Oct17
October 17th, 2016 // #42 of 2016
Good Morning Family and Friends,
I hope that you all had a good week and I hope that all is going well for each of you. I would just like to thank you all for writing me, for praying for me and for supporting me week in and week out. I am very blessed to have such an incredible support group. I love you all very much.
Things are going well out here in the Jungle. I love it. There is no place that I would rather be at the moment. My companion, Elder Jacob, is the MAN. Seriously such a good missionary. Im lucky to be serving along side of him. Our work is going pretty well, which is always a blessing. Our teaching pool is continuing to grow, and the Lord is leading us to those who have been prepared. Here are a few experiences from this last week.
First off, Marianna and Lucia are doing really well. Goodness they are incredible. We were able to meet with them two times last week and it is always awesome to be able to spend a little bit of time with them. In our first visit last week we decided to read the first 15 or 16 verses of 3rd Nephi chapter 11. This is the chapter when Jesus Christ first appeared in America. After He descended from Heaven, He invited the multitude to come and touch His scars. With Marianna, Lucia and Vittoria we talked about how one day we will also have the opportunity to be before the Savior of the World, and the Redeemer of us all. We talked about how amazing of an experience that will be, if we arrive at that judgement bar clean, pure and prepared. The spirit was nearly tangible and each of us received yet another witness of the power of the Book of Mormon. Marianna, Lucia and Vittoria are incredible.
When Marianna and Lucia were baptized, we invited a catholic minister to come and see. Well he came, and after the baptism we kept in touched a little bit. Last week he invited us over to his home to eat lunch with his family. We were able to meet his entire family, and spend some time with him. His name is Michele Pinto. He is an incredibly kind guy, and has to be one of the neatest people that I have met here in italy. After lunch we sat down, and he pulled out his bible. We began reading, and he began talking, and talking and talking. He has a degree Religious Science and obviously knows the Bible pretty well. We left him a copy of the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it. During his sermon on the couch, I noticed a few things that he said that were doctrinally incorrect. As we were leaving, I stopped and thought just how lucky and blessed we are to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and just how essential that divine gift is. The Holy Ghost testifies of truth, therefore we do not have to try and put all of the puzzle pieces together ourselves, with our own limited and mortal brain capacity. Michele is a good man, and we hope that he will be humble enough to open the Book of Mormon ad honestly give it a shot. The biggest problem that I have run into when teaching people that are very knowledgeable of the Bible is that they think that we are trying to extinguish all of the studying and learning that they have previously done, when in all actuality we are simply trying to build on it. We aren't trying to weaken peoples faith out here, we are simply trying to help them grow that faith. We aren't trying to get people to leave everything they have already learned and studied behind, we are simply trying to show them other revelations and other scriptures that would surely add to that knowledge if they would simply give it an honest shot. I pray that he will pick it up, because he could be a really incredible member of the church, as well as his family.
We received a referral a few weeks back from the other Elders here in Bari and finally we were able to meet up with this guy yesterday evening. His name is Bernard, and he is from Nigeria. Bernard is 22 years old and speaks english like an American and Italian like an Italian. He is very knowledgeable of the bible. He came to the Sunday morningsession of General conference and really enjoyed it. Last night we talk him the restoration in english, and crazy enough it was the first time that I had ever taught the restoration in English during my mission. It was nice to be able to teach and testify of the prophet Joseph Smith in my own native tongue for the first time in the mission field. Bernard had a lot of questions, and we were able to answer most of them...but he was most excited about the Book of Mormon. Before we started the lesson, Bernard mentioned to us that his father passed away when he was only 3 years old, right in that moment I felt really connected to Bernard and at the end of the lessons was able to tell him that because of the Prophet Joseph Smith and because of the Book of Mormon that he translated by the power of God that I will see the mom that I lost when I was four and that Bernard will see the dad he lost when he was three. It was a powerful moment for me to be able to testify of such truths in english for the first time, as well as for Bernard because in that moment the spirit testified to him that it was true.
Here in Bari our members are really awesome. We have so many returned missionaries and so many people that speak english. Its awesome. We are constantly pulling pranks on each other and jokes with one another. It reminds me of joking with good ole Jon Howard and all of the BYU fans back home in the Great Elwood First Ward. We were invited over to a members home last week and they made us some homemade Italian food and goooooooodness gracious it was gooooood stuff. In short, I am grateful for Bari and for the wonderful members of the church here. I love this place.
This Wednesday afternoonwe will be taking a train to Rome and on Thursday Morning we will be having a conference with President Russel M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Goodness gracious I am PUMPED to be with him, as well as President Hallstrom and President Kearon at the same time. I cannot wait. I'll talk more about that next week.
To close out this week, I would like to share a quote that I found as I was going through my study journal. It reads:
"If you saw the size of the blessings coming, you would understand the magnitude of the battle that you are fighting..." —Unknown
This made me think of one of my favorite scriptures, and it comes from the New Testament. Romans 8:18 and it says:
"18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
Be Strong and Keep Moving Forward. The Lord is on your side.
I love you Family and Friends. Once again, thank you for it all. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can do anything for anyone. Im praying for you. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Have a good one!!
Peace be the Journey,
Elder J.Nessen
Sadly I didn't take any pictures this week, but here are some videos of us playing basketball today. We had a good time, and we even were able to play with Kobe Bryant and D Rose.
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