Illnesses and a fun p-day

Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 8:13 AM
Subject: Illnesses and a fun p-day

I'm not sick. Neither is Anz. Ballif. Klara (Clara from earlier emails. You spell it with a K, as it turns out) is sick. She had a 102° fever on Monday. So we didn't teach the Muçe's that day. I'll get to that later.

This week, we had 4 new english students, who also seem interested in the church. We'll probably try to pick them up as investigators later on this week. After english, we tried to teach the Muçe's about tithing, and the dad had a question about tithing and a very specific part of Italian tax law called 8 per 1000. What that means, I don't know, but apparently you can send part of your taxes to goodwill organizations like churches. He wondered if that was paying his tithing. So we... SORTA retaught tithing. We also realized that he hadn't been there for the lessons on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration when he said, It doesn't matter which church my money goes to. They understood the fast, and Klara asked if she could fast now. Of course, we said.

Friday, we taught Alexander, the Ghanan from last week. He's an interesting guy. More on him later. We also watched the restoration movie with Saydi and Valentino, the peruvians we're sorta teaching. And then we went to an Elder's Quorum activity, and firmed up our member relations a little, and got a couple of appointments. Also ate delicious food. Pizza, Lasagna, Chili, Salad, and very cold water.

Saturday, we did a lot of casa, with little success. We also taught Sorella Armilotta, a less active, and Robert and Tuba, a couple that are a Pole and a Turk respectively. Cool people. Robert is very... Catholic? He very strongly defends the Catholic church. And Tuba is muslim. The Muçe's cancelled on us that evening because Klara was sick.

Sunday, we had church, to which Brixhilda (spelling correctly) and Valentina came. Klara and Albert didn't. bummer. That afternoon and evening we did some casa, and we found Toure, a Costa D'avvoriano, (Ivory Coast) who was pretty interested in our message. We had been intending to go to Arcore to meet with Alexander and a girl we found named Jessica, but there was a strike on the trains, so we were stuck in Merate.

Monday, we had district meeting, to which the Zone Leaders came, so I saw Anz. Petersen again. That afternoon, we went to Arcore, and we taught Alexander, finding that he wants to teach us, not the other way around, so we left. enough said. Then we did some finding work, and then we took banana bread and The Testaments to the Muçe's, who didn't want us to get sick.

Yesterday, we went to Vimercate, outside Arcore, and then to Arcore. We found a Jehovah's Witness from Togo, who was interested in having a french Book of Mormon, named Julien, and then we passed by an ex investigator who's still not interested, but fine with a passby, named Gianluca, actually, story. We knew the man's address, but we come to find out that he lives in a giant palazzo, with about 100 names, and we only knew his first name. We start ringing G's at random, and we find him. Cool story. Later on, we found Alessandro, a man from Rome who had come to church there where the Temple is being built. We gave him a Book of mormon to read, and got his phone number.

Today, we went to Lecco, and then went up the Funivia (gondola?) to the top of a mountain. Literally, we were at the top of the alps. It was awesome. We wanted to hike to the top of a nearby mountain, but the snow made the hike too dangerous. But I got some sweet pictures. And we met an old man named Alberto on the path. He invited us to his house. We went there a little later, and he invited us in, giving us delicious salame and bread, and we gave him a Book of Mormon. He said he'd read it. I taught a lesson at the top of the Alps. Cool? cool. Then we came back to Merate, and came to do email.

I love you all!

Anz. Benjamin Jolley