Napoli Transfer 9 Week 3

Zone Conference, Exchanges, and subway fires! 

What a week! I'm pretty sure P-Day was like two days ago but somehow it is Monday again!

Last Monday we met with some less-active members that called us and said "Hey Elders, can we meet with you tonight?" Of course! We had a great lesson, my companion and I turned to the scriptures and one right after another we were able to share verses that were absolutely applicable to them from the Book of Mormon! It was really cool! They came to Church on Sunday as well! 

Tuesday I had to start my permesso paper work so I can be legal seeing as mine expires on the 11th! Crazy that I've been in Italy for almost a year! Anyway Anziano Fryer had to get some paperwork for his as well so we did an Exchange and I went with him. He's a great missionary, he's in his 4th Transfer and still in his first city. He's from Spring City Utah and a total stud. We continued our exchange and did some finding for the rest of the morning. 

I got to teach the Basic English Course with Anziano Fryer... it was a lot of fun. I haven't taught basic in months so it was really cool. I had a lot of fun but you definitely speak way more Italian than English. 

Wednesday we got prepped for Zone Conference and then had our interviews with President and an exchange with the Assistants. It was a lot of fun! I got to work with Anziano Draghi who is an Italian missionary from Rimini up North. He speaks English super well and we had a way good time. In Church last week one of the Sisters came up to us and said "My husband has started to pray with me every day, I think he might be ready to take the lessons." So we went and shared a little message, he's not quite ready yet but we're going to try to get to know him better and gain his trust. 

It was way cool to see Anziano Friedman, he's now Anziano Draghi's companion as the assistant. It was good to catch up with him and it's so crazy that he's going home next Transfer. That's the worst part about missions, you make friendships and then you have to say goodbye for a while! 

Thursday was Zone Conference! It was probably one of the best ones I've had! President and Sister Pickerd have really helped to change our mission, its become more obedient, more successful and we've come a long way! President based the conference on a phrase from Spencer W. Kimball in a talk he gave in 1979 General Conference called "Let us Move Forward and Upward." The phrase was " We have paused on some plateaus long enough." It was a really inspiring conference to help us move onward and keep moving up! I would for sure invite you to check out that talk! It's way good and way applicable to all of us! 

Afterwards we did an exchange with the Elders from Caserta, I got to work with Anziano Daniels! He is in Anziano Allen's group, he is training right now and doing a great job! He is a new District Leader and he's super "in gamba" as we say in Italian which just means he is a stud and a hard worker. He's from Elko Nevada... We got to go visit this awesome family from the Branch. We had a cool spiritual thought on fortifying our families like Moroni fortifies his fortresses in Alma 50. It was really cool and then they fed us dinner and we showed pictures of our families and stuff. It was really fun and I felt really at home! They were super nice. 

Friday was the end of our scambio and it was Anziano Sacco and Anziano Smith's birthdays so I made a Devil's food cake and we went out for pizza at Sorbillo's which some people say is better than Pelone's. I think it's way more famous, I'm pretty sure there were more American's there than Italians. It was a good night and we got to talk to some cool people doing finding as well! 

Saturday we had to weekly plan and then we had a way good lesson with our Investigator Fabiola, she asks a ton of questions and so our lesson lasted a super long time but it was good. We taught her the first half of the Plan of Salvation and you could see the spirit testifying to her of the things we were teaching, helping her to understand that they are true. We're hoping to invite her to baptism this next week! 

Sunday was really good! There were four groups of American Tourists in Church and the Branch President wasn't there and the translating headsets were locked in his office so four of us had to translate by sitting behind a row of Americans. It was fun to play tour guide for a minute but the Fasting Testimony meeting was really good! I almost forgot... Evans is one of our African members and he has his life figured out. He is married and has an 11 year old son and they just had another baby boy and they blessed their baby in Sacrament Meeting, Evans asked me to be a part of it which was a really special honor. That baby was stinking cute and the blessing was beautiful. 

We got invited to the Esposito family's house for lunch, they are super upbeat and fun, they have three kids that live up North and so having the Anziani over is like having their kids back home! They fed us way too much and it was way good! 

We finished the day off with some English Course White Boarding downtown. We talked to so many people and this one family said that the missionaries would come to their house like 12 years ago and she would love to have us back. Who knows, maybe they're ready now! 

It was a good week! My testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ grows every day! I know that he lives and that he loves us! Have a great week!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci