*shout out to my comp for the stellar New Girl quote for this week's title*
Happy Internarional Women's Day🎀💋💄💅🏼💁🏼👗💃🏼🌸💕Contrary to what the title suggests, I'm not a feminist. Pro-women, yes. Super bold feminist, no. In fact, I reeeeeally like guys a lot.
Anyways.
Yeah. International women's day. Which Italy loves, so all museums and cultural stuff are free for women today. Woohoo that's us! So we headed to Milano today to take advantage of getting free stuff solely thanks to our gender. Yay Italy😸
It was kind of a weekend of challenges for #teamsmorr honestly, but that's life lol. We lived. We worked. Stuff happened. It was great. Yay for amazing comps and stellar people to visit and teach! ❤Thursday we met with Sorella Povia, a super cool less active lady who lives far away. We had an awesome lesson about the restoration, walked through a market, and she bought us pizza (not necessarily in that order). That night, we had a super great lesson with the Cabezas where we taught Valeria the Restoration! Oh my heck, I just love that girl with my whole heart!!
Friday started with weekly planning/ making tiramisù😛Then we met w/Grace, this adorable less active from China! We were talking about how the gospel of Christ blesses families, and asked her how she could use the gospel to help her family. In her cute accent, she told us she could be an example to her husband (who's not a member), and her son. Woohoo Grace! Nailed it 💪🏼 then we met with the Alvarados who came to church on Sunday! They're one of those couples that's 100% active in the gospel, but considered "less active" since their work makes it so they can't always be in church. It's a huge problem in Italy, especially for members who've migrated here from South America or other areas. We've been going through the missionary lessons with them, and this week was the Plan of Salvation. It turned into such a amazing discussion about how beautiful God's plan is, and how essential the Atonement is for it to succeed. Then, we met with the Cattaneo fam (they have the nonmember mother who has short-term memory loss). She stared telling us about how she likes going to church, but only where they let her precious dog Margo come. We hate Margo just a little bit. She barks like crazy if you don't pet her nasty fur. Literally I love this family, but they treat Margo like she's human. They have a weird obsession over this dog, and that's saying something coming from me!😅😂 eh, my puppies are cuter and smarter and better though 🐶🐶
Saturday was full of cancellations, so we tried passing by a few people. We ended up getting in with this super cool fam. The husband Francesco is inactive and actually British, and his wife and kids are Italian. They have the nicest apartment I've ever seen in my entire life. I felt so dang fancy. We didn't stay for long because they had guests coming over, but we had a really good conversation about Christ. Turns out, Francesco has a super high-up position in this international accounting firm. He was talking about the difficulties of that environment, and how a lot of the world focuses on monetary aspects of life. He bore beautiful testimony of the importance of remembering Christ and taking on His attributes. All in all, a great night!
Sunday was church, amazing as always. Afterwards, we had lunch with the Ferantis! That family just makes me stoked on life! You just can't help but feel soooo at home with them! Also, Sorella Feranti has this hilarious habit of asking if you want more food... as she's already putting it on your plate... She informed us that we're able to eat more than the Anziani... #girlpower...?🎀
Monday was awesome! First we went over to visit Sorella Rea. She has so many health problems, it literally breaks my heart. She's awesome though! Aaaaaaand that night we had an AMAZING lesson with my favorite people and it was soooo good so imma save it for the end😏 gotta keep you guys reading these hecka long emails somehow😉
Yesterday we had district meeting before an appointment with Sorella Sacco. Let me explain. Sorella Sacco is sweet and has many health problems. We love her. However... I. Have. Never. Met. Someone. Who. Complains. So. Much. Words were said. Patience was tested. Aaaaaaand it was discovered that although #teamsmorr is rather fabulous, #teamsmorr is not overly patient. We went in wanting to talk about the restoration, & how we can use it in our lives today. It turned into her saying how her eyes get irritated so she can't read scriptures, her sons are idiots, & she can't pray because her leg hurts. Literally we gave her every idea or solution possible, & she managed to come up with some lame excuse for all of it. Soooo #teamsmorr handled it in maybe what wasn't the best way, but it made us feel better... we brought out a couple scriptures about how through Christ, everything is possible... & literally every time she brought out a claim or excuse, we just smiled & said "no". We bore simple testimonies and that was the end of that lol. It's so frustrating haha like lady trust us, we know God's got you. Just let Him in already. Oh whale, it was a pretty hilarious experience also hahahaha
Aaaand that brings us to today. International Women's Day. This day has me rather stoked (even though I forgot it was a thing until like last night around 7), not because of myself, but because of the stellar women in the world and in my life! One of them is named Juana. Lemme tell ya a bit about her, and about the experience we had with her and her amazing family Monday night.
I talked last week about meeting with Juana and Claudio and their two kids, who are all investigators. I absolutely love them. They are possibly my favorite family I've met out here. They know that this church is true, and they are rock solid. Why aren't they baptized members then? Well, Juana has some huge struggles with the word of wisdom. She believes it, and she wants it, but she's trapped in addiction right now. And she hates it. It makes her hate herself. We've been wanting to help her, but don't know how because it's pretty bad. We were fasting and praying about it all week. We were stoked when Juana said we could meet on Monday, because lately she's been super busy. After a lot of thought and prayer, we decided to go over the baptismal interview questions with them.
So we did.
We finished some amaaaaazing Brazilian food, & brought up what we wanted to do. Juana got this nervous look on her face & said some elders had done that in the past, & she'd just felt guilty & hopeless the entire time. We grabbed some paper & told her instead of answering out loud, we just wanted them to write it down personally. We went through the questions, & at the end talked with them about how the Atonement allows us to overcome weaknesses. We also discussed how our purpose as their missionaries was to help them overcome these roadblocks standing in their way. Juana looked up crying, & told us that she felt different than she'd felt the last time she'd gone through the questions. The first time, she felt like her dreams of becoming a member of the church were 100% gone. She felt like she was lacking in every question and had no chance. This time, she saw how she'd grown. She still has her struggles with the word of wisdom, but she was able to bear testimony of the other points! As she was explaining this to us, she stopped & said, "I think I'm finally getting the Atonement. Like, it's not like you can just goof around and then be forgiven or whatever. But Christ knows I'm going to mess up and He wants me to be able to repent and make it back!"
*comp fist bump under the table*
It was amazing to watch her just get it! Then we asked her what we could do for her to help with her word of wisdom struggles. She was quiet for a minute and then said "do you know why I've been so busy lately?" We said no. She proceeded to tell us she'd started an addiction recovery program at the hospital, and was going there almost every morning! Guys this is huge! She's never gone and gotten help for this! Then she said she'd gotten a gym membership and a part time job, that way while her kids are at school, she stays busy and distracted from the addiction! She then said she wants to start meeting with us separately some mornings to work on a plan. We start Friday, and I couldn't be happier! We literally left that lesson a mess of tears and smiles! I don't know if I've met anyone as strong as Juana!
Yeah. Pretty dope. So like I said before, I'm def not celebrating myself today (although we did get ourselves some steak&shake for lunch today). Nah, today I'm celebrating women like my mom. Young women like my sister. Women like my grandmas, aunts, etc. Women like my bffs, those in Croatia, the US, and good old Italia. Women like Esther and Debora and Mary (wow I sound so missionary #sorry). Strong women. Courageous women. Women like Juana.
Yeah, that's definitely worth celebrating.
xoxoxoxo
Sorella Smeds
1- Valeria 2-What happens every night… 3&4 Graffiti LOL
5-Saw a member I knew from Vicenza! 6-Juana & Claudio 7-Pizza time!
8-11 Pday fun:) 12- video- hanging with Juana’s family
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