Ostia Transfer 15 Week 3

The sun is shining! It only rained like three times this week! It’s been such a beautiful week here! We had an awesome week! Even though there’s still no hot water...

We finished off P-Day at the mall after Zone Soccer, we really just used their WiFi and ate some lunch! Then we grabbed the bus... I messed up the bus stop and we watched two buses pass on the other side before I realized it was the wrong directi9n and the next one didn’t come for another 40 minutes so we were really late to the Cevallos’. Grandma Cevallos is still in Ecuador so her husband made us dinner... it was pretty good and I tried something new... Pears with cheese and honey on top, I Know it sounds weird but it was really good! So Alberto isn’t a member but he’s been an investigator for 7 years. We asked him some questions to see what it is that’s holding him back because he comes to church every week and is basically a member but something hasn’t clicked yet! We didn’t really get far, I think he’s just stubborn! Haha 😂 But we were able to share a good message with him and the spirit was for sure there!

Tuesday we had District Meeting and we did it in Ladispoli this time, we were supposed to take a train at 10:23 but the metro to the train station was late so we didn’t get there until 10:25 so we looked for the next one, bought tickets and went to the platform. We were talking on the platform and we heard Ladispoli over the loud speaker and we looked at the train next to us and saw the doors closing only to find out that it was the 10:23 train it was just late! Ugh... so we missed it but we were standing outside of it for like 3 minutes. We had a really good DDM on improving our teaching skills, we did a ton of role plays and everyone seemed to get something out of it so I was pretty stoked. Then we went and got pizza and sat on a stone wall on the beach and ate it. It was really good! We caught the train back to Ostia and did our companionship study and language before a little finding and English Course! 

Wednesday was a cool day, we went exploring in Ostia doing some finding and it was fun. We found some new parks and talked to some really cool people. We also tried to teach Simone again... I don’t think he’s really that interested anymore :( Maybe he’s just busy but he hasn’t read anything or kept a commitment so it might be time to let him chill for a little bit. Wednesday afternoon we did some finding and then went to the other Cevallos’ for dinner! I learned to make the rice like an Ecuadorian! Oh my gosh it’s so stinking good! We also were able to share a pretty good spiritual thought with them. We talked about how we sustain each other as a family and how we need to share our testimonies with one another so that we can lift each other up and protect our families. We read Moroni 50: 1-6 and talked about fortifying our “fortresses” against the world. It was good! Luis, their oldest boy is a stud. He’s 16 and he’s going to be an awesome missionary one day! 

Thursday... it was International Women’s Day! So the Sisters wanted us to go finding with them and ask people about influential women in the Bible. We thought it was a little awkward for Elders so we let them do the women’s Day finding and we just talked to people and it was a really good morning! We talked to this family and they were really nice. We were about to get their phone number and then they saw that our number was on the pamphlet and they said they would call us... :( So we’re still praying that they’ll call us! We did a lightning round of weekly Planning before lunch because we were supposed to do an Exchange with Rome 1 on Friday. Then because the weather was soooo nice we went to the Pier to do finding. We talked to everyone on the pier and we talked to this really nice lady from the Philippines that has lived here for like 30 years and she gave us her number so we hope to make her and her husband new Investigators soon! English Course... 1 person showed up so that was rough but we still had fun. Went and got some French fries afterwards with the Sisters to celebrate Women’s Day! 

Friday our exchange got cancelled because Anziano Youngblood went to Cosenza to pick up his Permesso and they didn’t give it to him so he had to stay over night and didn’t come back until Friday afternoon! So we had already done our lightning round of weekly Planning so we decided to go to this park in EUR Fermi which is closer to the Rome side of our area. There’s a beautiful pond type thing there and there were a lot of families too. It was about 12:15 and we were going to head back because it’s about 30 minutes on a train and we were walking along the top side of the park and there was a tree with these beautiful little pink flowers and I wanted to take a picture of my name tag in the tree. One problem. There was a fence about waist high between me and this tree. So... I looked around and decided the fence is just to keep people out of the water and I wasn’t going to go in the water so I decided it would be fine to jump the fence! So I was just going to step over it and just use my hands to push me over while I brought my other leg over. Then my companion said “Just do it in one swift move!” So I did... and that was the end of the inseam of my pants... it went right through from front to back! Good thing my jacket is pretty long! It was a breezy trip home! The lighting wasn’t too good for the picture either so it was all for nothing! They were my favorite pants too!

Saturday was a really fun day! We did about an hour of finding before catching a bus towards the airport. We got off on Isola Sacra and walked to Brother LaFerla’s house for lunch. The LaFarla’s are Sicilian and so they know how to cook... of my gosh I should have taken a picture! Dang... well they made us Arancini which are probably one of the best heart attack foods you could think of. It’s like a rice ball with a meaty Ragù in the middle and some cheese, then they’re breaded and deep fried. And they’re made in the shape of cones. That’s literally all we are for lunch was those. I ate four of them and I was so full! I felt like I needed to eat some carrot sticks too! They shared a bunch of recipes with us for other things too, I’m pretty just we just talked about food the whole time! Except for the spiritual thought of course!

Then after that he dropped us off at home and Marco picked us up 5 minutes later! Marco is a less-scrive member who has been coming back to Church! He’s a single Dad with a little boy named Simone. We were able to share a thought with him and he really enjoyed it I think! They also came to Church yesterday! 

Speaking of yesterday, a lot of people came to Church! The Chapel was almost full which was awesome, Fasting Testimony Meeting went really well and the spirit was great! 

Anziano Empey and I made “Thanksgiving dinner” yesterday, we had a member give us a huge turkey leg and so we cooked it, shredded it and made turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes and carrots and broccoli. We enjoyed it! Then we worked on the activity, it actually rained all afternoon :( But earlier in the week it was really nice so I can’t complain too much! 

One of my favorite spiritual thoughts that we shared this week was when we talked about repentance being positive. This last General Conference there was a talk this exact principle, in fact it’s called “Repentance is always Positive.” We shared the story about the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon who Covenanted with God to lay down their weapons of war and never go to battle again. I really like this verse it says:

For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren.

What does it mean to fight against God? Well for me I think it’s when we don’t align our will with His. Our will is the only thing that we can really give to Heavenly Father and when we align it with his we stop fighting against him and we work with him. It’s our sins that combat against Heavenly Father but usually they’re just little things that we can improve on. So with this General Conference coming up I want to invite you all to go prepared to learn from the Spirit what it is that you can change to “lay down your weapons of rebellion” and “not fight against God any more.” I know that if you go prepared and willing to change that the spirit will give you something to work on and as you work on it you will come closer and closer to Heavenly Father!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Anziano Bellucci