NON-TEACHING - May 5th, 2010

The week:

Last night we had a cancelled meeting with the bishop so we ended up with an extra hour to do door to door. We had picked an "inspired" area as a backup plan last night where we wanted to do casa so off we went, trekking across the city in the POOOURING rain to this area. We got in super easily to the first apartment complex we found...all 3 gates were opened already without us having to talk people into opening them for us. On the second floor we did a super cute family with three little kids opened the door. The dad was all...no, no, thank you, we already found Jesus in our own way and shut the door. Then as we were walking down the stairs the mom pops back out and says "Make yourselves comfortable!" I thought she was being sarcastic and meant like "Hurry up, get out of this apartment building you scoundrels" like most people mean when they pop back out of their doors. But after her saying it about 5 times I realized she was inviting us into her house. This was about to be my dream come true. We chatted for a minute, watched the 'Finding Happiness' video, gave a quick minute tie in to our message about the Restored gospel....then the next 20 minutes they spent trying to convert us to their neo-Catholicism movement.

Maybe its just because that was the last big thing that happened this week, but right now in my mind that kind of sums up the entire week. People trying to convert me instead of me being able to fulfill my calling invite them to come unto Christ by accepting his restored Gospel. A few days ago we sat down to eat in a park because we didn't have time to go home for lunch. A Jehovah Witness came and sat down next to us and for the entire lunch hour chatted away about the proofs of his movement. At the end he said a prayer, asking God to help us find the right way, then thanked us because he knew God was pleased with him for sharing his testimony with others.

A few hours later, we knocked on the door of a man that had seen us sitting in the park getting lectured by the JW. We laughed together about the experience at the door, then I peeked in their house and saw that it was a sewing studio. So, I got his wife to sew my skirt (the one I ripped in the MTC) up again while we shared a message with them. The man was a hard core atheist though, and I probably got two sentences in total. The next day our new member Ludmilla called to see if she could meet with us once more before she moved back to Genova. She spent the first 30 minutes trying to sign me up to join her Xango pyramid scheme (isn't that based out of Utah). She had done a whole astrology based background research on me and decided, based on my birthday and characteristics she had observed, that I would be the perfect partner with her. Nothing I could say to divert the conversation would get her off the topic.

We did have a few appointments with people who weren't hard core anything and trying to convert us. But we didn't really teach in any of those appointments either for one reason or another it seems...
We visited Luciano's (the park friend that died) wife. I tried reading one scripture but she was way too depressed and everything was going straight over her head. So we spent the rest of the lesson just asking questions and trying to show our love for her.

We had lots of lessons with investigators and the members house...mostly all of them turned into story times with the members explaining every detail of their conversion. Marco's story literally lasted 1 hour.

I was frustrated at first by all of these experiences but started reading\researching Christ and his ministry today. It seems like half the time he taught people they were distracted by other things and didn't really listen to what he was saying. And to teach, mostly he just asked people questions. So somehow I guess I just need to work with these opportunities I am given and leave the rest up to the Spirit! Aka, have more Faith. I liked the explanation in the Gospel Doctrines manual that I read about faith which connected it to motivation...It is a principle of Power that motivates our daily activities, It is a strong belief of truth that motivates us to do good. If we have faith and righteous desires, Heavenly Father will work miracles. For example...Heavenly Father revealed the Book of Mormon to us today because he promised he would to others in the past who had righteous desires and asked him to. See D and C 3: 19-20 and Enos 1:16.

Hummm, this e-mail so far kind of makes it seem like it was a bad week, eh? It really was quite the contrary...

Victoria and Rafaella came to church for the first time as well as another guy that we met at the ward picnic who we invited to meet us and come with us. Victoria went to another baptism with us (for another ward)...unfortunately we missed the actual baptism part because I've had a sick stomach for the past 3 days due to the meat I ate at the Ward BBQ. Luckily she has a good sense of humor and wasn't upset about it at all.

I made Christi's Carmelitas.

A friend of the Relief Society president who I was talking to at the picnic and who has been coming to ward parties for years but never has met with the missionaries, invited us over to teach her the lessons. She has two adorable little girls and we started teaching them on Sunday.

Out of time. But...by the way, transfer calls were last night. I'm here in Milan with Casa for another transfer.

Love, Peace, charity, etc.
SLC