This is a Journey of Loving the People

Hey everybody! I hope you all had a great week!

Mine started out kind of weird last week after I emailed! My companion and I were sitting in the temple getting ready to do initiatories and a Temple Worker came over and asked my companion to come and out into the hallway with him. One of the sisters said to my companion "We just got a call from the MTC front desk, you need to report there immediately" So we were kind of worried but we went and they sent us to the travel offices. It turns out when they were scanning in his VISA paperwork to send it to the Consulate in San Francisco that it pulled in another piece of paper that had a picture on it. So on top of his VISA paperwork there was a picture of a man staring out into a dessert looking at birds. Long story short the rest of our P-Day consisted of sitting in a car back up to Salt Lake City so we could redo his VISA paperwork! When we were waiting for the driver to pick us back up we were on the street for less than 10 minutes and two different families offered to buy us lunch! I have a feeling that won't happen much in Italy...

Incase you're wondering the food here blows... sometimes. It could be worse but a lot of people in our District are having... issues... so on P-Day we go and eat lunch in the cafeteria at the temple. The food is sooo much better! Sometimes its good though, we had taco bell the other night and Costa Vida last week! I have to say the BYU Creamery Ice Cream has nothing on Aggie Ice Cream! 

So our daily schedule goes something like this: We get up, eat breakfast, go to 3 hours of class, go to lunch, an hour of exercise, 3 more hours of class, we teach an investigator and then we have an hour of personal study, an hour of companion study, and an hour of language study and then back to our rooms for about an hour and then off to bed and do the same thing tomorrow! 

On Sunday's everyone in the zone prepares a 5 minute talk and then its announced from the pulpit who will be speaking. It's so nerve wracking but it really makes it driven by the spirit if you are in tune with it. (I didn't speak:)) I got to teach in Priesthood though! It was an amazing class on repentance. We wear the name of Jesus Christ on our chests every day and without the atonement we aren't able to become as One with Him. We have a few Elders in our zone that graduated just three weeks ago so it was really neat to see them understand the spirit without relying on the testimonies of their parents or their other leaders. 

Sunday night is also movie night, they play all sorts of different movies (Church movies of course) and we watch "Only a Stonecutter" and the Story of John Tanner. Both incredible Pioneers with great faith and incredible love for our Savior Jesus Christ.

Tuesday night we heard from Ulisses Soares, from the presidency of the 70. He spoke on exact obedience to not only the commandments but to the missionary rules. When we are exactly obedient we are more in tune with the spirit and we can receive the promptings from the Holy Ghost that no one in the world has the authority to do without being set apart as missionaries. My companion brought up during the devotional review a quote by Ezra Taft Benson that says "When obedience ceases to become an irritant and becomes a quest, at that moment God will endow us with power." There are a lot of dumb rules in the MTC especially but I've seen so many blessings come from being EXACTLY obedient and I've also seen the downfall of trying to walk the line as I see the other missionaries in our District being less than so. We sang an arrangement of "Praise to The Man" and the Choir director Brother Eggett does an incredible job of telling the stories of how these songs came about. One thing he said that I really liked was that we as missionaries are literally fulfilling prophesy as we sing this song. It says "Millions shall know Brother Joseph again" In the choir alone there was 850 missionaries. Yesterday over 750 missionaries entered the MTC and 42 new mission presidents enter the MTC next week including mine. "Millions shall know Brother Joseph again" 

On Wednesdays we do this thing called "Teaching Resource Center" and it has been nicknamed "Torture Resource Center" They bring in returned missionaries that speak Italian and we get to share a message with them. Our purpose is to "Invite Others to come unto Christ" and others doesn't have to mean people who are not members of the church, it can mean members as well so we teach them as themselves. Well instead of returned missionaries we had the opportunity to teach this family from Milan Italy that was baptized about two years ago and they moved from Milan to Salt Lake City about a year and a month ago. Max and his wife have two kids and so each of the four of them went into separate rooms that have little cameras is them so our teachers can listen to us. (It's kind of creepy...) We first taught Max. It turns out they moved here because the economy of Italy was so terrible. My companion shared a short message about the restoration and I shared the First Vision from memory in Italian. The spirit was so strong! I bore testimony that other people can feel the spirit when we share our testimonies and the message of Jesus Christ. I shared with them one of my new favorite scriptures which is 3 Nephi 5: 13 which says "Behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare his word among the people, that they might have everlasting life"  We are disciples of Jesus Christ and WE have been called of him to declare his word among his people. We invited them to be member missionaries and to be an example to others as they go through their everyday lives.

My invitation to you all this week is to do the same! We are all disciples of Jesus Christ and we can have an incredible impact on others. 

"If you want to know the Savior, you must serve Him. If you want to know the Savior better; you must serve him better."

I want you all to know more than anything that I have a testimony of this Gospel. Its simple, God loves and we are his children. He wants us to be happy. I have never felt closer to my Heavenly Father and I have never wanted to serve him more. 

I am so out of time but I hope you all have an incredible week! 

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Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

Italy Rome Mission