Cosenza Transfer 13 Week 2

A little bit of rejection, a lot of Christmas spirit, and a good amount of Christmas Cheer!

It’s been a really good week and we have worked really hard... unfortunately we haven’t been super fruitful but I’m hoping it’s because Heavenly Father is waiting to give us a break through this next week! 

Monday night we had a Family Home Evening with some single members in the Church and we talked about General Conference and we ended up on the topic of unity. “If you are not one you are not mine” and that theme has carried through the rest of the week. 

Tuesday we got up and headed for Catanzaro for District Meeting and we had a really good meeting. Anziano Ruiz and I did the training and we talked about goals. We had each companionship take 5 minutes in another room to set goals for December, specifically how many new Investigators they wanted to find in the month of December. Then we came back and made a District goal and the spirit was so strong and everyone felt super inspired to push ourselves and make it happen. Then we had lunch together before heading our separate ways! I sat next to the Heymans, the senior couple in Crotone and we had a great time! Anziano Ruiz and I came back and hit the streets before heading to English Course and then some more street contacting afterwards! 

Wednesday was basically the same thing except we woke up at 5:45 because we went to the District Meeting in Taranto to give the same training. It was an even bigger success there! President called us in the middle of the training and we stepped out and when we came back they were talking about how they wanted to make companionship goals and a District goal! They were on top of it! We got some pizza afterwards and it was actually pretty good! It was my first pizza since leaving Napoli so I was a little nervous! Napoli pizza is soooooooo good! Hitting the road back home and finding pretty hard in the evening! Then we got to meet with Francesco, he’s really cool. We wanted to help him understand the idea of the Apostasy and the importance of it but he is really content with his faith. He doesn’t see the need for a Restoration because he doesn’t think the Apostasy happened... we haven’t given up though! It was a really good lesson though and it strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon, if the Book of Mormon is true then that means the Apostasy really did happen, that Joseph Smith really was called as a prophet and that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ! 

Thursday was a lot of Christmas! But first we went to the University, we usually try to do English Course publicity there but we decided to do a more direct approach with Gospel finding. It was actually kind of sad... I would say 1 out of every 10 people we talked to said they believed in God, and not a single one of them said they went to Church or actively loved their religion. We had some really good conversations but the younger generation has just seen so many mistakes or errors in their Church that they just don’t believe in God at all. It also makes them not want to learn about anything else. Anyway after a few hours at the University we headed to Sister Spadafora‘s to eat some lunch and then we helped her decorate for Christmas! She is a widow and last year she didn’t even set up the Christmas tree but she really wanted to this year so we went up to the attic and got down a million decorations and we had so much fun decorating and listening to Christmas music! I took quite a few pictures! Then we read Luke Chapter 2:1-20, the story of the Nativity to remember the true reason for Christmas. It was really nice and it made her day!

Friday we did weekly Planning and I was about to throw some chicken in the oven for lunch when the phone rang and the Lopez family invited us over for lunch and the real reason is they aren’t tall enough to hang up their Christmas lights so we got to help with that too! It was good to see them, they have two foster daughters and they invited the daughters brother over for the holidays because he lives in a group home/institution. They all seemed really happy which was great. We grabbed an Orzo (coffee substitute) with Francesco and talked a little bit about the Book of Mormon. And then finding, finding, finding! 

Saturday morning I made brownies to give to the people that live in our building and then Francesco called us and asked if we wanted to go and play tennis with him. 🎾 Well yeah we do! It was a lot of fun, none of us are very good but we all had a good time for sure! It’s a good work out too, I was thinking I might like it when I get home! We went over to his house for lunch and we helped him practice his English. He is 40 years old, not married, he’s a pediatrician, he speaks English and Spanish and obviously Italian... we’re going to try to find him a wife! Haha We went home to study Italian and Sister Spadafora called us to give her a blessing, poor thing the fell backwards and smacked her head. She doesn’t know how to sit on the couch and watch a Hallmark movie though. Instead she was making homemade doughnuts for us when we showed up. She’s a saint! We passed by Emilio on Saturday night and the New Movement Lady was there again, I think she does her shopping on Saturday nights! She was super nice though, she actually started talking to us about the Church and it turns out we have very similar beliefs and she said she was going to come to our Church sometime! Then she said she would have us over for lunch sometime! Super nice... 

Sunday :) Anziano Ruiz gave a talk in Church and he did a good job! There were almost 30 people in Church which makes us the biggest sacrament meeting attendance in Calabria by like 20 people! We had a good lesson with one of the New Converts. He hasn’t been reading the Book of Mormon! He committed so I hope he does it! After Church I made some bomb barbecue chicken with mashed potatoes and carrots and Anziano Ruiz was loving it. It was pretty good if I do say so myself! He likes to cook so he helped me a lot! Then we decided to try out Rende for some finding, it’s the neighboring city and we found this park with Christmas music but it was kind of a ghost town so we headed Back to Cosenza. So there is this huge street called Corso Mazzini and it’s not a street you can drive on it’s all foot traffic and it’s just lined with shops. Literally everyone goes there, there’s no exaggeration thousands of people on that street every night. Which sounds great for missionaries but it’s actually kind of impossible to talk to people so we hit up the side streets last night and it was super good, we had some awesome conversations! 

Overall it was a good week! We got a lot of rejection, met a lot of rude people but it’s not their fault, they’re just not ready for the Gospel yet. In this Christmas season keep your hearts open and share the Gospel. Keep the missionaries in your areas busy by sharing the Gospel with your friends and family. Christmas is a time of miracles and Heavenly Father could use you to make those miracles happen!

Merry Christmas! 

Anziano Jacob Bellucci