Bari Libertà Transfer 8 Week 2

Good Morning America! How is America? Someone send me a picture??? Italy is cool too ;) But sometimes you need a piece of home! 

This week... I'm tired! But that's a good thing! So the "Saint" for the city of Bari is Saint Nicola and so this last week has been a huge festival for Saint Nicola! So on Monday we spent the day eating fair food going around to the street vendors and all that stuff. They had the streets blocked off and it was a lot of fun! Then right at the end of P-Day there was an air show with the Italian jets! They were really cool but they were also kind of sketchy. Doing air stunts over crowds of people... stuff they would never let happen in America... but most of it was out over the ocean. It was really neat and it was cool to see the Italian pride. That evening after P-Day we spent some time doing some finding in Centro since there were so many people out for the festival. I wasn't feeling super good, I don't think the fair food was good for me! But anyway that was pretty much it!

So we have like an on-demand hot water heater, or a tankless hot water heater like most people in Italy and the ones they have here in Italy have SO MANY problems! Our hot water heater has gone out more times than it's worked since I've been here in Bari... And it's not just the water is not hot, it's icicles! Okay I digress, anyway, it was out again so we called the people and they're kind of like the cable people in America "We'll be there between 8-5" so we had to stay home in the morning on Tuesday and wait. He came over and fixed it and Anziano Fitzner came with him to make sure it got fixed and then when they were leaving I jokingly said, "I'll call you tonight when we don't have hot water" well... I wasn't joking. This is provably the 7th time that they've had to come out and fix this thing in the two months that I've been here! But it's been working since Wednesday so I'm hopeful! 

Thursday we had an awesome leadership meeting with all the District Leaders and it went really well! We followed it up with an exchange with the missionaries from Lecce, I got to work with Anziano Smith who is a Greenie and has been here for about a week! He spoke Spanish before the mission and his Italian is incredible! (Except he has a Mexican accent) we had a good exchange and taught a few lessons together. Friday Morning we brought our Branch President with us to Trani to teach our recent converts there and the lesson went really well. 

We put them back on the train to Lecce and then we went and bought a Football to do some finding with like I did back in Cagliari and then traffic was intense on the way home. There was a HUGE conference here in Bari this weekend, it's called the G7 Conference and it has like the 7 biggest economic powers in the world here to discuss something... I don't really know because we don't watch the news but it destroyed the city. They blocked off all public parking and the streets were closed. It was a mess. So it took us like an hour to get home. So we went to the Church for correlation and that was it for the night! 

Saturday we went to Bitonto to meet a girl who is wants to learn English and can't come to English Course. We taught her for a little bit and then we shared the video "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" (Which if you haven't seen I totally recommend it! Look it up on YouTube) and she asked some great questions so we are hoping to start teaching her and her fiancé about the Gospel soon! 

We came back to Bari, had Italian Class and then had District Meeting, the Fitzners brought Focaccia (the pizza bread stuff) and we had a great meeting! Then afterwards we worked on planning Zone Conference and then went and did some finding in the parks in the afternoon. 

Sunday was super productive! We met the Bishop of the Libertà ward at 8 to discuss his vision and our plan for the missionary work in the ward, it went really well and he has some great ideas so we are super excited for it! Then we went to Church in Bitonto, my companion gave a talk in Church and did a great job! Then during Sunday school we met with the Branch Mission Leader to go over things in the Branch and plan some things and so we've got some good plans ready to go! After Church we went to the Pappagallo family's house for lunch! We had a great lunch and I actually got the recipe! Sister Pappagallo was one of the first members here and so she knows everyone! So we sat down with them and discussed the ward list, she explained to us who everyone is, where they live, who we should work with, who we shouldn't and it was so helpful so we are excited for the work there as well!  

Then as you probably know we got to Skype home yesterday! It was so good to talk to my family, I love them so much and I love all of you guys too! Happy Mothers Day to all of you Moms, or future moms! 

I hope you all had a great week and are ready for another great one! 

Anziano Bellucci