A Muggle In Milan: Chapter 33: We Finish Each Others'-

Sandwiches!

That's what I was gonna say!

Well folks, this week has been fairly normal in comparison to the craziness of last week. However, I've really just come to terms with the fact that "normal" really doesn't exist here in Italia

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we tried to pass by a ton of less actives and old investigators we had in our area books. I'd like to say that they were all receptive and let us in but actually none of them did😂 lol actually two let us in but neither were the adventures we'd anticipated. The first buzzed us into the building and we went up, and saw a young mom who most definitely was not 54 year old Elizabeth... But we had a fun convo lol. They're a family of Jehovas Witnesses so that was an adventure! Lol, apparently that bit of info was lost on my dear greenie, because as we left, she asked me why we hadn't tried to get their contact info haha. Oh Jdubs lol. The second time we got in actually started kinda scary but ended awesomely. We were searching for another woman, this time a girl in her 30s. We rang her citofono and got let in right after we said who we were. We headed upstairs and the door opened and it was just this group of guys... needless to say, I was pretty freaked out. Sketchy apartment building, about 6 floors up, and a group of random guys... I mean like obviously I was prepared to hash out my sick ninja skills and kick A and whatnot but like I'm a missionary guys. But all is well- these guys actually ended up NOT being like typical ragazzacci guys we've encountered in the past and we're actually super cool. Lucky for them haha, cuz I was like seconds away from becoming their worst nightmare 💪🏼

Jokes jokes, I have zero skills and knowing me I would've probs would've tripped or pulled a muscle or something like that just for good measure if I'd tried anything😂 Luckily God is protective and also most people are just nicer than we assume! We ended up having an awesome and kinda hilarious convos with these guys and now they're gonna come to English class and the Anziani are gonna start teaching them and THAT my friends is how God works. From terrifying almost-epic battles to miracles. Just like in the Bible right?

Sunday was our senior couple's last day, so the branch had a party after church. Food and friends and goodbyes and way too many pictures haha!

Monday was HALLOWEEN!!!! lol awkward cuz it's def not as huge of a thing here as it is in America, and all the older people get pretty offended by it haha. But we missionaries made it a rather fabulous day! Anziano Gibb was Superman, Anziano Jones was Helaman, and Sorella Richards and I were Elsa and Ana❄️💁🏼 We decided to have a Halloween party for our branch, and they loved it! They said it had been at least 10 years since the missionaries had held a party for anything other than Christmas, so I was glad to see that it meant so much to them❤️ We had food and music and games, one of which was a pudding eating contest. I was so not wanting to be part of that one, but one of our investigators asked me to do it so of course I said yes🙄😂 I was a total mess but it was worth it because I just love these people so much!

Tuesday was rather uneventful. Our mission just started using the area book app on the iPads, which is going to be waaaay nice! Buuuut for right now, it means we're stuck transferring all of the information which is quite the lengthy process. We only fell asleep like twice during the process so yay us🤗

Today for P day we did some shopping. And I got my first Italian haircut and it wasn't a bad experience💇🏼 lol I went to this one place cuz the daughter of a lady in our ward works there. I think it was a pretty grand experience cuz she wants us to teach her and her boyfriend, so yay💁🏼

Cool thing, it's officially been a year since I opened my mission call! Which has made it such a week of reflection. I'm definitely not the person that I was that fateful day a year ago when I read the words "Italy Milan Mission" and my life changed forever! Choosing to serve a mission was by far the best decision I could've made, and I'm grateful for the way Christ's atonement has helped me throughout the process❤️

Xoxo

Smeds💕