Happy last week of the transfer lol🎉 yep, transfer calls are in! Shocker, Sorella Richards and I are staying together to finish training! Honestly I'm so relieved we get another transfer together💕🎉 Anziano Jones is staying as well! However, Anziano Gibb is heading to Montevarchi, thus leaving me a "single parent" here in Savona. 🌴 in addition to transfer calls, its just been a busy but awesome week!
Friday we had weekly planning, and then took a train up to Finale Ligure. Once there, the De Milatos (a family in our branch) picked us up and literally started driving up the mountain 🏔🏞 holy freak, I want their house! I will attempt to describe it to you... its nestled into the mountain, and basically looks like a hobbit hole. Their balcony overlooks the entire valley. They literally have crops and vineyards and a river. Like just a million and one adorable things, and basically I had to remind myself at least twice that coveting is a sin... to make matters worse/better, we had one of the best meal appointments ever, and they gave us all the remaining food😛 about half way through the appointment, I noticed a familiar face in their family pictures. Ilaria Tonon! One of my favorite lil kids from back in Collegno! Yep, turns out she's their granddaughter!!! I about died, and the De Milatos were soooo happy when I showed them my pictures and videos with Ilaria! As we prepared to leave, fratello De Milato stopped us and said, "You know, we consider you to be our granddaughters too" ❤️😭
Then we had an appointment to meet with a lady we'd found on the street a few weeks back named Fedricah (the lady we met that one weird week... she's the one who witnessed the bumblebee attack in which I barely made it out with my life🐝) Lol, she was like "now listen, I wanna be friends with you and I'm curious about who you are, but you won't be able to convert me so don't try." However, the entire rest of our meeting together just turned into talking about the gospel, just like last time. When we left, she was like "you guys can meet with me again next weekend. But just know we're not meeting so you can teach me or covert me". Now, normally hearing something like this would come across a tad bit discouraging. However, since she's said this literally every time and yet SHE has been the one to instigate talking about our message, I'm pretty confident in how our next few visits will go😂💕
Saturday was a bit crazy. First of all, there were transfer calls! Then we had an appointment with our investigator Francesca. Craziest thing happened. About halfway through the lesson, we got a call from the STLs so I moved away from our bench a bit. As I talked with them, I kept seeing this blonde guy walking past and staring at Francesca and Sorella Richards. Finally, he approached me. He's German but started speaking English and just started firing question after question. We went from topic to topic for at least 20 minutes (a round of applause to my dear greenie for managing to teach Francesca on her own this whole time) and then he brought up more stuff. After a while, Sorella Richards finished the lesson and then came to join me. We talked more and more and then he was like "meet me here at 6 next Saturday and be prepared to answer a question" and we were like "um alright what question?" And he was like "what makes your church different from all other churches. Oh, and bring me a Book of Mormon too. I'm willing to test this." 😳😳😳😳😳 um, ok! That is kind of our job!
Sunday was, well crazy and random lol. During sacrament meeting, a less active who hasn't been to church in a looooooong time came and bore her testimony. However, rather than the usual testimony one would hear, we were lucky to endure the most awkward thing I've ever experienced during a fast and testimony meeting. Not only some long-winded unrelated story, nor was it full of so much crying you couldn't understand the words. I wish lol. This lady literally got up and informed all of us that the branch president refused to give her a temple recommend for absolutely no reason. And she preached about this for 15 minutes. Awkward. Presidente was way offended by this, so the last two hours of church were full of lectures and arguments that we missionaries weren't even allowed to attend. Yep, they stuck us at the back of the church with the youth and wouldn't let us help fix any of the issues. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day figuring out what we as missionaries are gonna do to save this branch. They really are awesome people! However, the church is YOUNG enough in Savona that the leaders and members here don't really know what they're doing. Luckily we know that through our efforts, God will be able to fix it😊 Also, about halfway through sacrament mtg, this girl Elizabeth showed up with two of her friends. She used to live in this ward but now lives in London, and she and these friends came to Italy to visit. They were so cool lol I felt like I'd walked onto a BBC set lol! So obvi we asked for a pic with them💁🏼
Monday we had district meeting and studies. Then that afternoon, we headed out to Celle, one of my fav cities in our area😍 it's seriously beautiful. We taught the less-active Garcia family, and wow I just love them! Sosososo cute! Weird/cool thing happened though. So their son Andy is barely 12 years old and so he doesn't have the Priesthood yet. Idk what happened but after we finished the lesson I asked him if he'd like to get the Priesthood, and he said yes. I then asked his parents if they'd be ok having the Anziani come over to help him prepare. They got way excited about it, and now the Anziani have an appointment with them tomorrow!!
Tuesday we tried a few passbys before heading to an appointment with Simonetta, a less active in our branch who wants to start coming back to church. It was good to get some of her feedback regarding things to unify our branch, and I really think she liked helping us haha! She also invited us to return Friday evening for dinner with her and her 19 year old daughter who wants to learn more about our church! So yeah, we were pretty excited! Also, the moon was huuuuuuuuge tonight and we have no clue why, but I've literally never seen it so big!
And that leads us to today. We started the morning out by getting up early and going on a run to the beach 🌊 then we did some shopping (meno male my greenie loves adorable book shops as much as I do!) Also we may or may not have bought matching antlers for Christmas time... you'll just have to wait and see😉 and then we headed to the church for food with the Anziani since Anziano Gibb leaves tomorrow🙁 we made tiramisu and they made Mexican food so it was quite the party!
Elder Jeffery R. Holland said "Pure Christlike love flowing from righteousness can change the world!" Isn't that true though? One of the things I love most about the mission is how easy it is to love people so easily and so quickly. Like next thing you know you're super close with people you've only known for a few months, a few weeks, even a few days! I think of how much I love my Zone from the MTC- both those in this mission and the Rome mission. I look at how much I love and miss the people I met in both Collegno and Vicenza. I see how much I treasure the friendships I have with various missionaries I've met! It's the coolest thing- like I think that's my favorite thing being a missionary is how it's taught me to love others as God does! And what a nice thing for us to think about as we get ready for the holiday season yeah? Yeah.
XOXO
Smeds
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