Chapter 32: Crazy Has Become Normal

This has been the weirdest week ever.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Thursday, we had studies and then my greenie's first ever Italian meal appointment with Maria, and it definitely didn't disappoint lol! We rolled ourselves out the door and down various flights of stairs! We came home and did lingua followed by a power nap. At least, we were going to have a power nap. But then Francesca called to tell us she wouldn't be able to make our appointment that afternoon. We set up a different appointment and all was well. But then, right as we'd fallen asleep again, I got another call from Francesca, saying she wanted to just chat lol...😐 I tiredly conversed with this crazy Italian for about 20 minutes before she hung up. At this point, I realized Sorella Richards wasn't there... and it was extremely dark... then I saw her in the hallway... she was like "hey! Don't fret yourself, but the power is out!" Thus realizing that evidently the odds of napping weren't going to be in our favor, I started to fret myself lol😂 we tried various things, but nothing worked... we finally called our senior couple to ask what to do. They said they'd come over and fix it, so we hung up the phone and rushed to clean our apartment before they got here😅😂 the power was fixed and all was well, right in time for English class.

Friday was full-blown weird. First, we started making cookies to take to neighbors and less actives! Only we put too many on a pan at once... so we essentially made a cake? Boh. Then the senior couple had us over for lunch. Following lunch, they drove us to our appointment with Rosanna and her family. Their situation was kind of crazy... she and her son were baptized like 5 years ago but never received the Holy Ghost...? Yeah, none of us know how that happened... comunque, stuff was taken care of so they were back on track to be confirmed! So they wanted us to go over and answer any remaining questions. Well the appointment itself was great, but some weird stuff occurred come sempre😂 for starters, their fat wiener dog refused to sit anywhere but on my lap... not that I complained, but it was odd... Then, they brought out these pie kind of things that a lot of Italians give guests, and they gave us a freak ton of it! Well I know that Sorella Richards doesn't like those and was struggling to finish hers, so as soon as Rosanna turned around, I finished the weird pie thing for her lol #compunity lol. Then they brought out chestnuts, which I've never had before. I hate them. But they gave me a full bowl of them. I finished all of them... but ew. That is all I can say. When it was time to leave, Rosanna gave us a bag of random food crap, and as we walked out, she gave us a pumpkin and a squash that had been just sitting on her porch🎃 oookay? Lol as we drove home, the winding roads through the mountains started to feel a bit more disenchanting this time around. When we got home, I bolted through the door. I came out a bit later and informed my greenie that I had successfully ridden my body of approximately half of the chestnuts... she found it rather humorous that I literally threw up the stupid chestnuts😷 I found it less than funny, but eventually felt ok enough to take model status pictures with the squash Rosanna gave us #stilldontknowwhattodowithit...

Saturday was equally weird. Well actually some awesome stuff too. We did some finding on the beach that morning and talked to this one lady for like 20 minutes!! Her name is Federica, and she's just adorable! We were talking to her about the gospel like always and it seemed to be going great! Somehow, I was italianing at least well enough for her to understand lol. But halfway through talking to her about the restoration, I felt something large on my head making suspicious buzzing sounds. 

Never fear, I kept my cool.

Lol, that's the biggest lie ever.

I start freaking out like a three year old and my comp is fine cuz insects don't scare her, but I see this rather large shadow and I'm freaking out in both Italian and English and Federica is screaming and people were staring. 

And then it left (probs back home to hell idk), and all was well.

I regained what little of my dignity I had left and shakily asked Federica what the freak had landed on my head. 

She looked at me with knowing fear in her eyes and said, "bombo..." 

Bumblebee🐝 I realized I had barely made it out with my life.

"Oh madonna, ma che schifo!" was my disgusted reply.

"Brava Sorella!" Federica exclaimed as she started dying laughing! We joined in too, although I still felt rather shaken up by it all! That near death experience (lol) completely broke the ice and we just started talking like old pals haha❤️ Then the following happened:

Federica: Siete belle e molto gentile, come angeli! Forse voi potete visitarmi un altro giorno!

(You are beautiful and very kind as angels! Maybe you can visit me another day!)

Me internally: um what? YES! 

Me externally: Sì sì certo! Possiamo scambiare numeri!

(Yes yes of course! We can exchange numbers!)

Federica: Dai, certo! Però, penso che voi non potete convertirmi...

(Come on, of course! However, I think that you can not convert …)

Me internally: Alright, challenge accepted!

Me externally: Boh, vediamo! È bello di avere amici comunque!

( Dunno, look! It's nice to have friends anyway!)

Federica: Brava esatto! Anche ho tanti amici e penso che loro vorrebbero imparare vostro messaggio.

(Exact Brava! Also I have many friends and I think they would like to learn your message.)

Me internally: wow, it's like you want to do our job for us!

Me externally: Sarebbe bellissimo! Certo!

(It would be great! Sure!)

And that is the story of how missions are dangerous but rewarding. And old people are the best. Then we had an appointment with Francesca. It was awkward cuz some Jehova’s Witnesses stopped us and Francesca actually took some of their flyers so that was odd...😐 That night we did some finding in the rain, and saw a lady leaning over where the riverbed is. Idk man, I was in a weird mood that day from all the craziness. So I just came up and asked what she was doing. She said she was feeding cats. Sure enough, there were like thirty adorable stray kittens chillin in the riverbed. We chatted for a while and it was rather great lol.

Sunday was super neat because Rosanna and her son received the Gift of the Holy Ghost! It was such an awesome thing to be a part of! After church, we had lunch with the senior couple, the Anziani, and Rosanna and her kids. Lol, we had herbal tea after dinner, and my flavor was disgusting. Anziano Jones and Anziano Gibb wanted to try mine lol, and then Rosanna had to make things awk😂 she was like "Careful Anziano Jones, she might have put a love potion in there" and I was like "Well Rosanna, that wouldn't make sense cuz Anziano Gibb wanted to try mine too!" And Rosanna was like "it's cuz you want to be able to choose!" 😂😂🙄🙄 oh gosh. I think the senior couple almost had a heart attack, and the rest of us were laughing too hard to finish our tea. That night, we had an apt. with this investigator couple who both use medical marijuana... it was a rather strange evening, as you can imagine...

Monday was- shocker!- another weeeeiiiird day! We spent the morning at the questura getting permesso stuff for Sorella Richards! Gosh I swear, the only ugly parts of Italy are questura offices, like literally so sketch haha. That afternoon, all our appointments cancelled on us 🙃 yay more finding!

Tuesday was too fun! So we had district meeting that morning, and then lunch with Deborah, one of our less actives! She's from southern Italy and is absolutely hilarious! Then we decided to mix up our finding routine a bit. We picked a random area of the city we haven't seen before, got a stack of pass along cards, and made a goal to pass out every single one in an hour and reward ourselves with gelato! We made it a competition with each other and seriously just had so much fun talking to people! We were successful, and it was exciting for me to see Sorella Richards improving and getting outside of her comfort zone! She's seriously the best greenie I could ask for! Only bummer was that it was super cold, so for the first time ever, we actually weren't craving gelato🍦 Lol, gave ourselves an IOU on that one. 

Then we had FHE with the Anziani and the Africans in our branch, which is basically just an excuse to play mind games and then talk about the gospel. Literally, I think we had way too much fun... Also, some workers for the church were having a meeting in our building, so I got to see Giuseppe from Collegno! Best day ever!

Today for Pday, the Genova sorelle came down to Savona! Arndt and I have a running joke that I'll just keep following her around Italy, because we've literally spent our whole missions together! And our greenies were in the same MTC district as each other, so it just makes it all perfect! But we had to literally run to help them catch their train, so sorry if I don't have a ton of time for personal emails today 🙃

As you've seen, it's been an absolutely crazy week lol. However, it's funny to me to look back and see how normal a lot of this is to me. I realize it a lot more now that I have a greenie- everything is so new and odd to her! And I remember being the exact same way, and saying the exact same things😂 I realized that tomorrow marks 6 months of living in Italy. It's both strange and humbling to look back at the person I was when I arrived in comparison to who I am now. My entire view of people and the world and life in general has changed! Plus, there are so many cultural aspects of Italy that have become more than normal to me over these past 6 months. It's more than normal- it's become home.

Boh, I guess I'm just really grateful that God has helped me fall completely in love with a country so different from my own, and with a people so unlike myself! I’ve never felt closer to Him and to Christ than I have these past months. Quite literally shedding tears for these people, and then getting up the next day to go at it again, despite whatever wildly crazy or totally heartbreaking moments come our way. La vita della missionaria è bella, no? Seriously, nothing beats it💕 Here's hoping your week is as crazy and beautiful as mine was🤗

xoxo

Smeds❤️

1-3 Weird Day #1 4- Anziani laughing at our weird day  

5- Rosana & her son getting confirmed  6- Ocean walks

7-9 More ocean & I look like a Jedi!

10&11- Questura  12-Giuseppe!!

13-15 Savona at night

16-19 Pday  20&21 Mom & dad took me to St George & Disneyland with them 😂