Easter Packages and the "Back" Story

Ciao!  So this week has been so long but also so fast!  Like I said before, it's impossible to explain the time warp.  

Can I talk about how much I love my district?!  Especially the Anziani; especially the Anziani going to Milan. (I'm talking in an appropriate missionary way.)  Here's why:

So on Saturday, I was feeling kinda weird and really distracted.  Kelsey wrote me a letter about how mom was super sad, which is probably true -- and really can you blame her? I'm awesome -- but it just makes me sad to think other people are sad, especially mom. 

Easter packages
ANYWAYS, after lunch our DL hands me TWO package slips and I am so stoked.  It's just an answer to my prayers.  But then the DL starts telling me, in the nice missionary way, that I have to wait until after personal study to get them.  So I'm super antsy in personal study time and then run over to get my Easter packages!  (Everyone in the district got theirs the day before.)

I get up to the package place and it is closed.  SATURDAY CLOSES AT 2:00!!  By this time it's 2:08.  I'm upset.  So the rest of the day I was kind of mopey and really mad and on the verge of crying all day.  So after gym and dinner and language study, I walk up to class and stick my head on the desk.  

And our sweet, sweet Anziano Gneiting and Anziano Miller  pulled together a little package of their favorite things from their Easter packages and made me an Easter package!!  

They gave me homemade cookies from Gneiting's grandma and Miller's favorite candy "Nips," a whole pack of Oreos and Lifesavers.  It was just really sweet.  I cried happy tears.  I think they were alarmed.  ANYWAYS I love my district. They are watching out for me. 

what are you looking at?
Another story!  This one is funny.  Or it may not be, but here as missionaries the dumbest things make us so so happy. 

So we're in class and I've been pegged as the sister who looks at the teacher's "rear end."  BUT I DONT!  

Davide our investigator is now our teacher and its so weird calling him Fratello Jeter.  David Jeter is his real name.  Anyways, he accidently sat on the chalk board and got a huge line of chalk on his rear and I just pointed and motioned like "ohhhhh!" without him noticing.  

But then the class says, "Sorella O'Connor, don't look at Fratello Jeter's rear."  

But that's not the real story; it's just the "back" story.  

So the NEXT DAY, Fratello Merrell is teaching us.  He turns around and has a HUGE slit in the back of his pants-- like 6 inches, I kid you not.  But guess who is the first one to notice?... Sorella O'Connor.  

Anyways, I'm dying and no one notices.  I tell the other sisters about it on our break and we decide that we have to tell the Anziani so that they can tell him.  It would just be embarrassing to hear that from the sisters.  

Then the anziani decide that "it's not that big of a deal" and don't want to tell him!!!!  "bottom" line is, nobody tells Fratello Merrell about the hole in his pants and Monday he came to class with a different pair of slacks.  Someone else must have told him.  hahahah it was so funny!

Easter Sunday

Easter was great!  I waited to get into devotional in the very cold for THREE HOURS (who have I turned into?)  

Anyways Bishop Causse came!  He was so perfect.  He is from France and I love him.  

Then at devotional that night, Sheri Dew spoke.  All the the feminist sister missionaries were dying.  It was fine, but my comp loved it as well as Sorella Nef. hahah if only you knew their personalities ... they LOVE Sheri Dew. 

I started playing volleyball at gym hahaha.  I fall down alot. 

secret sister stuff
All the teachers say my Italian sounds EXACTLY like Kaitlin's, which is good to know because Kaitlin knows Italian.  But it also makes me feel weird because I know how I felt about Kaitlin speaking Italian at home hahahah. 

I love learning Italian and I love my teachers! 

the gospel in haiku
So in class we had a sub and he was like,  "Okay I want you to describe the gospel in ten words."  

Then Egbert gets up and she said in the most serious face, "I made my ten words into a haiku."  hahahah.  

She is just so funny and super sarcastic, but also really sensitive. tricky combo.  Her dad is a therapist so she is really good at pep talks. We like to compare our fathers' "dear elders" to us because they are SUPER similar. hahah

Paige and Sorella Egbert

(and Anziano Gneiting photobombing)

Thanks for my packages!!!!  I loved all of them!  Everyone makes fun of me for taking lemons to breakfast and microwaving water to squeeze them into but I don't care. I just love my warm drink in the morning. hahah

Aunt Marcey sent me the BEST package!! and the cutest card, including a mini Preach My Gospel!!!  Sent from heaven!!! She is the best.

I'm bad at writing back handwritten letters, so don't be offended.  It just means I'm working really hard at learning Italian instead.  I'll try better this week.

We've been making the dumbest jokes in Italian.  Just like,  "HIGH FIVE. down low. too slow"  It is so so so funny to do in Italian.  We've been learning the Italian hand gestures too; it's so fun.  Almost halfway through with the MTC! 

Also something bad we do on Thursday nights is Astel, Woodmancy and Willard and I get cheese-filled breadsticks from a vending machine!!!  It sounds super nasty, but it is so good. 

Did I tell you about the sisters we room with?  They're going to Chile!  and so I get confused in my lessons between Italian and Spanish -- BUT I DONT EVEN KNOW SPANISH -- I blame it on the Chile girls.  I love them.  

So my room is me, Bennett, Astel, Egbert, Woodmancy and Willard.  The other girls in our district going to Rome don't have to share a room!  It's fine.  The Chile girls leave Monday, and I'm moving to a bottom bunk.  

Paige and Sorella Astel

Sad to see them go, but glad to not climb a ladder every morning and night. 

I don't know what else to say!  I love it here.  It's hard, but I love it. I Can Do Hard Things 

I go to Italy THIS MONTH! 

(Email Sent:  April 4, 2013)