Crotone! Transfer 4 Week 5!

Buon Natale Fratelli e Sorelle! 

Christmas is upon us! I can't believe its almost here! We've had some pretty good days here in Crotone! A week of exchanges, being locked inside our apartment, making pizza, and a whole lot of English Course Finding! 

We went to Cutro on Tuesday to visit a family, we ate lunch and played Jenga, gave some English help to one of the kids and overall had a good time. It's really interesting to help these kids with English because a lot of their text books are Italian made and there are so many mistakes. Cracks me up. It went well though and then we went to Cutro again on Wednesday to see Antonio. His Grandma is still in the hospital here in Crotone so we brought stuff to make Pranzo with him and his brothers. 

Thursday we did a scambio (exchange) with the Anziani from Catanzaro, I worked with Anziano De Feo and we had an awesome time! Little mini bio about him, he is from Canada and his parents are both Italian so he grew up with Italian in his house, his Dad grew up in Taranto and if I remember right they actually got married here in Italy before going to Canada. So he knew a little Italian before coming out and went to the Spain Missionary Training Center and was companions with Anziano Redaelli there. Anyway we had a really good time, we taught the Restoration to a new investigator and it went super well and then on Friday morning we didn't have anything planned so we decided to go out and do some English Course Finding! We gave out almost 200 English Course cards and talked to so many cool people! I have so much less fear on exchanges, I don't know why but it's great! I have a lot more confidence and I talk to so many people and when you do that the spirit is so much stronger! It went really well and then when they got back we decided to have them spend the night and we went Christmas Caroling with the Sisters to a bunch of members and investigators! It was a great night and we were able to see a lot of smiles. 

That night we went to lock the door and the key got stuck in the door. So we tried and we tried and we tried to get it out but nothing worked. Thankfully it was unlocked and we could still open the door with the handle but it was annoying. We decided to go to bed with the door latched but not locked. You couldn't get inside from the outside but it wasn't bolted. So the way that you lock our door from the inside is to use the key on the inside and lock it like a dead bolt. The problem is there's no handle on the outside, you have to use a key to unlock the door and with the key stuck on the other side you can't put another key in from the outside. Long story short, if we left we wouldn't be able to get back in. We had a meeting at 8 AM so we left Catanzaro in the apartment and went to the meeting and then tried to mess with the door some more. Well we got the key out and then Anziano Redaelli went out in the hallway and locked the door and then tried to unlock it. Well we couldn't get it unlocked. That left Anziano Redaelli locked outside and me and Anziano De Feo and Haws locked inside on the fourth floor. My companion was real stressed and it was 12 and the guy that we had called earlier couldn't come until 4. A hammer, a pair of pliers and some blunt force later they finally got the door unlocked. So the guy finally came at 4 and sprayed some WD-40 on it... like that's what it needed and hopefully next week they will be replacing our door. For now we can't lock it :/ 

When we finally got out of our apartment we went to an English Course Student's house for Pranzo, they are wonderful people. Very Catholic and not interested in hearing about the church but they come to English Course every week and are so nice. She actually told me on Thursday at English Course that I have gotten fatter since I got to Crotone. In Italy that's not rude... they will literally see their Grandma and say "Wow Grandma you've gotten fat!" And it's not rude. I added a little cultural lesson to English Course that night. Haha So she is in her late 30's early 40's and her Mom comes to English Course too. So we ate with all of them this big seafood Pranzo and I told her it's her fault if I get fatter. 

Sunday was absolutely exhausting... I translated Sacrament meeting which is exhausting in itself and then taught Sunday School and Priesthood I helped my companion teach. I was so tired by the time we went home! I made lunch and watched "On the Lord's Errand" the story of President Monson, its a good one! That was pretty much all the exciting things that happened this week! 

I am pretty excited for Christmas, it should be a good one! We have some plans with members and I will get to skype home! I can't wait to hear about everyone's Christmas! 

Have a great week and a merry Christmas! Remember to keep Christ at the center of all things especially in this special season! 

Buon Natale e vi voglio bene!

Anziano Bellucci