Napoli! Transfer 9 Week 1!

Coming at you from Napoli, home of the pizza, the second biggest city

in the mission and home of the nicest people!

What a great week! I'm super excited to tell you about it! It went by

super fast but a lot happened for sure! As always I'll give you the

week from the top, Monday night we had a Family Home Evening/Birthday

Party with Fabrizia our Italian Teacher that lives upstairs. I made a

homemade chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting! Betty Crocker

doesn't exist over here but I found a homemade recipe, who knew you

could make cakes without a box!?!? So we had our spiritual thought,

ate cake, and then played taboo while we waited for the transfer

Calls. I was pretty relaxed because I had only been in Bari for two

transfers so I thought I was safe! The phone rang I was expecting to

be told I was staying another 6 weeks in Bari! Well... obviously that

was far from the truth! I was told I would be coming to Napoli to

continue being a Zone Leader and I would be working with Anziano

John-Paul Perfili! (So you can stalk him on Facebook Mom) I kind of

had some mixed emotions, I didn't feel super ready to leave Bari

especially because I've done 3 transfers in all of my other cities but

I know Napoli is where the Lord needs me!

That was pretty much the end of Monday night... I started doing

laundry and getting ready to pack! Then on Tuesday morning I went with

Anziano Osmond to go get our hair cut. We went to some Chinese

place... they did an okay job! Then it was off to DDM. Anziano

Whitaker was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on his way back to Utah

so we didn't have a District Leader so we had Anziano Wilkey run

District Meeting and he did a really good job! It was his first time

and we had a great discussion on The Who, how, and why we serve...

what it comes down to is love. We love the people we serve, and if we

don't love them we serve them anyway so we can develop that love. It

was a very well done training! Afterwards I got everything pretty much

packed and then we went to English Course and we got to bare our final

testimonies at the end before we left. It was bittersweet, there are

some awesome people that come! Afterwards I had the opportunity to do

a baptismal interview for a lady who is going to be baptized on the

24th. I don't think I've talked about baptismal interviews before so

for those of you who don't know a baptismal interview is really an

opportunity for an investigator to bare their testimony of the things

that they've learned from the missionaries. We make sure that they

understand the doctrine and it's a really spiritual experience. At the

end I asked her what the strongest part of her testimony is or if

there is a principle that the Sisters taught her that really struck

home with her and she started to bare beautiful testimony of the Plan

of Salvation in relation to her mother. She is so excited that she now

had the knowledge that she can be reunited with her family and they

are excited to go to the temple a year after their baptism! It was a

great experience for me and the spirit was really strong!

Wednesday morning we went to Trani to say goodbye to the Musicco

Family. I will miss them so much! Instead of a spiritual thought I

asked each one of them to kind of do the same thing that I had the

lady in the baptismal interview do. All four of them bore testimony of

a different and unique principle about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Again the spirit was so strong as I heard about all the things that

they have learned in the last year. I got a little teary sharing my

testimony about the importance of the Gospel in our lives. The

missionaries are great and it's easy to get attached to us but it's

the Gospel that is important and it was really great to hear that

their testimonies don't lie with us, they lie in Jesus Christ.

Afterwards Vittoria told me that she is planning on being sealed in

the Rome Temple next Spring (if it's done) about the time that I go

home and she wants me and my family to come and be a part of it. I

really hope it's done in time!

We had an awesome activity on Wednesday night! It was in the 90's and

so crazy humid but we had planned an activity to play volleyball with

a bunch of English Course Students and members so we went to the

Church and just standing there waiting for people to show up we were

dripping with sweat but we had so much fun! No one had any energy and

we all played terribly but we all had a lot of fun! Afterwards one of

the English Course Students invited us over to her Brother's hamburger

place, it was super nice and legit American style burgers! They were

super good and they gave us a super good deal and they threw in all

these American appetizers that you can't really get in Italy like

jalapeño poppers, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, it was really good!

We had to make up for all the pounds we lost playing volleyball ;) it

was a great last night in Bari! Great People, great fun, and great

food!

Thursday Transfers started bright and early but we had quite a few

breaks between transfers so it was pretty nice and we live like a 5

minute walk from the train station. We got people on and off trains

all morning and then had a good break, I finished packing, made lunch

and then we went to the train station to pick up the new greenies

coming in straight from Rome. We took them to go get a Kebab and I was

sitting next to one of the new Anziani and I was talking to Sister

Bellomo and Sister Cibi who are both Italian and so I was speaking to

them in Italian and he just had this big deer in the headlights look,

it was so funny! I love seeing when they come into the mission and

then seeing how much they learn in their first two transfers.

Then it was time for me to head out to Nap town! The Fitzners met us

at the train station and Sister Fitzner gave me a big bag of homemade

chocolate chip cookies for the train ride and Anziano Andersen who

came to Napoli with me from Brindisi and I got on the train! Our train

was late getting to Caserta which is where the American Military base

is about 40 minutes outside of Napoli so we missed our connecting

train but there was another one and we made it to Napoli Centrale a

few minutes after 9. Napoli is huge! I met Anziano Perfili and all the

other missionaries and we came home, I unpacked a little and we hit

the hay, I was super tired!

So Napoli is known to be pretty dangerous, pickpockets, people getting

jumped and all that stuff (don't worry Mom, we're safe) and so there

are no Sister missionaries here despite how big the city is. So

instead there are three companionships of Elders here! So we live in a

four man house and there is another companionship that lives about a

10 minute walk away. So we live with Anziano Fryar and Anziano

Andersen who just came from Bari with me and then the other Anziani

are Anziano Pesci from my MTC group and his Greenie!

We spent Friday morning weekly planning and then went and grabbed some

groceries and a pizza for lunch. Napoli is Home of the pizza! You've

never tasted a pizza like a Nap-town pizza, and according to popular

belief "Polones" is the best place to get one! Unfortunately it's like

a 5 minute or less walk to get there from our apartment so I have a

feeling Napoli is not where I'll be losing any weight! This pizza was

soooo good! It's super heavy, it's really wet and there's probably 5

lbs of cheese on it. Happiness.

We had a few appointments lined up for Friday but one after another

they all fell through! BUT that meant I got to see how open and

friendly the Napolitano people are! We went "Whiteboarding" which

means we hopped the metro and went to Centro where all the shopping is

and walked around with a whiteboard that said "Inglese Gratis" (Free

English) and the people just flocked to us! I've never had an easier

time giving out pass-along cards! We had so many people talk to us and

ask for information, we had a few Gospel conversations and it was a

super good night! Finished it off with a gelato in a homemade waffle

cone. It was a good day! Saturday we Skyped in to Rome for the Mission

Leadership Conference and it was really good! Usually I feel like the

ones we do over skype are less productive but we got a lot

accomplished! We finished off the meeting with another Polones

pizza... when in Napoli right???

Sunday was great! So there is a Branch here in Napoli but it's big

enough to become a ward they just need the Priesthood numbers so it

should be becoming a ward soon. There were about 70 people in Church

on Sunday and they said they have about 90 active members which is the

biggest Church unit I've served in even though it's a Branch! We got

there and started talking to a couple of the members and then the

Primary President gave me a piece of paper with a puzzle printed on it

and said "Anziano, nice to meet you I need your help! Can you cut this

out?" She put me right to work! The members are so nice here and very

welcoming. The Stake Presidency was here and they reorganized the

Branch Presidency. So Sardegna is in the same Stake as Napoli so I saw

a bunch of the Stake leaders that I saw last summer when I was in

Cagliari! It was one of those "We've seen each other before" moments!

We taught Primary and taught the Word of Wisdom for them, it was a lot

of fun and I made them do jumping jacks to make sure they were

healthy!

We all met at our house to eat lunch together after Church and it was

really cool to catch up with Anziano Pesci and see where he's been in

the last year since we came to Italy! Its so crazy to look at our two

different paths and see everything that's happened!

We spent the afternoon teaching some great new converts, they have

incredible faith and we had a great lesson reading the Book of Mormon

together. I sometimes read and don't understand or pay attention and

so we were reading with this new Convert and as we went along I was

explaining what was happening and it was really interesting, sometimes

we have to slow down and pick the scriptures apart and we can get so

much more out of them!

Ok, this has been a really long email and I just want to finish by

telling you about my companion! So Anziano Perfili is just a few

transfers ahead of me so he is almost at a year and a half in the

mission. He is from Orange County California, a little city called

Yorba Linda! He is a super energetic kid, he gets excited about

everything and I love it! We are getting along super well and I'm

excited to work with him this Transfer!

Today we're waiting for some guys to put in some air conditioners in

our apartment so we have to stay here for a little while and then if

they're done in time we're headed to the museums today!

I love you guys, I love Napoli, I'm loving the mission and I hope you

guys are all doing super well!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci