Christmas, Christmas, CHRISTMAS

This Christmas was a bit of a bittersweet one, one the one hand, I am in Italy spending it with my amazing Italian family. On the other hand, this was my first Christmas away from home and I got a bit homesick. My family has this tradition where we go to my Grandma's with my Aunt and Uncle and cousins and I missed that, a lot.

My Italian family also includes extended family in their festivities but, it wasn't my family so I was still a bit sad. I am going to take this time to explain the differences in the Italian Christmas to my American one! Firstly, here in Italy they open all the presents on Christmas Eve, this was pretty cool. We also had a dinner with My host dad's parents and my host mom's brother and sister-in-law, which excluded meat because apparently Catholics don't eat meat on Christmas Eve. That legitimately blew my mind, and I still can't really fully comprehend. Lilja googled the reason why they don't and I still don't get it. It is my firm belief that Jesus would want me to enjoy myself on the eve of his birth and, to enjoy myself I need Tashia's chicken salad and some Ham.

After we opened all of the presents we got ready and went to Midnight Mass, which I feel would have been cooler if I could have understood everything that was being said haha. Then, when Christmas morning came around (I say morning but I woke up at noon) and we went to Lunch with Ugo's extended family. That was...interesting. The place we went had horrific service, everyone got food at different times and it wasn't even that good, the dolce was on point though so, props for that. I only cried a little bit on Christmas Eve because I was homesick but as a whole, I kept it together! Yay me!

Now, let me tell y'all a bit about my 'murican traditions! Back in good ole Northern Virginia lives my family, my Grandma and my mom's Brother Jason and his lovely wife Tashia and all their super adorably amazing children! On Christmas Eve we all head over to my Grandma's and the fun commences! First we usually hang out for a bit eating Tashia's delicious chicken salad, which has me drooling right now just thinking about it, and other food that has been made. Then we get corralled by my Grandma into the living room where we usually all read one Christmas story each. From there my Uncle Jason reads from the Bible and Savannah and I usually tear up a bit because we think of my Grandpa who used to read it. After that we usually open one present each, from the cousins, then we head over to the music room and sing songs for the rest of the night until we all leave for our respective homes! This tradition is simple but is something very close to my heart. Christmas morning at my house can be a bit chaotic, especially when we are trying to drag my parents out of bed so we can start opening presents! In our family stockings are a big thing, we always open them first, youngest to oldest. Then we start with the presents and do the same order as the stockings, it is usually nice and loud and full of thank yous hugs and laughing. I missed that this year but, since I won't be in another country next year, I will be able to partake!

This year has been an amazing one full of adventures and opportunities and I couldn't be more thankful. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be able to live in a foreign country, or learn a bit of said country's language. I have been able to go places I never thought I would go and meet people that I know will be friends for life. I am excited because in less than a month my mom will be here and she will get to share in my adventure. After that I will be home and starting a whole different kind of adventure, university, with my best friend, I am also excited to be close to my older sister and her husband and get to know them better. I think 2015 has a lot of potential and I am very interested in seeing where it leads. I hope y'all had a very Merry Christmas and I hope you have an amazing New  Year!

Love Y'all!

Rachel

World Traveler

Mantova

The one thing I have been super super SUPER excited about for the last 6 or so months is, my mom coming in January. Yes, you read that correctly, my mama and her best friend Sister Price will be joining me in Europe for two weeks! It is getting closer and closer to that time and I am really freaking excited, so excited in fact, I created an itinerary and a spreadsheet of all the estimated costs. We will be starting in Roma, then heading over to Pompeii and Napoli! From there we will head to Firenze and Pisa and then go back to the Mantova area (where I live), there we will spend the day with my host mom as she shows us around. From there we will head to Verona and Venezia and then finally Milano! Then, the part I think my mom is most excited for, we will get on a train and head to Paris!

Milan

The Italian places I am not that nervous about because I have a decent knowledge of the language and can communicate, France on the other hand, not so much. Once in choir we were singing some french song and Ms. B always had us attempt to sing with the accent to the corresponding language, well, I failed miserably at French. This girl leaned over to me, and so kindly pointed out that I sounded like I was from Iraq haha. That experience has kind of scarred me when it comes to speaking French, so, I told my mom she has to brush up on her's.

Venice

 I don't know where this post is going other than I am really excited to be able to see my mom after a year. Not only just see her but be able to travel around Italy and France with her, bonding time with my mom and one of the coolest women on the planet! I am excited to see Southern Italy, something I have yet to do, the most southern I have been is Firenze (Florence). So in about a month I will be able to hug my mom again and in about a month and a couple weeks, I will be able to see all of the beautiful faces that are still in VA and attack my siblings with lots of loving. Most importantly though, I will be able to hug my daddy again, and probably cry because I really freaking miss him. A few months after that I will get to see all of you lovely people in Utah :), something that I am pretty excited for, also! I look forward to being able to spend time with my older sister and her husband, and of course with my best friend Sara.

Until Next Time!

<3

Rachel

My family <3

My "Come to Jesus" Moment

Now, as the majority of you who read this have known me all of my life, you know I have been raised LDS, my entire life that is all I have known. I have always been at least partially religious and I have always had a testimony of Jesus Christ, my issue was I never really showed it, I didn't act like a member, and I didn't really care. When people asked me what religion I was, I would answer, "well, I was raised Mormon, but....". I never wanted to be labeled as Mormon, and it isn't for the reasons you are probably thinking. It wasn't because I was ashamed of being Mormon, it was because I knew my actions were not going to reflect well onto the church. I didn't want people see me acting like a fool, and assume that was the way people in the church acted, but at the same time, I was too prideful to stop my actions.

While here in Italy, I haven't exactly acted in the most...righteous manner, and again, I didn't care all that much. I went to church for maybe a month when I first got here and then decided it was way too much work. Between the getting up at horrible hours in the morning, walking to the train station, catching a train that might not even show up, then taking a bus to the church building, it was just too much, I was lazy. It wasn't because I didn't believe, it was because I was lazy. I always have been when it comes to church, if it took and ounce of effort, I couldn't be bothered. In October though, with some divine intervention in the form of two missionaries, I have seen the light.

I went months, like, 6 months without going to church and no one from the branch here bothered me, the missionaries left me alone. In my skewed thinking I saw this as, "see they don't need me and I don't need them", oh how wrong I was. I didn't realize how much I needed them until I went back, begrudgingly at first, but now I am genuinely happy to go, no matter how tired I am. My first Sunday there was a bit weird, I had vanished off the face of the planet for 6 months after these wonderful people had been nothing but nice to me. It was also weird because, while my Italian is better than when I was first here, it still isn't the best. It is nice to have other English speakers in the branch now, though. I don't feel as incompetent because they need translation too haha.

The most amazing Missionaries Anziano Bowman, and Anziano Tymczuk

Now, when I said "divine intervention", I really meant it. A couple of days before I got a call from the mishies, I had been talking to my wonderful mommy. We were talking about church stuff and I told her that I was just kind of done right now, that I was going to do my own thing for awhile and see where that took me. No joke, not even two days later, I am trapped in Mantova (because the trains hate me) and I get a call from the missionaries asking if they could come see me that day. Now, they live in Mantova so, I was like, "well, I'm trapped at the station so, I'm all yours". They came right over and I ended up talking to them for about 45 minutes. They knew nothing about me, I don't think they even knew I was American until I picked up the phone and they quickly realized I didn't speak Italian. Then, because I'm pretty sure they saw my tattoo, they asked "how long I had been a member", cue the awkward pause from me, then spitting out "uhmmm all my life" *embarrassed face*. This encounter led them to coming over every Thursday and inviting me to church, which I would always avoid a definitive answer to. I ended up just sucking it up one morning and went, and I have never been more happy to wake up freakishly early. These awesome missionaries also send me a scripture every night, that always seem to being insanely applicable, like, they should start writing horoscopes ;). They used to make me feel so guilty, but over the past few months as I have been changing my actions and endeavouring to be right in the eyes of the Lord, I no longer feel guilty. The scripture topics have changed recently too, and yet, they always seem to be exactly what I need to hear.

Back a few months ago I wrote a post on marriage, which was inspired by the mass amounts of marriages and engagements on my Facebook timeline. I am now removing the foot from my mouth and admitting, I wasn't exactly correct. In this post I said, "Another thing about my views on marriage that are different from what I was taught at church my entire life is this, I don't care what religion he is. If I love him and he loves me why should it matter? I will say that I am jaded when it comes to LDS guys, I have never had a good experience with then and my worst experience was with a 'good LDS boy' who turned out to be the world's biggest tool. I know for some of y'all reading this that this will be controversial but I just can't make myself care. I just want to be happy and what if the guy who will do that for me isn't LDS? I should immediately brush him off because he isn't? That just sounds very illogical to me, I want to be happy and so I will be with the person that makes me the happiest." Those are no longer my thoughts, while I do believe you should marry someone you love, I now know, and feel that I will be happiest with a temple marriage. An eternal marriage to someone I love, a marriage that won't end when I die. Just thinking about the possibility of not being with my loved ones throughout the eternities terrifies me. Not just my future companion, but also my parents and siblings, the thought of it just makes me so sad. Which also makes me want to repent because heaven knows they are better behaved so if I want to be in the same kingdom, I need to whip myself into shape ;).

Anyways, I really just wanted to tell anyone who wants to listen that I am a new Rachel. I want to fix everything in my life and be obedient. I now have goals, the biggest one is to be temple worthy, that will take some work but I am willing and wanting to do that work. The other goals are ones I have already set in motion, like, reading the Book of Mormon for the first time all the way through. The other is praying, I have always had a hard time praying because I felt like I didn't deserve it. I felt like, why would God want to listen to me, someone who has figuratively spat in his face on multiple occasions? Why? I said this in passing to my mom once and she about smacked me through the phone, she then said something along the lines of, "that's when you should pray the most, is when you don't feel worth". I mentioned the story to Anziano Tymczuk once and he basically said the same thing, I just didn't feel that he was about to hit me, like with my mom :P. 

That is really all I wanted to say, I am glad to have gotten that all off my chest. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! A new Rachel will be coming home from Italy in Februray so prepare yourselves ;).