Crotone! Transfer 4, Week 2!

Thanksgiving and Christmas is the best time of the year!

Howdy everybody from the sea side city of Crotone! This week was so good and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great start to the Christmas season!

So on Tuesday we had a pretty good day, we started the morning with the ELders from Consenza, they don't have WiFi in their church and the Zone Leaders wanted to do a Skype Conference with all the District Leaders so they came and used our wifi with my companion who is our District Leader and we spent omost of the morning in a conference. Then we went home and ate lunch together and they headed back to Cosenza! We had a really good English Course that night too, since my companion is Italian they all look at me to ask questions and stuff which is pretty fun. He speaks really well but his grammar is not always on point so he teaches Vocabulary and then I teach Grammar... We make a good team! The Italians really struggle with the words To, too and two, its really confusing how they can all be said the same exact way but mean completely different things. So I spent a long time trying to explain it.

Wednesday we went to Cutro, we took a bus there in the morning to visit a recent convert and his family. He is 17 and a total hoimie, he wants to go on a mission and he hopes to go to America. We are teaching him English and still going over the missionary discussions. SO we took the bus there, it was absolutely beautiful! His Grandma made us lunch and we then had a lesson with him and his little Brother! His little Brother really wants to get baptized too so we are excited to work with him!

Thanksgiving! So turns out Turkey is really expensive in Italy and you have to order it ahead so we decided not to do the traditional turkey and to do Chicken instead! So we wanted to make it like an American Thanksgiving! So we divided up the District and I made Three roasted chickens and a batch of homemade stuffing! The Sorella made mashed potatoes and vegetables and the Elders in Catanzaro made Gravy, brought drinks and made brownies! (Pie crust doesn't really exist in Italy and making it homemade is way too much work!) It turned out really well and we had a lot of fun! My companion was really confused as to why we were so excited about Thanksgiving but it was really a lot of fun and I think he enjoyed it! We all are too much so I think it was a successful Thanksgivings even though we didn't have Turkey! We all went around the table and talked about what we're thankful for and it was a really cool experience to see 6 missionaries, 5 Americans and 1 Italian together halfway around the world 🌎 talking about the things that we're grateful for and it made me grateful for another blessing that the Church brings to us. It teaches us to be truly grateful for the blessings that we have!

We invited our English Course to bring dolce which is just like desserts on Thursday so we could have a little festa for Thanksgiving even though they don't celebrate it and it was a lot of fun!

On Friday we saw the Grande Family, Sister Grande and her daughter Angela. Angela served a mission on Temple Square two years ago and she teaches English now here in Crotone! She's a lot of fun and it was cool to hear her testimony and the love that she has for the temple in Salt Lake and the Church's history there.

Saturday the Church celebrated 50 years in Italy so we had a party with dolce and the church created a video of the history of the Church in Italy and the first members and branches. It was really cool to give the members here in Crotone an extra boost of hope and inspiration so that this Branch can grow and one day be great again!

Sunday is always one of my favorite days! We had a great Sacrament meeting and then I got to teach Sunday school, we talked about the last three chapters in the Book of Moroni and because I'm a missionary I had to emphasize Moroni's promise in Chapter 10: 3-5

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if

it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember

how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the

creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these

things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye

would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these

things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with

real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it

unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

I invited them to re-strengthen their testimony by doing two things, making and keeping goals to re-read the Book of Mormon and to trust in Moroni's promise and ask in sincere prayer if the Book of Mormon is

true. This is my invite for you guys as well! If it's been a while since you've picked up the Book of Mormon, blow the dust off it, Heavenly Father is waiting to give you your answers but we have to read! If you read everyday focus on your prayers along with your scripture study. Every time we read it we can learn something 😃

The Sisters have a family that is investigating the Church and they asked if we would come over and give the Mom and the son blessings. The Mom has been having some Health problems and the son has some

really graphic and satanic bad dreams. So we gave those two blessings and ended up giving five other blessings to the rest of the family who all were having some sort of legitimate reason, so seven in total! We explained the sacredness of priesthood blessings and how special they are. The Sisters stayed and had a lesson afterwards and hey called us and said the spirit was so strong in their lesson and the family

really felt the spirit during the lessons.

Last night we went to the Corrado Family's house and decorated their house for Christmas! We helped them put up their Christmas tree and sand Christmas songs which were all in English so I was having so much fun! We hung up lights and don't worry Mom I took some pictures!

So That was my week! We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of success and I can't believe its almost Christmas! I hope you guys have a great week and if you do some Christmas decorating send me some pictures! I would love to see all the Christmas cheer!

I almost forgot! I opened my Moms package for Christmas and got all the Christmas bulbs with all the messages! I hung it up in our apartment and it's the best gift I could have gotten! So thank you all for the messages! Merry Christmas!

Anziano Bellucci