A Muggle In Milan: Chapter 15: "Your Body is a Miracle"...?

Hey guys! It's been kind of a craaaaazy week! We've had to go and be in the Anziani apartment while stuff gets fixed, so that took up the majority of Monday-Wednesday of this week, and is why we are having p-day today (Thursday) instead of Wednesday. Not gonna lie, it's been a harder week. However, when I first left on my mission, I decided these group emails would show the good times and the harder times of mission life. Because the good experiences are uplifting or funny or whatever, but the harder experiences are where we learn the most, are they not? So I promise when I'm talking about more than rainbows and butterflies, I'm not depressed or dying lol. I'm just being blessed with more opportunities to grow and learn haha and figured I may as well share them with y'all.

Okay, so last Thursday, we went over to visit the Sassi family. As per usual, the crazy wiener dog duo of Samantha and Daisy were running all over the place. Also as per usual, chubby little Francesco took exactly a million and one selfies on my iPad (and applied his own pictures, of course!). Aaaand as per usual, they tried to turn on a movie for us. It doesn't matter how many times we tell them we aren't allowed to; they still insist on playing a movie the entire time we're there. This week was harder than most, however, because they chose to turn on Lord of the Rings. I wanted to die! Too much temptation #ThanksSatan lol. We taught them, and then they brought out lunch, starting with some sort of ravioli things.

They told us there was cat meat in it.

We thought they were joking.

But now we're not so sure...

It was grayish and chewy and I literally couldn't tell if it was even meat or not lol! Maybe liver? Idk. Then they brought out weird concoctions of vegetables, eggs, and like 30 lbs of salt, I swear! Mom and dad- remember that time in 7th grade when I made German pancakes and drastically mixed up the salt measurements? Lol. Think that, but like 10 times worse! I wanted to die. Then that afternoon, we tried to stop by Tamara. However, she had family over for the weekend and couldn't meet with us. It ended up kind of being for the best, however, because S. Smith and I were starting to feel kind of weird...

Friday, we tried to pass by a potential investigator, but got lost and then had to head to our next appointment. This appointment was with Luciana (mother of Fratello Sassi; crazy lady who gave me the bird to play with and had me read the dictionary... Remember her? Yeah...) Well first, she tried to sell us some random clothes she had. Then, she told us she probs didn't have anything in our sizes, and we should probs exercise more #thanks🙃 Then, she got us multiple bowls of nothing but whipped cream, which she then shaved chocolate over. We already weren't feeling so good, and the sugar overdose didn't help. Plus like did she not just tell us we needed to work out? Why was she giving us this food then? Lol. Then she informed me I must not have worked on my Italian at all since the last time we'd seen her, because I still sucked #thanks🙃 Then, I tried to save the disasters us appointment by giving her a word art of a scripture we'd made her. Not gonna lie, I'd spent a long time on it and was pretty pleased with it😎 Luciana, however, was less than impressed. She pointed out everything she thought should have been done differently, and then proceeded to sit on it... 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃Needless to say, I was glad we needed to leave right then for English class lol.

Saturday and Sunday were crazy... We woke up Saturday and both felt super sick and lightheaded whenever we tried to stand or walk. So we made some calls, worked on the area book, and took a nap. Then that night, we literally didn't sleep at all. Just took turns in the bathroom, vomiting about twice every hour. That morning, we knew church was not gonna happen lol. So as per mission rules, we called Sorella Dibb. Well, president Dibb answered the first time and it caught me so off guard, I was just like "heeeeeeey" and then he hung up on me😂 After I'd stopped laughing over the awkwardness, I called back and the convo went something like this:

"Hi, sorry about that."

"No problem Sorella Dibb! This is Sorella Smedley!"

"Yes dear, I know."

"Haha okay... Um... How are you?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"Ummmm I've been better actually... My comp and I were up all night puking."

"Oh! Did you guys drink enough water yesterday?"

"Ummm... Yes?"

"Did you drink TOO much?"

"Uhhhh... No..."

"Ok. Well, you guys don't worry about church today."

"Ok!"

"And maybe you can get a yogurt later or something."

"Haha, okay..."

Awkward silence.

"Your body is a miracle... It'll probably fix itself."

*Bites tongue to keep from laughing* "Haha, okay."

"Well, you can call me if you're still vomiting tomorrow."

"Haha alright. Have a nice day at church!"

"You too." Even though we aren't going to church lol? But whatevs.

You could tell she and Presidente were frazzled lol, but it was their final Sunday, so they get an out lol😂

The rest of this week was kinda crazy. Monday-Wednesday we spent most of our time sitting at the anziani apartment watching repair workers go in and out. We just had to sit there and make calls or study. Dumb, but unavoidable. Monday morning started out rather awful though. We woke up to a phone call from Doina. We were excited because last week, we'd started sending out scripture texts everyday to our investigators, as well as any potential or ex investigators. We'd been getting a lot of texts and calls from some of these people, all super grateful for it (and some who now want to meet with us!) so we were expecting this call from Doina to be that way. Not so. She was yelling and bashing our church and freaking out at us- so different from the kind, calm person we'd first met; the person who'd legitimately wanted to learn more about the gospel. Also her reasonings for not being interested in our message were that her father was Catholic and her cousin was Pentecostal, so there's that😂 Yeah, not the best convo. I couldn't understand all of it either because she was so loud and fast and has a thick Romanian accent. However, my comp refused to translate some of what she said for me, because it was just that rude and awful.

It totally bummed me out for the rest of the day. Doina was someone I'd been thinking about and praying for daily. Plus, I couldn't help but wonder why God would put me in a situation to meet her and all this stuff, only to have her not want to accept the hopeless, or even meet with us! However, through this experience I've learned 2 super stellar things:

1- God is sooooo aware of us. It's not even funny. Monday morning after the awful phone call, we headed to district meeting. I was in a not so good mood cuz I still felt sick, and I was just pretty heartbroken over Doina. However, I recognized so many little miracles God placed in my path! For example, as a result of being sick, we'd been without wifi since Friday. As soon as we got wifi at district mtg, I got a ton of emails from you lovely people saying exact things I needed to hear! Words of encouragement as well as so,e tough love and it was all just so helpful to me! So thank you, you lovely people❤️ Also in the metro there was a huge ad with dogs in birthday hats (pictured below) and laugh all you want, but I was very grateful to God for that lil miracle. I kid you not, on harder days, I usually end up seeing more people out walking their dogs and I'm just like "wow hanks God!" Because puppies brighten days. It's a fact.

2- missionary work is good and important, but the gift of agency will always be in place. This one comes from a talk my dearest mother sent me on Monday, . My fav part is this

It doesn't matter how good of a missionary you are; in the end, people still have their agency and can choose whether or not to accept the beautiful message of the gospel. Look at Jesus Christ- He was the PERFECT teacher, and yet He was still rejected by many. Our job as missionaries is to do everything in our power to make he message of the restored gospel available to everyone! However, ultimately each person will still get to choose for themselves. I'm still super disappointed about some of the stuff that happened this week with some of our investigators. However, I feel more at peace knowing that I did my part, and I can just continue praying for Doina. So yay🤗

We pretty much didn't get a Pday this week. We finished up at the anziani apartment just in time to make it back for English class. We had someone new show up named Sepideh, and I adore her! I gu so when I left to the bathroom, she asked Sorella smith how old I was and how long I'd been in Italy and was shocked when she found out, saying I sounded really good for being so young and new. So yay cuz evidently not everyone thinks my Italian sucks😬😂So we were supposed to move things around and have Pday Thursday, but then Thursday became the only day we could meet with our investigator Gabriele. So today's Pday has consisted of usual mission stuff, McDonald's, a nap, teaching Gabriele, and now emails!

Much love to all of you! Thanks you all for your love and whatnot. All the time obvi, but especially this week. Y'all are the greatest, and I hope those of you in America have a fantastic Fourth of July for me😘🇺🇸

xoxo

Sorella Kaylee Smedley