"Yip Yip!"

Here's the newest and latest from Sarah. She continues in Lodi with Sorella Yonk.

4/22/15

Margharita

We went to Margharita's house and she had made us lunch. I swear people think we are sumo wrestlers or something. A huge plate of pasta (like half a bag each) then some salad with mayonnaise (She's convinced we eat mayo and hamburgers. Always. At weddings, for breakfast, always.).  Then four chicken breasts for Slla Yonk and a motz ball for me (Slla Yonk has been telling people I'm vegetarian ever since I threw up after an eating appointment with a lot of meat. I think I ate a whole cow.)  Then cheap gelato and chocolate salami for dessert. It was delicious but the lesson was better.

So we taught the Plan of Salvation and she loved it and was all on board for baptism on the 23rd and everything still. But she smokes. A lot. So we were trying to think of how we could help her and ended up kind of giving a second lesson about God's power and how we can harness it through prayer, scripture study and obeying the commandments. Which is a paradox seeing as one of the commandments is the Word of Wisdom. But she still seemed on board. I think my favorite part of the lesson is when we challenged her not to stop completely, but that before she smoked every time to read a verse from the LdM [Book of Mormon], say a prayer and then call or text us. She refused to do the last one which I don't really blame her for, I wouldn't want to call anyone every time I smoked either. But on the first two... it was really cool. I was bearing testimony of the LdM and how the words have tangible power and the spirit was like, "yeah they do."  It was a good lesson. We are going to try to get her to church this week. (She couldn't come last week cause of stuff with her lawyer.) Oh! The cool part! So she also said, and this was her idea, that she would mark how many cigarettes she smoked every day and then call us and tell us at the end of the day, so that she'd have to be accountable to someone. The first night she called us and told us she usually smokes 20 and that day she's smoked 11. Hey-o atta girl. I'm telling you, there ain't no smoke-quitting drug or program like conversion and the Book of Mormon and prayer and God. She's on a roll. As we left that day she said, "You girls just bring this energy with you, and it honestly makes me believe that I can do this. That I can get better." That is what we are here for, to help people get better. In whatever way they need to.

Finding: Yip Yip!

Saturday we had English class and there is this delightful guy from Napoli who makes me wish I got called to Rome. He has a heavy Neapolitan accent though and I thought my Italian was just tanking until I asked one of the native Italians if they could understand him, "Of course not, he's from Napoli." Whew. He's so funny though. He's always like, yelling everything he says. And the only English words he knows are swear words and "I dunno!"

On the way home from English class it was POURING and when we got home we wrung out our coats and boots (I didn't know you could wring out leather boots.) in the bathtub and then hung them up to dry. The next morning they were still wet. LOL.

Yesterday was like this--"Can we come over?" "No." "Okay--finding: yip yip!" It was good though. We had some posters and we made some people laugh and smile.

We also tried to drop by Nico's last night with some banana bread but his wife was the only one home and she doesn't open to anyone apparently so....that was a little unnerving. We texted Nico and he assured us that his wife is fine with us.  She's just paranoid ‘n’ stuff. And he's really busy right now with work and school and his gym but he wants to do something sometime at the church. I'm still holding out.

Exhaustion

Mostly this week has been fine. I just am really tired. Exhausted actually. I guess it is just the mission but, man, it's a brutal year ahead if this is what it's like. It doesn't matter how much sleep I get, I always wake up in the morning with bags under my eyes. And as I get up to say my prayers I just can't do much but think “16 hours to go”...which is probably not the best thing to think. It's not that I'm homesick or not happy. Because I'm not really. I miss you guys but I'm fine, and I'm pretty happy these days. But it's just the constant grinding of everyday. The same thing. Over and over. And nothing new and...yeesh. This sounds worse than it is. Sorry. I still find joy in the little things and I really am fine. But sometimes I feel like the mission is just breaking me down. Physically into a missionary robot, mentally until I literally have a hard time thinking at night time, and emotionally...It's just hard to love this hard this long.

4/29/15

Nepal

Okay first off, I have heard a little about the awful earthquake in Nepal. While I feel completely clueless and helpless I know that the only difference it would make in being home is that I would feel informed and helpless. Maybe even more helpless. When Slla Yonk and I found out about the 6000 (?) people dead and more missing we were very...it was a sober night. But we realized that here in Italy we are also a part of the humanitarian effort. Maybe not of clothes and food and medicine, and maybe not even of complete comfort or understanding, but we are bringing what we can through the gospel. A more eternal perspective, a greater scope and a fissure of light in the seemingly impenetrable wall of darkness that can be a natural disaster. I hope, and believe, that both the church, America, and all other nations are joining together to help and support the people in that corner of the world. I will continue to pray with you these weeks and months for those whose lives were affected.

Leonardo

We had the surprise of our life on Thursday. We were in the park doing some finding before our bus came and Margharita called us and asked us if we could come over. We said of course and went over. We were planning on the way over to do this impromptu lesson that we would just continue with the rest of the plan of salvation and then continue into lesson 3 the gospel of Jesus Christ. We rang her door and she let us in. "My husband is here, I want you to meet him." HOLY MAMMA I was neither emotionally, spiritually, nor mentally prepared to meet this man. I had only ever heard him talked about and it's like how you think that President Obama isn’t actually a person until you shake his hand and he's really human. I also had a lot of mixed feelings.  Well, actually at the beginning I knew exactly what I thought of this man. But as soon as I saw him, THEN I became very conflicted. He was skinny and wearing a black suit with a black shirt. He had grey hair and grey eyes. And I looked at him and I just could tell he was sad. He was hunched over but not....physically. I don’t really know how to explain it. His eyes were sad, they were begging. We shook his hand and sat down to some chamomile tea. He was sick at the time and spoke in a very soft, gentle voice. I...am still confused to be honest about him and don’t quite know what to think. I am inclined to think that he is very deeply broken and is begging to be fixed but that is...hard.  yeesh.  I'm 19.  I don’t know how to fix people. But I guess Christ does. Heck I hardly do anything out here. Anyway, we talked to him for a bit and then began a lesson that we hadn’t planned. The conversation just turned to Christ and his atonement and the ability we have to become clean and pure and whole after anything. I kind of felt bad that I had judged him so harshly... The other thing is that he just feels hopeless. He kept going on this rant about how, yeah, we can repent but then we are all human and we are all sinners and we are just going to end up making mistakes over and over and over again so what's the point? We tried to explain that God was patient and really our actions don’t mean as much to God as what our hearts are doing and feeling and wanting. You could just tell that he was sorry for what he did but didn’t want to admit any guilt...It was a lesson full of...things that were way beyond the capacity of two 19 year old girls. But the spirit was there and at the end of the lesson he said, "You are both very young, but you have so much wisdom. The way you see the world is very different." He also told us that all day his wife had been in a frantic, sad mood and just kept saying "I need to call my missionaries, I need to call my missionaries..." They asked us to come back that Saturday and bring a member who had a little more life experience. We agreed. As we left Margharita kissed us and thanked us and Leonardo shook our hands and thanked us. He even bowed his head a little to us as he was shaking our hands.

That Saturday we went back with Mirko our Ward mission leader and had another lesson. When we walked in, he was still a little sick but his spirits seemed a bit better. In the opening prayer, Margharita prayed that we could help her save their marriage. Yeesh. Pressure. The lesson was still mostly on repentance, forgiveness and the power of the atonement, but the resto also just kind of happened. Mirko and Leonardo (the husband) really hit it off and Mirko was able to respond a lot better and a lot faster to their questions. The spirit was there and both Margharita and Leonardo were hanging onto our every word. They were both engrossed. We gave Leonardo a Book of Mormon and asked them to read it together every day and pray together every day. I said that there was nothing we could do to save their marriage, but that the best marriage counselor was God and that as they both worked on building their relationships with Him, they would also grow closer together. They said they would work on it. Margharita is still smoking 11 or so a day but hey, it is a heck of a lot better than 20. Before we left, Mirko gave Margharita a blessing of comfort. As he opened the blessing, Margharita literally sighed and then she started silently crying. Throughout the whole prayer. She thanked him and so did Leonardo. They are both planning on coming to church this Sunday.

Conference with Elder Bednar

The Bednar conference was yesterday. I saw Slla Gillespie in Centrale in Milano on the way to the church and I think we both almost started crying. I miss her so much man...she goes home in July and she is way over in the east so I don’t know if I’ll see her again till my homecoming talk. But the conference was sick dope. Bednar is $$$£££. He does the whole QandA thing as you know and so no one actually gave a talk. It was just a series of questions—asked by him and missionaries—that were answered by both him and missionaries. I lead the music and that was as much public eye as I wanted that day, also I never felt the need to stand up and say anything but it was a solid 6 hours of conference. And I learned a lot. Both from things said, but mostly from things that I felt. Questions that I have that were not....answered, but I have more understanding now than I did three days ago. I’ll write down a few things I learned.

First, knowledge is a medium of the mind. Understanding is a medium of the heart. There is a correlation between the two but I don’t know what it is, because they can be related but they aren’t always. You can have understanding without knowledge and you can have a knowledge without an understanding. Faith is required for both and depending on the person and subject, one can precede the other and one can be harder to obtain than the other. The spirit plays a role in both mediums but I believe that it might play a slightly larger or at least more prominent role in understanding seeing as your heart is not blocked and guarded by logic and skepticism.

Second, I learned that trials aren’t meant to be easy. duh. But faith to overcome those trials isn’t easy either. Again, duh. But this is where my synapses started firing. Faith is when you realize and accept that you aren’t ready for or prepared for what is in front of you but you do it anyway because you believe or at least hope that after you are free falling, God will then give you the power to make you equal to your task. But only after you make that initial step will the power of faith kick in. Faith is stepping out of the plane even when you don’t know for sure that the parachute on your back will deploy. By golly you hope it will and by golly you think you’re ready, but in those first few seconds, I would argue that every base jumper's body, no matter how many times they've jumped, is screaming "What have you done, you idiot? We are going to die."

Basically it was like super intense spirit stuff for six hours and then I got to see Gillespie and so it was a great day to be alive.

5/6/15

P-Day in Milano

We went to Milano last week and are heading up again this week in about an hour to see a Da Vinci exhibit (with basically everything but the Mona Lisa...been there done that... wow. spoiled snob alert. ecco mi qua.) But last week we went to H&M and I finally got some t shirts for summer (Don’t worry they look so so classy, mom!!) and then had the classic Luini's and went and shopped at Tiger that fabulous Swedish store full of rubbish. We then went to McD's and got some cocoa shakes and people watched in Centro. We were surrounded by Gucci, Louis Vitton, Prada, etc etc. and we were just laughing at all the guys whose jobs were to open and close the doors of the high end stores for customers. And then we realized they were hired for their good looks and they were getting paid more than we ever have been. Then we stopped laughing. But it was still fun.

In Over Our Heads

On Thursday I went on a scambio [exchange] with Slla Gluck (from Germany) and we had this crazy experience. I was in Pavia, so I didn’t actually know the person, but we went into this less active’s house and she just started bawling. We had no idea what was going on, but she eventually got it out that the police had come and taken her husband away that afternoon to jail and he wasn’t getting released for at least six years. We were in way over our heads. We had no idea what to do. Now this single mom with a newborn, a three year old, and a sixteen year old is just sobbing on the couch in this tiny apartment and here are these well dressed girls from 1st world countries who have never known anyone in a jail cell. We just sat there and hugged her as she cried and told her that we had no idea what she was going through but that Christ did and He would be there for her every second of every day for the next six years if she'd let him. We said a prayer for her and left. I walked out feeling like I had just tried to tear down the Berlin wall with a Styrofoam fork. I don’t think we made a huge difference, but God does work through his missionaries to give his children what they need when they need it. I still have no idea how the other half lives, but that was a haunting insight.

Margharita

Oh man. I'm so excited to write this. So. She came to church with her husband Leonardo. They both seemed to enjoy it (except for the screaming children in sac meeting) and Margharita was marching all over the place telling everyone she met that she wanted to get baptized. The ward was amazing at fellowshipping them and Margharita told us after church that she felt really at home there and that she wanted to come every week from now on. :) So good to hear that.

Then yesterday we went over to her house for lunch (I love her to death but we aren’t going to accept lunch appointments from her anymore…she thinks we are NFL linebackers, I swear...) and we brought a calendar for baptism with us.  Before we even pulled it out she said, "Girls, I want to get baptized. Do you think I can get baptized before the end of the month?" I think I almost started crying. We said she absolutely could. We taught her the word of wisdom in depth and said she had to not smoke for two weeks before she could be baptized. She started talking about how she hated smoking and she hated herself whenever she went into a tabaccheria to buy a pack. We asked her how many cigarettes were in the house. She said ten. She said she didn’t want to buy anymore. We said we had prayed about her date of baptism and felt that she could be ready by the 23rd of May. She looked at the calendar and said, "That means my last cigarette will be Friday." "Yes. Four days. How many have you smoked today?" "11 so far" "You don’t have to buy anymore. Do you have faith in the power of God?" We talked about faith and effort and the help of the spirit and she said she wanted to smoke two today, one tomorrow and one on Friday and then be done. We are doing a fast on Friday to Saturday for her. And while everything in me that is logical tells me that she can’t stop in four days, three days now, I want to have faith that she can do it. But I am also worried that it is my selfish desire to see her baptized before I'm transferred out. We are praying a lot and we want to see her a lot to give her the strength and support she needs to do this. I can’t imagine how hard these next days will be for her.

Oh, also, she and Leonardo are separating. We found out that he hated church and never wanted to go back. I really had no idea how to read him, but talking with Margharita yesterday and then with Slla Yonk last night, he doesn’t feel guilt, shows little emotion, doesn’t seem to really care about how his actions affect others, it kind of seems like he might be mildly psychopathic. He's very calm around us and I think I misread that for sadness instead of emptiness. I am not going to pass judgment or say he’s a lost cause, cause no one is a lost cause, but I think it is for the best that they will be separating......oh it is just a mess. And it’s really hard to follow the no council rule when she asks us what to do. It must be old to hear the answers "read the BoM and pray and find your spiritual self." But, I guess in the end that is what will help her the most.

Sorella Yonk

One last thing I want to write though, Slla Yonk is so amazing. I realized I don’t talk about her much in my emails home but she has been amazing in understanding and loving me even with all my weaknesses and flaws. Her "be yourself" mentality has been exactly what I needed for this crucial time in my life when  I feel like being and thinking like I do isn’t good enough. A few nights ago in bed we were talking and she was saying that she admired my testimony and the lens I look through even though it was very different from the average church member. She said I was strong and I started crying and said I didn’t feel very strong and she hopped out of her bed and tackled me in mine and hugged me and said I was strong and "don’t you ever forget it" and that I wasn’t a fringe-rider (that is another story) and that I was a good missionary and God was proud of me. Anyway. Gillespie was amazing and so is Yonk. I have truly loved my comps so far. And I am sorry that I have to leave Yonk in a few weeks but...she lives in Utah so it’s all good.

Friends Sprinkled Around the World

One last thing, I found out that Lauren got called to the Leeds England mission :) I am so happy for her and all my other dear friends that are about to be sprinkled across the world but it has been really hard for me to be here so isolated from all my sweet sisters and friends as they all are finding out the hugely diverse directions that their lives are taking them. The roads that we are all on used to be almost exactly the same and the fabulous four used to be only separated for hours at a time...yeesh. Sometimes I feel like it's the end of the fellowship and we are all going our separate paths. And I know that come two or three years we'll all find each other again, but it isn’t going to be the same. And stupid marriage is like the white shores from whence no man can return. Dumb. And sometimes here in Lodi I feel like Frodo when he said, "We are going in circles, Sam." Except for lessons with Margharita, of course. But I just feel like the whole world is moving on without me. People are getting married, going on missions, starting school, finishing school, and I'm just still here in Lodi. And time just seems to stand still here on the mission. Anyway. Those are my thoughts from this week. Love you all heaps :)

Ci vediamo!  A dopo!

Sorella Sarah