Ladispoli Transfer 16 Week 3

A trip back to Ostia, working with Anziano Youngblood, tourism season in full swing, hot weather and another amazing week! 

So first I have to tell you all about our tourism experiences today... as we were walking around Rome today we got stopped by 6 different groups of Mormon tourists screaming “We found the Elders!” I seriously felt like Where’s Waldo. There was this one group that was on a guided tour and apparently we stick out like sore thumbs so as we got close to them we realized that there was a group of about 10 people singing “Called to serve Him, Heavenly King of Glory” Which was pretty cool! We met another family outside of the Capital building that texted pictures to our Moms. If the line at the Vatican is any indicator of the amount of tourists there will be in a few weeks we might want to get some passes to skip the line! 

On to the week, it was good, it was exhausting and we loved it! Monday night we got cancelled on by our appointment so we went out finding! It was a beautiful sunny day and we had some good conversations.

Tuesday we headed to District Meeting in Ostia, it was a great meeting and we started our exchange right after that. I got to go back to Ostia and work with Anziano Youngblood again! It was just like old times and we had a super successful exchange, we got three people’s phone numbers and we got to see some less active members that I worked with and even though I saw them like 2 weeks ago they were still super excited to see me which was really nice! Finished off the night with the famous 5€ pizza from Romolo’s on Tuesday night! 

Wednesday we kept going with our scambio (exchange) and we went to a place called Basilica San Paolo to do some finding, it was another beautiful sunny day and we were able to get some good conversations and a number before grabbing some gelato... I’m really gonna miss this place! We had lunch and then switched back and Anziano Huntsman and I finished off the day with some finding! We had planned to meet the Young Adult members to grab another gelato and meet some of their friends but they ditched us so we spent another night chattin’ it up on the streets!

Thursday we had a great lesson with our investigator named Max! It was really cool, he lives out in a city called Manziana, it took us forever to get there but it was beautiful. It overlooks Bracciano Lake which is where we went to that castle a couple weeks ago. Max is short for Massimo, he works for a company that does birthday parties for kids, in fact he came in contact with the Church through doing a Birthday party for one of the members. He has been busy and hasn’t met with the missionaries for a while but he’s been reading the Book of Mormon! He’s read almost all of it and had so many good questions! We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! Wahoo! So he is preparing to be baptized on June 2nd! We went to dinner at Valerio and Anita’s with the Poli family again. It was a little strange because they had some other people over and they made SO MUCH FOOD! This time it was Peruviano though... We went to the Poli’s house and Valerio’s daughter came up (they live in the same building) and said “Are you guys almost ready?” And they exchanged an awkward glance realizing that they had both prepared the table and were expecting the family to come to each other’s houses. They also both made dinner so we put them together and ate it all! We ended up just sharing a spiritual thought that went really well! 

Friday weekly Planning... it was rough because it was so nice outside but we had a lot to plan and it took us all morning :( Then in the afternoon we got to see Mimmo... he’s got a lot going on right now and he doesn’t have a super solid foundation in Christ so we watched some Bible videos and talked about his characteristics and how we can become like Him as well as why we want to become like Him. Then we did a little street mostra where we brought copies of the Book of Mormon in every language and asked people if they had ever heard of Il Libro di Mormon... well it failed terribly but we had a good time anyway! Followed by Gelato... is anyone sensing a theme this week?

Saturday, in the morning we met with the Aiello family, their son turns 8 soon and so we are teaching him the lessons before his baptism. We taught the Plan of Salvation and had him draw it as we went. It went super well and we did some finding. We tried to go to Cerveteri but we waited for the bus for 20 minutes and it never came so we stayed in Ladispoli and did some street contacting. Then in the afternoon we actually got to meet with Valerio and Anita again and had a great lesson with them. We read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon and the spirit was super strong. 

Sunday was great as always, there were some great talks and the Gospel Principles lesson was really good. We had a mini correlation meeting and talked to a lot of members after Church. Anziano Huntsman and I went to the next city up the line on the train and did some house to house, we didn’t get let in but we had a good time! 

Today we walked around the Jewish Ghetto, ate a Jewish pizza (don’t ask me what that is, it’s too hard to explain) saw the Capital Building, Colosseum, Castles, got gelato, ate McDonalds and hung out with Anziano Jensen and Anziano Empey!

This week was sooo good! We worked really hard and I’m really glad for that, we’re loving everyday and enjoying it to the max! Jesus Christ Lives, this is His work and He loves you all!

Have a great week!

Love,

Anziano Bellucci