The Work

Is going great!

 

Cara Famiglia,

 

So this week was kind of a refiner's fire. We successively dropped or were dropped by three of our baptismal dates. For various reasons. Akil, who is a stud and knows the gospel is true, went back to Albania to fight to regain his family's respect. It sounds kind of movie-like, but his story is sooo sad. We taught him a last lesson before he left and he was tearing up a lot. So pray for that to go well. Filippo is such a roller coaster. He is really up and down with keeping commitments and how lessons go. Basically he is taking a month break from us, but he will end up getting baptized I'm pretty sure. Alex is also kind of a bummer, we had a good lesson before he took of for a month or so as well, and basically told him how important the gospel can be to him but how important commitments are as well. We'll see where that goes. I dunno if I mentioned Wilson last week, he is super solid. He has a baptismal date for August 27th and we hope he makes it, the biggest problem is that sometimes he has to work on Sundays. But he's reading and praying and everything, and the lessons are going well.

 

So in general the work is a little different right now. We are actually still teaching just as many lessons but with different people, we are really focusing on picking up new investigators this week and talking to as many people as possible. It's great to see people that are prepared by the Lord to receive his gospel.

 

Also we had a sweet training this week with 14 companionships from across the mission. A bunch of people from my MTC group were there so that was good, and we learned a lot about how to be better teachers! Woohoo!! Teaching rocks. Also I finally got that package from the Young Men in the ward, they are all studs and I liked their letters. Also the American candy and the American flag were excellent.

 

This week I started reading more from the New Testament. It is really awesome, and it's good to read the stories of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem. I don't know if I've ever read it before, but I'm definitely learning a lot! So I would recommend that everyone read it and learn from Jesus' amazing example as a teacher and as our Savior. He truly is the perfect example for us to follow and I know that as we search to become more like Jesus Christ we are blessed and we become better people. I love you all!

 

-Anziano Benjamin Smith