Chapter 16: The One Where Kaylee felt like Captain America

Happy July!! Hopefully you all had an outstanding weekend of fireworks and barbecues! I didn't😅 But I got to be a missionary so that's
pretty great! I legit have never felt more like Captain America before in my life than I have this week! And it makes me so happy because I
love all the Avengers! Ok, as to why I feel like Captain America:
1. It was the Fourth of July❤️🇺🇸💙
2. We may or may not have gone to Aosta this weekend... Which may or may not have been where they filmed Avengers 2... Yeah... I'll get to
   that in a sec😏 But first, here's the rundown of the week!

Friday we spent a good majority of the day doing some prep for the lessons we have planned for our investigators. Definitely grateful for
this time, because two of them are getting close to being ready for baptism and need some extra attention. Then we had English class.
Right as it was starting, S. Smith got a phone call and left, so I taught the majority of class by myself. Then she came back in after a
while, and said the phone was for me. It was my grandma! And by grandma, I mean my trainer's trainer, Sorella Pavich who got home like
4 months ago! She was in Italy visiting, and wanted to call. So I got to talk with her for a while which was AWESOME!

Saturday was super busy. That morning, our zone got to meet our new mission president, President Allen, and his wife! Oh I adore them!
They are seriously so great, and I'm pretty tight with them now lol. Literally, I just sat and talked with Sorella Allen for like 20
minutes straight and it was just great! It was really fun to welcome them to the mission. Then we had a combined activity with our ward and
the Torino wards. It was a dance instruction activity, which was kinda awkward since we couldn't paricipate lol (the instructor guys yelled
at us missionaries for not dancing lol but what can you do?). So we mingled and talked with people, because there were a lot of nonmember
friends there. Our old bishop's daughter, Illaria, insisted on teaching me to dance lol so that was a fun time haha. It was fun to be
there working with the other missionaries in our district as well!

Sunday was a struggle- we were so exhausted! But church was good. I looooooove our ward! Haha I'm probably way too attached to these
people. They're just so crazy and so awesome and they all try their best and I just love them. Haha at the beginning of sacrament
meeting, the Quaresimas called us over. Then, straight faced, they passed us a plastic bag. Literally like a drug deal. It was A&W root
beer! They'd gone to Switzerland to go to the temple. Apparently up here, they have a little thing called "Mormon Store", and so the
Quaresimas wanted to get us a surprise. Seriously I wanted to cry lol, I just love them so much!

Oh my heck, Monday was the Fourth of July and I was by far the most patriotic person ever! Except not, actually. We had district meeting
and then spent the entire afternoon doing what any true-blooded American would do on the Fourth of July: Got my temporary residency
for Italy😅 That's right- I'm finally legal people lol! So ironic that my appointment was on THAT day lol. Then we came home and had pizza
and our root beers and pretended we were in America😂 shout out to all the people who sent me firework videos so I could continue dreaming
about the USA lol🇺🇸🎉

Tuesday, we spent the morning updating our 5 area books (which took a while) and looked through the ones the anziani gave us. Then we made
some phone calls and checked up on a few referrals. After lunch, we went out finding for a while. No successes there, but it's all good!
Then we called and set up some appointments with some of our investigators. That evening, we helped the Aramu family clean the
church. Of course, we had to play with Camilla for a bit. She still struggles saying my name, so she has now resorted to calling me
"Sorella Elsa", and she calls herself "Sorella Ana". Legit the cutest thing of my life.

Today, we went to Aosta. First, we took the most beautiful 2 hour train ride- literally a train ride through the mountains, constantly
passing rivers and castles and waterfalls and it was just gorgeous! We first went to Castello Fenice and it was amazing! Like a freaking
medieval castle haha! Not gonna lie, I'm r e a l l y getting used to the princess life haha! There's no such thing as too many castles,
right? Then we headed back into the centro Aosta. You may recognize it as the city in avengers 2 that gets taken up into the sky by Ultron
and whatnot #NoBigDeal We got us some kebap and did some shopping, and headed home tired and happy! Best P-Day ever!

Switching gears a lil bit- Let's talk a bit about love, my favorite subject (winky face) jkjk haha but really. I was feeling a bit
stressed the other day, because transfers are next week. S. Smith has been here a long time, so all the people here are pretty attached to
her. And I love these people, but I hate that I can't fully express it as well as I'd like to because my language skills are lacking. I
voiced these concerns to my comp, because I really want to make sure these people are always taken care of. She shared a couple interesting
things with me. The first was that last Sunday when we were sick, we had almost every family in the ward call or text us asking how we were
doing- a lot of them asking about me specifically. The second was that she'd noticed that the young adults in our ward, and some of the
funnier adults like the Quaresimas liked to joke around with me, which apparently doesn't always happen. The third was that the families with
younger kids seemed to like that I always play with their kids. Apparently while I was playing with Camilla, her mom was talkin to my
comp and said that Camilla always prayed for me each night. She also commented on how even though I couldn't speak extremely well, the ward
could feel my love for them. These separate experiences probably sound like a lot of me talking about myself, but it's not meant to be that
way😂 But it really made me think of how significant love is. In 2 Nephi 26:30 it says:
Wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have
charity they were nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish.

A lot of aspects of the gospel are hard. There's no way around it. Trying to be like Christ is hard. However, choosing to love as He did
is a good start, and is one of the most important things we can do! So yay for love! Love love love love love. I love you guys!

xoxo
Sorella Smedley

1&2- Meeting President and Sister Allen  3&4-Ward Activity 

5-District Metro ride  6-4th of July  7&8-Playing with Camilla

9-24 Pday fun: Train ride, Aosta and Castello di Fenice- where I brushed up on some of my dance moves:/

(& eating kebab-which is a version of ‘Schwarma’ for all my Marvel buddies!)

    

                

Chapter 15: "Your Body is a Miracle"...?

Hey guys! It's been kind of a craaaaazy week! We've had to go and be in the Anziani apartment while stuff gets fixed, so that took up the majority of Monday-Wednesday of this week, and is why we are having p-day today (Thursday) instead of Wednesday. Not gonna lie, it's been a harder week. However, when I first left on my mission, I decided these group emails would show the good times and the harder times of mission life. Because the good experiences are uplifting or funny or whatever, but the harder experiences are where we learn the most, are they not? So I promise when I'm talking about more than rainbows and butterflies, I'm not depressed or dying lol. I'm just being blessed with more opportunities to grow and learn haha and figured I may as well share them with y'all.

Okay, so last Thursday, we went over to visit the Sassi family. As per usual, the crazy wiener dog duo of Samantha and Daisy were running all over the place. Also as per usual, chubby little Francesco took exactly a million and one selfies on my iPad (and applied his own pictures, of course!). Aaaand as per usual, they tried to turn on a movie for us. It doesn't matter how many times we tell them we aren't allowed to; they still insist on playing a movie the entire time we're there. This week was harder than most, however, because they chose to turn on Lord of the Rings. I wanted to die! Too much temptation #ThanksSatan lol. We taught them, and then they brought out lunch, starting with some sort of ravioli things.

They told us there was cat meat in it.

We thought they were joking.

But now we're not so sure...

It was grayish and chewy and I literally couldn't tell if it was even meat or not lol! Maybe liver? Idk. Then they brought out weird concoctions of vegetables, eggs, and like 30 lbs of salt, I swear! Mom and dad- remember that time in 7th grade when I made German pancakes and drastically mixed up the salt measurements? Lol. Think that, but like 10 times worse! I wanted to die. Then that afternoon, we tried to stop by Tamara. However, she had family over for the weekend and couldn't meet with us. It ended up kind of being for the best, however, because S. Smith and I were starting to feel kind of weird...

Friday, we tried to pass by a potential investigator, but got lost and then had to head to our next appointment. This appointment was with Luciana (mother of Fratello Sassi; crazy lady who gave me the bird to play with and had me read the dictionary... Remember her? Yeah...) Well first, she tried to sell us some random clothes she had. Then, she told us she probs didn't have anything in our sizes, and we should probs exercise more #thanks🙃 Then, she got us multiple bowls of nothing but whipped cream, which she then shaved chocolate over. We already weren't feeling so good, and the sugar overdose didn't help. Plus like did she not just tell us we needed to work out? Why was she giving us this food then? Lol. Then she informed me I must not have worked on my Italian at all since the last time we'd seen her, because I still sucked #thanks🙃 Then, I tried to save the disasters us appointment by giving her a word art of a scripture we'd made her. Not gonna lie, I'd spent a long time on it and was pretty pleased with it😎 Luciana, however, was less than impressed. She pointed out everything she thought should have been done differently, and then proceeded to sit on it... 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃Needless to say, I was glad we needed to leave right then for English class lol.

Saturday and Sunday were crazy... We woke up Saturday and both felt super sick and lightheaded whenever we tried to stand or walk. So we made some calls, worked on the area book, and took a nap. Then that night, we literally didn't sleep at all. Just took turns in the bathroom, vomiting about twice every hour. That morning, we knew church was not gonna happen lol. So as per mission rules, we called Sorella Dibb. Well, president Dibb answered the first time and it caught me so off guard, I was just like "heeeeeeey" and then he hung up on me😂 After I'd stopped laughing over the awkwardness, I called back and the convo went something like this:

"Hi, sorry about that."

"No problem Sorella Dibb! This is Sorella Smedley!"

"Yes dear, I know."

"Haha okay... Um... How are you?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"Ummmm I've been better actually... My comp and I were up all night puking."

"Oh! Did you guys drink enough water yesterday?"

"Ummm... Yes?"

"Did you drink TOO much?"

"Uhhhh... No..."

"Ok. Well, you guys don't worry about church today."

"Ok!"

"And maybe you can get a yogurt later or something."

"Haha, okay..."

Awkward silence.

"Your body is a miracle... It'll probably fix itself."

*Bites tongue to keep from laughing* "Haha, okay."

"Well, you can call me if you're still vomiting tomorrow."

"Haha alright. Have a nice day at church!"

"You too." Even though we aren't going to church lol? But whatevs.

You could tell she and Presidente were frazzled lol, but it was their final Sunday, so they get an out lol😂

The rest of this week was kinda crazy. Monday-Wednesday we spent most of our time sitting at the anziani apartment watching repair workers go in and out. We just had to sit there and make calls or study. Dumb, but unavoidable. Monday morning started out rather awful though. We woke up to a phone call from Doina. We were excited because last week, we'd started sending out scripture texts everyday to our investigators, as well as any potential or ex investigators. We'd been getting a lot of texts and calls from some of these people, all super grateful for it (and some who now want to meet with us!) so we were expecting this call from Doina to be that way. Not so. She was yelling and bashing our church and freaking out at us- so different from the kind, calm person we'd first met; the person who'd legitimately wanted to learn more about the gospel. Also her reasonings for not being interested in our message were that her father was Catholic and her cousin was Pentecostal, so there's that😂 Yeah, not the best convo. I couldn't understand all of it either because she was so loud and fast and has a thick Romanian accent. However, my comp refused to translate some of what she said for me, because it was just that rude and awful.

It totally bummed me out for the rest of the day. Doina was someone I'd been thinking about and praying for daily. Plus, I couldn't help but wonder why God would put me in a situation to meet her and all this stuff, only to have her not want to accept the hopeless, or even meet with us! However, through this experience I've learned 2 super stellar things:

1- God is sooooo aware of us. It's not even funny. Monday morning after the awful phone call, we headed to district meeting. I was in a not so good mood cuz I still felt sick, and I was just pretty heartbroken over Doina. However, I recognized so many little miracles God placed in my path! For example, as a result of being sick, we'd been without wifi since Friday. As soon as we got wifi at district mtg, I got a ton of emails from you lovely people saying exact things I needed to hear! Words of encouragement as well as so,e tough love and it was all just so helpful to me! So thank you, you lovely people❤️ Also in the metro there was a huge ad with dogs in birthday hats (pictured below) and laugh all you want, but I was very grateful to God for that lil miracle. I kid you not, on harder days, I usually end up seeing more people out walking their dogs and I'm just like "wow hanks God!" Because puppies brighten days. It's a fact.

2- missionary work is good and important, but the gift of agency will always be in place. This one comes from a talk my dearest mother sent me on Monday, . My fav part is this

It doesn't matter how good of a missionary you are; in the end, people still have their agency and can choose whether or not to accept the beautiful message of the gospel. Look at Jesus Christ- He was the PERFECT teacher, and yet He was still rejected by many. Our job as missionaries is to do everything in our power to make he message of the restored gospel available to everyone! However, ultimately each person will still get to choose for themselves. I'm still super disappointed about some of the stuff that happened this week with some of our investigators. However, I feel more at peace knowing that I did my part, and I can just continue praying for Doina. So yay🤗

We pretty much didn't get a Pday this week. We finished up at the anziani apartment just in time to make it back for English class. We had someone new show up named Sepideh, and I adore her! I gu so when I left to the bathroom, she asked Sorella smith how old I was and how long I'd been in Italy and was shocked when she found out, saying I sounded really good for being so young and new. So yay cuz evidently not everyone thinks my Italian sucks😬😂So we were supposed to move things around and have Pday Thursday, but then Thursday became the only day we could meet with our investigator Gabriele. So today's Pday has consisted of usual mission stuff, McDonald's, a nap, teaching Gabriele, and now emails!

Much love to all of you! Thanks you all for your love and whatnot. All the time obvi, but especially this week. Y'all are the greatest, and I hope those of you in America have a fantastic Fourth of July for me😘🇺🇸

xoxo

Sorella Kaylee Smedley

1&2- Selfies with Francesco  3-5- God blesses me with dogs (including Daisy & Samantha, the powerful wiener dog duo!)

6- 2monthaversary gelato  7- Pre-food poisoning LOTR  8-Goodbye Dibbs, hello Allen’s!  

9&10- Beautiful Italy

        

       

Chapter 14- My Life as a Disney Princess Part 2

Happy summer, lovely humans! Life is great, Italy is great… Summer has officially hit here... It's hot and humid and I literally spend
every day sweating like a sinner in church (see pic below lol). I’ll be honest, this past week has kinda blurred together so I don't really
remember what things happened on which day... So I'll just give a quick update on each of our people!

Machi: We got to see his two-year-old daughter Iris, and she is absolutely precious with crazy curly hair. I wanna adopt her... But I
guess I'll settle for converting her father😉 Machi is progressing well. We were going to set a baptism date with him, but he wants to
read and study the entire Book of Mormon first! I mean, we'd def prefer to set a date and THEN continue working with him... But I guess
he at least has a good reason! He really is taking this whole thing seriously!

Gabriele: We finally met with Gabriele, the investigator we got from the anziani when they left. He's so precious. It's sad, cuz he had a
baptismal date, but then his wife died. So now, he wants to get back to where he was before, so that he can be baptized. He treats it as a
serious and sacred decision, saying he doesn't want to jump into baptism until he knows he's done everything he needs to, otherwise it
would be as though he were mocking God. Such a stellar dude! Looking at how he was being taught before, I'm really glad he's our
investigator now. I feel like previously, the missionaries were just kinda skirting around the main issues, just visiting him and sharing

an inspirational quote. Ha I just kinda straight up asked him why he wasn't being baptized lol because why not?😂 it seemed to work well
and we had a good convo, so hopefully we're starting to get to the root of what's stopping him from progressing. So that's our next goal;
just helping him regain his testimony so that he can be baptized!

Tamara: We tried visiting her last week, but she was sick, so we’re stopping by to see her tomorrow. I love this woman so much. Prayers on
her behalf (and ours!) would be MUCH appreciated because this week, we're gonna breach the friend zone aka we're gonna try to change her
status from "potential investigator" to "investigator". Wish us luck  lolololol.

We also took a couple hours this week to call some of the potentials we had on our phone from like 6 months ago. Lots of rejection as per
usual, but there were some pretty solid convos. We also had 3 of the people we got ahold of who want to meet with us this week, so that's
exciting! Definitely worth the not so good phone calls lol am I right? Hopefully things go well with some or all of them!

As for the title of my email, I've had two outstanding princess moments this week💁🏼
1- After church on Sunday, our precious primary kids wanted us to play with them outside so obvi we did. Camilla (my absolute favorite)
wanted to teach me a game she'd made up lol... She says my name is too hard to say or read. But one day, she saw I had a sticker of rapunzel
(her fav princess) on the back of my name tag. Soooo now Cami calls me "Sorella Rapunzel" and it is literally the most precious thing of my
entire life

2- For Pday today, we went Torino with the other sorelle and just went to various cathedrals and a castle (which closed 30 min before we got
there so we only got pics outside of it #stillsalty) I know what y’all are thinking, "Really Kaylee, ANOTHER castle?" Yes. Yes it is. Deal with it💁🏼

Not gonna lie, it's been a harder week for me. Almost all of our initial plans fell through, and we didn't meet our goals in the way we
wanted to. The language was k i l l i n g me. The humidity was LITERALLY killing me. And I just miss stupid America things right now
like burgers and Reese's cups (I attempted to make my own- see picture below) and drinking fountains and English lol. These people here are
stubborn and blunt and crazy and just unlike any other group of people in the entire world, but ya know what? I still can't help but love
them so so SO much! In district meeting this week, one of our zone leaders brought up something I love, because it puts my feelings
towards the Italian people into words. Think of a time you truly loved someone. No, not any of the Romeo and Juliet crap lol get your minds
out of the gutter😂🙄 But like truly loved someone! Not for anything they did, or for what heave done for you or anything. But like,
someone who you've genuinely loved simply for who they are. You see their strengths and their faults, and you love them fully regardless.
The kind of sincere love that just fills you with joy and with light. Got someone in mind? Yeah, that is 100% how I feel about these
beautiful people. Even cooler? That's a fraction of the pure love Christ has for each of us. He sees us for what we are; He sees the
good and the bad. And He loves us! How exciting is that!

I know He loves each and every one of us, and that His love and His atonement will always be there for us. I'm not gonna try and hide that
things are kinda hard right now. However it's all so so so worth it, because of the love I have for these crazy Italians! I'm so grateful
to be blessed with this Christlike love for these people; for this amazing opportunity to feel even a small fraction of the love Christ
has for us. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Go swimming and eat a burger for me cuz I miss America...

Xoxo
Sorella Smedley

1-Awko selfies with Cami  2-Homemade Reese’s  

3- outside our apt.(always raining) 4-6- #collegno

7-15  P-day fun in Torino   16- "Sweatin like sinners in church” lololol