Wednesday, July 9: Mini me

July 09, 2025

Ciao!!

My new companion arrived in Rome last Thursday and it's been the best time ever since. Her name is Sorella Yardley and she's from Cedar City Utah. Anddd we're basically the same person haha it's actually crazy how much we have in common. I love her to death!! (plus she goes on runs w/ me in the morning so she's already the best lol.) She has such a love and fire for missionary work already and just wants to learn anything and everything I have to teach her. She is gonna do big things in Italy and this mission! I'm so grateful to get to work with her for this last transfer.

Besides a gas station exploding in our area (luckily no one died) I didn't see any fireworks for the 4th of July

but HAPPY 4TH EVERYONE MAN I LOVE AMERICA

(rip celebrating my favorite holiday)

A sister I live with who's Australian kept saying "Happy 4th!" to everyone she came in contact with lol she got a kick out of that and we took photos with the Eagle next to the statue of the apostle John haha. We were in the vc that day and so we did get to see some Americans and 2 of the ones I met were 2 men in the army who were deployed in Romania. They had gotten special permission to come down to the temple for a few days but I could tell they were feeling pretty down, 6 months into this 9 month deployment, and away from their home and families during the holiday that celebrates the very country they are serving. As we went through the tour of the vc I started asking them about their families and slowly they both started to light up. Trey told me about his wife and 4 kids. Ky told me about his wife who has a degree in Hebrew/Latin studies and his 2 year old daughter named Shai which means "Gift from God." Later I made a joke to Kai about his wife knowing something in the vc and I'll never forget the huge smile that came over his face. They shared beautiful testimony about the power of repentance with Sorella Yardley & I and the Spirit was so strong. They both inspired me so much. I have so much respect for people who serve in the capacity they do. Some of my favorite tours have been like this one, people that come into the vc maybe skeptical, a little closed off, sad; and I get to watch the Spirit touch their heart and see them open up, share their story and walk out with a smile.

I love it here.

Some other random fun things from the week:

-ate lunch with President & Sorella Walker and Alyssa. They make me laugh so hard.

-planted flowers for a refugee home for 13-18 year olds and got to meet some of them!

-watched a piano/oboe concert... interesting but lowkey cool

-A senior couple who served in the vc, the Chipman's, left