I got Transferred!

New city, new ITALIAN Companion and a lot of changes! But all good things!

So the biggest news is that I got transferred! I am in Crotone which if you think of Italy as a boot it is the ball of your foot, a beautiful city on the coast with a tiny little branch that meets in an apartment building that has been turned into a church!

Ok, so Monday we went to Ruth's house for a Family home evening and we were there when we got the call from President Pickerd to give us our transfer calls. Before Monday I had kind of thought that I would be staying in Cagliari but then as we went throughout the day I kind of thought that I would be leaving... so Anziano Larussa answered the phone and I heard him get his transfer call that he would be staying in Cagliari but he would be training a new missionary which means I knew I would be leaving but I had to wait for President to finish his conversation with my companion and then President told me that I would be headed to Crotone to work with an Italian companion Anziano Redaelli!

The next two days was kind of a blur of taking pictures with people and saying goodbye! I never realized how people could get so attached to the people they served with but I definitely realized when I left Cagliari how much I had grown to love the people! Cagliari is like my home away from home but Crotone is starting to grow on me!

So Thursday was transfer day and a member picked me up at the apartment and took me to the airport, I flew to Rome and then to Lamezia which is the only relatively big airport in Calabria and then I met my new companion there and we took the train across the boot to Crotone! The Branch President picked us up and brought my luggage to our apartment and then we headed straight to English Course. My companion speaks English so well! He has been in the mission for a little over a year and has learned so much! So for language study I help him with English and he helps me with Italian!

So a little about my companion! Anziano Marco Redaelli, his name is incredibly hard to say even for Italians! He is from a small city outside of Milan and has been in the mission for a little over a year. He was a car mechanic before his mission so he loves cars so we talk about them a lot. Dad, I think you two would get along pretty well! Like I said his English is really good! I am helping him work out the difficult grammatical things that we don't really think about and then vocabulary but other than that he is basically fluent! He is 23 and has a girlfriend in Milan and is planning on getting married when he gets home! He is so OCD so we get along super well! We are both very particular about things being clean and orderly and our first day we were at the church and I was fixing the keyboards in the Geneology center because they were crooked and he said "I tell we will be friends" haha so this morning we cleaned the apartment and we was so happy because he has never had a companion that cleans. He also loves America and has more American things than I do. He loves Kool-Aid and Peanut Butter and Reeces and Beef Jerky and Skittles.

The branch in Crotone is piccolissimo, at max there are 10 people in attendance and usually less. There was about 12 people in church on Sunday including the missionaries! Honestly its the missionaries that hold this branch together and I am so excited to help! I replaced Anziano Simonsen and before I got here he was the Branch President and the new Branch President was called last week so he's pretty new! On Sunday I was called as the Sunday School President, my companion was called as the Elders Quorum President and the SIster missionaries were called to the presidencies of the Relief Society and Primary. We are all really excited to get this branch back on its feet! It was a big change to go from a ward of 75 or so to a branch this small.

We have been visiting some members around the city and all it has done is rain. Until today I hadn't seen Crotone in the day light because it has been sooo stormy and miserable. But today it was a lot brighter so I saw quite a bit of the city as we went on a walk in the more ancient part of the city! Its a beautiful little city full of people! Also, we love at the top of a hill which is absolutely beautiful, we can see the ocean from the house and the view is great! The only bad thing is when we go grocery shopping we have to carry everything up this dang hill and my arms were about to fall off. Thats about all I have for you guys! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci