Crotone! Transfer 4, Week 2!

Thanksgiving and Christmas is the best time of the year!

Howdy everybody from the sea side city of Crotone! This week was so good and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great start to the Christmas season!

So on Tuesday we had a pretty good day, we started the morning with the ELders from Consenza, they don't have WiFi in their church and the Zone Leaders wanted to do a Skype Conference with all the District Leaders so they came and used our wifi with my companion who is our District Leader and we spent omost of the morning in a conference. Then we went home and ate lunch together and they headed back to Cosenza! We had a really good English Course that night too, since my companion is Italian they all look at me to ask questions and stuff which is pretty fun. He speaks really well but his grammar is not always on point so he teaches Vocabulary and then I teach Grammar... We make a good team! The Italians really struggle with the words To, too and two, its really confusing how they can all be said the same exact way but mean completely different things. So I spent a long time trying to explain it.

Wednesday we went to Cutro, we took a bus there in the morning to visit a recent convert and his family. He is 17 and a total hoimie, he wants to go on a mission and he hopes to go to America. We are teaching him English and still going over the missionary discussions. SO we took the bus there, it was absolutely beautiful! His Grandma made us lunch and we then had a lesson with him and his little Brother! His little Brother really wants to get baptized too so we are excited to work with him!

Thanksgiving! So turns out Turkey is really expensive in Italy and you have to order it ahead so we decided not to do the traditional turkey and to do Chicken instead! So we wanted to make it like an American Thanksgiving! So we divided up the District and I made Three roasted chickens and a batch of homemade stuffing! The Sorella made mashed potatoes and vegetables and the Elders in Catanzaro made Gravy, brought drinks and made brownies! (Pie crust doesn't really exist in Italy and making it homemade is way too much work!) It turned out really well and we had a lot of fun! My companion was really confused as to why we were so excited about Thanksgiving but it was really a lot of fun and I think he enjoyed it! We all are too much so I think it was a successful Thanksgivings even though we didn't have Turkey! We all went around the table and talked about what we're thankful for and it was a really cool experience to see 6 missionaries, 5 Americans and 1 Italian together halfway around the world 🌎 talking about the things that we're grateful for and it made me grateful for another blessing that the Church brings to us. It teaches us to be truly grateful for the blessings that we have!

We invited our English Course to bring dolce which is just like desserts on Thursday so we could have a little festa for Thanksgiving even though they don't celebrate it and it was a lot of fun!

On Friday we saw the Grande Family, Sister Grande and her daughter Angela. Angela served a mission on Temple Square two years ago and she teaches English now here in Crotone! She's a lot of fun and it was cool to hear her testimony and the love that she has for the temple in Salt Lake and the Church's history there.

Saturday the Church celebrated 50 years in Italy so we had a party with dolce and the church created a video of the history of the Church in Italy and the first members and branches. It was really cool to give the members here in Crotone an extra boost of hope and inspiration so that this Branch can grow and one day be great again!

Sunday is always one of my favorite days! We had a great Sacrament meeting and then I got to teach Sunday school, we talked about the last three chapters in the Book of Moroni and because I'm a missionary I had to emphasize Moroni's promise in Chapter 10: 3-5

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.

I invited them to re-strengthen their testimony by doing two things, making and keeping goals to re-read the Book of Mormon and to trust in Moroni's promise and ask in sincere prayer if the Book of Mormon is

true. This is my invite for you guys as well! If it's been a while since you've picked up the Book of Mormon, blow the dust off it, Heavenly Father is waiting to give you your answers but we have to read! If you read everyday focus on your prayers along with your scripture study. Every time we read it we can learn something 😃

The Sisters have a family that is investigating the Church and they asked if we would come over and give the Mom and the son blessings. The Mom has been having some Health problems and the son has some

really graphic and satanic bad dreams. So we gave those two blessings and ended up giving five other blessings to the rest of the family who all were having some sort of legitimate reason, so seven in total! We explained the sacredness of priesthood blessings and how special they are. The Sisters stayed and had a lesson afterwards and hey called us and said the spirit was so strong in their lesson and the family

really felt the spirit during the lessons.

Last night we went to the Corrado Family's house and decorated their house for Christmas! We helped them put up their Christmas tree and sand Christmas songs which were all in English so I was having so much fun! We hung up lights and don't worry Mom I took some pictures!

So That was my week! We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of success and I can't believe its almost Christmas! I hope you guys have a great week and if you do some Christmas decorating send me some pictures! I would love to see all the Christmas cheer!

I almost forgot! I opened my Moms package for Christmas and got all the Christmas bulbs with all the messages! I hung it up in our apartment and it's the best gift I could have gotten! So thank you all for the messages! Merry Christmas!

Anziano Bellucci

I got Transferred!

New city, new ITALIAN Companion and a lot of changes! But all good things!

So the biggest news is that I got transferred! I am in Crotone which if you think of Italy as a boot it is the ball of your foot, a beautiful city on the coast with a tiny little branch that meets in an apartment building that has been turned into a church!

Ok, so Monday we went to Ruth's house for a Family home evening and we were there when we got the call from President Pickerd to give us our transfer calls. Before Monday I had kind of thought that I would be staying in Cagliari but then as we went throughout the day I kind of thought that I would be leaving... so Anziano Larussa answered the phone and I heard him get his transfer call that he would be staying in Cagliari but he would be training a new missionary which means I knew I would be leaving but I had to wait for President to finish his conversation with my companion and then President told me that I would be headed to Crotone to work with an Italian companion Anziano Redaelli!

The next two days was kind of a blur of taking pictures with people and saying goodbye! I never realized how people could get so attached to the people they served with but I definitely realized when I left Cagliari how much I had grown to love the people! Cagliari is like my home away from home but Crotone is starting to grow on me!

So Thursday was transfer day and a member picked me up at the apartment and took me to the airport, I flew to Rome and then to Lamezia which is the only relatively big airport in Calabria and then I met my new companion there and we took the train across the boot to Crotone! The Branch President picked us up and brought my luggage to our apartment and then we headed straight to English Course. My companion speaks English so well! He has been in the mission for a little over a year and has learned so much! So for language study I help him with English and he helps me with Italian!

So a little about my companion! Anziano Marco Redaelli, his name is incredibly hard to say even for Italians! He is from a small city outside of Milan and has been in the mission for a little over a year. He was a car mechanic before his mission so he loves cars so we talk about them a lot. Dad, I think you two would get along pretty well! Like I said his English is really good! I am helping him work out the difficult grammatical things that we don't really think about and then vocabulary but other than that he is basically fluent! He is 23 and has a girlfriend in Milan and is planning on getting married when he gets home! He is so OCD so we get along super well! We are both very particular about things being clean and orderly and our first day we were at the church and I was fixing the keyboards in the Geneology center because they were crooked and he said "I tell we will be friends" haha so this morning we cleaned the apartment and we was so happy because he has never had a companion that cleans. He also loves America and has more American things than I do. He loves Kool-Aid and Peanut Butter and Reeces and Beef Jerky and Skittles.

The branch in Crotone is piccolissimo, at max there are 10 people in attendance and usually less. There was about 12 people in church on Sunday including the missionaries! Honestly its the missionaries that hold this branch together and I am so excited to help! I replaced Anziano Simonsen and before I got here he was the Branch President and the new Branch President was called last week so he's pretty new! On Sunday I was called as the Sunday School President, my companion was called as the Elders Quorum President and the SIster missionaries were called to the presidencies of the Relief Society and Primary. We are all really excited to get this branch back on its feet! It was a big change to go from a ward of 75 or so to a branch this small.

We have been visiting some members around the city and all it has done is rain. Until today I hadn't seen Crotone in the day light because it has been sooo stormy and miserable. But today it was a lot brighter so I saw quite a bit of the city as we went on a walk in the more ancient part of the city! Its a beautiful little city full of people! Also, we love at the top of a hill which is absolutely beautiful, we can see the ocean from the house and the view is great! The only bad thing is when we go grocery shopping we have to carry everything up this dang hill and my arms were about to fall off. Thats about all I have for you guys! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Anziano Jacob Bellucci

Transfer 3, week 6!

 Holy pizza!

I have never eaten so much pizza in my life, I think I am going to explode. We have eaten Izzo every day this week except for Tuesday at least once if not twice! Its always good but I am kind of tired of pizza...

This week we had lots of appointments with members for dinner (ergo we had pizza everyday) and they were really good! We got a few referrals and are really trying to focus our finding efforts through the Members.

Wednesday and Thursday we did an exchange with Anziano Bourne and Anziano Chugg and it went pretty well. All of our appointments fell through so we did some less active finding for most of Thursday morning. Anziano Chugg is a pretty good missionary, he really likes to work hard but he has way too much energy for me!

Ruth is getting baptized on Saturday!!!!! She did her baptismal interview on Saturday and she is so ready! She told us during her baptismal interview that she was having a rough night the day before and that she was crying. She decided to read from the Book of Mormon and that it would help her with what she was struggling with so she opened it up and she opened to Mosiah 18 which talks about baptism! She bore her testimony to us about how she knew Heavenly Father answers her prayers and how he is so ready to be baptized after investigating the Church for a year and a half. She hasn't chosen who will baptize her yet, she said it will be either Anziano LaRussa or myself but either way we are so excited for her!

This is the last week of the transfer and we get the calls tonight! I really hope to stay here! If I leave I will miss Ruth's baptism and I would love to see it! Plus I love all the members here and I love working with them and being in this city so I hope I am staying! Who knows? Next week I could be in a different city!

I'm sorry this email is kind of short, you all are probably tired of reading my novels every week anyway! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Jacob

Transfer 3, Week 5!

Holy rainy day in Sardegna!

For November it's been so hot here like still in the 70s during the day if not hotter and I am so ready for some cold weather, well today the cold weather came! It's been raining all morning and it's fa freddo as the Italians say! I like it though, it's a little wet but we can make it work!

This week we got stood up for a lot of our lessons this week but we still had some good ones. One of our investigators was telling us about some financial difficulties over the phone and so we were able to teach her the principle of tithing over the phone, we read some scriptures to her and testified to her about the blessings that come from baptism. It made me think about the importance of tithing and the blessings that I have seen from it in my life. It was also really neat to teach a lesson over the phone. We said a prayer and everything. One thing that I have learned in the last few weeks is to not feel awkward about praying in random places. We ask people to pray with us on the street, outside their homes, but it doesn't matter where we are, Heavenly Father hears our prayers!

Another cool thing we did this week was we went to Burcei which is this little tiny city way up in the mountains where you didn't think there was civilization. We got a referral from Mormon.org that had been submitted over a year ago. It said that this guy lived in Burcei and so we decided we would go find him! We drove about an hour up there because his phone didn't work and when we got there we met his twin. His twin said that his Brother wasn't there because he was at work in Cagliari...so we drove all the way up there for nothing... BUT the view was incredible! The road to Burcei is only about 25 km long but it took us the whole hour because it winds through the mountains and it was so pretty and so green. My companion made the comment that all the trees in Italy look like Broccoli and its so true. I didn't take a picture but as we were driving I just kept seeing all these trees that looked like giant broccoli. I took some pictures when we stopped but it doesn't do it justice.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we did an exchange with the Elders that work in Oristano. Anziano Pyper came down and worked with me and we had a lot of fun together! All of the lessons we had planned cancelled on us so we did a lot of finding and just walking around trying to talk to people. We also baked quite a bit... Anziano Pyper likes to cook and we had a ton of apples left over that we didn't use for bobbing for apples 🍎 so we made three pans of apple crisp and I made a batch of Apple sauce, our apartment smelled soooo good and we gave some apple sauce to the Sister Missionaries. Italian desserts are interesting, some of them are very good and others are a little out of my comfort zone or just plain aren't good. Everyone loved the apple crisp, we bought some Ice Cream to eat with it and it was a big hit at Family Home Evening.

On Saturday we had a lesson with Ruth, she is our investigator closest to baptism, she has been meeting with the missionaries for over a year now and she is finally making progress and we are so excited for her! They invited us over to Pranzo and we brought Roberto and Eride, our ward missionaries that are bomb. They are both new converts that love to share the Gospel! We ate pranzo and then they wanted to sing some Karaoke which was really fun. They listen to a lot of American Music so they were singing and we sang some and then we sang "Bisogno ho di te" which is "I Need thee every hour" in Italian to kind of bring the spirit back and let us share the message that we had prepared. Ruth's husband is not ready to be baptized but Ruth really wants to be. So we shared the principles of The Gospel of Jesus Christ with them and then Ruth said to her husband "I am ready to be baptized, and with your blessing I would like to be baptized on the 19th of November." Her husband said he had no problems with her getting baptized so we are super excited! Ruth is getting baptized, she has a baptismal interview on Saturday and for those of you that have been baptized you know that the weeks before your baptism can be some of the hardest days because Satan works at us like no other! So if you all wouldn't mind adding an extra prayer for her we would really appreciate it!

Today was Sorella Tingey's Birthday so we went out to eat Chinese food because its her favorite! We found this really good place that had a buffet and a Mongolian grill thing and it was really good! It reminded me of how much I love Chinese food! Like I said its been raining all day, we're a little soggy but nothing too bad! I have been thinking a lot about what we as Latter-day Saints get out of the Gospel, not in a selfish way but what are some of the blessings that come from knowing that we have the restored Gospel. Ya know its great that its true and all but what do we get out of it. I have a couple thoughts in my mind but I wanted to put it out there as kind of a question for you. What have you seen out of the Gospel that blesses you. What do you think are some of the biggest blessings that come to your life because of your testimony. I really want to hear your thoughts on this! So think about it and get back to me!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and know how much I love you! The Gospel is a great blessing in our lives if we let it change our lives!

Love,

Jacob

P.S. This is the view from the winding road on the way up to Burcei!

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