Transfer 3 Week 4!

Cari Fratelli e Sorelle,

Let me tell y'all about my rollercoaster week... On the bright side this week ended up on an incline but there was definitely some days that were in the dumps!

We decided that we would cancel our Family Home Evening that we do every Monday in the park because Italians are basically the biggest wimps in the world. Its 60-65 degrees outside and they are wearing parkas and scarves and hats and gloves "fa freddo" they say all day... anyway I digress, the FHE was cancelled and we are going to do it on Wednesday nights so we can do it in the church and invite members to come. 

So we decided that would give us an awesome opportunity to go visit less-active families and do a FHE with them! So we planned three to go see, banking on at least one of them cancelling if not two. (I've learned already in the mission to double book yourself and then when you get cancelled on you're not out finding for six hours) Well two of them cancelled and we got a bidone from our investigator. A bidone literally means a dumpster. So when people don't show up and don't call or text or anything we say "We got bidoned" (Bidonayed). So we went to this less-active family to do a FHE and it went really well! They have a son that is about 15 and so we took Roberto with us. He is a Recent Convert of about a year and is in the Young Men's Presidency so it was cool to have him with us! 

So my companion could talk to a wall... he can literally talk to anyone and everyone about anything. So we are doing some tracting, knocking on doors (You don't knock on doors in Italy, you ring citofono things with the little speaker and you have to talk to them through this little phone on the side of the house... it makes it really hard to actually get into people's houses) Anyway this lady actually comes to the door. Her name is Maria and she answers the door and I say "Hi we're the missionaries..." and I asked her if she had 5 minutes to hear a quick message. She said 'I don't have 5 minutes, I don't have thee minutes, I don't have one minute. I just got back from the doctor's and I have a broken rib... blah blah blah. I was like okay, she's not interested, got it. But Anziano LaRussa was like "What happened to your rib?" More than an hour later we had heard her life story, taught her the Restoration and been in her home for much longer than the five minutes that she didn't have! It just goes to show you the power of not giving up! Sometimes you just have to try a little harder! Especially in your missionary efforts. So get out there hit up some cool people to share the Gospel! 

Wednesday and Thursday were days of straight bidone... a little frustrating and I was getting sooo tired! On top of that our homie Nova wasn't calling us back and not even the members were keeping their appointments! Friday made up for that though because we went to the Centro area and found our Break Dancing guys again! They wanted to teach us some moves so we said "Of course, but only if we can share a message about Jesus Christ!" So we went with them to this place with Marble floors and they taught us some cool break dancing moves. I think I'll stick to County Swing Dancing though, it involves being on the ground a lot less and its a partner thing instead of a bunch of other sweaty dudes. Comunque it was fun and we taught them the Restoration! They leave this week for America until December, they have shows allover California and Florida so thats pretty exciting! We have their phone numbers and we'll meet up with them in December when they get back! 

Saturday was the Halloween party so we spent almost all day getting the Church ready and the Casa Stragata (Haunted House) and the games all set to go! We had so many non-members at the activity it was like a play ground for missionary work and it was so much fun. The Young Single Adults were in charge of the Casa Stragata and they killed it, it was sooo good! All of us missionaries helped in a reenactment of the "This is Halloween" Scene from the Nightmare before Christmas. I'll have to get a video from someone else! It was a lot of fun! The missionaries were in charge of games so each companionship did a different activity. We did bobbing fo apples and after we bought the apples and the buckets I realized how disgusting bobbing for apples is. Everyone just keeps drooling in this bucket and then the next person comes in and drools some more. So I spent a lot of time changing out water in the buckets because I was grossed out! Our first competitor was Fratello Sanna, he is one of the coolest guys ever, he was in the Mission Presidency until President Pickerd got here, he loves the missionaries and is just all in all a lot of fun. I said we needed two bravi ragazzi and he was the first one there and so excited! 1,2,3 Vai! Fratello Sanna in his nice shirt and gelled hair plunged his whole head right to the bottom and grabbed the apple subito! It was so funny, water everywhere and everyone was excited to bob for apples! 

There were American's in Church on Sunday! Its so fun to see Americans in Italy... It was two couples that were on this cruise ship that came into Harbor Friday and they were so nice! They are from California and had been recently released as a Senior Couple in the SanFrancisco mission about three months ago and in December will be serving for another six months. I showed them all the cool places they had to go before their cruise ship left and they were so nice. 

The Cincotti Family are so cool, they both served missions Sister Cincotti on Temple Square and Bother Cincotti in Milan and they have two sons. One of them is about to turn eight! Because they are both converts they want their children to have as much of a convert experience as they can. So they asked if we would teach Alessandro the missionary discussions. So we met at the church and shared with him the story of the Restoration complete with pictures, an ice cream truck analogy and a few pieces of chocolate. It was so fun and a really good experience for him! Afterwards Fratello Cincotti said "That was incredible, you had his attention the whole time!" It went really well and afterwards Alessandro said "Is there more lessons, I want them to come back!" So we're really excited for his baptism! 

Remember how I said Nova wasn't responding? Well we were about to give up and we decided we would stop by his house one last time. He answered the door and told us he had been traveling for Field Hockey but was back now and he had left his phone here. He answered the door in his underwear but came out and stood outside with us which was only slightly awkward. We taught him a lesson in his underwear and then asked if we could pray with him, he wanted to hold hands while we prayed so we did! It was interesting but it was good! He's excited for his baptism and so are we! 

Cool little plug for the blog that my sister does! One of the other Elder's investigators they met on the bus so it was a really quick exchange, he decided to check out the church online and the first thing that came up was lds.org and the second thing that came up was my blog! He read it and decided to call them and meet up with them to learn more! Kind of cool! 

This is Jacob's Mormon.org page, referred to in the paragragh above:  Hi I'm Jake!

I don't have any huge invitations for you this week other than to get out there and share your testimony! I hope you have a great week and that you are all enjoying the Fall weather! Its starting to get chillier and chillier here but its still hot during the middle of the day. And there's no fall foliage or trees with pretty leaves so enjoy it in America! I love you all!

Anziano Bellucci