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.