November 28, 2012 - Da quaggiu...

That means from down here... ha. We're on a bit of a low this week. I don't know what happened, but these last two weeks have been crazy! All of our people have disappeared. We have taught maybe a total of 14 lessons in the last two weeks. Which is SO weird. Usually here in Milano we are running around like crazy people because we are so busy! But not anymore. Nope. I keep telling Sorella Lyman "Sorry. Usually our lives are more exciting." I feel bad that she hasn't had a whole lot of teaching experiences. All of our appointments we set up with potential new investigators fall through. I'm not kidding. ALL of the appointments these last two weeks with potentials have fallen through. The only people we are teaching are our new converts, less actives, and members (which don't even count as a real lesson anyway...) It's rough! Abby is still progressing towards baptism but has just been crazy busy with work. But she's still planning on the 15th (if we can teach her everything in time) and she asked if she could give our number to 5 of her friends who are also open and willing to learn. (THAT'S FINE!) Patrick we're still not sure about, but he took a HUGE step of faith and came to church on Sunday. Even though it meant turning down a day of work (he doesn't have a job). HE CAME! We felt impressed to promise him in his lesson on Saturday that if he would make that sacrifice to come to church with faith in the Lord, he would be blessed. So he did. We were walking to church and he turned the corner ahead of us and I said "NO! Sorella! That's Patrick!" He came to all three hours. I was really happy.

But with all these appointments falling through, it means we are doing a LOT of finding. A lot of ringing doorbells. A lot of doors slammed in the face. I think on Monday we knocked on about 200 doors. From that we have 2 numbers. So our finding efforts aren't really seeing a lot of success. Which is really frustrating. Last night we had a bad experience and I almost cried after we left this woman's home. She let us in thinking we were catholic misisonaries. She is an older woman of about 88 years old. Her badante was there too and they invited us in to talk. We sat down and started talking and she told us a bit about her family how she is catholic how she taught the catechismo and everything... we started talking about prophets and we got this know card with a picture of the first vision that says "OGGI DIO HA CHIAMATO UN PROFETA." And she laughed at it because this supposed prophet was on the ground. she kept saying not even in a chair. We were trying to bear testimony and I showed her the Book of Mormon and she went off on Mormons and how they aren't Christian and how they don't read the Bible and how you can only have one wife and where did their church come from Christ lived in Israel etc. etc. etc.... I pulled out a Restoration pamphlet to give her. On the front it has a picture of Christ and says "La Restaurazione del Vangelo di Gesù Cristo." And she went off about how the mormons should teach what was in this pamphlet it talks about Christ and I just said... "well the Mormon church produced this pamphlet..." Then she went through and saw the picture of Peter James and John ordaining Joseph Smith to the priesthood and said "Why do they need three? The pope only needs one." And on and on about that. Then I just thought we had to get out because she wasn't listening to us so I stood up and said something about how we needed to go teach the mormons about Christ and I said "I'm a mormon, signora." Then basically she told us we were going to inferno (hell). So I just said okay enough we're leaving and we basically walked out with a "Call us if you want to learn more" to the badante because she actually did seem kind of interested. But that was a real downer experience to top off a really bad week of not having much opportunity to invite people to come  unto Christ. 

But, luckily, we have the scriptures. I have found alot of comfort in the scriptures, come solito. But it seems I've come across things that just help "heal the wounded soul" (as Jacob says). First on Monday when I was SO tired and didn't want to knock on any more doors, I just kept running Helaman 10 through my head. "Benedetto sei tu (Sorella Forbes), per le cose che hai fatto, poichè ho visto come hai INSTANCABILMENTE proclamato a questo popolo le parole che ti ho dato..." (that's verse 4) I just kept saying to myself and Sorella Lyman "INSTANCABILMENTE!!!" It helps. And then during studies yesterday I read in Alma 6-8 where Alma is preaching the word and is refused by the people of Ammoniha. It talks there about how Satan had hold of the hearts of the people in that city, so they didn't want to listen to the words of Alma. But nonetheless, Alma "s'impegnò molto nello spirito, lottando col Signore in possente preghiera affinchè volesse riversare il suo Spirito sul popolo che era nella città, affinché gli accordasse anche di poterli battezzare al pentimento." So I'm working on more powerful prayers. And then after Alma was rejected and left, he was commanded to go back and he did so "rapidamente." That's all in chapter 8... anyways... the scriptures are great. Our great capi gave us the challenge to read Alma 32 and put the word "work" where it says "word". I learned alot from that about working with diligence, patience, and looking forward to the fruit with faith. So that's what we're doing! We've got to see some results from all this finding sometime soon! Until then I guess I'll try to be patient.

WE bought a Christmas tree! It's cute. and little. And I get really happy and jolly every time I look at it. ha! I like it. And we listen to Christmas music (even more so than usual). All we have is two MoTab Christmas cds (Thanks Sorella Willey!) and then the one of the Christmas concert which is actually also MoTab, but with Nathan Gunn and Jane Seymour. It's great. We're jolly here in Milano. They are starting to hang up a lot of lights around the city, but we haven't seen any of them turned on yet... supposedly they put a GIANT tree at the Duomo. AWESOME! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

Let me tell you about something dumb that I did.... Sunday night I was an hour ahead for three hours. It just didn't register in my mind the hour. Just the minutes. So we came home, made a progress record, made some calls, and then we started planning at 9 (or what I thought was 9.) WE finish, i get ready for bed, make Sorella Lyman and I some tisana, brush my teeth, say my prayers and get into bed by 10:30. (or what I thought was 10:30.) All this time Sorella Lyman was studying in the family room and I was thinking (why isn't she getting ready for bed?) at about 10:25 she starts coming in and getting ready. I ask her if she's ready to turn off the light and she's a bit confused but says uh, yeah. So i did. I'm just laying in bed. At 10:43 the capo distretto calls. I'm thinking "Anziano! You're late! It's past curfew! Why are you calling?!" So I let it hang up. Then  I look at the phone... 21:43. "Wait... that should say 22:43..." WHAT?! Then I figured it out. My poor companion, I ask her "Sorella! Why didn't you say anything?!" "well I was confused but i don't know!" Goodness... so I repented real quick of that one and tried to make what time I had left in the day useful... mamma mia. My brain was somewhere else.

But anyway, I'm good. Love you family! Thanks for the letters love and support!

Buona settimana!

Sorella Forbes