How are things going....... Better. I just have that hard, hard head and I just needed time to figure out and process everything that I was thinking and feeling, you know? But, like, I think I did and I think I'm super blessed with my companion because here are some conclusions that I've come to -- one would be that I have really high expectations for everything. I think that everything should be perfect and everything should be great, and whatever, but that's not quite life, you know? And so I need to lower that but then again, why would I lower my expectations? I don't want to not become all that I could....or whatever. I don't know. But I'm realizing that the expectations that I have are just a little much and little toxic. I realize that that's not healthy for me and I've been putting a lot of it on my companion and I"m going to try to be better. But I just can't quite figure it out. Also I've been studying optimism and I'm not quite sure about that, either. We'll see. Long story short, I am doing better. And I'm so stubborn. I'm so stubborn! I don't want anyone to help me until I feel like I've sufficiently helped myself. I'm like, "no, I can do this. Just give me time." Even when people try to help me I tell them not to help me, let me figure it out. Even Sorella Smith called and I was like, "it's proselyting time and I'm doing missionary work...". I'm so stubborn. I'm trying to work through that because one thing interesting that I read (because someone in my district did a five minute Preach My Gospel presentation and he invited us all to read chapter 3 from President Hinckley's book. It's on optimism. And this was before all of my stuff was going on and I don't think anyone knew. One of the things I talks about is how life is like a great train adventure that we get to go on and we're just in the back of the car, and more often than not there's going to be dust, there's going to be turbulence, there's going to be wind, there's going to be noise, it's not going to be comfy. But we take the ride for those moments of beautiful views and we just need to thank God for the opportunity we have to even be on the ride. And so that really tuck with me because optimism is hard for me. Our family is not necessarily a very optimistic family, LOL, so it's not, like, normal to me. Realism and even pessimism are normal to me. I always remember the essay Alyssa write about the positive side of pessimism. Anyway....optimism doesn't quite make sense in my brain. I'm trying to make it make sense but sometimes I'm like, you jut have to be smart and stressed or you just have to be dumb and happy. So I'm like, "ok, I'm just going to try to be dumb and happy"....I guess. I guess it's how life has to go until I find a better balance. Anyway, those are my thoughts before I answer questions.
So questions...
1. What are you studying in your personal study right now?
Also, I study so many things that I can't really even tell you. I'm studying 3 Nephi when Jesus is in the Americas and is teaching them. I'm studying optimism. I was studying purity of heart. I was studying the gathering of Israel, and other stuff for lessons everyday.
2. How does companionship study work? Do you take turns leading or does one of you always lead it and how do you decide what to study?
It depends on the companionship. For me as senior companion (not in this companionship necessarily) it used to just be something that bothered me that the senior companion carried a lot of the weight. But our companionship isn't like that. So to start we sing, then we pray, then we do our recitations, and then we read the white handbook, we read a little from some of our resource materials, and then we talk about our studies. A few transfers ago I remember feeling like I wanted someone to ask me how mt studies were because I would always have to ask and then they would finish talking and then I would just sit there.... But for us it's not like that. We generally take turns. We study for our lessons, plan our lessons. If we don't have lessons to plan for we will be studying about how we can prepare ourselves to teach English course because we want to start using English Connect. We also will be studying for a stake mission plan that we are putting in place. And then a few weeks ago we were on that finding grind and so we were reading Chapter 9 in Preach My Gospel, about how to find people to teach or thinking about the people that we're teaching, the people that we're meeting, trying to meet the needs for that. SO if we know this person needs to work on keeping commitments, we're going to study how to help people make and keep commitments, like that. It depends.
3. Tell me about a moment this week when you felt the Spirit.
This is actually really cool. So it was a rough week and I had a lot of anxiety. So one day we were like changing scambios, I had a 20 minute lunch, and we were just coming off scambios and we had just had a horrible lesson with someone. We try to find those that will receive us, and we were super rushed and then we went somewhere and then we gave the anziani back the car but we still had a little bit of time to go finding. I was just very, very, very anxious and I was like, "Sorella, I don't have the capacity to make a Spirit-led decision right now. I feel so anxious. I feel pain in my chest. I need you to make the decision." And she said, "OK. Let's go bus finding." And I was like, OK, which was kind of like what I was feeling but I wanted to let her make the decision. So we go and get to the bus station and while we were there I said, "we need to go on a specific bus" and I didn't know how to go there, but I said "I feel like we need to take the 2" but I didn't even know where 2 went. But we went over and stood over there and I knew the Spirit was talking to me, so I'm thinking, "Why am I here?" and there was a man and I tried to talk to him and he didn't want to talk to me -- he answered my questions and then walked away from me. And then there was a woman who was waiting a friend. She was from Spain but spoke Italian and that was really cute. So we had a cutie conversation but that didn't quite feel right. So we got on the bus and immediately I see this girl who is crying and so I went back and sat down next to her and she was crying and so I just started talking to her. And I said "Can I just hug you?" So I put my arms around her and I just held her for at least five minutes. I just held this girl while she was sobbing. And she had just been through a really rough situation based off her choices and she said that she is really religious but said "I know these things I was doing aren't right. The family has always been really important to me. I've never believed these things that I did were ok but I just felt it was right. And I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to do anymore." And so I was able to talk to her about how I couldn't tell her but God could. So we talked about prayer. I talked about the Book of Mormon and how it's a way to hep me find answers to my questions, and it was just where God needed me to be in that moment. I've had moments like that but it's never been that evident, you know? Just the fact that a few months I was like, "I can't follow the Spirit tonight", then to say no, we need to wait at this bus stop and we need to take this specific bus. And we had to wait for it for a little bit, but that was exactly where God wanted us to be. He knew that one of his daughters needed comfort. She had to get off really quick so we gave her some pamphlets. That was where God needed me to be and it was just really awesome because I feel like sometimes I'm like, "oh my gosh -- I can't follow the Spirit! It's so hard! Am I even doing it?" and then it's like, I am! I just don't realize it. That was awesome.
4. What was the best thing you ate this week? Any specific foods that you miss that you can't get there?
We had three meal appointments this week and all of it was such good food. Yesterday we had potatoes, rice, and mussels with the V family this week and they fed us raw squid. We had joked around with them about it. And they are literally incredible. I'm super, super, super grateful for them! And then we had a pasta meal. The best thing.....was probably what we ate yesterday but the interesting thing was the squid. There really aren't any foods that I miss that I can't get there. I was thinking about it and I don't want to go back to the American way of eating! I love the culture around food and I love the food itself that we eat here. The way that I'm able to go to the market and buy dried fruit and nuts and things.
5. Is your apartment warm enough?
Yes.
6. How long does it take your clothes to dry since you don't have a dryer?
Maybe like two days for them to fully dry out. It depends on the item as well.
7. Tell me about something that made you smile or laugh this week.
Well, I don't know if this is smile or laugh, but I'll just talked about the V family since I want to. We went over there for lunch. As soon as P-Day ended I got a call from Sorella V, "Sorella Gisseman, I want to talk you." And I was like, "No!" -- because I knew -- I had also gotten a message from you telling me that you had posted something. And she was like, "how are you doing?" and I'm like, "eh..............." and she said "What's wrong?" and I was like, "eh...................". So I told her a little bit but not too much. But then we were going over to their house and the first thing Fr V said to me was, "So, I heard that you're stressed about something." And Sorella V said "Don't embarrass her!" and I was like, "I'm not embarrassed, I just...." so we changed the toic of conversation. And then my companion went to the bathroom and I had told Sorella V that the idea of the future is what's kind of bothering me. And so Fr. V starts going off about all these little decisions that maybe weren't necessarily the best decisions but how they really helped him come to where he is. And he's like, "What are you doing when you go home?" and I was like, "I don't know! I don't want to talk about it. But I'm not stressed about it." And so then I explained some of the things I had talked to Mom about last week, and it was just like getting advice from my Italian father. They were both so incredible. It was so awesome. It was words that I really needed to hear, and he shared a lot of cool experiences with me to help me understand a little bit better the work that I'm supposed to be doing here. That was awesome!
8. Do you know how much I love you?
Of course!
9. How was church today? How big is your ward?
It was good. I' not sure how big the ward is exactly. I think about 50-60 people come to church. We're doing Come Follow Me and that's fun because I'm doing it in Italian and so I can participate. And it's so cool to see the members' testimonies of the Book of Mormon.
10. What did you do for P-Day today?
Saldi shopping and then making ponzarotti.
11. What have you learned about missionary work in the last few months?
I think in the last week my testimony of the idea of small and simple things has been strengthened. And also that, regardless of how many obstacles might be in our way, this is the work of the Lord and He will make it happen and He will do it through small and simple means. That's hard for me but that's ok.
12. Are there any Italian customs or habit that you've picked up?
You'll find out when I come home. LOL
Anyways, I think that's all....I love you so much!!!
Ciao, ciao!!
Scambio -- and we found pandoro for two euros!
The week I drove....
We bought chocolate.....
