true or false: i now live in siena

Uh, true. Crazy town.

It's been a funny week. I am seriously baffled by the number of feelings I can have all at the same freaky time! So happy and so sad and so excited and so heartbroken and so so happy and then so sick. Man, it's been crazy.

Piazza  del Duomo

But I am so grateful for this transfer for so many reasons. I knew I had to leave Varese not just because it had been four transfers, but because I almost didn't feel like a missionary there anymore, I felt like I was at home.

But I know I am exactly where I should be right now, and how did I get so lucky that where I'm meant to be is Siena! Bo?  Seriously...Bergamo, Varese and now Siena. I must have done something right in the preexistence. I was talking to some of the Sorelle at transfers and Sorella Gomez said "I wanted that! I wanted to go to Siena and I've been trying to be so obedient the last few weeks." I laughed so hard and said "Well, obedience is certainly not how you get there." Guys I'm trying, I promise!!

I just had my face plastered to the car window as we drove to Firenze for district meeting with the senior couple who's the branch prez here. And our first giro through the city I was just spinning in circles trying to take it all in.

And I am so so so grateful I am with Sorella Nilson. It is a dream! We already kind of knew each other and she's so fun and she just loves being a missionary.  So we're kind of the same person.  We were walking up to the grocery store on Saturday and she said "Here we are!!" and I said "Sunset and Camden," (Singing in the Rain style). She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me and said "I always say that, and Sorella [  ] would always make fun of me, and this time I thought 'I'll just say it in my head' but then you said it!"

So yeah.  BFF.

It's been nice also because we are having so much fun that it doesn't leave too much space in my brain to think about Varese, because boy does it try and sneak in my brain all the time. Church was rough for a bit because I was thinking about everyone I love back in Varese and how Herlinda finally was coming to church and I was here with a bunch of strangers. But boy do I love those strangers! It's kind of incredible. And our branch is so small. We're talking ten peeps, but are they ever beautiful.

Work here is kind of hard. Lucky I'm used to hard after some pretty dry spells in Varese, but we haven't taught a lesson together yet. Lots of casa, lots of finding, walked about twelve miles, mostly up hill on Sunday. Felt sort of like I had been hit by a train, but I'll get used to it soon enough. It really feels like this city is just oozing with potential, all these almost miracles. And now that I'm at the point in my mission where I don't care a bit about any kind of numbers, it's beautiful to just enjoy it all and want to baptize for the sole reason that this people need it and deserve it. I will do everything I can for them.

Piazza del Campo e il Torre del Mangia.

New Years Eve was pretty funny. We had root beer floats, made an incredible lasagna, and counted down to 10:44, ringing in the new year with some San Pellegrino aranciata, amara. Yum yum yum!

New Years Day we did a lot of cleaning, as directed, then sat down to write in our journals (which is pretty difficult because we always end up talking to each other), and after a few minutes ended up just chatting it up, for ages, about life and family, about the mission, how we ended up where we are and how great God is and how well He knows us.

We talked a ton about the Lord guiding our lives. A ton. And I told her about all my crazy God plopping in my lap the perfect plans and I just thought about how I was so confused when I was twenty-one and the mission wasn't right, and how I was kind of angry, even though I knew God had to have something better in store.  Sometimes it's just hard to have faith in the future you can't see, even when you want to. But not even including the miraculous things that have happened in my life in those final years at BYU, just looking at how perfect my mission has been for me. If I had come at any other time I would't have had any of my companions, I wouldn't have had the Wolfgramms (good night) and Varese and Siena weren't open to Sorelle. I mean, I'm the third sorella to set foot in the city of Siena as a missionary.

Piazza Salimbeni

Plus looking back at the peeps that I've seen baptized, all of them have had contact with the church through friends or family for years, it just wasn't time yet. I mean look at Luca, I literally got to Varese at the exact perfect time. Seriously. I am the luckiest. Thank heavens H[eavenly] F[ather] knows just what He is doing and just what I need.

And then I started thinking about be at twenty-one and how I was so not ready for a mission. I think I was ready for an adventure, but now I just get it. And the gospel has never meant more to me, especially since I've met so many people who are literally fighting to keep living the gospel and I think that sometimes we take for granted all that we have.

I started trying to make a list of the things I think I've learned as a missionary, here's what I have so far:

• I think I've learned what prayer is, really, and why it is so crucial. 
• How to really talk to God and recognize all that I could never do without Him. 
• I think I've learned how to feast on the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, oh mamma do I love that book and what everyone I love to read it.
• I think I've learned how to really love, to look for and take care of people's needs, how to want nothing but good for them and wanting to do everything I can for them. I don't want anyone to ever doubt that I love them which means I need to act like I love them and tell them. 
• I think I've learned better what eternity means. How things can last forever and how we can never know the full consequences of our efforts. How we have an eternity to keep striving for knowledge and perfection and the fact that right now I am so small and so weak and so often wrong isn't the point so much as the fact that I'm trying. 

Guys, I freaky love being a missionary and I love how much I learn and live everyday and I don't ever want to go back to being the person I was before, which is something I totally didn't get before. I feel like no matter how much people talk about missions you have no idea what it means til you're there in the middle of it and you tired and weak and the happiest you've ever been. I look back at peeps I knew who came back from their missions and were the same and I was always glad, like thank goodness they didn't get all weirdy and stuff. But now I'm like, what the h did you do for two years? I feel like my brain just rotated half a degree and now things line up and make so much more sense.

I tried to make goals for the new year, ha. They're either SUPER vague, branching from living deliberately and filling my life with meaningful activities to keeping up on Italian and developing the art of cheesemaking, to funny specific things like running a marathon and finding a job. Twenty13, here we are. It's going to be good, because I won't settle for anything less.

Well, hope that's enough weekly word vomit for you. Enjoy the pics.

New addy:

Via Mameli 49
53100 Siena
Italy

Love you all!

sorella cespuglio