Christmas and such

Anziano Benjamin Jolley
Via V. Monti, 3
23870 Cernusco (LC)
Italy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 3:11 AM
Subject: Christmas and such

Dear Family,

This week's been an interesting one. On Wednesday night we taught Wassil, an albanian man with his family. after, we started a scambio. That was cool. Thursday, we had like 4 lessons planned, and we were on scambio, all of the lessons fell through, so we did some casa, getting in to 2 old men, Giovanni, and then Vittorio. Giovanni showed us his Nativity set, which was AWESOME. it moved and had lights and music and just... yeah. unfortunately, he wasn't particularly interested in our message, so we said a prayer with him, then he said a padre nostro, and then we left. Vittorio says he believes in prophets and not in God, which was odd, and then didn't want us to come back. bummer. I was on Scambi with Anziano Brown, from southern missouri. He's a cool kid. It was a weird scambio.

Friday, we made a ton of brownies and banana bread and took them to our various investigators, and contacts and neighbors, and then taught Marcel, asking him about his desire to serve a mission, which is there, but very... I dunno. something doesn't fit with what he says to us. He has a desire to be a missionary, but he doesn't come to church. It's... odd. We went to the Pogetti's that night, for whom we had made some banana bread, and we had a nice christmas eve dinner. That night, we went to the Oratorio di San Luigi in Cernusco for midnight mass. It was packed, and interesting. I found the part where they blessed the bread and wine the most interesting. and sorta weird. mostly interesting. before the mass started, we sang all these weird hymns that were accompanied by an organ and an acoustic guitar. That was fun.

Saturday, we chilled around the apartment after sleeping till 9, and then we wrote a couple letters, and then Emmanuele Dallari picked us up to go to his house for lunch. We stayed there till 9. 12 PM till 9. that's a long time. we had lunch with them, then we watched Monster's Inc (called Monster's and co. in Italian.) I then called you , and then I went downstairs to where they were watching "Jesus". My comp was still on the phone, but that movie was... um... perhaps a little more violent than I was expecting. but I liked it. We had dinner with the Dallaris, and then went home.

Sunday, we went to church, where NONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS SHOWED UP!! NO! So we called them. two of them showed up about 20 minutes before sacrament. We shortly taught them the second lesson in gospel principles, and then went to sacrament meeting. phew. It was then snowing, so we did some finding work in Osnago, finding a guy named Tulio, and a catholic priest named Lorenzo, who speaks english. He likes talking with other faiths, and the missionaries in Milano gave him a Book of Mormon shortly before. He apparently goes to school in the States, though, at Georgetown. He also introduced us to his OTHER catholic priest friend, who lives near como, so I called Anz. Petersen and gave him the referral. His name is Ivan.

Monday, we had district meeting, and then we grabbed a kebap from the delicious ridiculously spicy kebaperia in Lecco. It was quite delicious. we then headed back to Merate. On the train, I thought "I think I'm getting sick." Turns out I was right. But not badly. We taught Manuel, watching The Restoration with him, but in Black and White because the connection to his TV is bad. That was different. We went down to Carnate, where we looked for Luli, who wasn't at home... and didn't give us his phone number. bummer. We came back to Merate, and taught the Muçe family part of the plan of Salvation with Valerio Dallari, who helped a lot.

Tuesday, we taught Sebastiano, who is a way cool guy. He had all sorts of questions about the fall, and just... reads the scriptures really well. I love that man. After that, I started to get a little sicker, so we went in, and I slept the rest of the day. Just so you know, my illness is just a minor cold that mostly just gives me a headache and is annoying, more than an illness that actually is threatening. It's just really hard to smile and be happy when you have a bad headache. and people don't listen to a message about happiness from people that aren't happy. I'm thinking I should be all the way better by tomorrow.

This morning, I broke the key to the outside gate of our palazzo. in the lock. because it was frozen. managia. I love you!

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Transfers again? Already?

Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 2:27 AM

Subject: Transfers again? Already?

My dear family,
I'm doing quite well in all aspects. The work here is picking up
again, and as always when that happens, someone got transferred.
Anziano Clove is headed to Biella, in my old district. Anziano Millar,
who's currently in my district is headed to Vercelli. And I'm getting
a new companion. I'm apparently the senior companion now. hmm... that
should be... interesting. In other exciting news, my new Zone Leader
is Anziano Petersen! This'll be the first time I see him since May. I
can't remember my companion's name... ballet, dallet, something like
that. I'll tell you next week.

This week has been an interesting one. since I forgot to bring my
planner, it may be a little less detailed of an email. Last wednesday,
our bishop gave us the job of meeting every member that he doesn't
know, and finding out their stance toward the church, as hostile,
indifferent, or willing to meet with him. So we proceeded to attempt
this task. Unfortunately, half of them live in areas that we cannot
get to without a car. Trains to those areas simply don't exist. oh
well.

Thursday, we taught one of our less actives, Marcel and his sister
Giordana. She had some rather... odd questions about several things
that led us to decide that she doesn't really have a testimony. This
conclusion came from the fact that she doesn't understand commandments
that breaking doesn't have an obvious affect on others. As we
listened, her brother fell asleep. That was pretty funny. So.. we'll
be trying to help both of them develop a testimony, probably starting
from the beginning of the missionary lessons. Should be an interesting
experience.

Friday, we did some whiteboard survey, asking another question.
Apparently people believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world, but
aren't so sure that God exists... how that works, I'm not entirely
certain. oh well. That evening, we tried to contact a few of the
inactive members the bishop gave us, and then we went to the Pogetti
family, who we taught about missionary work.

Saturday, we had an appointment with Manuel and Ingrid, to which we
were going to bring the Carcelen family. We went to the carcelen's,
and it turned out that Manuel and Ingrid had gone to visit their
children in San Remo for a week or so... oh well. We did some strada
for a bit that evening.

Sunday, after church, we ate lunch with Ken, our new Convert, and then
we taught him about several of his questions. We were going to go to
an appointment with him to Tina, another Nigerian, but she was in
Milano for church still. So we rescheduled for Monday. We then did
some finding work, during which I found that Anziano Clove was
discouraged and down, and I tried to help him out of it. It sorta
worked. As I was doing so, Ken called, telling us he had scheduled an
appointment for Monday with Tina. That cheered me up a lot.

Monday, we taught Tina, with Ken. Tina was very open to our message,
but she kinda had trouble understanding me an Anziano Clove, because
we speak American, and she speaks African. Ken was able to translate
for us, thankfully. He also invited her to church. She then asked if
she could feed us. I didn't want to, because we had an appointment
shortly thereafter, but apparently Ken had asked her to cook something
for us. So we ate her food. I hate being fed on the first appointment.
Then they think they have to feed us every time. I hate that. Anyways,
after that, we had district meeting with Lecco, and then we did a
scambio, me going to Lecco with Anziano Millar. We did some
interesting finding work, and since he doesn't sleep well, neither did
I. Also, they live right next to a bell tower that rings every hour.
That's annoying when it's 4 AM and you're trying to sleep. oh well. It
was a fun scambio. We came back to Merate, after being delayed by
several trains being cancelled due to snow, and then Anziano Clove and
I went to Paola's for dinner, as always. We got transfer calls, and
Anziano Clove started packing.

This morning, it was snowing pretty hard. and it hasn't stopped.
There's a good inch or two on the ground now.

I love you all!
Anziano Jolley


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