Hey friends. It's hot☀️ but it's been a good week. Mainly because I kind of got to go camping. And this upcoming week is gonna be EVEN COOLER but you'll have to wait u till next Pday to see why🤷🏼♀️Also, the sooner I finish this email, the sooner I can take a much-needed nap so we're gonna be doing bullet points today🤷🏼♀️ sorry not sorry🙃
- We're still going strong doing volunteer work at the Caritas. I'm getting really good at chopping up vegetables 🥒🍆🍅
- We had an awesome scambio with the Pisa sorelle. I was with Sorella Tueller, which is cool because we are related apparently? Anyways, I learned a lot and it was just a really cool scambio overall!
- We went to visit our less active Mariana who'd been showing a ton of progress... except for the fact that we showed up and she was completely wasted🙃 that made for a suuuuuuper interesting/stressful lesson. She was rambling. Peppa Pig was on the tv. Her two year was feeding an entire bag of M&Ms to the dog. It was a weird hour of my life.
- We met with Carolina Cabezas and she finally understands what commandments are👏🏼 go team!
- I biffed it hard core while crossing the street and now it looks like I was in a motorcycle accident or something. I legit tripped on air. Niiiiiice.
- We went on a day-long camping trip with our ward and the branch in Montevarchi and it was the best thing ever. Well, it started with some stress and crazy driving but finally we made it to Vallambrosa. It looked so much like Utah mountains I wanted to cry. It was like 90 degrees instead of the 110 we've been suffering, so it was like heaven. Trees, campfires, everything! Much needed, much needed 🌲🏞🏕🚗
- Our investigator Maria and her family are headed to Sicily for the Summer, so we went to say goodbye to them. Super sad stuff, especially since she doesn't know if they'll be back before I finish the mission. Stupid Italy vacations that last two months. What even?? Anyways, the gem invited us on the spot to come with them to Sicily and I almost said yes. Oh how I love that fam.
- We spent pday doing some shopping and eating subway for the first time in a year. And soon we will be napping🙏🏼
- I've been working a lot on the attribute of faith, and it's been pretty dang cool. There's this really cool quote I found from President Packer. I was gonna just choose my favorite part but then I realized the whole thing was my favorite part... so I'll just bold a few gems:
"Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it. …
“There are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience; it gives us certainty that a new day will dawn, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen.
“There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. … It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.
“In a world filled with skepticism and doubt, the expression ‘seeing is believing’ promotes the attitude, ‘You show me, and I will believe.’ We want all of the proof and all of the evidence first. It seems hard to take things on faith.
“When will we learn that in spiritual things it works the other way about—that believing is seeing? Spiritual belief precedes spiritual knowledge. When we believe in things that are not seen but are nevertheless true, then we have faith”
I like this a lot. I feel like it's been pretty easy for me during life to have faith in the big things, or to have faith in the gospel principles and teachings. However, at least for me, it's a lot harder to have faith in the more individual situations and decisions we may be dealing with. It's harder to have faith in people. And sometimes it's just a bit hard to have trust and faith in God in a more personal/real sense. So I've been trying to be better by just making little changes here and there. Trying to make my prayers more sincere, choosing to have faith instead of stress (that one is a work in progress lol), just little things like that. And I've got a loooong way to go, but it's been cool to see the difference it's made. I feel like God has been able to work through me more, to help the people in our city and the sorelle we are over. It's been super cool to see how working on trusting Him has allowed me to align my will more closely to His. And we're becoming closer buds in the process, which is always nice🤗
It's cool stuff. Now I'm gonna go nap. Buona notte cari miei😴
XO
Sorella Smedley
1- Scambio! 2-7 Camping! Kind of… 8- Saying goodbye to Maria & her fam💔
9-10 PDAAAAAY
1- Scambio! 2-7 Camping! Kind of… 8- Saying goodbye to Maria & her fam💔 9-10 PDAAAAAY
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