Transfer 3 Week 4!

Cari Fratelli e Sorelle,

Let me tell y'all about my rollercoaster week... On the bright side this week ended up on an incline but there was definitely some days that were in the dumps!

We decided that we would cancel our Family Home Evening that we do every Monday in the park because Italians are basically the biggest wimps in the world. Its 60-65 degrees outside and they are wearing parkas and scarves and hats and gloves "fa freddo" they say all day... anyway I digress, the FHE was cancelled and we are going to do it on Wednesday nights so we can do it in the church and invite members to come. 

So we decided that would give us an awesome opportunity to go visit less-active families and do a FHE with them! So we planned three to go see, banking on at least one of them cancelling if not two. (I've learned already in the mission to double book yourself and then when you get cancelled on you're not out finding for six hours) Well two of them cancelled and we got a bidone from our investigator. A bidone literally means a dumpster. So when people don't show up and don't call or text or anything we say "We got bidoned" (Bidonayed). So we went to this less-active family to do a FHE and it went really well! They have a son that is about 15 and so we took Roberto with us. He is a Recent Convert of about a year and is in the Young Men's Presidency so it was cool to have him with us! 

So my companion could talk to a wall... he can literally talk to anyone and everyone about anything. So we are doing some tracting, knocking on doors (You don't knock on doors in Italy, you ring citofono things with the little speaker and you have to talk to them through this little phone on the side of the house... it makes it really hard to actually get into people's houses) Anyway this lady actually comes to the door. Her name is Maria and she answers the door and I say "Hi we're the missionaries..." and I asked her if she had 5 minutes to hear a quick message. She said 'I don't have 5 minutes, I don't have thee minutes, I don't have one minute. I just got back from the doctor's and I have a broken rib... blah blah blah. I was like okay, she's not interested, got it. But Anziano LaRussa was like "What happened to your rib?" More than an hour later we had heard her life story, taught her the Restoration and been in her home for much longer than the five minutes that she didn't have! It just goes to show you the power of not giving up! Sometimes you just have to try a little harder! Especially in your missionary efforts. So get out there hit up some cool people to share the Gospel! 

Wednesday and Thursday were days of straight bidone... a little frustrating and I was getting sooo tired! On top of that our homie Nova wasn't calling us back and not even the members were keeping their appointments! Friday made up for that though because we went to the Centro area and found our Break Dancing guys again! They wanted to teach us some moves so we said "Of course, but only if we can share a message about Jesus Christ!" So we went with them to this place with Marble floors and they taught us some cool break dancing moves. I think I'll stick to County Swing Dancing though, it involves being on the ground a lot less and its a partner thing instead of a bunch of other sweaty dudes. Comunque it was fun and we taught them the Restoration! They leave this week for America until December, they have shows allover California and Florida so thats pretty exciting! We have their phone numbers and we'll meet up with them in December when they get back! 

Saturday was the Halloween party so we spent almost all day getting the Church ready and the Casa Stragata (Haunted House) and the games all set to go! We had so many non-members at the activity it was like a play ground for missionary work and it was so much fun. The Young Single Adults were in charge of the Casa Stragata and they killed it, it was sooo good! All of us missionaries helped in a reenactment of the "This is Halloween" Scene from the Nightmare before Christmas. I'll have to get a video from someone else! It was a lot of fun! The missionaries were in charge of games so each companionship did a different activity. We did bobbing fo apples and after we bought the apples and the buckets I realized how disgusting bobbing for apples is. Everyone just keeps drooling in this bucket and then the next person comes in and drools some more. So I spent a lot of time changing out water in the buckets because I was grossed out! Our first competitor was Fratello Sanna, he is one of the coolest guys ever, he was in the Mission Presidency until President Pickerd got here, he loves the missionaries and is just all in all a lot of fun. I said we needed two bravi ragazzi and he was the first one there and so excited! 1,2,3 Vai! Fratello Sanna in his nice shirt and gelled hair plunged his whole head right to the bottom and grabbed the apple subito! It was so funny, water everywhere and everyone was excited to bob for apples! 

There were American's in Church on Sunday! Its so fun to see Americans in Italy... It was two couples that were on this cruise ship that came into Harbor Friday and they were so nice! They are from California and had been recently released as a Senior Couple in the SanFrancisco mission about three months ago and in December will be serving for another six months. I showed them all the cool places they had to go before their cruise ship left and they were so nice. 

The Cincotti Family are so cool, they both served missions Sister Cincotti on Temple Square and Bother Cincotti in Milan and they have two sons. One of them is about to turn eight! Because they are both converts they want their children to have as much of a convert experience as they can. So they asked if we would teach Alessandro the missionary discussions. So we met at the church and shared with him the story of the Restoration complete with pictures, an ice cream truck analogy and a few pieces of chocolate. It was so fun and a really good experience for him! Afterwards Fratello Cincotti said "That was incredible, you had his attention the whole time!" It went really well and afterwards Alessandro said "Is there more lessons, I want them to come back!" So we're really excited for his baptism! 

Remember how I said Nova wasn't responding? Well we were about to give up and we decided we would stop by his house one last time. He answered the door and told us he had been traveling for Field Hockey but was back now and he had left his phone here. He answered the door in his underwear but came out and stood outside with us which was only slightly awkward. We taught him a lesson in his underwear and then asked if we could pray with him, he wanted to hold hands while we prayed so we did! It was interesting but it was good! He's excited for his baptism and so are we! 

Cool little plug for the blog that my sister does! One of the other Elder's investigators they met on the bus so it was a really quick exchange, he decided to check out the church online and the first thing that came up was lds.org and the second thing that came up was my blog! He read it and decided to call them and meet up with them to learn more! Kind of cool! 

This is Jacob's Mormon.org page, referred to in the paragragh above:  Hi I'm Jake!

I don't have any huge invitations for you this week other than to get out there and share your testimony! I hope you have a great week and that you are all enjoying the Fall weather! Its starting to get chillier and chillier here but its still hot during the middle of the day. And there's no fall foliage or trees with pretty leaves so enjoy it in America! I love you all!

Anziano Bellucci

A trip to Rome, a trip to Carbonia, a trip to Oristano and driving in Italy!

Wow this week has been an absolute flash! I'll start with our really cool miracle... The church has a rule about not teaching refugees until they have documents and a place to live because they get transferred and documents get lost and so on and so forth. If you didn't know this Italy has a ton of refugees that live in camps all over the country. So we always talk to Africans and they are some of the nicest people I have met. We can't teach them yet but its always good to talk to them and help them to feel loved. We were in a park the other day and this African man named Nova came and started talking to us. He said "You're the Latter-day missionaries!" And we said "Yes we are!" We got to know him and found out he is here in Italy to play hockey... I was really confused because I didn't think Italians even knew what hockey was... but turns out its field hockey not ice hockey so let down on that part. BUT we kept talking to him trying to see if he was a refugee or not and what his story was. So finally I asked him how he came to Italy and he said "On a plane of course!" He has documents and we can teach him! He is the most humble man ever and so we taught him the Restoration and he was just eating it up. I have never had someone look me in the eyes the whole time we were teaching, he was loving it and paying so much careful attention. We left him with a prayer and met up with him again on Tuesday. (We met him on Sunday) So we met him on Tuesday and asked him what he remembered of the lesson we had taught him. He basically remembered everything, he repeated almost all of it back to us and Anziano LaRussa asked him what his favorite part was. He said "Thats like asking me to pick a favorite limb of my body, it all just makes so much sense, I need all four limbs, each part is vital!" My companion and I were on cloud nine, I invited him to be baptized on the 19th of Novembre and he accepted and is super excited about it! Which makes us super excited about it! 

Wednesday morning I had an appointment at the Immigration office to pick up my permesso do Soggiorno and so at 8 AM we headed over there and waited two plus hours to pick up my little card. It look like a passport card but it makes me legal to be here until June of next year and I will have to apply again! We then had District meeting at the church and ate lunch together and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Rome! They combined two of the wards in Rome so there was a lot of missionaries assigned to one ward and so they took a set of Elders out of the "Rome 6" house which is where we would be staying. So there are no missionaries there so we went to the main station in the heart of Rome and met the Zone Leaders who had the keys to the apartment. Grabbed the keys and I was the only one who had been to this apartment before and it is clear on the other side of Rome so by the grace of God and a simple metro system I was able to lead us there and we made it ok! 

The next morning it was up at 5 AM to make it to the church again on the complete other side of Rome! The conference started at 9 AM and we needed to be there by 8! So we made it in time and it was an amazing experience. All 200 missionaries from the Italy Rome mission gathered in one place and waiting so prepared and ready to be taught by an Apostle. There was a little chatter as we waited and we were all facing the pulpit when President Russell M. Nelson walked in the back door. All 200 missionaries stood in unison and complete silence filled the room. As he made his way to the front of the room he let out a grand "Buongiorno!" To which we all laughed and giggled. When he got to the front one by one we all filed through to shake his hand his wife's hand, President and Sister Hallstrom's hands and President and Sister Keuron's hands. Complete silence. As the last of the missionaries filed through I couldn't take my eyes off President Nelson. I had an incredible realization that I just shook the hand of the man who would be the next Prophet of God. Definitely an experience I will never forget. There is a Sister missionary from Milan serving in Cagliari and she sat behind me. When she sat down she tapped me on the shoulder, she's learning English and doing very well with it but she said "Elder, I think that I will never wash my hand" it was hilarious and her Italian accent made it that much funnier. Then two Anziani got up and sang a duet together of "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" and there wasn't a day eye in the crowd. "The Song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" is definitely a true scripture. I was expecting to be taught about missionary work the whole time, that he would talk to us about what we can do to be better missionaries and how we can improve ourselves. I imagined there would be a plug for getting married ASAP after our missions and that would be it. Well let me tell you was I wrong. 

We heard from all the General Authorities and their wives and then President Nelson stood up and addressed us with another "Buongiorno" with the thick American Accent just as strong as the first time. He then held up a quad which in Mormon Lingo is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. He said "This is a new copy, I got it on May 27th, I decided I would read every word. Two weeks later I had finished all four standard works." This man is 92 years old. He read all four books of canonized scripture in two weeks! I was impressed and so was everyone else. He they began to explain the Abrahamic covenant from start to finish, where it comes from, what it means to us, where the twelve tribes of Israel come from and so on and so forth. President Nelson stood up at the pulpit with no notes, no scriptures marked or anything and he taught us directly from the scriptures reciting one after another. It was a testimony of how smart these men are and how they really hold back in General Conference their knowledge of the Gospel to make it appropriate for everyone. It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much and have been studying so much harder since then! 

Right after the conference we had some time to chat with other missionaries before heading back to the airport to catch our flight back to Cagliari! We went straight to the church to teach English course and went straight home afterwards and crashed, we were all so spiritually, mentally and physically exhausted. 

I got permission to drive from President Pickerd while we were in Rome and so I had to do a little driving test with Brother Sanna, a member here in Cagliari. I told him I was a little nervous, its been 5 months since I've driven and its a different country and everything. He said "Elder, do you know how to drive?" Yes... "Then I'm not worried, lets go for a drive!" And it was perfect from there! Italian drivers are absolutely crazy though. They think they can just put their little Fiats in the smallest of spaces and at the speed of lighting. Tail Gaiting is not a thing, if you can't see the bald spot on the guys head in front of you then you aren't close enough to their car. If you don't want to stop at a stop sign you just beep the horn and keep going. And if you stop at a stop sign and the person behind you doesn't want to then they just go around you. Its crazy. Anyway I passed my test and my companion and I took the car and headed to Carbonia which is about 60 km away to visit a less active. They fed us dinner and we chatted for a little bit. They have a new born baby who turned two months old on Saturday and was so stinking cute. Mission rules are hard to keep sometimes when you just want to pick up the babies and hold 'em! 

They finished building a new church in Oristano and Saturday night they had an open house and a piano concert thing afterwards and they asked to have a set of Sister missionaries and a set of Elders come up to help with the Open house. So we went down with two of the Sisters Sorella Hatfield and Sorella Acerson to help and it was so much fun! They had about 150 people there to see the building and they had rooms with different things being taught in each room and the groups cycled through the rooms. We had to leave early because we had to catch the train back to Cagliari to be home on time and the members were freaking out because we didn't get to eat any of the food so we're running late for the train and waiting for them to put together a plate of food for us and we finally get it and run through the streets with tons of food to get to the train on time. We made with a few minutes to spare and hopped the train back to Cagliari, all in all a successful night! 

All in all it was a beautiful week! It went by so very fast but it was a great week! This morning we hiked Sela del diavalo (Devil's Saddle)with Roberto and Eride Espa who are some awesome members with a couple investigators! It was a lot of fun and some nice time to relax! I'll send some pictures if I remember :)

As always I hope you all have a wonderful week and know that I'm thinking of you! Remember how important the Book of Mormon is and make time to study and read each and every day. The proof of the Gospel is in the Book of Mormon, all we have to do is read it! 

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

Transfer 3 Week 2

BONDI!

What a week! This was mine and Anziano LaRussa's fist week together

and we hit the ground running! It has been a busy and fun week with a

lot of stuff going on including Zone Conference! But as always we

start at the beginning! Tuesday we had a jam packed day planned when

we woke up and by10AM all but one of our appointments had cancelled

and our back up plans had fallen through! We were looking at a bust of

a day but we went to this park and found some kids, showed them how to

throw a football and then let them play with the Football while we

talked to their parents. It was really cool and we ended up getting

some cool investigators.

Wednesday we also had a pile of cancellations but all the other

missionaries were coming in from allover the Island and none of them

know the city. The zone leaders have the car so they hardly ever take

buses and my companion has no idea where he is in Cagliari at any

given moment... So that left me, fortunately I know the city really

well and I helped the missionaries navigate to the church for their

personal interviews with the Mission President and then back to our

apartment. It was a good day and we were all tired when we got home so

I count it as a success!

Thursday we had a great conference and it was so great to see

President and SIster Pickerd again. Our goal as a mission is to have

one baptism per companionship per transfer which is every six weeks so

President brought up all the pictures of the 15 baptisms that happened

in this last transfer and had everyone that had a part in the

conversion of each person raise their hand and tell the story. Out of

the 15 I think 9 of them had come in contact with one of the 16

missionaries here in Sardegna. It was really cool to see how much of a

team effort this is. We all work together and we never know how much

of an impact we have on people. We might be planting seeds for someone

else to harvest, we might be harvesting seeds that someone else has

planted.

This weekend was a blur, somehow we are at Monday already! We had a

really cool experience Friday and Saturday. I was talking to a less

active member on the phone and she told me her husband was in the

hospital and that's why she hadn't been in church because his health

has been up and down. Her husband is not a member but she has a

Granddaughter on a mission in Temple Square and another on a mission

in Madagascar. I felt an impression to ask her if her husband would

like a priesthood blessing. I ignored it because I didn't think he

would accept it but the prompting came again and so I asked her and

she said "Hold on let me ask him" I heard her ask him and I heard him

say yes. We went the next morning and gave him a blessing, it was a

very cool experience for me and for him. There is so much power in

priesthood blessings and I am so glad to have a knowledge of their

power and for the restoration of the priesthood.

We are preparing for our trip to Rome on Wednesday and we are so

excited! It will be a really neat experience to meet President Nelson,

President Hallstom and Bishop Causse and to hear their wisdom! The

conference is scheduled to be only two hours long so it will be a

spiritual whirlwind for sure! I cant wait to tell you all about it!

Have a great week and I want to invite you all to think about how we

can receive strength through the Savior's atonement. This life is not

easy and sometimes it can be down right difficult but as Elder Nelson

said this past conference this life is about finding joy. I know if we

look to the savior's atonement we will find the joy that is meant for

us in this life. your Italian word for this week is espiazione high is

Atonement. Its a good missionary word!

Keep on keeping no and loving this beautiful life!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

Transfer 3 Week 1

Boun Giorno tutti!

Hey everybody, it's me again! Weird it's been a week already! It feels

like so much has happened this week that last Monday feels like an

eternity ago... But it also feels like yesterday!

Monday was torture as we were waiting for our transfer calls, they can

come anywhere between 8 PM and 10:30 PM because they have to call all

over the mission obviously. So President called the Zone Leaders at

around 8 and told them all the transfer calls for the zone but they're

not allowed to tell us we have to wait for a call from either the

President or the Assistants to the President. So they started freaking

out and telling us how excited we should be and then we waited. And we

waited. And the more we waited the more anxiety I had... Anziano

Segura and I were freaking out and the Zone Leaders told me that my

transfer call surprised them the most! 10:30 comes and we still

haven't received a call... So I texted the assistants "Did you forget

about us?" They call us right away and say that President Pickerd was

supposed to call us but he must have skipped it and he said "Are you

ready for your transfer call Anziano Bellucci?" Yes I'm so ready!

"You're staying in Cagliari and Anziano Larussa will be your new

companion!" So... I already knew my companion! Anziano Larussa is our

District leader and has been in Oristano for the past 12 weeks which

is the city right next to ours. I had already worked with him a little

and he's super cool! Y'all are never going to guess where he's from...

Drum roll!!!!! New York! I never in a million years would have thought

I would get a companion from New York!

Little mini Biography on Anziano Larussa... First of all Mom his name

is Greg so you can stalk him on Facebook but he said all the photos

that it will let you see are from a long time ago so don't judge too

harshly ;) He is a convert to the church of five years so he was

baptized when he was 15 and his family members aren't members of the

church except his Mom. He's a few months older than I am and he has

been on his mission for exactly a year and a half. He was a wrestler

all through High School and apparently was pretty good... He went to

BYU for a year before coming on a mission which means that all three

people that I live with went to BYU. But that's ok, we can all repent

;) He served almost all of his mission so far in Sicilia and he speaks

so well! I'm excited to learn from him!

So Tuesday I helped Anziano Segura get packed and we had District

Meeting so I saw my new companion and then he went back to Oristano to

pack. We helped all the other missionaries come in that we're flying

off the island Wednesday, we had some appointments and met up with

some members so Anziano Segura could say goodbye! I wasn't even the

one leaving but it was really hard to watch him say goodbye!

Wednesday we brought Anziano Segura to the airport, took some pictures

and he was off to Rome, his transfer call is to Terni to be the Zone

Leader. Terni is the Northernmost zone in the mission so he's going to

have a chilly winter! I then got to be companions with Anziano Bentley

who was down here waiting for his companion to fly in. He is going to

be training this transfer so he's a little scared but mostly excited!

He's a really cool guy from Alpine UT and he's only in his 6th

transfer so he's pretty young in the mission to be training! We went

allover the city and I realized how well I know it. Most of the time I

just followed Anziano Segura but I learned the city really well. My

companion came in from Oristano on Tuesday because his companion was

flying to Sicily. We spent most of Thursday sitting in the Cagliari

airport waiting for the new Zone Leader to get here... Through missed

flights, delayed planes and lost travel plans he finally made it

Friday morning! His name is Anziano Bourne, amd so far he seems pretty

cool! I don't know if I ever said this but we live in a 4 man house so

the Zone Leaders live with us so I'm sure I'll get to know him better

over the next six weeks!

We spent the last two days doing so much work, Anziano LaRussa and I

have been hitting the streets and talking to everyone! Friday we went

to Carbonia which is about an hour train ride away to teach a man that

runs this tai chi gym... It was really cool but really far away. The

coolest thing that happened was we walked out of the train station in

Carbonia and we just see these mountains in the background and both of

us felt like we were in Utah. It was nice to get a taste of my home

away from home!

Saturday I learned a lot about my companion... Turns out wrestling

taught him a lot about Gymnastics! We decided to do a Gesso in the

Centro area with the Sister Missionaries. We decided on English Course

Publicity but there were so many street performers it was easier to

just walk around talking to people than actually setting up a sheet

and having people walk by. So we had about 100 pass along cards each

and we just went to town. Well we had been there about a half an hour

and this guy in a full Spider-Man outfit starts playing music and

crouches down like Spider-Man. He then proceeds to do some gymnastics

moves, he did some hand stands and round offs and I look next to me

and my companion is gone. I look around and he's climbing up this

fence and I thought "what is he... Oh oh he's doing a..." And he did a

back flip off the fence! Well that got a crowd around and it turned

into a little competition between my companion and Spider-Man they

started doing backflips and hand springs and it was really cool! And I

was walking around giving out English course cards saying that I teach

an English course with the guy that's doing backflips... It was really

funny and I got some good videos!

We walked a little bit further down and there was another group of

street performers that were doing Break-Dancing and they had a little

mat set up and LaRussa went up to the, and started talking to them...

Turns out he does break dancing too! So Anziano Larussa was their

opening act he started dancing and got a huge crowd for their show.

Then they did like a five minute show and they were so good! We

learned afterwards that they travel allover the world doing shows but

that they are based out of Sardegna. Their whole show was set to a

violin song that Lindsey Sterling does and I told them after that she

is Mormon. They were astounded and I'm pretty sure they didn't believe

me but they said they were going to be touring parts of England and

needed to learn some English so hopefully they will come, maybe we'll

just have them dance for us instead of learn English!

Yesterday we had six appointments scheduled some with members and some

with investigators and all of them bidoned us. A bidone literally

means trash or dumpster but it's what we use when people cancel on

us... So it turned out to be a little less productive than we had

hoped. I did have a really cool experience at church though! There

were 13 people visiting from Switzerland and everyone in Switzerland

learns English in school from like 4 years old so we translated the

Sacrament meeting for them. We use these radio like things and they

have headphones and then the missionaries that translate have a little

microphone and I translated about ten minutes of the Fasting Testimony

Meeting for them! It was so fun but also a little scary! Definitely

the Gift of Tongues working there but it was a lot of fun!

This is a very long letter and I don't have a specific invite for you

all this week but I want to let you all know how much I love this

Gospel and how grateful I am to be able to serve this mission. I see

miracles everyday, I have the opportunity to learn from so many great

people and I meet so many incredible people all the time. Remember the

invites from the past couple weeks as well... To watch General

Comference (All of it! If you've seen it all once go through and start

round two by reading the talks!) tone a missionary and invite people.

Living in Utah is not an excuse... There are plenty of inactive

members in Utah!

Anyway, the church is true, the book is blue, and I love you!

Anziano Jake Bellucci

Cagliari Transfer 2 Week 7

So I couldn't pick a title for this email... My three options are as follows!

1. Conference is like Christmas for missionaries!

2. We're going back to Rome for a conference with a Member of the 12 Apostles

3. Let's go to the Beach, each let's go get away!

So that's my week! Haha it's been a really busy week and this is my

last three days with Anziano Segura! We're avoiding talking about

it... Haha but it's ok because change is good! I'll find out tonight

who my companion will be and I'm pretty excited! It's official though,

I will be staying here in Cagliari for at least another six weeks!

We had some great lessons and found some new investigators! We found

this guy named Andrea who works at this store that his Dad owns. Half

of what they sell is segways like those ones that they have allover

college campuses and they're so cool! Anyway he told us that they're

like 900€ which is about $1,000 so we decided President wouldn't

approve that expense and decided on teaching him the restoration

instead of buying a Segway. Their store wasn't open so we went in and

started teaching the restoration in the middle of the store and then

his Dad came in and so we went to the back supply room and finished

the lesson! It was a really cool lesson and I have been taking the

lead in our lessons so it's been a little more stressful!

We had our activity on Thursday night and it was soooo successful! So

we organized it around the movie Meet the Mormons with little segments

and made it an airplane ride. Our invitations looked like boarding

passes and we also dressed up like flight attendants and had some

members be the pilot and co-pilot. We set up the chairs like an

airplane that traveled allover the world watching the different

segments. Between each segments we divided the groups into stations

where one group learned about prophets and was invited to General

Conference and the other group learned about temples and Family

History. We had about 50 people show up to the activity and it was a

huge hit! The last segment in the movie is about a missionary that

leaves on his mission and it shows leading up to it and packing and

driving to the airport... Made me cry haha but it was a good cry! I'm

so glad to be here!

Friday we got a call from the Santoli family, they are a member couple

in their 70's and they invited us to Lunch at their house on Saturday.

It was a great meal and they asked us to set up their computer so they

could watch General Conference. They got out their laptop and I got it

right to the website that counts down the time so right as the stream

started it would begin! She was so happy and then said, "Anziani, my

email hasn't been working since January... Think you could try to fix

it?" So we got her password reset and everything and her outlook

popped up and she had 1,066 unread emails! Again she was so happy and

she pulled out her phone and said "I'd like to get all my pictures on

my computer so I can see them better!" So she got us the cord and I

uploaded 6,000 pictures most of which were screenshotted recipes from

Facebook that she wants to make onto her computer. I'm only explaining

this because it reminds me of my technically challenged Roxy who I

always help with her tech troubles! I thought of Roxy and Mom the

whole time! She also shared her conversion story with us which was

absolutely beautiful. Her husband was baptized in I think 1966 and she

wasn't baptized until 14 years later. She went to church with him

every Sunday and even had a calling in the Family History Center but

she was Catholic and would go to Mass every Sunday after attending The

LDS church with her Husband and kids. She slowly gained a testimony

and was baptized like I said 14 years later.and one year after that

they were sealed in the Frankfurt Germany temple. She still tears up

telling the story!

Conference is always great but I feel like it's even better when

you're on your mission. It's 8 hours delayed from Utah time so the

morning sessions start at 6 p,m. and we got to watch that on Saturday

from 6-8 and then they space it out so its played in the chapels over

Sunday. We watched the Priesthood session on Sunday morning at 11.

Secondo me, the Priesthood session was the best, we heard from Elder

Holland, and all three of the members of the First Presidency. It was

an incredible session and I really enjoyed Elder Holland's talk about

Home Teaching and the effect we can have on the other members around

us when we faithfully serve as Home Teachers AND we allow our Home

Teachers to come and fulfill their home teaching responsibilities.

There are still some sessions that we haven't watched yet but it was

an incredible conference! If you watched it what were your favorite

parts? Who spoke to you the most and did you get your questions

answered? I hope so! I would love to hear your insights!

After the Priesthood session Fratello Caravagna made all the

missionaries Pranzo but we didn't know about that and had an

appointment for Pranzo at 2 with the Cabras family. Italians take it

really personally if you don't eat their food so we ate Pranzo with

them rice and pesto pasta and breaded pork chops and French fries and

went right to our appointment to eat again! We started with minestrone

soup that had chick peas in it... It was pretty good but I was full

already! Then they brought out a whole pig again! It was so good and

then salad and fruit and gelato. Then we watched a session of

conference with them but it was in Italian so I was nodding in and

out. I'll have to watch that one again! Then they made us Seadas again

which are those things with the lemon cheese inside and they're fried.

I was going to explode. We had told this investigator couple of ours

that Anziano Segura would be leaving this week so they wanted to have

us over for dinner. Of all days I wasn't sure I could even look at

food. Ruth is Philippino so she always makes something a little less

Italian. We had ham fried rice to start with and then fried chicken

and mashed potatoes. It was real different that what we've been eating

lately but it was so good! Again feelings of explosion. But we

survived!

In the middle of all this we found out that we are having another

mission conference on the 20th of October! Mission conferences do not

happen very often in this mission mostly because of the size, in fact

the last one before the one we had two weeks ago was in March of 2015!

At the end of the conference a few weeks ago President Keuron said

"You have all prepared yourself spiritually for this conference and I

can tell that you were all ready to come here and be taught. But if a

member of the Quorum of the twelve apostles comes I want to ask you to

double your preparation." It turns out he said that for a reason! On

October 20th President Russell M. Nelson, of the Quorum of the Twelve,

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, of the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop

Gerald Causse, Presiding Bishop, and Elder Patrick Kearon, Europe Area

President will be in Rome for our Mission Conference! We are all so

excited! We will have the President of our Mission, the President of

the Geographical area, the Presiding Bishop, the President of the 70

AND the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! That is the

President of every organizational level of the Church starting with

mission President all the way up to the Quorum of the twelve! How cool

is that??? Can you tell we are excited? We only have three weeks to

prepare so it's a little stressful but it will be a once in a lifetime

experience!

Today has been a great P-Day! We started by getting ready really fast

this morning and driving to the church for personal and companion

study because we wanted to watch General Conference! Then as soon as

it was over we went home, went grocery shopping really quick and

headed to the beach with the sister missionaries! Poetto is world

famous and it is absolutely beautiful but we aren't allowed to go to

the beach from April to October, but it's finally October! So we still

aren't allowed to swim but we walked on the beach with our feet in the

water and it was amazing! The water was nice and warm and I have to

admit it puts those Florida beaches to shame! We had a picnic and

played some Football and tried to fly a kite but today was literally

the only day without wind so that failed! I got a little sun on my

face and more than anything it was really nice to relax on the beach!

Now it's obviously email time since I am writing this and we will be

headed to Family Home Evening in a little bit! I will have updates on

my new companion for you all next week! Stay tuned! I hope you have

all had a wonderful day and an incredible conference weekend and I

want you all to know that I love ya! I want to invite you all to look

for miracles in your lives, I promise if you look for them you will

find them. They are all around you, God is in the details and he loves

you!

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

Cagliari Transfer 2, Week 6!

Ciao raggazzi!

Hey ya'll it's your Italian missionary here! It's been another pretty

great week here in Cagliari and I'm a little sad that I will most

likely be losing my companion next week :( Transfer calls are next

week and so we are both super bummed! But I am also super excited to

be getting a new companion! I hope we get along as well as Anziano

Segura and I have!

One of the things that we did this week that I really enjoyed was on

Wednesday night. We set up a movie night with the youth and the young

single adults and some of our investigators to watch the movie "17

Miracles" and we bought popcorn and Aranciata (Fantaish) and the

sisters made banana bread and we had about 20 people come! It was

really cool!

For those of you who do not know the movie is about a handcart company

that traveled to Salt Lake City from Nauvoo in the 1800's. They were

being persecuted in the East and needed to escape and had to do so in

the Winter. They fought many hardships and many many people died, but

they recognized 17 incredible miracles that showed they were doing the

right thing in following the direction of the Prophet. These people

suffered so many hardships, many froze to death, others starved and

others got sick and suffered for weeks before passing away. But it was

their knowledge of the Plan of Salvation that helped them to persevere

and make their way to the Salt Lake Valley. It was also their faith

that helped them to know that their families would be blessed for

doing what the Lord had asked. This was a really good time for

reflection for me on the amount of faith that I have. The decision to

serve a mission was obviously not easy. However, I have plenty of

food, health care, and as I write this email on an iPad I understand

how blessed we are to be missionaries now and not pioneers 150 years

ago. Our faith can be measured by our action. So my invitation to you

all this week whether you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints or not is to reflect on your own faith and see

how much faith you really have! Maybe you will surprise yourself,

maybe you will find some room for improvement! Then take that faith

and put it into action. Ask the missionaries for a copy of the Book of

Mormon and write your testimony in it and prayerfully choose someone

to give it to. If you aren't a member of the church but would like to

learn more talk to my family and get a Book of Mormon from them and

read it! If you haven't read your own copy of the Book of Mormon in a

while pull it out and blow the dust off and search for some answers

and remember the promise in Moroni 10:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if

it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember

how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the

creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these

things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye

would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these

things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with

real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it

unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

God will answer! He always does, not in our own time but in his! So

there's my little plug for missionary work! Just as I'm out here in

Italy there are missionaries in every one of your hometowns looking

for people to invite unto Christ, give them a hand! 😃😃😃

On Thursday morning we went to this park and we saw this cave so we

thought we would check it out. Turns out they had turned it into a

museum. The cave was man made and housed many people during the Second

World War. Like I said it is now a museum and art gallery. It's free

and open to the public and we talked to the lady that was working

there and she was super nice. She said she was atheist which most

people I have noticed here don't really understand. They say atheist

when they mean agnostic... So after she said she was atheist I said

"So you don't believe in God?" And she said "Well of course I believe

in God I just don't believe in any one Church." AKA Agnostic... But

she was really nice and said that she would love to attend our English

Course!

Saturday we spent the morning baking... Well I baked and my companion

made phone calls. We have been going through our area book and calling

people who have been interested in the past and so he made a lot of

phone calls while I made banana bread and homemade brownies! They both

turned out really well and we brought them to our investigators and

the families that we home teach! They were all so impressed that we

could cook haha apparently the young kids in Italy aren't interested

in cooling especially the guys (Ragazzi) we had some really nice

visits especially with our less active families that we home teach!

Sunday is always a wonderful day! Sorella Cabras actually called us on

Saturday and said that the Ravioli we had last time was store

bought... I wasn't even mad because they were soooo good anyway! But

they had spent Saturday evening making homemade pasta and homemade

ravioli for us! Some of them with just normal ricotta cheese filling

and others had spinach in them! They were so amazing and they had

lemon in the filling which was really different but definitely a

positive thing! So I was excited for Pranzo all the way through

Church.

We had a really good Gospel Principles class on the role of members in

the Family. It was really interesting to liken our parents to our

Heavenly Parents and see how we as both Children of God and Children

of our wonderful parents should act in accordance with the Gospel. It

was also interesting to discuss how one day we will be parents and

should do so in harmony with the Gospel. It was a great day full of

the spirit. None of our investigators came to church after all of them

promised us they would but there's always next week right!

Today has been a really great P'Day! We were supposed to go hike this

trail called Devil's saddle but we took the wrong bus and ended up on

the other side of the peninsula. So instead we explored the ruins of a

bunch of old castles and bunkers and had a picnic with all the other

missionaries! It was really fun and the whole time we played the games

like "If Anziano Bellucci was a car what car would he be?" we decided

on the Porsche Cayenne... Which I am totally okay with! Parents if you

want to get me a car when I come home there's my top pick! Now it's

email time and we are chilling at the church and talking to our

families! Hope you all have had a wonderful week!

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

P.S. There's still the blog that Jill is doing and you can always send

me an email or a voice recording and I can look at them throughout the

week!

Cagliari Transfer 2 Week 5

What an incredible and spiritually exhausting week! The week went by
even faster than usual with an amazing trip to Rome from Wednesday to
Thursday! But before we get to that we had a really interesting lesson
on Tuesday!

We have an investigator that is struggling to keep some of the
commandments but he really wants to be baptized! He said "I want to be
baptized in the way that Jesus Christ was baptized" So we have been
working with him and he came to us and said that he had been
thinking... He said "There are other churches that will baptize you
without keeping these commandments so I was thinking maybe I could go
get baptized by them and then continue to study the Book of Mormon
with you and when I am ready to obey the commandments I will be
baptized in this church with the real authority. I would prefer to be
baptized here because I know this is the real church but I really want
to be baptized." It was a really cool experience as my companion and I
testified of 1: the authority that John the Baptist was given to
baptize Jesus Christ and 2: how keeping the commandments before
baptism is for our benefit. If we enter into that promise of baptism
without obeying the commandments we aren't holding up our end of the
deal. The promise is broken before it's even made! It's really
interesting, I have never desired something so much. More than
anything I look at my investigators and all I want while I look at
the, is for them to act in faith. I don't want them to be baptized, I
want them to have the same knowledge that I have of this Gospel and
that will lead them to want to be baptized. Everyone always says "You
will learn to love the people of your mission" I am starting to
understand that more and more everyday. I love the people of Italy!

That being said there is a stigma for European missions... Most
everyone I talked to about where I would be serving my mission said
"Well you'll plant a lot of seeds, but don't expect to baptize much"
or something to that effect. Which basically means no one is going to
accept the Gospel, you'll just be planting seeds for people to harvest
later. I wanted to share with you all that our mission last transfer
which is 6 weeks long had 16 baptisms! We are a European Mission and
we baptize! We are in the heart of Catholicism and we baptize! So I
want you to take two things from this... 1. Don't ever tell someone
that is going on a mission that they will not baptize or that they're
mission will be harder or easier than others. 2. In any given city at
any given time there are at least five people ready to receive the
Gospel and the invitation to be baptized. We just have to go out and
find them!

Public Transportation is useful but it's kind of annoying sometimes...
We took a bus, a train, a plane, another train, a subway and another
bus as well as walked about a kilometer to get to the Rome 6
missionaries apartment on Wednesday night! We left our house at about
3 PM and got to their apartment at about 10:30 PM and we were all
exhausted! Up and out of the house at 7 AM to head to the church where
the conference would be held. There were about 150 missionaries coming
in from allover the Southern half of the country. The day before they
had done a conference with the Sicily missionaries but the rest of the
mission was gathering in Rome! With 150 missionaries using public
transportation to the same place to be spiritual edifices Satan is
bound to try to mess things up! We made it to the conference just fine
but they shut the metro down at about 8:30... Leaving about 30
missionaries stranded in Rome without transportation in the pouring
rain. A few buses and some missionaries being shuttled in the mission
van later and all the missionaries arrived safely, some a little
soggier than others!

The conference itself was amazing! As always we were told to prepare
ourselves spiritually and bring questions that we want to be answered
by the spirit. President Keuron is the President of the Europe area,
he presides over the churches affairs in all of Europe and he is an
amazing man. A convert himself he loves missionary work! He was
baptized at the age of 26 and has been an incredible leader in the
church since then. The spirit was so strong in that meeting, all my
questions were answered in a matter of minutes when he began speaking.
He brought up three major points that I would like to share with you
because I think they can apply to all of us. The first is:

"Stop worrying, just work hard!" He said we see more and more
missionaries going home for anxiety and stress than almost anything
else. We don't have to know everything, we just have to work hard and
the Lord will provide. I think it's very similar in life, obviously we
have responsibilities that we have to worry about but most importantly
if we work hard, do what we are supposed to and are obedient, Jesus
Christ makes up the rest!

The second is to "Be the message!" Do people know immediately that you
are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? He
demonstrated this with a role play where he had two sister
missionaries approach him without smiling, without being excited and
it was not obvious that this message had changed heir lives so why
would he want to listen to it??? He then had them do it again with
smiles and excitement and a convincing message that we know this is
the true church! We need to be the message all the time whether we are
missionaries or not. People need to see the light of Christ in our
lives!

The third thing was to find strength in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love each one of us, without a
doubt. When things get hard or difficult that is when we need to reach
out and lean on them.

So the conference was incredible and we're all on a little bit of a
spiritual high! We flew out Thursday night and our flight was delayed
so we didn't end up getting home until about 11... So tired.
Spiritually exhausted and physically exhausted from traveling!

Pretty low key weekend as we got back into the normal groove of things
and prepared for Sunday. We had a great Sacrament meeting and Gospel
Principles class and I even had enough energy to pay attention during
priesthood... I'm understanding more and more everyday and I'm
noticing that I have to think about it less and less as I listen to
people speak.

As always I hope you all have an incredible week! I can't wait to hear
all about it! Also I'm sending the pictures of when I went to the
Colosseum when I first got here! They will be on the photo stream so
Jill should have them up on the blog soon!

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci