Monday, October 24, 2016

A trip to Rome, a trip to Carbonia, a trip to Oristano and driving in Italy!

Wow this week has been an absolute flash! I'll start with our really cool miracle... The church has a rule about not teaching refugees until they have documents and a place to live because they get transferred and documents get lost and so on and so forth. If you didn't know this Italy has a ton of refugees that live in camps all over the country. So we always talk to Africans and they are some of the nicest people I have met. We can't teach them yet but its always good to talk to them and help them to feel loved. We were in a park the other day and this African man named Nova came and started talking to us. He said "You're the Latter-day missionaries!" And we said "Yes we are!" We got to know him and found out he is here in Italy to play hockey... I was really confused because I didn't think Italians even knew what hockey was... but turns out its field hockey not ice hockey so let down on that part. BUT we kept talking to him trying to see if he was a refugee or not and what his story was. So finally I asked him how he came to Italy and he said "On a plane of course!" He has documents and we can teach him! He is the most humble man ever and so we taught him the Restoration and he was just eating it up. I have never had someone look me in the eyes the whole time we were teaching, he was loving it and paying so much careful attention. We left him with a prayer and met up with him again on Tuesday. (We met him on Sunday) So we met him on Tuesday and asked him what he remembered of the lesson we had taught him. He basically remembered everything, he repeated almost all of it back to us and Anziano LaRussa asked him what his favorite part was. He said "Thats like asking me to pick a favorite limb of my body, it all just makes so much sense, I need all four limbs, each part is vital!" My companion and I were on cloud nine, I invited him to be baptized on the 19th of Novembre and he accepted and is super excited about it! Which makes us super excited about it! 

Wednesday morning I had an appointment at the Immigration office to pick up my permesso do Soggiorno and so at 8 AM we headed over there and waited two plus hours to pick up my little card. It look like a passport card but it makes me legal to be here until June of next year and I will have to apply again! We then had District meeting at the church and ate lunch together and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Rome! They combined two of the wards in Rome so there was a lot of missionaries assigned to one ward and so they took a set of Elders out of the "Rome 6" house which is where we would be staying. So there are no missionaries there so we went to the main station in the heart of Rome and met the Zone Leaders who had the keys to the apartment. Grabbed the keys and I was the only one who had been to this apartment before and it is clear on the other side of Rome so by the grace of God and a simple metro system I was able to lead us there and we made it ok! 

The next morning it was up at 5 AM to make it to the church again on the complete other side of Rome! The conference started at 9 AM and we needed to be there by 8! So we made it in time and it was an amazing experience. All 200 missionaries from the Italy Rome mission gathered in one place and waiting so prepared and ready to be taught by an Apostle. There was a little chatter as we waited and we were all facing the pulpit when President Russell M. Nelson walked in the back door. All 200 missionaries stood in unison and complete silence filled the room. As he made his way to the front of the room he let out a grand "Buongiorno!" To which we all laughed and giggled. When he got to the front one by one we all filed through to shake his hand his wife's hand, President and Sister Hallstrom's hands and President and Sister Keuron's hands. Complete silence. As the last of the missionaries filed through I couldn't take my eyes off President Nelson. I had an incredible realization that I just shook the hand of the man who would be the next Prophet of God. Definitely an experience I will never forget. There is a Sister missionary from Milan serving in Cagliari and she sat behind me. When she sat down she tapped me on the shoulder, she's learning English and doing very well with it but she said "Elder, I think that I will never wash my hand" it was hilarious and her Italian accent made it that much funnier. Then two Anziani got up and sang a duet together of "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" and there wasn't a day eye in the crowd. "The Song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" is definitely a true scripture. I was expecting to be taught about missionary work the whole time, that he would talk to us about what we can do to be better missionaries and how we can improve ourselves. I imagined there would be a plug for getting married ASAP after our missions and that would be it. Well let me tell you was I wrong. 

We heard from all the General Authorities and their wives and then President Nelson stood up and addressed us with another "Buongiorno" with the thick American Accent just as strong as the first time. He then held up a quad which in Mormon Lingo is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. He said "This is a new copy, I got it on May 27th, I decided I would read every word. Two weeks later I had finished all four standard works." This man is 92 years old. He read all four books of canonized scripture in two weeks! I was impressed and so was everyone else. He they began to explain the Abrahamic covenant from start to finish, where it comes from, what it means to us, where the twelve tribes of Israel come from and so on and so forth. President Nelson stood up at the pulpit with no notes, no scriptures marked or anything and he taught us directly from the scriptures reciting one after another. It was a testimony of how smart these men are and how they really hold back in General Conference their knowledge of the Gospel to make it appropriate for everyone. It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much and have been studying so much harder since then! 

Right after the conference we had some time to chat with other missionaries before heading back to the airport to catch our flight back to Cagliari! We went straight to the church to teach English course and went straight home afterwards and crashed, we were all so spiritually, mentally and physically exhausted. 

I got permission to drive from President Pickerd while we were in Rome and so I had to do a little driving test with Brother Sanna, a member here in Cagliari. I told him I was a little nervous, its been 5 months since I've driven and its a different country and everything. He said "Elder, do you know how to drive?" Yes... "Then I'm not worried, lets go for a drive!" And it was perfect from there! Italian drivers are absolutely crazy though. They think they can just put their little Fiats in the smallest of spaces and at the speed of lighting. Tail Gaiting is not a thing, if you can't see the bald spot on the guys head in front of you then you aren't close enough to their car. If you don't want to stop at a stop sign you just beep the horn and keep going. And if you stop at a stop sign and the person behind you doesn't want to then they just go around you. Its crazy. Anyway I passed my test and my companion and I took the car and headed to Carbonia which is about 60 km away to visit a less active. They fed us dinner and we chatted for a little bit. They have a new born baby who turned two months old on Saturday and was so stinking cute. Mission rules are hard to keep sometimes when you just want to pick up the babies and hold 'em! 

They finished building a new church in Oristano and Saturday night they had an open house and a piano concert thing afterwards and they asked to have a set of Sister missionaries and a set of Elders come up to help with the Open house. So we went down with two of the Sisters Sorella Hatfield and Sorella Acerson to help and it was so much fun! They had about 150 people there to see the building and they had rooms with different things being taught in each room and the groups cycled through the rooms. We had to leave early because we had to catch the train back to Cagliari to be home on time and the members were freaking out because we didn't get to eat any of the food so we're running late for the train and waiting for them to put together a plate of food for us and we finally get it and run through the streets with tons of food to get to the train on time. We made with a few minutes to spare and hopped the train back to Cagliari, all in all a successful night! 

All in all it was a beautiful week! It went by so very fast but it was a great week! This morning we hiked Sela del diavalo (Devil's Saddle)with Roberto and Eride Espa who are some awesome members with a couple investigators! It was a lot of fun and some nice time to relax! I'll send some pictures if I remember :)

As always I hope you all have a wonderful week and know that I'm thinking of you! Remember how important the Book of Mormon is and make time to study and read each and every day. The proof of the Gospel is in the Book of Mormon, all we have to do is read it! 

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

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