20 lessons! 20 lessons!

Anziano Benjamin Jolley
Via XX Settembre, 37
16100 Vercelli, (VC)
Italy

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Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 5:34 AM
Subject: 20 lessons! 20 lessons!

As you may have guessed from the subject, this week we successfully reached one of our standards of excellence for the first time since I left Alessandria. We taught 20 lessons last week. I love weeks like that. Instead of knocking 5000000000 doors in a week, we actually TEACH people. I love that. This is primarily because we have investigators again. It's awesome.

Because someone asked, I will give a short description of all our our investigators. 1. Candide, from Ivory Coast, who will be getting baptized the 10th of September. He's ready, not looking for work, and everything is set for his baptism. 2. Sunday, from Nigeria, who we haven't seen for a while and is still struggling with cigarettes, but he's making progress. He's down from a pack a day to 4 cigarettes a day. 3. Pedro, from Peru, who came to church and is making good progress, and should hopefully be baptized the 25th of September. 4. Roberto, Italian, who is reading the Book of Mormon from start to finish, with the footnotes. He really likes the footnotes. 5. Edwin, from Nigeria, who really likes Mormon.org. 6. Jolly Monday (Jolly is the first name, Monday is the last name), from Nigeria, who is part of a very active church. He goes to church 3 times a week for several hours. 7. David, from Nigeria, who really likes the Book of Mormon, because it teaches the same things as the Bible. 8. Davide, from Italy, who is a hippy. 9. Salvatore, Italian, who really loves the Bible and doesn't see the need for the Book of Mormon. 10 Alessandro and his family, from Peru, who have lots of health problems. 11. Prince, from Ghana, who is a soccer player that is hoping to return to soccer after an injury. 12. Emiliano, Italian, a recovering alcoholic. 13, Maria Rosa, Italian, who has had all of the lesssons at least once. Other than these 13, there are 4 or 5 potentials, primarily spouses of members.

There you go. We're working with 12 people and 1 family, of whom 1 is french african, 5 are english african, 2 are peruvian, and 5 are Italian.

As I've taken to the habit of telling you about my week in chronological order, I will continue in this way. On Thursday morning, we gave a blessing to a member's non-member daughter-in-law, and taught her a modified version of the restoration lesson. We then did an exchange with members (Is the word splits in english?) I went with Paolo out to Novara, and we taught Prince about the Doctrine of Christ, which climaxed with a baptismal invite, which was not accepted, because he will not have enough time to see us for a good while. We then went to Candide's and taught him the Law of Chastity, a lesson I've taught once, and wasn't really sure how to teach. Thankfully, Paolo, our member, is an ex-missionary to London, and has taught it many times, and so the elements of the lesson I forgot, he was able to fill in. We then ended our exchange, and Anz. Jones and I went out to do some finding work.

On Friday, we woke up early early again, to teach my friend Pedro, about gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. We taught him with our members in his city, who are also both ex-missionaries (It occurs to me that I'm using the Italian terms. In English you say Returned Missionary, right?), and helped us a lot, and also provided him a ride to church on Sunday. We then went to this member's house and had lunch with them, and taught their family, which is half-active. We took a train back to Vercelli, and then to Novara, where we taught Jolly about 3 Nephi 11, which I love, by the way. Unfortunately, we had to be kind of short in that lesson, because we found out we were double booked, and we rushed to our next lesson, with David, about the plan of Salvation, which was also rushed, and then we hopped on a train back to Vercelli, barely in time, and went to a member's house, with whom was Maria Rosa, who we taught a rather interesting lesson with one of our member's disrupting a lot and making a lot of reference to deep doctrine, that was entirely unnecessary. I have said this, and I will say it again. Let us teach. Missionaries KNOW how to teach the doctrines of the gospel, which to teach, and which not to teach. For a buddhist woman who hardly knows anything about the bible or the Book of Mormon, the concept of who is Jehovah, or even the concept of Jehovah at all doesn't matter and cannot help. (that's what our member was explaining.) As you can tell, I was a little frustrated with our member. Later, we went to church to teach Salvatore. As we waited, our constantly drunk friend Mario passed by, so I gave him a quick tour of the church, and taught him a short lesson. He has very interesting beliefs. "I believe in Jesus Christ, but in God, no." How that works, I'm not going to ask. That's called a drunk man who has read the bible 4 times. Anyways, we then taught Salvatore, reading with him 3 Nephi 11. He started to understand better why the Book of Mormon is useful. (By the way, yes, we did teach 7 lessons in one day.)

On Saturday, we taught Candide the Law of Tithing, and then we had lunch with him, of baguettes, cheese, delicious meat, and such. It was good. We then had to cancel an appointment and received several bidoni. It was a decent day.

Sunday, in church, Candide, Pedro, and Maria Rosa came, along with one of Maria Rosa's friends, Paolo, the husband of one of our members who agreed to take the lessons starting in September, and the parents of one of our members. It was a really good Sunday. Later on, we taught our friend Edwin the Plan of Salvation from start to finish, and then did finding work.

Monday, we had district meeting in the morning, before which, I talked with Anziano Gallacher for a good bit as we waited for the Biella Elders. Anziano Gallacher took my place in Alessandria, and is currently teaching nearly all of the same people I taught there. He's from Salt Lake City, and goes home in February. He's a good guy and I enjoy talking with him. Thought I'd mention him because I think someone may know him... maybe. Anyways, later on that day, we taught our member, Favour, who we're trying to help get ready to be able to officiate on the Sacrament. He's got a lot of put right in his life though. We then used a map we found in our apartment that missionaries in the past made of all of the members in Novara. We went to about half of there houses, and met a sorella Bonezzi, who reads the Book of Mormon every day, but hasn't come to church since the church left Novara because it's too hard. She lives with her non-member son. Later, we taught our friend David about the promise in Moroni 10, and he commited to put it to the test. We then went back to Vercelli, and taught our Family Home Evening, with about 10 people, 2 of which were Candide and Maria Rosa. That was really good.

Yesterday, we taught Candide in the morning about Confirmation, and talked about his baptismal service's program. He's really excited, and 3 of his friends should come. It's going to be an awesome baptism. I'm superbly excited. (I hope I don't get transferred, because if I do, I'll miss his baptism by one day.) We then taught Edwin about the promise in Moroni 10, and very surprisingly and pleasingly found him checking out Mormon.org. That was exciting. We came home for a delicious lunch, and then went out again to teach Sunday, who is really struggling with his belief in God and why God blesses wicked people. We took the next train to Vercelli, and had Ward Council, followed by teaching Salvatore again, this time about 1 Nephi 13. He understood, I think, the importance of the Book of Mormon.

This morning, we taught Maria Rosa about the Doctrine of Christ, contained in 2 Nephi 31, with a failed object lesson. We tried to baptise and confirm and egg into a glass jar labeled the Kingdom of God. I think it was too rich of an egg. The object lesson is supposed to suck the egg into the jar, but it didn't work. oh well! Maria Rosa has a lot of questions, and is reading the Book of Mormon.

It's been a really good busy week. I'm happy.
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Vi Amo!
Anziano Benjamin Jolley

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