conference was good. We had some really good stuff in there. Believe that the Lord has put people in your path and in your life that are ready for the gospel. I challenge all of you who read this to just talk with a random stranger on the street, in the bus, somewhere, about anything. Then try to bend the conversation to the restoration, and give them a pass along card. That's what I do everyday. Several times a day. One of our mission goals is to invite 10 people a day to talk with you about the gospel, when we're not purposefully doing finding work. It's hard. Let me tell you, it is really hard. And awkward. BUT EVERYTHING I DO AS A MISSIONARY IS AWKWARD. so... I'm trying to get over that.

Yesterday, we taught a guy who I talked to in the park while Anziano Jones was making phone calls. When I talked to him in the park, I asked him what he was doing, and he answered "Non lo so" (I don't know). So I talked with him and got his phone number. We taught him last night, and he seemed very interested in our message. I'm excited. We'll teach him again tomorrow.

I got all of my letters for the past 2 weeks in the past 2 days. It was literally awesome. First I pick up my Zone conference mail (anything sent to the mission home), and there was a letter from Grandma J, and two from Mom. Then I get a letter from Mom that day in the normal mail. Yesterday, I got two more letters, one from mom. I felt very loved by my Mommy.

I love Alessandria. In regards to a question I got in a letter, we have several cities in our area, but we focus first on Alessandria, where we live, and then on Asti, a 15 minute train ride away, then on the other smaller cities. Asti used to be its own area, and about half of our investigators live there, so we take the train alot. And yes, there are a lot of cobblestone roads. Almost all of them. It's fun.
Vi Amo,

Anziano Benjamin Jolley

(PS, please address all letters to Anziano or Elder Benjamin Jolley. Our mailbox simply says Anziano/Elder, so the mailman won't know which box to put it in otherwise.)

Address

I forgot to include my current address for actual letters. It's as follows.

Via Piacenza, 66
15121 Alessandria (AL)
Italy

Today for P-day, we went to Asti, and looked at churches there. It was awesome. We didn't have too much time to write letters, so all of my letters this week are really short. They'll be in the mail tomorrow.
--
Ti Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

ITALY!!!

I'm in Italy at last! I called on sunday, so you should know that I'm ok. I'm doing very well here. My companion is Anziano Adam Jones. He started at BYU at the same time as me. We are working hard. We've got a decently large teaching pool, but this week we're focusing on finding more investigators.

Yesterday, we were doing casa (casa is tracting house by house, for those who don't know.), and got in on the first door, meeting an albanian named Ildi. We have a significant amount of success among stranieri (people from other countries). We're teaching two or three albanians, a brazilian, an argentine, a spaniard, and maybe one or two actually native Italians.

The other day, we were teaching one of our progressing investigators, and he brought his friend. His story is really interesting. But this investigator, we'll call him "T", got a notice of deportation, which would mean we can't teach him anymore.

This email is really really scatterbrained, but I'm really excited about Italy. At this point, I can understand most everything people say, except once in a while. I can't really speak back to carry on a conversation, though, but every time I've told people I've only been here a week they compliment my Italian. My companion thinks that I'll be speaking just fine by the end of this transfer if we focus on speaking Italian out of the apartment.

Something interesting for me about missionary Italian is that you use the formal "you" form, the "lei" form, with everyone but your companion, with whom you use the "tu" form. That's been tough for me, not because I'm using the tu form, but I didn't really learn the tu form in the MTC, on the assumption I would never use it. It's interesting.

I love Italy. It's so interesting. The roads are tiny, almost all of them are one way, and the cars are super small. Every day I'm sure I'll get taken out by a car. Hasn't happened yet. I'm just glad we don't have a car. Only the Assitants to the President have a car in our mission. I pray I'll never be an assistant.

We take trains and buses everywhere, or we walk. It's kinda bizarre. I've never taken a train for any good reason before, and now we take them everywhere. As I walk around, I see an incredible amount of graffiti. But it's ok, because it's fun to read. Only 1 in like 20 has any swear words that I recognize. The rest are either Anarchist stuff, or (name) Ti amo. There are apparently a lot of anarchists that love everyone in Alessandria.

My area is Alessandria, and Asti. It's a city southwest of Milano. Asti is a 15 minute train ride north... or maybe west... or east. it's a 15 minute train ride. We see a lot of stranieri. In Alessandria, there's a lot of Moroccans... all of them are Muslim, and all of them say something about Jesus being a prophet and a Son of God, so they must be a son of God too... it's interesting. But they never let us get a word in edgewise, so we mostly try to leave those conversations if they won't let us talk. In Asti, there's a lot of Africans. Two... maybe three of our investigators are African. They all speak English or French better than Italian... which is fun. Whenever my companion speaks English with an African, he speaks in a really bizarre accent. I think he's trying to fit in.

We have a ward here, which is nice, because it means that Church takes care of itself, and we can focus on getting our investigators taken care of.

There's a member who is really interesting. His name is Nick. He spends as much of his time with us as he can. He is really amused by saying that something is from the trash, or talking about the bathroom. He's very affectionate. I think I've gotten 50 or more hugs from him. He's here at our internet point, in fact. He also smells like Megan and Elijah's convert... Charles? I don't remember his name. He's fun to have around. He likes correcting my Italian, and he tries to speak English. We call it Nick-English. He seems to know every missionary that's ever served in the Milan mission. I asked him about Anziani Skanky, Cowart, and my MTC teachers, he knew all of them. I asked about Sorella Baird, and he claimed to know her. Fun, eh?

I'm going to ask him to tell me something to tell y'all, so the following is in Nick English.

Hello It's Nick. I'm from Italy. His family is my father Carlo, is my mother, Venerina. My Aunt, Maria. Is maria a teacher in BYU. In Italiano. what's her name, Nicola. Is from Italy. you speak English very good. Email, postcard, email. You teach Italian, you teach english. Vi voglio tanto bene, che non vi conosco. Risponderme, voglio un email next week. He wants una T-shirt. grande. XXXL. color: blue, red, or brown. or ok black. uno. just one. ciao, da nick. Thank you.

He also asked for Anz. Skanky's email address, so if you could send that. also Sorella Baird's and Anz. Cowart's. IamFeek@hotmail.com is Nick of Alessandria's email.

He's fun. That whole paragraph there was about him. I'm not going to translate. You figure it out.

Anyways, we're doing work out here. I love you all!

Benjamin is now in Italy!

Dear friends and family of Anziano Benjamin Jolley,

Dean received a phone call from Sister Dunaway (his mission president's wife) telling him that Benjamin arrived safely in Milan, Italy.  She said that he was being assigned to be with Elder Jones in Alessandria, Italy which is 1 1/2 hours southwest of Milan.  When we talked to Benjamin from the airport, he told us that there were 20 elders and sisters going to Milan together!  Since it was such a large group (not enough room in the mission home) they were staying the first night in a hotel.  He said that after they dropped off their luggage, that they were going to visit the Duomo, which is a huge cathedral in Milan (3rd largest in the world), which seats 40,000 and has 3200 statues (I read that to Benjamin out of a guide book to Italy).  While visiting the Duomo, they were given the opportunity to visit with people there.

Benjamin's mission home address is:

Elder Benjamin Jolley
Italy Milan Mission
Via Gramsci, 13/4
20090 Opera MI
Italy

Thanks for all your love and support of Benjamin!  He told us how loved he feels from all of you!

~Carrie Jolley