My Week this week 30/6/10

Date: Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:12 AM
Subject: My Week this week 30/6/10

Dear family of mine,

Once again, more rapidly than the last time, it is P-day. which means that I'm writing an email home. This week seems to have flown by. I love the mission, let me tell you!

This past week has been quite an interesting one. We've gotten a ridiculous number of bidoni (literally something like trash can, but in mission slang it means an appointment that falls through), which has been really upsetting. However, we found some good people to teach, so I'm content, and this next week will be better.

On Thursday, we taught one of our African friends, named Evans Godswill. Is that not an awesome name? He's from Nigeria, so he speaks english. The first few times teaching him and other africans were really interesting, because I didn't know how to teach in English, and Anziano Zippro can't speak proper english anymore. His english has picked up Italianisms, like "One of the things God gives us to help us is the prayer." Normal people would omit the "the", but in Italian, it's la preghiera, so it makes me laugh. Anziano Zippro and I rarely speak English with each other, because he is, as I've said before, obsessive about the language. We also found a family of three, whose father is Giuseppe. They seem pretty good, and have a decently high chance of getting baptized, I hope.

On Friday, we taught Yanina, the less active we found last week, a first lesson. We also taught one of our african members, Uyi, after my first REAL african meal. African meals consist of rice, and a sauce of meat, vegetables and enough spice to kill a small child (good thing I'm fully grown). We also found a man named Roberto, who is the first Vercellese man my companion has ever taught. (Meaning that this guy has lived in Vercelli for like forever, also his family, and not a southern italian or a straniero). That was exciting. He's pretty open, and has a big family. I love people with big families. We're teaching him tonight.

On Saturday, we found a muslim guy from bangladesh, named Ahmed. That was cool.

On Sunday, we taught some Peruvian less-actives (where did Elijah serve? somewhere in Peru, right?) in Novara. We also taught a Non-denominational african Pastor named Charlie Andrei who told us to look him up on facebook. At one point, I told him we were here to share a very important message with him and he needed to listen, and he listened, then repeated that he'd learned he needed to listen more. I'm quite excited for him. We're teaching him next Sunday. Also, we taught a Moroccan Muslim named Sayid (which, as it turns out, means Happy). Church was also fun, because the Biella branch, including the elders out there are coming for church to Vercelli for the whole summer.

On Monday, we had district meeting, which took a long time because Alessandria was late showing up because the train times changed. I then went on Scambio (exchange) with Anziano Duque to Biella. On the train ride there, I met a man from Vercelli who has read the bible 4 times, and after talking to him for a while about the bible, got his number, address, and an appointment for tomorrow. I'm quite excited. Anziano Duque is a filipino elder who has lived in rome for the past 10 years, and is a convert of 2 years. He's really good, and has a strong testimony. I like him a lot.

Yesterday, we riscambioed, and then taught my friend Evans Godswill again, giving him a Book of Mormon, and a lesson about it. (He seems to have trouble reading, but I have faith in him). We then found an Albanian man named Gani. It's been a really good week.

This morning, workers from the landlord came to work on our sink, because apparently there was a plumbing problem that caused a leak down to the floor below us. Our kitchen is a mess.

I love you all, and hope you are not just praying for me, but for you to have missionary opportunities too! (I read a quote somewhere that said "It will be a great day when our members pray not only for the full time missionaries in the field to have success, but to have the opportunities and courage to do missionary work themselves." I have faith in you)

Vi Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Vercelli

Dear Family,

As I told mom in my letter to her, Vercelli, the city in which I now live, is very flat, and the rice capital of the world, surrounded by literally thousands of rice fields. This means that there are a lot of mosquitoes. My left arm is essentially one large mosquito bite with other mosquito bites on it. (exaggeration, but close enough to the truth.) The flatness also means that we bike everywhere. I have a bike that I inherited from Anziano Sessions, from 2 transfers ago. It is black, and it's the Italian kind of bike, meaning no gearshift, which is fine for the city we're in. It is more than a little beat up. The front wheel guard thingy is hanging off on one side, which means you can hear me coming a mile away, because it bangs against the wheel every couple seconds. The glue for the handles is very weak, so I can move them easily. The left pedal slips every time I turn it, so it's difficult to pedal fast. Regardless all these problems, the bike works, and gets me places. Therefore, I'll keep it. (I wanted to give you a detailed description of the bike. She's my friend.)

Anziano Zippro is very very neat, so since his last companion was something of a slob, we spent our first night in Vercelli mostly cleaning. also planning the week. But we cleaned her good. Our apartment was nigh spotless, and now just needs maintenance.

Friday, we found a lot of people doing casa, and taught the family Augusta. They are as follows: The dad, about 40, Francesco, the mom, about 30, named Antonella, Leonardo, 10, Giusi, 9, and Valentina, 6. They are a really nice family, and their kids love us. During our second visit, the dad found me on facebook and added me as a friend. (that would be the strange Italian man that added me as a friend, Caroline). We taught them the plan of salvation, with the kids all drawing it out. It was really good.

On Saturday, we taught one of our other investigators, Alessandra, who is really interesting. We taught her about the fall and Lehi's vision. We also found two women, separately, who are members that haven't been to church since they emigrated from their home country. One from Ecuador, and one from Santo Domingo. It was really weird. The Santo Domingan woman just said "that's my church", pointing to our name tag, as we got onto a train. Both of them apparently did casa in casa with the missionaries in their home country. It was a little bizarre.

On Sunday, we found some Muslims, and some Africans, named Sandra and Evans Godswill. (I love African names, by the way.) We taught Sandra and Evans yesterday a "blueprint lesson" (which is essentially a really quick lesson asking them for questions, getting to know them, and explaining that we want to teach them 3x a week for 20 minutes. We teach essentially the 4 bullet points on p.7 of PMG, then ask lots of questions. It's surprisingly effective.) They wanted to know why preachers don't care about them, just money, and "Which church is true?" It was a really good lesson. I'm excited for them.

Monday, we had our last zone conference with President Dunaway, which was really good. We talked about ch. 4 of Preach my Gospel, which was a really good zone conference. We talked about how to have the spirit in your work, what the gift of discernment is, how it hits people, and such. I really liked it, and I'm excited for this transfer.

Yesterday, we taught Evans, like I said, and also one of our main investigators, Francesca. She's a nursing student of about 27 years old, who is really open to our message. She's really good.

Just for dad, now I'll describe all of our main investigators, novel style. Also my companion.

A tall, fair-complexioned, brown-eyed, somewhat skinny man of 20, who almost always has the shadow of a beard growing. This is Anziano Zippro, the very neat, intelligent, and always searching for how to say something perfectly in Italian, missionary.

Actually, I've decided that I'm done with this game. You can have the Anziano Zippro description. I don't want to waste time doing this. Internet here is expensive... Alessandria, it was a euro an hour. Here, it's 2 euro an hour.

I love you! I hope all is well with your health. and I hope you all know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is indeed the "only true and living church". Because it is. You better realize that, and that I love you.
Mi mancate,
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

PS

Right after I left Alessandria, turns out that Rocco's family, and Rita all set baptismal dates, which will be really exciting. If they go through with it, I can go down to Alessandria to see it. Rocco, for the 24th of July, and Rita for the 15th. I'm very happy about that fact.

A crazy week, and TRANSFERS?

Date: Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 4:11 AM

Subject: A crazy week, and TRANSFERS?

Dear family of mine,

First and most importantly, I'm being transferred to Vercelli, where I was on exchanged. This means that my address has changed. If you send letters to my current address, I'll still get them, but my new address is:

Anziano Benjamin Jolley

Via XX Settembre, 37

16100 Vercelli (VC)

Italia

This week has been crazy. We taught an incredible amount of Casa lessons, meaning that in total lessons taught, we led our Zone. We taught 27 lessons this week. I'm not being prideful about this... I don't think. The Lord has really blessed us though. We found a new family to teach, who are really solid and already progressing. The Dad's name is Rocco. I'm excited for them.

Ilmi is making a lot of progress with the word of wisdom, so thanks for the prayers.

We found a lot of people this week. Some Africans from Coste d'Ivoire, who were watching the World Cup, which has been real interesting for us. It means everyone's home, but they're busy watching the World Cup. We also found an old lady and her son. They have 11 children in that family, but we've only met the son. We also found a guy who really likes Indian stuff, and a lot of Muslims.

A lot of our investigators have fallen through and so we've had to drop them, like Fernando.

Yesterday, for half of P day, (which we did because of unique scheduling problems, today is just email half) we went out to Acqui Terme, a really pretty city with Hot springs that apparently Romans used. I'm attaching photos of that. Out there, one of our members is a Pizzaiolo, and we ate with him. It was really good.

Anyways, though, I'm getting transferred to Vercelli. My current companion, Anziano Jones is staying here and retraining an elder who got deported and served in New York, New York South for two transfers and is coming back. He's older in the mission than Anziano Jones, but he will need help getting his language back up to speed, so he's taking my place here in Alessandria.

I'm taking the place of Anziano Merrell, our district leader, who used to be one of the Assistants, who's going home (I'm not the district leader, another Anziano in Biella is). My companion is Anziano Zippro, who is from farmington, Utah, and the same MTC district as Anziano Jones. He has really solid language skills, is extremely neat, and I quite enjoyed the exchange we were on together.

Since I'm taking the place of a former assistant whose super solid, the work is apparently about to explode there. I'm quite excited to see what happens this next transfer. I'll miss Anziano Jones though.

I'm not really a greenie anymore though... which is scary.

I love you all! Keep praying for me!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Two Scambi and a Baptism

Dear family of mine,

As you know, we had a baptism on saturday. What you didn't know is what follows.

On Thursday, I found out that I was going to Vercelli again on Scambio, this time with my district leader, Anziano Joshua Merrell, who's going home after this transfer, meaning June 21st. Thursday was a hard day, because we saw very little success... meaning we taught two lessons and basta for the day... not a very effective day for a missionary.

Friday, we planned and I went to Vercelli, where we taught a few lessons to the investigators out there. We got in once doing casa, to an old catholic couple. We talked about prayer with them. We then went out to a far part of Vercelli, where we taught an investigator about the need for the book of Mormon. What was much more... touching though, was that outside as we waited for this investigator, a ragazzo about 18 years old walked up to us, asking what we do. We talked with him for a while, and found out that his mom died 10 years ago, he lives essentially alone, and his dad died 2 weeks ago. He looked so lost. We told him that God does exist, that he loves him, and that there is something after this life, and we have proof. He met the missionaries at the right time. I don't know what happened to him afterwards, but I hope the Anziani there did a good job teaching him. We then got lost on the way home, for fully an hour, which meant that we got home late. I was really tired that night.

Saturday morning, we taught a lesson, then found out that the bus we were going to take back to Alessandria was cancelled, so we took a train about 30 minutes later, which broke down, so our travel time to Alessandria took all of 4 hours, when it's normally an hour or less. We got there, starving and a little frustrated.

And then we had our baptism. I gave a talk in Italian about the Holy Ghost, and then Vivian got baptized. (Fernando will get baptized eventually, but not right now... I don't know. I hope he does soon). That was really good. I like baptisms. They're a lot of fun.

On Sunday, most all of our investigators came to church, and we confirmed Vivian. Seeing Vivian get confirmed under our hands, with a lot of our investigators watching was so good. It made me feel better about all of the frustrations and slowdowns and little problems we had all week.

Sunday night, we hadn't found ANYONE new to teach all week, but we were pumped. We went out, did casa, taught lessons, and found 6 new people to teach, 2 of which are former investigators from 30 years ago. It was a lot of fun to see that kind of success in one day. Since then, this week has been great. Monday, we taught some people and got their numbers, so we may teach them again, and yesterday we took care of ALL of our Asti appointments in one day. That was really nice. We spent all day in asti yesterday, almost all of which was spent teaching, and we saw two of our new converts. The members there are solid. Since we had that day of all asti, we can now spend the rest of this week here in Alessandria, and spend a lot less time on a train, which isn't the best proselyting environment.

Last week was a week of frustrations, two scambi, and a baptism. The frustrations are worth it, though. Because guess what? We BAPTIZED Vivian! Let me tell you, Baptisms are fun. I'm glad I'm in a "baptising mission". I've been here a little over a month, and we've seen our first baptism! I can't wait to see how things turn out in the next several months.

Vi Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Festa Della Repubblica

Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 8:10 AM

Subject: Festa Della Repubblica

Dearest Family,
Today is the Festa della Repubblica (sp?). This means that everything is closed, everyone is in their house eating and sleeping with their family. It's kind of like the Fourth of July in America, except that instead of celebrating declaring independence, it's celebrating when America established the Italian Republic after they liberated it. Also, less fireworks and American flags.

This week has been a good one. Today, we set a baptismal date with our argentine friend Luis. He's great. Also, we ate a really good italian meal with some members.

Yesterday, we taught a family, of a lady named Grazia. She has 4 daughters and 2 sons, all married, with children of their own, and some grandchildren. They are all asking the right questions, and we gave them a Book of Mormon. I'm really excited for them. They're a really big family that loves to talk about everything, including religion. They're all catholic, but not practicing. It's kinda hectic teaching them, but a lot of fun.

Monday, we had district meeting, and my first scambio. I went to Vercelli, where Anziano Zippro was my companion for a day. We did some casa, and then taught one of their investigators. We then taught an Italian class... who'd have thought I'd be TEACHING Italian a month into Italy? Not me.

Sunday, we taught this really wonderful lady named Rita. We've taught her before, so I may have mentioned her, but whatever. We taught her with a couple members, because it was right after church. One of our members suggested a blessing... this woman barely knows what baptism is, and we're teaching her the Plan of Salvation, and we explain what it is, give her a blessing, and she feels really good. I'm excited for that. She's great. We're going to try to set a baptismal date with her tomorrow, which I'm 90% sure she'll accept.

On Saturday, we found a very loquacious lady doing casa. We went in, her husband sits there, we say about three words, and for the next 45 minutes we hear her entire life story, so far as religion is concerned. We then try to teach her something, and it takes another 45 minutes to teach her a 2 minute overview of our message. She's great. But that was a long time to teach only a little tiny bit.

On Friday, we talked with Vivian about her baptism, she was interviewed by our District Leader during scambio, and she's getting baptised this Saturday. This week, we also finally got the chance to talk to our dry mormon friend Fernando. He's been coming to church for several months with his wife, he just hasn't been baptised yet. We're holding the interview on friday, when we do our other scambio, and then hopefully we'll baptize him on Saturday too. I'm way excited. My first baptism! That's what we're here for. As soon as we got off the plane, our President asked us, "they told you this is a baptizing mission, didn't they?" It's true. I'm excited to see how things turn out.

Thursday was a funny day. We taught this guy that we met on the street, looking at his backpack, of dragon ball z. We complimented it, then talked with him, and he invited us in. He then gave us a book based on the Bible, and the teachings of Padre Pio, about the second coming of Christ, and the events leading up to it. He talks about "another messiah who will come and prepare the way for the second coming, who Elijah will help"... Little does he know, he's actually talking about the PAST, not the future. Clearly, his "Messiah" should be said "Prophet", named Joseph Smith. If we teach him again, we're going to talk about that... maybe. He's a character. Also, I severely dislike Padre Pio.

In summary, we've had ANOTHER week of miracles. It's been fun. I've been out three weeks. I can't wait to see what my mission looks like in 6 months, when I can actually speak Italian.

I love you lots!!
--
Vi Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley