Crotone Transfer 6 Week 4

Buongiorno a tutti!

Hey everybody and good morning! We had such a great week here in Crotone! A little bit of discouragement but we made it through and it's the Lord's work so it keeps going forward! 

Monday during P-Day we had an Ex-investigator call us and say "Hey, why don't you come over tonight?" We had dropped him a few months ago because he wasn't ready to progress so Monday night we went to visit him and he said he has been reading the Book of Mormon and he was understanding more and more. I don't think he really understands the importance of Baptism yet but we're getting there! We had a great visit with him and read the Book of Mormon together, we both felt the spirit super strong!

Tuesday we went to Catanzaro for District Meeting, with Cosenza in our District it's a little bit closer for them so we are moving it around between the three cities. We had a super good training from Anziano Haws, he asked us before hand to come up with a "Question of the Soul" which can really be anything for example "Where do we come from?" Or "Does God Exist?" Or even "How can I balance my school, work, family and church life?" And then find an answer to it in the Book of Mormon. I chose "Does God know me personally? And I answered it with 2 Nephi 4: 18-24

18 I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.

19 And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.

20 My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.

21 He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.

22 He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing of them to quake before me.

23 Behold, he hath heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the night-time.

24 And by day have I waxed bold in mighty prayer before him; yea, my voice have I sent up on high; and angels came down and ministered unto me.

These verses to me just show me how much Heavenly Father loves me and is aware of everything that I'm going through, he knows my strengths and my weaknesses, my struggles and my flaws. He sends Angels to come down and minister to me, and in verse 20 he leads me through mine afflictions. It was a really great training on using these questions of the soul in our finding, Elder Oaks in the Broadcast a few weeks ago asked us to focus our finding efforts on the youth and young adults, these are the generation that are ready to accept the message of the restored Gospel. It was really interesting to hear that most of the people our age have these same questions, and most really don't know what their purpose is here on Earth. 

All in all it was a great DDM, we went up into "Città" which is the city part of their area and ate lunch at a sandwich place, got ice cream together and then headed back to Crotone! 

English Course went well, at the end we always share a spiritual thought and usually we just share something small and bare testimony, this time I gave it to Anziano Allen to come up with the idea and then we would work on it together. He shared a verse from the Book of Mormon Alma 36:3

3 And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day.

He shared a really great testimony about putting our trust in God and leaning on him in our times of doubt and weakness. The spirit was there and he did a great job! It's so crazy to see how far he's come in the past 9 weeks... 

Wednesday was the day of discouragement... it was a good day in the end but it could have been better. In the morning we got cancelled on both appointments we had set up and so we decided to come up with a survey and go ask people questions downtown. Well turns out they weren't interested in answering questions and so we didn't really get a whole lot of conversations. In the afternoon we had been looking forward to seeing this family. We found them a few weeks ago doing house to house, they were walking inside and she said "Come back another night, tonight I just can't" so we went last week and she said "Come back Wednesday at 6" so we went and there was no one home... we were super bummed, we came back a little while later and still nothing :( It was rough, but maybe they'll be home next week!

Thursday morning we had an appointment at the immigration office, up early and out the door so we could be early and not have to spend all day there. Crotone is known for being ridiculously complicated with permessos so we said lots of prayers that morning! We were the third name called and they said I couldn't go up with him to do his fingerprints and I asked if they had a translator and they said no so I wished him luck. Two minutes later they came down to get me... they apparently "changed the law" but it's only this immigration office that does it, anyway he had to have even more information! So they did the fingerprints and told us where to go so that he could verify our housing at the city offices... we get there and they tell us we have to go to the other end of the city and get a "Codice Fiscale" which is like an Italian Social Security Number. So we go there and they tell us he has to have his permesso first. So by this time it's too late for Thursday (I'll explain more later) 

We take the bus to Cutro to go see our boy Antonio, we haven't gone to see him in a while so we were pretty excited!

So we headed over to the Tedesco family afterwards to share a spiritual thought with them. I just love that family and I really enjoy going over to their house. Anziano Allen helped Riccardo plug in his video game to the computer (y'all know I don't really do video games well) and Riccardo just loved him after that. He even said "Ti amo!" Which is I love you but in a romantic way... it was funny... we got the whole family together for the first time since I've been here. We started with a prayer and a question "What brings you the most happiness in your life?" It was a universal "Family!" And so we shared the "Earthly Father Heavenly Father" video which if you haven't checked it out yet you should! We had a great talk about strengthening one another in our family and we invited them to hold Family Home Evening this Monday. 

Then back to Crotone! But first a Grafa (Remember those cream filled pastries, I'm gonna be fat at the end of my mission!)

We stopped by the city offices to tell them what the other people said and they said no they were wrong but to go back. I kind of got a little grumpy and told him we had gone from one end of this city to the other and we don't have a car, what do we have to do. He sympathized and said "Take the rest of the day off from this" gee thanks! Haha English Course and Calzone... doesn't get much better than that! 

Friday was supposed to be weekly planning but we had to get this permesso thing figured out... so we go to the Questura office with about a million prayers in our hearts that this thing is going to work out. Well... they say come back next week on Wednesday at 9. :( As we walk out one of our English Course Students is walking in and he asks us if everything is okay. I explained the situation and he took our paperwork and said "Wait here I'll get this figured out!" Prayers answered! He comes out explains what we have to do and where we have to go! Back to the other end of town to get the Codice Fiscale, then to verify housing and back to the Questura! Everything submitted and now we're just waiting for them to let us know when it's done! Allen's almost legal! 

Lunch and then we spent the afternoon on the Streets talking to everyone!

Saturday we had to get our weekly planning done, or at least that was the plan. I made a big breakfast for us so we could stay focused but then some how we both ended up with stomach aches... Trying to focus with a stomach ache is the worst So we laid down for a few minutes and then finished weekly planning during lunch time so we wouldn't waste time! 

We spent the evening doing some finding, trying out some more "Questions of the soul" and doing some English Course publicity. Sometimes I forget how small of a city this is but I always recognize it when we go out to the "Centro" or downtown area. Italians do this thing at night, so Centro is usually a couple of streets that you can't drive down, it's where all the shops are and street vendors and stuff. Well in Italy if you have nothing else to do you just walk up and down Centro... people tend to get bugged when we have stopped them twice and we start to walk towards them with a big old smile and the third English Course card of the night! Anyway it was a good evening!

Crotone sta fiorendo! So the last verse of the Mission hymn says "Italia Sta fiorendo." The verb "fiorire means to bloom so it says "Italy is blooming!" And yesterday we saw that Crotone is blooming! We got up and went to Church, we were kind of bummed because Oriana and Antonio told us they weren't going to be able to come. We were fasting and we had focused our fast on helping them. (Side note, we made brownies Saturday because yesterday was a year since Antonio's Baptism. We wanted to lick the spoon SO BAD but we were fasting so we didn't!) Just after we had sat down from blessing the Sacrament guess who walked in! Antonio and Oriana! Anziano Allen looked at me and said "It's cuz we didn't lick the spoon!" We were pretty stoked that they came!

We came home after church and made Fried Chicken and Mashed potatoes! It was a good American lunch (which I now realize you would probably eat that for dinner... it's going to be weird going back to dinner being the big meal) and then we went to go teach Antonio and Oriana. We taught them a review of the Restoration with the cups like we did a few weeks where you build Christ's perfect Church and then it gets destroyed and then you rebuild it. Antonio seemed to understand it really well and he was way more interested than he usually is. Oriana straight told us she is ready to be baptized! She knows it's true! And she found her answer because she's keeping each one of her commitments! She's reading, studying, and praying! We just have to get her husband on board! I know if he'll keep his commitments that he'll feel ready to be baptized too! 

After our lesson we had correlation and then planned an activity for the Branch. It went super well! We're hoping to have a good activity for the ward to introduce people to the Church and get the members excited to do some missionary work! 

Today we went back and re-did the hike that we did a few months ago up to the cross, I finally took some pictures this week! I've been off my picture game for a while but I'm trying to get better! I was having a craving for some Chinese Food, I was missing Panda Express or China Doll or something so I asked some members and we found this Chinese Restaurant, it was huge and there wasn't a soul in it but it wasn't super expensive so we decided to try it! Turned out to be really good, I got pot stickers, some soy noodles with shrimp and then some veal and peppers and onions, I'm pretty happy and I think my Chinese craving has been satisfied for now! 

Well if you made it to the end I give you congrats, this is an absolute epistle, and it gets a little preachy but I wanted to share some cool scriptures and a little bit of my testimony! I love y'all and I hope you have a great week! By the way I'll add a little weather report... it's been beautiful in the 60's and low 70's during the day and then it gets pretty cold at night. Anyway, that's it! 

Anziano Jacob Bellucci