"It’s the onnnnly way to flyy!" – It’s a Mad
Mad Mad Mad World
We got our flight plans a couple days ago! We leave from
Salt Lake City going to the Dallas at 12:15. We
are flying American Airlines. There we say goodbye to our Milano and
Romanian friends and split off into groups of 11 to go to our
missions. My group has a flight at 4:45 pm to London
flying British Airways. Then we have a flight London to Rome at 11:00
am. Pretty exciting I think. I also am hoping that we are in the same terminal
as the Cafe Rio so I can get my last bite of 'Mehican' Food before it’s pasta
and pizza for the next two years!
A lot of my district, bless their hearts, brought
literally hundreds of pounds of stuff to take. They have to ship all of their
stuff home this week because they can't take it Italy. (My companion literally
has half a suit case full of exercise equipment and the other half is full of
food.) I'm glad I'm from a family that travels a lot so I know how to pack!
"Don't mind him he's just hackin' on a bone” –
Christmas Vacation
So this week we have noticed that every day (mostly every
morning) we come back into our room and a lot of the food has been
missing. Well last night I woke up to the sound of rustling rappers to see our
District Leader just going to town on our pile of food! Every night he sneaks
in after we've gone to bed and eats our snacks!! What a skunk. We have to lock
our door at night now, which stinks because the AC is still out and it gets
super hot in there... But it's a small price to pay to keep the district leader
from committing sin.
"Rasta Man Never Die!" - Hawaiian Flee
Market Man (Claimed Bob Marley's Cousin)
I sent some pictures of Adam home last week and he seems
to be doing really good. He is going to the West Indies where it is palm trees
and 90 degrees year round. He is super excited to go and is really looking
forward to serving in some of the small Rastafarian villages. I don't know if I
mentioned this, but he is in my same building so I see him a lot, and the West
Indies missionaries before him. There really is just a personality that they
call to that mission because the missionaries who just left are the exact same
people who just came in. It's funny how that works.
"You’re nocturnal! Your eyes don't see well even
on a good day!"
More problems with the classroom. They fixed the AC. Yay.
But now all the lights have burned out in our classroom... I went to go talk to
the maintenance people and they said they would fix it... Hmm... A week later
they hadn't fixed it so I talked to them again and they said they probably
won't replace them... WHAAT??? They said when we leave they are remodeling the
whole building and don't really want to fix them because it’s getting torn out
anyways... So this week the classroom is literally sooo dark because we just
have a little window in the corner. But at least we leave in a few days. Kinda
weird that they wouldn't replace them though considering we can barely read in
there? Che sara sara...as they say in Italia...
"Caro Padre Celeste"
Yes, Italian is still incredibly frustrating
and hard, but I'm trying my best by golly. But one thing that I like about
Italian (yes, I'm getting to that point) is the style of prayer. In English we
pray very formally and always use Thees, Thous, and what nots... It even says
to do that in the White Hand Book—to use formal language. But in Italian you
are supposed to pray informally and casually like you are talking to a really
close friend. Our teachers kind of explained it this way... In Italian, mostly
because of the Catholic Church, prayer is very rigid, structured, and
extremely formal. So the people of Italy use the casual form to show that
prayer is not supposed to be like that and that God loves and cares for us so
that we can actually talk with him. I think that is pretty
cool. I was wondering if French or Danish was formal or informal?
"Tanti Aguri a Te (Happy Birthday to You)"
It was my Companion's Birthday this week. I wished him a
happy 12th birthday and am making him a little card today and an origami heart.
But the day after his Birthday was our teacher's birthday so we took a lot of
the stuff that my Companion got and re-gifted it for our teacher. Don't really
know how my companion felt about this. He went along with it though? He doesn't
speak up much, so we really don't know what he's thinking. But in any case, he
was happy that his presents could be used to brighten up somebody else's day.
:)
"We're trapped here like rats! Small little rats
with no hair and one leg!" - Radio, Brave Little Toaster
Well if I thought it was cabin fever last week... This
week has been pretty rough for the district now that we have our travel plans.
Kind of weird to think that a week from now I will be in the Italia speaking to real people.
Kind of weird to think that there are actually real people out in the world.
But we are supa' excited to go.
"..."
Roma lost to Milano this week in soccer. That’s all that
needs to be said. But! I made a small 2 ft by 2 ft four square court in
our hallway. We play with a lacrosse ball. I am proud to say that Roma always
takes home the Gold in that though!.JPG)
