I know I get behind, sorry about that. I am posting today parts of his last three letters and as you will see he is doing fantastic and growing so much.
He writes:
Cari Miei! 10/17
I hope this letter finds you well.
This week has been a fun week. My new companion Anziano Dowling is
super cool and a great missionary. We have lots of fun together and we
are doing a good work here in Prato. This week we were doing some Casa
and the doorbells in that building sounded like the buzzer on
Jeopardy. Naturally before each door we took time to pick a category
(Some Gospel related trivia or some missionary joke trivia) and then
we rang and answered in the form of a question. The most fun I've had
doing Casa in a long time.
Anziano Dowling is really great, he is super dedicated to this work
and ready to get out and talk to people. He has so much energy and
Faith that often comes with new missionaries. It feels good to have
that kind of faith and energy around me. I hope he never loses it, because too
many missionaries do. He knows why he is out here and his mind is focused on
the work. He works really really hard and HE is training ME. A really
great guy.
Things are good here in Prato, A little slow. It reminds me of my
first days in Alessandria actually. It has been REALLY rainy here for
about 4 or 5 days and so it is nice to have some good weather at last...
I hope that you all are being good. I have found that this extra
obedience and extra effort that I am putting in for Anziano Dowling as the trainer is
making me very happy. The more obedient that I am the happier I seem.
The path is straight and narrow. Narrow yes, but also straight and for
me that is encouraging. I don't have to worry about getting lost or
taking the wrong direction or making a choice that would cause sorrow
if I can just keep walking straight. It is a simple and straight path,
be it narrow as it is.
I am happy and healthy and doing well in all aspects. I hope the same
for y’all. I hope to hear from ALL OF YOU! Very soon. :) I will try my
best to write some small letters to a few of y'all this week. It has
been a while since I have heard from some of you. I love you all and
miss you a bunch.
We've got to go catch a train to Firenze!
Love,
Anziano Memmott
Cari Miei, 10/24
I hope this letter finds you all in miserable conditions....no not
really, I hope this letter finds you all very very well. (I know I
open with that line every week...sorry)
We had a Zone Conference this week and I got to see Anziano Blaga for
the last time. He will be going home in 3 weeks! But! He wants to come
and study at BYU! So I will hopefully get to see him when I come home.
We got a picture of Anziano Blaga, Me and Anziano Dowling. The Family.
He is a great guy and I hope that we can keep in touch well. We also
talked about something that I had been thinking about a great deal
these past weeks. I have put myself to solve the dilemma of "Overcoming
Apathy" as I like to title it. There is so little care for the message
that we bring. Frankly, I am amazed that other people are NOT amazed
at the fact that their family can live together forever. Or that we
have a living breathing Prophet on the earth today. Or those 200 years
ago God called a boy-prophet to restore his Church to the earth.... I
have been trying to fix our approach or say something else, or ask a
different question of the people. How can I make them care about what
I am saying?
I have seen this concept of general apathy towards religion
demonstrated so beautifully already once in my mission. When I was in
Alessandria, I used 3 types of pass-along-cards that we have. The
first is of the Book of Mormon, the second of the First Vision, and
the third of Jesus Christ. Now bear with me as I tell you which I
eliminated and why. I stopped using the one with the picture of Jesus
Christ. It had his picture (The red robe one) and it says "Faith
brings hope." A beautiful message and a true one. I love this
message; I love this pass-along-card. But I, as a member of the
church, as someone who has received greater light and understanding.
As I would hand this card to people, they would think and even once or
twice they said aloud. "Yeah, another message about Jesus. We believe
in Jesus too. He is really important but we just don't care anymore."
As I began to see. There are so many churches and so many messages
about Christ, that unless we are able to offer these people something
that is different than the others...who would care?? So now I only use
the other two. Our very unique message to the world. Not that Christ
is less important, because it is in fact HIS gospel that was restored.
And the Book of Mormon is another testament of HIM. I simply find
these have more of an effect of the people that what they term as
"Another message about Jesus Christ."
So, I had been reflecting on this problem of "Overcoming Apathy." We
went to Zone Conference and wouldn't you know it, they gave me the
answer I was looking for. How do you do it? How is Apathy overcome?
With Boldness. Being bold, but not overbearing about what we believe
and why then need to listen to us. When done in a humble way and with
a loving heart, it is very effective. One quick example from the other
night when we were knocking doors. We had decided to talk about the
family and as we declared that Families can be together forever in
Heavenly Fathers Plan, the lady at the door told us, "We believe that
too, we are Christians and believe that after this life if we are
good, then we will all be happy with our families." I had encountered
this response just a day earlier in a park; I had no Idea what to say
then. But now, I did. I, with the most loving humble heart possible.
My honest desire only being that they receive this Gospel and be
blessed as a family, said, "We bring a message that the only Church
with the power to bind your family together for eternity is the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We want to share with
you, how you can know that this is true and how this message can bless
your family." Now, I would lie if I said that she let us in. In fact,
she was a bit taken back. But I know that I declared the truth. I let
her know, unmistakably, that which we know to be true and the Spirit
brought powerful testimony that it was true. This has happened many
times since and we are seeing more success. Apathy is being overcome as
we shake these people awake with the boldness we use in declaring that
which we believe. Of course, always done in a loving and humble way.
We are not trying to prove we are better or right. We only know that
this is the ONE true church and it can bless them, but we have to let
them know that this is the ONLY way that there is to have Eternal
Life.
So, Missionary Work raised the bar again, and requires just a little
more courage...
I miss you all and hope you are in good health.
Love,
Anziano Memmott
I hope this letter finds you well.
This week has been a fun week. My new companion Anziano Dowling is
super cool and a great missionary. We have lots of fun together and we
are doing a good work here in Prato. This week we were doing some Casa
and the doorbells in that building sounded like the buzzer on
Jeopardy. Naturally before each door we took time to pick a category
(Some Gospel related trivia or some missionary joke trivia) and then
we rang and answered in the form of a question. The most fun I've had
doing Casa in a long time.
Anziano Dowling is really great, he is super dedicated to this work
and ready to get out and talk to people. He has so much energy and
Faith that often comes with new missionaries. It feels good to have
that kind of faith and energy around me. I hope he never loses it, because too
many missionaries do. He knows why he is out here and his mind is focused on
the work. He works really really hard and HE is training ME. A really
great guy.
Things are good here in Prato, A little slow. It reminds me of my
first days in Alessandria actually. It has been REALLY rainy here for
about 4 or 5 days and so it is nice to have some good weather at last...
I hope that you all are being good. I have found that this extra
obedience and extra effort that I am putting in for Anziano Dowling as the trainer is
making me very happy. The more obedient that I am the happier I seem.
The path is straight and narrow. Narrow yes, but also straight and for
me that is encouraging. I don't have to worry about getting lost or
taking the wrong direction or making a choice that would cause sorrow
if I can just keep walking straight. It is a simple and straight path,
be it narrow as it is.
I am happy and healthy and doing well in all aspects. I hope the same
for y’all. I hope to hear from ALL OF YOU! Very soon. :) I will try my
best to write some small letters to a few of y'all this week. It has
been a while since I have heard from some of you. I love you all and
miss you a bunch.
We've got to go catch a train to Firenze!
Love,
Anziano Memmott
Cari Miei, 10/24
I hope this letter finds you all in miserable conditions....no not
really, I hope this letter finds you all very very well. (I know I
open with that line every week...sorry)
We had a Zone Conference this week and I got to see Anziano Blaga for
the last time. He will be going home in 3 weeks! But! He wants to come
and study at BYU! So I will hopefully get to see him when I come home.
We got a picture of Anziano Blaga, Me and Anziano Dowling. The Family.
He is a great guy and I hope that we can keep in touch well. We also
talked about something that I had been thinking about a great deal
these past weeks. I have put myself to solve the dilemma of "Overcoming
Apathy" as I like to title it. There is so little care for the message
that we bring. Frankly, I am amazed that other people are NOT amazed
at the fact that their family can live together forever. Or that we
have a living breathing Prophet on the earth today. Or those 200 years
ago God called a boy-prophet to restore his Church to the earth.... I
have been trying to fix our approach or say something else, or ask a
different question of the people. How can I make them care about what
I am saying?
I have seen this concept of general apathy towards religion
demonstrated so beautifully already once in my mission. When I was in
Alessandria, I used 3 types of pass-along-cards that we have. The
first is of the Book of Mormon, the second of the First Vision, and
the third of Jesus Christ. Now bear with me as I tell you which I
eliminated and why. I stopped using the one with the picture of Jesus
Christ. It had his picture (The red robe one) and it says "Faith
brings hope." A beautiful message and a true one. I love this
message; I love this pass-along-card. But I, as a member of the
church, as someone who has received greater light and understanding.
As I would hand this card to people, they would think and even once or
twice they said aloud. "Yeah, another message about Jesus. We believe
in Jesus too. He is really important but we just don't care anymore."
As I began to see. There are so many churches and so many messages
about Christ, that unless we are able to offer these people something
that is different than the others...who would care?? So now I only use
the other two. Our very unique message to the world. Not that Christ
is less important, because it is in fact HIS gospel that was restored.
And the Book of Mormon is another testament of HIM. I simply find
these have more of an effect of the people that what they term as
"Another message about Jesus Christ."
So, I had been reflecting on this problem of "Overcoming Apathy." We
went to Zone Conference and wouldn't you know it, they gave me the
answer I was looking for. How do you do it? How is Apathy overcome?
With Boldness. Being bold, but not overbearing about what we believe
and why then need to listen to us. When done in a humble way and with
a loving heart, it is very effective. One quick example from the other
night when we were knocking doors. We had decided to talk about the
family and as we declared that Families can be together forever in
Heavenly Fathers Plan, the lady at the door told us, "We believe that
too, we are Christians and believe that after this life if we are
good, then we will all be happy with our families." I had encountered
this response just a day earlier in a park; I had no Idea what to say
then. But now, I did. I, with the most loving humble heart possible.
My honest desire only being that they receive this Gospel and be
blessed as a family, said, "We bring a message that the only Church
with the power to bind your family together for eternity is the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We want to share with
you, how you can know that this is true and how this message can bless
your family." Now, I would lie if I said that she let us in. In fact,
she was a bit taken back. But I know that I declared the truth. I let
her know, unmistakably, that which we know to be true and the Spirit
brought powerful testimony that it was true. This has happened many
times since and we are seeing more success. Apathy is being overcome as
we shake these people awake with the boldness we use in declaring that
which we believe. Of course, always done in a loving and humble way.
We are not trying to prove we are better or right. We only know that
this is the ONE true church and it can bless them, but we have to let
them know that this is the ONLY way that there is to have Eternal
Life.
So, Missionary Work raised the bar again, and requires just a little
more courage...
I miss you all and hope you are in good health.
Love,
Anziano Memmott
I hope this letter finds you well, and dry...it has been pretty rainy
and wet and freezing cold here for the last few days. We are wrapped
up in scarves and gloves and jackets while we freeze on the bikes...
BUT this letter will hopefully find you in a better, less frozen state
of being.
This week has been another good one. It has also been pretty
stressful. First of all it has been cold. One day it just changed from
perfect weather to cold....just cold....rain and wind and cold.
Getting out of the shower in the morning is very hard. Especially
because carpet does not exist. I will be buying sandals today. Then to
make sure my beloved companion can stay in the country we had to go
and do his documents. We went at 8:00 in the morning and got out at
1:00 in the afternoon....and that was after they told us that they
wanted some code from some agency. We of course had no idea what it
was or why we needed it, so we told them we would go get it. They gave
us the needed papers and we called the Church legal people to have
them tell us what on earth we were looking for. It wasn't too hard,
only took some time. And then we went back this morning. We woke up at
30 minutes early and went to try and get first in line; the line was
enormous when we arrived. Luckily the guy remembered us from Monday
and let us in. we were the first ones in line. It took about 2 hours
for them to get things sorted out and do some fingerprinting. But
everything should be squared away now. Anziano Dowling does however
have to take a cultural class, because since the time I got my
Permesso, they initiated a new law, that foreigners need to take a
class that lasts about 4 or 5 hours, about the language and Italian
culture and constitution and whatnot....so I'm very thankful that I
got mine when I did. And his will only be for 1 year, he will have to
renew it...I got one for 2 years...very grateful for that blessing.
So to deal with all this stress...I have made and eaten 4 batches of
brownies this week... We have decided, as a companionship that it
would be a good idea not to buy any more ingredients for
Brownies...just use what we have. They are pretty good, and I have to
thank mom for the recipe that she sent me. I even found some powdered
sugar to put on top of them just like at home.
Anziano Dowling is great and we are getting along very well. He helps
keep my excited even in this weather. Today we are going to search
from some better gloves and scarves, as we have been using the ones in
the apartment and they are not very good....
I love you and miss you all and hope to hear from everyone soon. I
will try and send some pictures next week.
Stay warm!
Love,
Anziano Memmott
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