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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