A Muggle In Milan: Chapter 14- My Life as a Disney Princess Part 2

Happy summer, lovely humans! Life is great, Italy is great… Summer has officially hit here... It's hot and humid and I literally spend
every day sweating like a sinner in church (see pic below lol). I’ll be honest, this past week has kinda blurred together so I don't really
remember what things happened on which day... So I'll just give a quick update on each of our people!

Machi: We got to see his two-year-old daughter Iris, and she is absolutely precious with crazy curly hair. I wanna adopt her... But I
guess I'll settle for converting her father😉 Machi is progressing well. We were going to set a baptism date with him, but he wants to
read and study the entire Book of Mormon first! I mean, we'd def prefer to set a date and THEN continue working with him... But I guess
he at least has a good reason! He really is taking this whole thing seriously!

Gabriele: We finally met with Gabriele, the investigator we got from the anziani when they left. He's so precious. It's sad, cuz he had a
baptismal date, but then his wife died. So now, he wants to get back to where he was before, so that he can be baptized. He treats it as a
serious and sacred decision, saying he doesn't want to jump into baptism until he knows he's done everything he needs to, otherwise it
would be as though he were mocking God. Such a stellar dude! Looking at how he was being taught before, I'm really glad he's our
investigator now. I feel like previously, the missionaries were just kinda skirting around the main issues, just visiting him and sharing

an inspirational quote. Ha I just kinda straight up asked him why he wasn't being baptized lol because why not?😂 it seemed to work well
and we had a good convo, so hopefully we're starting to get to the root of what's stopping him from progressing. So that's our next goal;
just helping him regain his testimony so that he can be baptized!

Tamara: We tried visiting her last week, but she was sick, so we’re stopping by to see her tomorrow. I love this woman so much. Prayers on
her behalf (and ours!) would be MUCH appreciated because this week, we're gonna breach the friend zone aka we're gonna try to change her
status from "potential investigator" to "investigator". Wish us luck lolololol.

We also took a couple hours this week to call some of the potentials we had on our phone from like 6 months ago. Lots of rejection as per
usual, but there were some pretty solid convos. We also had 3 of the people we got ahold of who want to meet with us this week, so that's
exciting! Definitely worth the not so good phone calls lol am I right? Hopefully things go well with some or all of them!

As for the title of my email, I've had two outstanding princess moments this week💁🏼
1- After church on Sunday, our precious primary kids wanted us to play with them outside so obvi we did. Camilla (my absolute favorite)
wanted to teach me a game she'd made up lol... She says my name is too hard to say or read. But one day, she saw I had a sticker of rapunzel
(her fav princess) on the back of my name tag. Soooo now Cami calls me "Sorella Rapunzel" and it is literally the most precious thing of my
entire life

2- For Pday today, we went Torino with the other sorelle and just went to various cathedrals and a castle (which closed 30 min before we got
there so we only got pics outside of it #stillsalty) I know what y’all are thinking, "Really Kaylee, ANOTHER castle?" Yes. Yes it is. Deal with it💁🏼

Not gonna lie, it's been a harder week for me. Almost all of our initial plans fell through, and we didn't meet our goals in the way we
wanted to. The language was k i l l i n g me. The humidity was LITERALLY killing me. And I just miss stupid America things right now
like burgers and Reese's cups (I attempted to make my own- see picture below) and drinking fountains and English lol. These people here are
stubborn and blunt and crazy and just unlike any other group of people in the entire world, but ya know what? I still can't help but love
them so so SO much! In district meeting this week, one of our zone leaders brought up something I love, because it puts my feelings
towards the Italian people into words. Think of a time you truly loved someone. No, not any of the Romeo and Juliet crap lol get your minds
out of the gutter😂🙄 But like truly loved someone! Not for anything they did, or for what heave done for you or anything. But like,
someone who you've genuinely loved simply for who they are. You see their strengths and their faults, and you love them fully regardless.
The kind of sincere love that just fills you with joy and with light. Got someone in mind? Yeah, that is 100% how I feel about these
beautiful people. Even cooler? That's a fraction of the pure love Christ has for each of us. He sees us for what we are; He sees the
good and the bad. And He loves us! How exciting is that!

I know He loves each and every one of us, and that His love and His atonement will always be there for us. I'm not gonna try and hide that
things are kinda hard right now. However it's all so so so worth it, because of the love I have for these crazy Italians! I'm so grateful
to be blessed with this Christlike love for these people; for this amazing opportunity to feel even a small fraction of the love Christ
has for us. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Go swimming and eat a burger for me cuz I miss America...

Xoxo
Sorella Smedley