Whoop whoop guess who's officially been living in Italy for a month?! Yup, this awkward American blonde girl hehe. I'll be honest, there haven't been too many crazy things this week, but a lot of learning
and I tell ya, I'm very much different than I was last Wednesday! Andwhat more can you ask for?
I'll go out of order and start with today, and then talk about what happened this week, cuz why not haha😬 For pday today, S. Smith and I went to the beautiful Palazzo Reale today, and it was beyond gorgeous.
I didn't just feel like a Disney princess- I WAS ONE! Woo hoo! Totally beautiful with staircases and art and thrones and even an armory! The gardens and the ballroom were by far my favs! Only not good thing
today was that I totes accidentally touched one of the horses set up in the armory, only to find out 10 minutes later that the horses were taxedermied (idk if that's a real word sorry not sorry). Yup, I legit
touched a stitched-up horse corpse with fake eyes and lived to tell the tale... Ew. On that lovely note, let's review what happened last week, shall we?
Thursday actually was kinda a crazy day (at least for my stomach lol). Let me preface this story by explaining how much I loathe vegetables. I love spinach and other leaf things, but anything else, I have to
kinda force down. I know I know, vegetables are healthy and important. I donut care lol. Ok, so we had an appointment with a less-active in our ward. We finished and were about to leave (I was excited cuz we
were gonna have pizza for lunch😛) when her nonmember friend showed up, so they invited us to stay for lunch. Great. Lol obvi I was totally stoked that we got to talk with this nonmember lady, but there
was def a small part of me that was bummed I didn't get my pizza lolol I know I'm awful😂 lunch was tomatoes, bread, salad, a huge bowl of rice, and cake. Tons of food. Then that night, we got invited over by
a lady in our ward whose son isn't a member. And she wanted us to stay for dinner. Ok, Italian dinner = a freaking ton of food. So normally if we know beforehand that we have a meal appointment, I eat hardly
anything during the day. Whelp, we didn't get that prep, plus we'd had an Italian-sized lunch... I basically died. Our dinner consisted of abowl of pasta (delicious but huge!), a bowl of sliced zucchini,
a bowl of sliced peppers, a bowl of peas, bread, pork, salad, and a bowl of strawberries. Luckily at one point when it was just the two of us, my comp scooped my peas into her bowl. What a saint. Remember how I said
I don't like vegetables? Yeah same. Needless to say, my comp and I had to pretty much roll ourselves home that night.
Friday, we spent most our day at the church. The Torino Sorelle had a baptism, and our church has the font. However, the font takes hours to fill up, hence why we were at the church. Around then, it was time to
have English class. However, the water for the font was coming in cold! So S. Smith and A. Yee boiled pots of water in the kitchen while A. Rogers and I taught English class. Funny story- we were teaching
about animals, and Ada starts asking what the English word is for this one type of animal. Neither Rogers nor I recognized the word, so we had her describe the animal to us in Italian. Her only description was
that it ate everything. Rogers and I look at each other, like what even is this animal? Probs some dinosaur or something lol! Finally we looked up the word. Any guesses on what it was? Yup, a hamster, duh!
Still kinda confused on that one (idk man maybe hamsters are different here than in america?😂) The baptism went well though and Ada stayed for it which was pretty cool!
Saturday, we spent our entire day at the church again. In the morning, we met the anziani there to practice our musical number for sacrament meeting (A. Rogers accidentally volunteered us lol🙄) We kept getting
the giggles while practicing though cuz the anziani kept practicing their opera voices (cuz Italy lol) and then planning a musical number flash mob lol😂😂 Then there was a stake youth activity going on all
weekend! So we spent all the rest of the day helping set up and decorate (there was a Disney theme going on that I was totally digging lol!) and then we spent HOURS cutting and peeling fruit. Yay service!
Sunday we had church at 3, because all the youth had a combined sacrament meeting that morning in our building. So we made ourselves some freaking delicious pasta and headed to church. Our musical number
went well, and we got lots of compliments. Luckily, none of us got the giggles during it. Unluckily, bishop now wants us to do musical numbers like every other week now. Oh joy. Lolol. Then brother and
sister Gallo invited us to their home for dinner. More pasta and meat and cheese and lasagna and of course gelato. So good (and no vegetables so yay!) and then guess what? (Ok warning: my nerd is about
to show hard core lol) Ok remember in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 when Will is on the Flying Dutchman and he challenges Davy Jones to that one dice game thing? And like they bet their souls and whatnot? Yup,
the Gallos taught us how to play it! And it's my new fav game hehe and I felt like a pirate every second so yay!
Monday we had a super long but awesome district meeting, and then typical missionary stuff the rest of the day. We had to bike over to the church to put in our weeks' numbers. And that was pretty much all.
Sorry I'm boring lol😂
Yesterday was new missionary training, which was basically one of the best days ever because THE SORELLANZA WAS REUNITED!! Oh my stars, words could not describe how fetching excited I was to see my MTC
district again! So much hugging lol and I was in heaven! And of courseI had to tell them a couple super awkward stories before the meeting hehehe... Cuz my life is awkward lol! Training itself was super
awesome! I learned a ton! I especially loved some bits of a talk from Elder Holland that was shared, and it made me think a lil bit about not only missions, but also following Christ in general, and being true disciples... Cuz guess what?
I'm sick of all the smoking here.
I hate riding our bikes home after a long day and having the wind
fight against us.
I don't like what the humidity is doing to my hair.
I'm frustrated that I'm not fluent in the language.
And I'm 100% done with our drunk neighbors partying all night long.
But guess what? That doesn't matter.
Because it's not my mission- it's His.
When we commit to follow Christ, we're willing to do all that He did. He constantly served. He comforted others. He loved everyone. He was rejected. He was alone. He died. When we commit to be His disciples,
we are fools if we assume we won't ever be expected to do what He had to do. His life was HARD! He was a perfect man- 100% sinless- and yet He suffered more than any human being. How can we possibly expect our
lives to be any easier than His was, as we are following Him?
It's a lot like in D&C 122:7-8
7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast
into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the
elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son,
that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
Oh snap! Look at that⬆️
At one point in the talk, Elder Holland said something about how when we feel ourselves being alone or rejected or heartbroken, to remember that we are shoulder to shoulder with Christ, for so was He alone,
rejected, and heartbroken. And I can think of no greater aspiration in life than to do just that: to walk where He walked; to live as He lived; to suffer as He did. And though the path is not easy, though,
even with all that, I'll not even be a fraction of the person He was, there's no place I'd rather be than standing shoulder to shoulder with our savior and brother Jesus Christ.
This idea has already started to change me, and I hope it'll do the
same for you beautiful humans. Have the best week ever❤️
xoxo
Sorella Smedley
1. The youth activity! 2. Church selfies with sassy Camilla & I 3.When people fall asleep in class :) 4. Sorellanza reunited!
5. New Missionary Training 6.&7. I love crazy train stations 8. Waiting 5-ever for our bus, so why not selfie?!
9-12. Torino and Palazzo Reale
13-15.The outside of my palace 16. Welcome to my castle!
17. Just me & my throne :) 18.When you realize you touched a taxadermied horse 19.Chillin in the armory 20. It’s like I’m on the set of Beauty & the Beast!
No comments:
Post a Comment