Transfer calls are today! Somehow every six weeks it keeps sneaking up on me! So tonight I will find out if I am heading out of Napoli or if I am packing my bags! As much as I would love to stay for another 6 weeks I have a feeling I will be transferred! We’ll find out tonight for sure!
This is the last Transfer for the sisters that came out with me, they’ll go home I think the first week of December which means I’ll have 6 months left! Ahh where is the time going?!?!
Well this week feels kind of like a month, on Monday evening I started an exchange with Anziano Compas who works in Battipaglia. Anziano Allen was actually his follow-up trainer so we got to talk about him a little bit. We had a lot of fun together though and we worked really hard! He is in his 5th Transfer so a little over 7 months out and he is from somewhere in Utah... I don’t really remember where :/ We did some finding that night and then we went to visit a member of the Branch Presidency. His name is Brother Cannata and he’s probably my favorite member here. He’s probably in his 60’s, never been married but he has served as Branch President like 3 times as well as District President. We went over to pump him up and just talk about General Conference as well as talk about the Branch a little bit. It was good and he told us some stories about how President Nelson came to Napoli as a newly ordained apostle and it was really cool.
Tuesday we hit the streets and had some really good finding experiences. We found this lady named Jacqueline from Brazil. She’s been here in Italy since she was a little girl, she’s now probably in her 40s but she remembers the missionaries coming over to her house as a little girl in Brazil at the age of 7! She said “Take my number!” We were super excited! We were headed back home and we were waiting in the metro and we had just missed it so there was no one in the platform and no train coming soon and we both decided we should go get some gelato... so we did! Talked to the gelato lady too! We had the drum circle in the afternoon and Anziano Compas loved that! Haha it was a good night, we had like 28 people in English Course! Grabbed a pizza with a few of them afterwards which is always good!
Wednesday morning I had my Doctors appointment and I got the stitches out... it was kind of painful but I’m doing much better now! Everything went well and Sam brought us so he brought us back to his house and we did our personal study on his big comfy American Couch before correlation and lunch. It was a pretty great morning!
Switched back with my companion and I was beat! I don’t know why but that exchange was exhausting! We spent the evening getting a lot of stuff done, we were planning the Activity with all the other missionaries and then my companion accidentally called America... some Utah tourists needed a translator for something and so they looked up our number and the call dropped and then without looking to see what kind of number they had he hit redial and it called them right back using up all of our credit for the rest of the month! So we had to find a Tobacco shop and buy more... 🙊 oops!
Thursday we had District Meeting and started another exchange with the Elders from Caserta, I worked with Anziano Pineau who was Anziano Allen’s follow-up trainer so we got to talk a little about that too! He goes home in about a month and a half and he’s slowing down a little bit but he’s still working hard which is good! We were working on some genealogy stuff for some members that never showed up :( We had English Course and Nicoletta finally came! She started University so she’s been super busy but it was good to see her and we talked a little bit but she had studying to do! Anziano Pineau wanted a pizza since he’s only here in Napoli every once in a while!
Friday exchange continued into a morning full of finding! It was a good one, we also got a Nutella bomb... so good. After we switched back Anziano Jensen and I went to go visit Sister Berruto which was great, we talked about Elder Holland’s message from Conference, in fact we watched it together. She really enjoyed it, we will one day be perfect! This is the part that really hit me this time he said “I am grateful that God is merciful and a peacemaker because I need mercy and the world needs peace.” It’s beautiful!
Saturday was a beautifully busy day! In the morning we called like 3000 people for the Activity and actually had some success! After lunch we went to go and visit Vincenzo, he was an investigator when I first got here and I told him I would probably be leaving and he gave me a necklace with a cross on it that he wears everyday. He then said “I could buy you something and give it to you but that wouldn’t mean anything, something that is mine has so much more worth” it was a really nice gesture. We went to the baptism at 5 and it was great Abraham was baptized by Brother Cannata and then we started getting ready for the Activity. An Elderly Sister called and said that she had invited a friend and asked if we would go pick her up from the station and I was going to ask the other Elders because we were helping set up but I felt like we should go and do it. So we went and who do we see at the station but Nicoletta! She hadn’t gotten our message about the Activity so we were put in the right place at the right time! She ended up coming to the Activity which was a huge success! We had so much fun! There were so many people there and the Branch was really United. We had a lot of less active members and non members that came too so I would count it as a success! Lots of them even skipped the Napoli vs. Rome soccer game which is a pretty big deal!
Sunday was great 👍 Giuseppe wasn’t there and he usually controls the music because no one here plays the piano so we plug in an iPad or phone with the LDS music app and so I got to sit up on the stand to do the music and kind of be hidden behind the piano. It was actually really cool to be able to look out at all the people in Sacrament Meeting and think about how much I love them, how important they are to me and their individual stories. I felt like I got a small glimpse of the love that Heavenly Father must feel for us as he looks out upon the masses. He knows our struggles and our strengths, and he knows our hearts more importantly. I feel like as a missionary we get to know their hearts as well.
In the afternoon we went to visit the Philippine members and they made us spring rolls and we took pictures before going to the Elder Ballard Conference. Elder Ballard was broadcasting live from Frankfurt Germany to the Adults of Europe. It was a beautiful Conference and a beautiful way to start off the week! We are actually going to see Elder Ballard in Rome on Wednesday, he is doing a broadcast for our mission and the Napoli Zone gets to go and be there live! We went finding after the broadcast and we just saw so much success! I am so grateful to be serving a mission, there is no where I would rather be and no one else I would rather be serving! I love you and I hope you have a great week! Who knows where I’ll be emailing from next week!
Anziano Jacob Bellucci
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