Via Placenza, 66
15121 Alessandria (AL)
Italy
Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:50 AM
Subject: 18/5/10
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,
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.)
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