Cosenza Transfer 12 Week 2

Driving, a chocolate festival, driving and Stake Conference!

It’s been a great week as usual but as you can tell we drove A LOT! Anziano Youngblood has been in a car city for the last 6 transfers and his companion didn’t have an international drivers license the last two transfers so I’ve been driving the whole time because he’s pretty tired of it!

Monday night was pretty good, we just did some finding and then it was about 8:45 and we were making one last loop and I stopped this guy walking his dog and asked him a question about the Book of Mormon and he seemed almost oddly interested, like I thought he was asking questions just so he could bash with me. Anyway we started explaining the story of the Book of Mormon and every time we stopped he would say “then what happened?” It was super cool, his name was Pasqualino which is like “Little Easter.” We gave him the BOM and we headed home!

Tuesday is where the driving began... we headed out to Crotone for District Meeting around 8:30 and it went really well. We got to know everyone in the District pretty well and had a good training on finding. Then we went and grabbed calzoni and went to the Senior Couple’s apartment which is my old apartment in Crotone! It was another blast from the past! It looks really nice now and the view is still amazing! Anziano Heyman served in Cagliari back about 40 years ago as a missionary when there was just one branch there and he was the Branch President! The then Elder Monson told him he had 6 months to make some pretty big changes or the Branch would be closed... well he did it! He baptized some of the corner stone families in the branch that are still there today! Now it’s a ward and there is another ward and two branches and a group on the island! Drive back to Cosenza! We had a correlation meeting with Brother Lopez and we got some plans going for the Branch and then a pretty good English Course!

Wednesday we went to the University and talked to some really cool people! We got to see Lina who is a member that just got back from her mission in Colorado Springs about 4 months ago. She’s crazy busy but we hunted her down to say hi and get some directions. We met with a member for a few minutes at 1ish and then came home and made lunch. We did some less active hunting and some finding for the rest of the night.

Thursday we drove some more! We had to go to Taranto which is about a two and a half hour drive, to do some driving tests and approve two Elders to drive the car. We decided to make a trip out of it and go to their District Meeting which was really good! They’re all really great and Anziano Melling is a great District Leader. We did the driving test afterwards and I felt like a Drivers ed instructor! Haha They did pretty well but the parallel parking could use some work! We went to their house and ate some lunch and then we brought Anziano Melling and Anziano Anderton back to Cosenza to do an exchange! We started with a display of Book of Mormons on the Ground in like 30 different languages and then the Police came and told us we needed a permit... so we had to pack it up! There was a chocolate festival here in Cosenza and they had about a million stands with all different kinds of chocolate and street food. It was all kind of expensive. We went to English Course and it went okay, we need to get our English Course pumped up though because it’s kind of like the senior citizens social hour... grabbed a gelato and then some calzoni for dinner!

Friday Anziano Melling and I went to the University and started talking to people about tutoring opportunities and they said no because there are students that try to get paid to tutor and so we would be taking away from them because we would do it for free. So... we went to another place and tried to talk to them and they told us to come back later... so we were going to head back and we got to the building and I had to go to the bathroom and so while I was in the bathroom Anziano Melling wandered into a classroom and started talking to this English professor! She was from Canada and when I came out we explained to her the idea of starting an English Club on campus where people could come and put into practice the English that they’ve been studying. She loved the idea and said “we need to go talk to my boss!” So she took us upstairs and her boss wasn’t there but she got her email for us and said that we should write her and we could use her as a point of reference! I’m pretty excited for it! We also found this cool guy named Natale (Christmas) and he’s pretty cool!

We had lunch together, did studies and then took the Taranto Anziani over to the train station so they could head back to Taranto! Anziano Youngblood and I weekly planned for the afternoon and set up a pretty good week!

Saturday morning we came and cleaned the Church because it was needing it and we really want to get in with some members so we’re trying to serve them and do the best we can with that so we cleaned inside and out and it looks a lot better now. We had lunch and then went and taught an investigator called Emilio which went pretty well and then we watched the Saturday session of Stake Conference with some members over a broadcast followed by a lesson that didn’t go through with Frank. We decided to grab some kebab for dinner. The Catanzaro Elders came down to watch the session and grab a ride with us to Stake Conference on Sunday.

So Sunday morning we got up and left the house at seven to start the drive to Stake Conference over near Taranto. We got there at about 9:20 and I loved the Stake Conference so much! I got to see so many people there! Everyone from Crotone, Bari, and Bitonto! It was great! I got to see Sam sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and I sat next to him for the conference. I also talked to a bunch of people about when we come to visit in May. I saw Anziano Allen too which was a pretty proud moment because I saw him speaking to members and stuff in Italian and I was a pretty proud “Dad!” The conference was great and then we went to Taranto for lunch with the other Anziani. We made baked potatoes and it was delicious! Came back to Cosenza and I was exhausted!

That’s the week in a rap! How was yours???

Here is a little thought from the Stake Conference, the general authority that came said. “I worship a Christ that speaks Less and acts more.” I think we could all do a little more acting our faith and I think it would grow a lot.

Have a great week!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci