Letter #18 from Bari, Italy

Hello Everyone,

 

Anziano Kent F. Richards of the Area Seventy came and talked to us on last Thursday. It was sooo good. He talked about soo many things. He was very nice and he is a great teacher. He knows the scriptures so well. He would just whip out scriptures left and right to answer our questions. I just want to highlight some of my favorites.

Before he talked about obedience he talked about the work and the need to feel urgency. He said that there are 2 questions that we must think of and remember. 1) When God came after Adam ate the fruit as recounted in Genesis, He asked, "Adam where art thou?" 2) IN the account given in Moses, God asks "Adam where are you going?" He pointed out that God knew where Adam was but He wanted Adam to realize where he was in his standing with God and where was he going. He also shared one of his favorite scriptures in Haggai 1:5-7. "Consider your ways." He invited us to consider our ways. In our obedience and in our missionary service. And I want to invite you to do that too. Too often we try to do things by ourselves like it says in Haggai 1:6. We try to feed ourselves but we are never full. It is only when we align our ways with God's ways that we can go places! Am I really doing God's will? Am I trying to serve someone out of love or to look good in the eyes of the world!!?

 

 

He also talked about the importance of being exactly obedient and striving for that. He shared the story of the Battle of Ai in Joshua 7 (You should read it). The Israelites had just defeated Jericho and they were feeling high on power so they went to Ai, where the odds were in their favor and THEY LOST! Because they did not do it exactly as God had told them to. In Joshua 7:6-7 Joshua asks God why. They lost because 1 man!! had not obeyed and had kept some of the treasures of conquest. He talked of us as a band and as an army. We will not fail if we work together but if even ONE of us is not obedient he will pull the band down. I think this can also be applied to our family. WE NEED TO BE UNIFIED and work together.

 

He then went on to show our statistics and that we are teaching wrong. He said do not teach with gimmicks. When we use examples. we are complicating the simple doctrines and using our own words. If we explain only the simple doctrine then the Holy ghost will bear powerful witness. We did a lot of practices together. He invited us to go home, "Then try it, evaluate it, teach to understanding, NOT TO AIR" He talked about how we overcomplicate. We have been working on this and I have been feeling very out of my element. TEACHING SIMPLY IS HARD. saying you have 2 minutes explain repentence in pure simple doctrince , GO! is really hard. But I can see the difference. I Know this will help our teaching and our work. To just take it down to the essentials! He based this teaching method from 1 corinthians 14:6-9,19. It is better to say 5 words inspired by the spirit than 2,000 words of fluff.

It was AWESOME!!

 

Then we had english couse.and Ross (our Italian grandma) brought Sorella Fuller and I ROSES for Valentine's Day:) THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL. I will send a foto next week. And then after English course we stayed a little bit for the ward Valentine's Day party before going home. I got to see ANTONIO PETRONI dance! I dont know if Mom and dad had that pleasure while they were here. BUT I wish I had a video. It was the funniest thing I have EVER seen. It was like BOOOGIE FEVER on the dance floor !! HAhHA Best dance ever!

 

The biggest news here this week has been the Pope resigning for health reasons. It has been the biggest thing. Everyone asks us about it. In fact many people have been talking to us more because it has really shaken the Catholic faith, because Popes do not resign. It is a call for life until GOD releases you. They cannot make it match up with what they believe.*****So it is had been great for us as missionaries!!! :)  One of our members pointed out that this marks a difference between Christ's Church and Catholicism. He said, "Look at all the 12 apostles who do not have good health. Or Boyd K. Packer is dying but he is still giving talks in General Conference." I assume - when You have a testimony and you know that God has called you to serve him, this gives you the power to keep going.

 

Our bishop was just released this Sunday after 5 years of service and we have Ettore Valentini as our new bishop. He is awesome. I am excited ot see how things go now in the future. The old bishop Viani was wonderful, and his 20 year old daughter came this Sunday because he was being released. this allowed us to talk with her and miraculously she said we could visit her on Tuesday and talk with her. We did! And we had a great conversation. We asked her why she stopped coming to church. She opened up to us and told us that she knows the church is true but she broke some of the rules. And she did not want to come back and be a hypocrite. She did not want to come when she was not keeping the commandments. We asked her if she would like to come. She has been inactive for 2 years. She said that she does not know if it is time because she does not know if she is ready to leave behind the things she is doing. but then at the end she said that she thinks it is time and it is getting closer, We asked her to start praying again every night in this next week and to ask for the desire to leave the worldly things she likes to do. She said she would and that we could come back the next week!!!!! I am soo excited for her. We bore our testimony that we may be happy now or think we are but God has so much more waiting for us that we cannot immagine. She is so awesome :) She is the one I went to to get my Italian retainer!

 

I love you all, Love Sorella Preston

Our Pday when I spray painted a shirt It says " Expect a miracle, Italy Rome Mission 20 (We want 20 baptisms in a month for the mission)