Little Italian Song

Ciaowdy everyone!! How is it going? Out here in Italy everything is absolutely insane. I have no idea where to even begin.

I can't speak any language. One of the biggest parts of living in Italy is obviously learning and speaking Italian. I've definitely taken large strides in my language learning in the past month but not without consequences! I guess my fear of forgetting English when I was a five year old in Germany wasn't too far off the mark. The more I learn Italian the less correct any language sounds. As a linguistics major this is slightly frustrating because I know what it's supposed to sound like but it's a little rough. What is slightly helpful is that two nights a week I teach an English Course as a service to people but it's always a lot of fun trying to teach vocabulary and learning different idioms. And you get a miracle! And you get a miracle! EVERYONE GETS A MIRACLE! I have legitimately seen so many miracles already on my mission. I've had one baptism with a nine year old girl of a less active family and it was beautiful to see how happy the gospel makes people. You can tell when everything clicks for people because there's this little spark of happiness in their eyes that wasn't there before. We have another friend that's getting baptized next month on the 10 (day after my birthday :) ) and we have another friend that just told us YESTERDAY that she wants to be baptized too.

Two other outstanding miracles have been:

1. The time that three weeks into my mission my companion and the other sister training leader had to go on exchanges to the other side of the island. They left me and Sorella Paulson, another new missionary, to do the work for Catania and Siracusa while they did that. It was insane because we should not have been able to speak the language or understand all that we did after only three weeks in Italy. However, we taught all the lessons we needed to, we found two new people to teach, and even led out an English course on our own!!! The gift of tongues is so real!

2. Me and Sorella Spach were going finding and set out to go to this one park. Halfway there we felt prompted to go the other direction to this monument. When we were there we were prompted to talk to this one lady. It turns out she's a less active member that the missionaries haven't seen for five years and who hasn't been to church in ten years!!! Her family is still pretty active but she was worried about one of them and we were able to get some really important information to fellowship that family. The craziest thing is that she wasn't supposed to be there that night either. She just felt like she needed to go to the monument. Again, God is amazing and miracles exist.
   

While those are some really obvious miracles I've also just seen consistent everyday miracles that have testified to me that God is aware of me specifically and He is involved in the details of our lives. Between brownies and music and the people I get to meet every day shows me another way that God helps His children. It's really beautiful to be able to see that because I've always struggled believing that there could be miracles in my life. I've put a lot of stock in hard work and my own abilities and talents that I know are magnified through the spirit, but I always thought that would be the extent of miracles in my life. My mission has really opened my eyes to the miracles that happen every day. A mission is a traveller's dream!! My birthday is coming up but I honestly can't think of anything I want because this mission is one of the best gifts I've had. I mean living in Italy for 18 months, learning a language, and just helping people 24/7? I love it here! One blessing I did not anticipate was all the different places I'd get to see.

The different places I've been this month:

Siracusa (obviously)

Mount Etna

Catania

Messina

Ragusa

Every single place is beautiful and because it's Sicilia all the food is incredible and you're right on the ocean everywhere. I can't really describe the places and people I've seen, so go ahead and check out the photos!!