June 6th Email

Hey Family!

It's been a crazy week! We are now attempting to teach a man from Afghanistan. His name is Zmarai! He's awesome. He is very difficult to understand... well, actually, I can understand him, but it's hard to teach simply enough for him to understand me. I've taught a lot of people from other countries, but this is by far the toughest language barrier! haha. It's fun though. He's reading the BOM in Persian.

We were starting to teach this awesome guy named Travis. He was great. The first time we taught him the Spirit was SUPER strong. Nothing in particular happened, it was just strong that time. Anyway, last week, he gave us a printout of a website with a bunch of Anti material. It was super sad. As a missionary, you eventually learn that arguing those sorts of things is really pointless. I wish people would just pray before they start jumping to conclusions. He had so much potential, and he really needed this... Something I love about the gospel is that you don't have to take anyone's word for it. A lot of people are raised in the church, and still eventually have to figure it out for themselves, to know if it's right... people always seem to miss that part of the discussion when we teach. We make a pretty bold claim... that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that it's the only true church... How could we expect anyone to believe that without asking God? And how can you deny it without consulting him first?

We've been teaching a less-active girl for a while. She's always been really sour towards us. She recently had a still-born, and has had a lot of issues with God. She believes him, knows he's there. Knows he loves her. But she is really mad at him. She would always let us in but whenever we tried to teach a Gospel topic she had a tendency to shut down and become argumentative. Last week we were visiting her and she actually ended up in tears. It was so sad. She told us lots of things about her life that were so devistating. She's been through a lot, and aside from her religious issues, has done pretty well in her life. We realized that to get through to her, we need to just be there for now. She needs to know that there is someone out there who isn't out to get something from her, and that she's not just a number. So... we are seeing her tonight, and trying our best.

We have an investigator that we've had for a while. Her name is Heidi. She's been around for a while, and she's been praying and studying and hasn't quite gotten her answer. We thik we may have figured out why... So we're working with her to see how we can get beneath the surface of the iceberg.

The Trail Center is a crazy house! Everyone and their mom is on vacation, so it's been pretty busy. I decided I like it that way. My tours are a lot more effective when I'm acting on impulse! haha. Yesterday I took LOTS of tours, and each one seemed to be really spiritual. I think with the lack of time to relax, there's no option but to be receptive to the spirit and make sure everyone's tour counts. Kind of cool. Yesterday, I ended up taking one with 3 summer sales reps... It was a fantastic tour, but It suddenly made coming home more real, and I realized that in 3 months I'm going to have to talk to boys again. EEEEK.

Well, i love you all! that's about all to report this week. Next week I'm sure there will be more exciting things =)

Love you!

Sister Bonelli