Napoli!! Transfer 11 Week 3

What a week! Y'all tired of hearing me say that yet???

We start at the beginning as always! Monday night... well I don't actually remember what we did but I'm sure it was great!

Tuesday went pretty well, we had a good morning of finding and sending some daily Contact messages to our Investigators through Facebook. Then in the afternoon a little more finding before English Course which turned out really well! We probably had 25 people that came and a lot of new comers which is always fun!

Wednesday we had correlation at Church with Sam and I made a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting... (Thanks Roxy for the recipe!) Everyone seemed to love it and we celebrated Anziano Jensen's birthday! Came home and got some lunch and then we had an awesome referral from Richard! His name is Ebenezer and we set him with a baptismal date for October 21st! He came to Church as well!

Thursday we had DDM which was another sugar rush! Sister Hyde made this banana cake thing with this caramel syrup... it was good! We had a great DDM from Anziano Ruiz and then we got a pizza. I realized that I am always so excited for the pizza and then I just get destroyed and am so full! So I decided on a half when we go to Pellone. Anyway, that afternoon we got to teach Ebenezer again and we moved onto the Plan of Salvation! It went well and then we had English Course and Nicoletta came back from Scotland! We brought her a Reeces and some other American grub and she brought me two ties and Anziano Jensen a scarf from Scotland! They're way cool!

Friday we weekly planned in the morning and then started an exchange with the Castellammare Anziani! I got to work with Anziano Drenk which was really fun, we had a good time for sure! We went and did a Family Home Evening with the Granata family and we just shared our favorite stories from the Bible. It was a really good discussion and it really helped to open him up to sharing about the Gospel.

Saturday morning we filled with calling everyone we knew to call to the baptism, we went Finding and then met up with the other Anziani and they showed us this place owned by a man named Giorgio... he makes hand made ties... confession time. I spent 50€ on a handmade tie. Well I actually just picked out the fabric and he's going to make it and I pick it up tomorrow! We came home, did our exchange review and then switched back companions to head to lunch with the Ariante family! Lunch was great! In the middle our downstairs neighbor called and said there was a GIANT CRICKET flying from their balcony to ours. I called the other Elders and then just heard screaming on the other end of the phone and they won't really tell us what happened. Apparently it was the size of a shoe. Anyway their son leaves in November so we focused our thought on helping prepare him and making expectations for who you want to become on your mission. It went super well and we had to jet to the baptism! We rolled in like two minutes before it started and we're still one of the first ones there! It went beautifully, he had to be baptized three times because he wouldn't go under but in the end it was a beautiful ceremony and his smile was a mile wide.

Sunday we went to Church early so I could translate interviews for the African members with the Branch President. Richard was called as an assistant Branch Mission Leader and Peter was called as a counselor in the Sunday School Presidency. It was great to see the Branch really supporting them and making them a part of the Branch!

We went to Sam's house and Lori cooked us lunch! We had a nice chuck roast with veggies and mashed potatoes! Mmmm America! And brownies from a box! We talked about the calamities happening in the world and how people now more than ever need the Gospel!

We then got on Skype with Sister Lee to plan Zone Conference. All is good for that and then there was a farewell meeting for Joele who leaves for France on her mission tomorrow! She asked me to speak for a few minutes and I thought it was a great privilege. I had no idea what to speak about. I ended up talking about the song Army Of Helaman and how the song says "We will be the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth" and changing it to "We are now the Lord's missionaries" and what a great privilege it is to serve. Then she started to cry and I caught her which made me cry a little but it turned out ok. I just balled a little! It was a beautiful farewell complete with food and pictures!

This morning we went and played soccer with all the Elders in the Zone and it was really fun! I enjoyed it a lot!

I hope everything is going well with people getting back to school and work and the every day routine! I love you all and I miss you!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci