A Bonus Letter!

Bryant sent a letter home to tell us about how they are learning to teach the Gospel.

"Here is an experience that happens in the MTC.  The first week each companionship receives an investigator every day except for P-day and Sunday.  We have appointments with them to try and bring them to Christ.  We were given 5 lessons to try and have her commit to baptism.  We didn’t know we had 5 days.  

We got thrown in right away in full Italian.  Our first lesson was a disaster.  The investigator was Catholic and had lost faith in God  because of the death of her brother.  We tried teaching her about prayer and how it would get her closer to God.  She probably couldn’t understand much of what we were saying,  but we still had to do it.  We left that lesson with no progress made.  

We decided to then switch to a more simple approach, that Heavenly Father loves her and won’t abandon her.  It worked well that time.  My Italian was much better and she ended up taking my Book of Mormon to read some scriptures.  My Italian has been really good since that day.  My companions, Anziano Y. and S., are struggling, but I’m trying to help them.  Anziano W. is pretty good with his language, he just didn’t help teach for a few lessons due to surgery.  

The third lesson was on Joseph Smith and when we went to teach her that was the first thing she asked us about!  It was pretty great.  We committed her to pray about Joseph Smith and the Gospel.  

The fourth lesson Anziano Y. and S. had to go to Salt Lake for their visas so I taught just with Anziano W.  We did the Plan of Salvation and talked with her for about 40 minutes, double what we were suppose to plan for.  The best part was I only brought my scriptures in Italian and no notes to help me.  It was pretty cool.  We committed her to read more of the Book of Mormon and to pray of it’s truth and she accepted.   

The last discussion was on the Gospel of Christ, Article of Faith #4.  We committed her to baptism after we explained why she had to be baptized by proper authority, not just by a priest as a baby.  So ya…..that’s how we practice our teaching on investigators.  We will have more investigators as we continue here at the MTC."