Cosenza Transfer 12 Week 6

This was the last week of the Transfer! I can’t believe that’s another one gone! It was a pretty good one but the weird thing is... all of the sisters that I came into the mission with fly home tomorrow morning! Which means I only have 4 transfers left! Where did the time go???

So last week my email game was pretty rough... we went to Taranto for P-Day and to do an exchange and so we were at the Church there and the WiFi there is about as bad as it was in Napoli!

So after P-Day I started my exchange with Anziano Strong, we headed out to Statte to do some finding! Anziano Strong is in his 9th Transfer, one older than Anziano Allen and he’s doing pretty well! He’s from Colorado, he’s a little nerdy but he’s super funny! He’s one of those people that just throw out those one liners out of no where it they’re usually pretty quiet. He’s working on being bold and getting the courage to talk to people so we went to Statte which is this pretty small city but it’s where there Church is and we did some finding, and we talked to everyone! Literally I even felt a little creepy because I was crossing the street to chase down people and we had a lot of success! We even found a family that said we could come over to their house and they accepted a Book of Mormon! It was a good night, we came back to Taranto, got some panzarotti (fried calzones) and headed home for the night!

Tuesday was a really good day as well, one of the members in Statte asked us to do some service moving some things out of their house so we decided to move the day around and go first thing at 8 AM. So we get there and he says “Anziani, I thought you would have come in normal clothes!” And then we learned we were carried everything but the kitchen sink out of their house and it was a bigger job then we anticipated! But the mission teaches you a lot and one thing I’ve learned is you can do almost anything in a shirt and tie! It was good and we were done in about an hour and a half! They gave us some Nutella croissants and we were on our way, we decided to do our studies in the Statte Church because it’s a lot closer than going back to the house in Taranto and then we headed over to Massafra which is another little city in their area but it’s bigger than Statte so we did some finding there and found another family! My goal for that scambio was to talk to every family I saw and it definitely paid off! We had lunch back at the apartment before heading back to Cosenza! Just in time for English Course and that was the day!

Wednesday we finally got to work in Cosenza! We spent the morning at the University and gave out like 500 pass along cards and then we had lunch with Lina on Campus. So she showed us like their dining hall/cafeteria and it was crazy! There was so much food and so many people! Craziness! It was really fun though and we met one of her friends! We saw the crazy big family on Wednesday night, the house was pretty quiet and we were able to hone in on the Mom and the Dad and one of the sons named Nelson which was sweet, we taught them the whole Restoration and made some plans to teach them in the future! Unfortunately after we left they texted us and asked for money which was kind of a bummer because we were worried they were only interested because they saw the Church as a bank account. But when we explained that we couldn’t give them money they understood and said “See You Sunday!” So hopefully we’re good!

Thursday was of Course Thanksgiving and Mamma Mia was it a good day! We woke up at 5:30 and hit the road for Crotone! We went to the Heymans and they sent us on the hunt for a Turkey baster! This turkey was 32 lbs! It barely fit in the oven we had to amputate half the legs to get him in there! We had so much fun cooking and eating and we had District Meeting before we ate. Everyone brought different things from their traditions... here’s the list! We had... Turkey, mashed potatoes, candied carrots, stuffing, jalapeño cornbread stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, macaroni and cheese with bacon, more than a gallon of homemade gravy, cornbread, homemade apple pie, homemade pumpkin pie, carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate pumpkin bread and so on... we had about enough food for 30 people. It was a good day and Sister Heyman went all out with table decorations and everything! I have quite a few pictures! We made it back in time for English Course and we taught them about Thanksgiving of Course!

Friday we weekly planned in the morning and then in the evening... I don’t actually remember what we did but I’m sure it was good!

Saturday we had to get stuff for the Activity and then we spent the morning calling everyone and trying to get people to come. Then in the afternoon we got set up for the Activity. It was an absolute train wreck... we’ll just leave it at that. There was food so it wasn’t a total fail but it was a missionary activity and like no one came so I was a little frustrated but the people that did come did seem to have fun.

Sunday was a solid day, we left for Church at like 8:30 and didn’t come back home until 9:10 last night! Church was super solid, there was a member of the Stake Presidency from Bari so it was cool to see him and his wife. One of the African New Converts brought a friend named John and he was absolutely crazy but we taught him the Restoration during second hour and it went pretty well! He’s a new investigator now. Then we went to lunch with the Favre Family, they’re way cool! Lina just got home from her mission in July, she served in Colorado and the rest of them are just super great members. We had a lot of fun and told stories from our childhood. Then we went to visit Sister Filipelli and she is looking so much better! She’s not on an IV and she’s not having too much pain. Then we went and visited Sister Minieri. We shared the new #LightTheWorld video with all of them!

This morning I wripped my pants so today we’re going shopping! Haha we are in Catanzaro so it should be a good day!

Have a great week and remember “Jesus is the reason for the season!”

Love,

Anziano Bellucci