Buon giorno!

WOW.

Today was amazing!

My mommy arrived in Milan today and to put it in Kari's words it was "magical"!  It was so wonderful to see her after 3 months and to have dinner with her and her friend.  I got to share with her what we've been doing here and it was just such a blessing. 

After dinner we went to the piazza in front of il Duomo and watched the Italy vs. Paraguay soccer game! HOW AWESOME!  There were so many people there it was like we were actually at the game.  When Italy scored the goal I seriously thought there was going to be a riot it was ridonculous!  It was such a good experience.  We also met these girls from a Catholic ministry called "Young Life".  Both girls were from North Carolina and were doing missions in Europe!  How cool is it that we keep running into these kinds of people?  Totally God. :]

He is so wonderfully amazingly beautiful.

Sorry for the lack of blogging!

This week was just so busy because it was basically our last week on campus besides the 3 days coming up.  Basically... I can't even explain what has been going on anymore.  God has been so powerful it is ridiculously amazing...

I did not want to wake up this morning.  Well, I woke up but then went back to sleep....

However I was ready in time so it's ok!

Caleigh and I shared together today at Bocconi and it went really well.  We had some good conversations.  Caleigh lead Bible Study today and it went really well.  Before Bible Study even started we spent some time with Vito and his brother and Kari and Whitney.  We talked about music, pop culture, etc.  We also met one of their American friends!  He's from Michigan and is getting his masters at Bacconi so that was interesting. 

After we got back from campus Caleigh and I decided that we needed to go out and start getting souvenirs so we did that for about 2 hours.  To be honest, Italian fashion is not that different from American fashion.  Maybe it's because I live most of my life in Boston now (big city) that I don't see much of a difference.  I mean everyone made a big deal about Milan being the fashion capital and whatnot but the things they wear here aren't really that different... so I'm a bit confused.  I mean I guess this means that I'm fashionable?

We had a training session later in the night about evangelism.  It was really good to reflect on what we've been doing and how we've been doing it.  I definitely need to think more relational and listen more.  So I will be working on that.  Only 5 more days on campus! :[

Today was such a long day!

I went to Bocconi today and partnered with Kat (someone I hadn't partnered with yet).  We had an amazing experience!  We talked to two wonderful girls and they were just so great.  I feel like God really lead us to the specific girls because they were both such a blessing.

Kari lead the Bible Study today.  It was a really good time of discussion and fellowship so it was definitely something that added to my day.

Later in the day we hosted another get together in our apartment.  Davide volunteered to make us spaghetti! Soooo yummy!!  Then Vito and his brother decided that they were going to come over too so that was fun.  We played mafia again... as always.  I've been mafia a few times now and still haven't perfected how to lie.  Everyone always knows I'm the mafia whenever I'm the mafia so it's really frustrating.  However, I feel good about the fact that I don't know how to lie.

CHURCH CHURCH CHURCH! yayaayayaya :]

The group went to Lake Como today.  I was one of 3 people that didn't go.  Pat met up with the family he has here. Ross played basketball all day. What did I do?

I read, ate, blogged, journaled, killed flies, washed dishes, emailed people, sang, attempted to take a nap, painted my toe nails, and watched one episode of Sonny with a Chance.

Everyone came back at around 8PM and thank goodness because I was really close to going crazy at this point.  I enjoy having some alone time but alone time for 8 hours is a bit much.  The group was pretty exhausted when they came back and me with my extrovertedness needed to attack each and everyone one of them for conversation.  I just kept blabbering on and on and on.  I needed people interaction!

I went to Bocconi again today.  I've decided for me personally that it's better if I'm consistent with a university because then I can run into people I've already met more easily that way.  It was a rough day with evangelism because Whitney and I partnered up but we had never been partners before.  We didn't discuss each other's "style" of evangelism so that caused a little tension but of course in the end we worked things out.  It's so wonderful how forgiving and loving we are with each other because the love we all mutually have for Christ. The rest of the day was better and Whitney lead the Bible study this time.  Once again we got into really good conversation so it went really well. 

Once we got back to the apartment Whitney, Sarah, Kat, Cenia, and I headed to the grocery store because we had run out of food!  Cenia and Kat needed to shop for snacks for later tonight because Davide and Elisa were coming over!  Vito was supposed to come with some friends but his friends couldn't come anymore so he decided not to come :[ it was really sad. 

We made chocolate dipped strawberries, crackers with cheese, and a bunch of other goodies.  Cenia did a really good job of getting all the food together!  We played mafia (of course) and I was the mafia finally!  But I'm a really bad liar so obviously people killed me because they thought I was the mafia.  Oh well.  We should play when I get back to the states!

The girls and I stayed up til 4AM talking.  Good times :]

This morning Kat, Caleigh, Brittany, and I went running to the park that Kat and I had discovered last week.  It felt really good to go running and was a great way to start the day.

I went to Bocconi today because today was the first day of our Bible study.  Caleigh, Brittany, and I partnered up to do some evangelism and had a pretty good day.  We had some good conversations with different groups of girls.  I prepared the Bible study for today so when it finally came to be 4PM we went to the cafe where the Bible study would be.  No Italian students came, however, it went extremely well.  We got into really good conversation amongst each other.  It was really good to be poured into because we've been pouring out so much.  I think a lot of the reason why Caleigh and I felt like it was important to start doing a Bible study on campus was because we need it really for ourselves.  Yes of course it would be amazing if Italian students came but even if they don't come it's really good for us to discuss the Bible together. 

Today was a holiday in Italy so there was no school which meant we couldn't go on campus today. Instead, Davide offered to be our tour guide for the day and take us to Lake Maggiore and the islands.

The lake and the islands were so beautiful! You could see the Swiss Alps from the lake and they had some snow on them so it made it look even more gorgeous. We hopped around the islands the whole day. It was just such a great day to relax and spend time together as a group. Everyone got such a great tan! Elisa and Salla also went (Davide's friends who have now become our friends) so that was really great to spend time with them as well.

We didn't get back until about 930PM so we were all exhausted! I also needed to prepare the Bible Study that we're going to be starting. I've noticed that prayer has become so habitual... it's really amazing. I've always had a hard time doing Bible studies just because I don't know what passage to go over or what questions to ask. However, this time it was different because I prayed with Sarah that the Lord would just speak through me and give me the right questions to ask. After praying, getting the Bible Study together was no problem! Not because of me though, but because the Lord is so amazing :]

Today we went to Bocconi University to do some evangelizing. I had a delicious coffee called Caffe Shakerato... soooo good! A few of us then headed to a park near the university because Kari and Whitney said that this is where they found another group of American students doing evangelism. Apparently they have a Bible Study everyday at 2PM at the park so some of us were interested in learning more about them. We went to the Bible Study and met the other group of American students. God is so great that he lead us to them because meeting them was really encouraging. Their Bible Study was interesting and it gave Caleigh and I an idea to start something like that at Bocconi but at a different time. We didn't want to have a Bible Study at the same time as theirs because we most certainly do not want it to seem like we're competing with them. We decided that we would have ours at 4PM and in one of the mess halls at the school instead of the park. We felt like this would be really good just to have something consistent everyday and on the students' campus.

Caleigh and I then headed out to try and meet new students and as we were walking to the library we ran into Claudia. We had met Claudia a few days ago so that was really cool to run into her again. She showed us where the bigger mess hall was and that is when we decided that it would be great to have the Bible Study there because it's convenient for students and also it's just great to be reading the word in other students' presence.

Throughout the whole day Caleigh and I had been feeling like there was definitely some spiritual warfare going on. With 10ish girls it's almost guaranteed that there will be drama however this doesn't make it ok. We really feel like Satan was taking over our thoughts and making us think badly of 2 other girls on project. I finally had us sit down and pray about it because this was obviously not ok. We came to realize that Satan was putting these thoughts in our head and that the other girls never would have meant to do what we felt they did. After we prayed we both felt a lot better about it.

When we all got home we talked to the other girls and told them what had happened. They had also felt the same thing but knew that it wasn't us but Satan in us making us all act the way we were. It was so great that both group of girls agreed that we needed to focus our attention on battling Satan and not each other because he was the cause of it all.

Later that night we got together as a group again to share testimonies because we still haven't finished sharing. It was really encouraging to hear Cenia and Kat's testimony and learn about patience. It started getting a little late so we decided to stop sharing but before everyone went back to their rooms Whitney brought up the spiritual warfare. I'm really glad she did this because I think it was really important that we talk about this as a group. Whitney shared what the girls had been going through. Then Sarah started to share how she feels Satan is trying to drain us physically because we all have felt so exhausted everyday after going on campus. It didn't make any sense for all of us to be that exhausted everyday so she brought up a good point that Satan is attacking us physically. Ryan then brought up a good point about how northern Italy has some of the most cults and witchcraft in Europe. This was important to remember because this just shows how strong Satan is in this area. However, Satan is nothing compared to God so we all just prayed about it and decided that (with the armor of God) we weren't going to let Satan win. :]

Oh it's also important for me to tell you that for dinner... oh goodness we made some awesome burritos!!! We made chicken burritos with black beans, rice, salsa, and cheese. MMMM! We made the salsa with yellow pepper, onions, tomatoes, and lemon. It came out really yummy. Probably the best dinner we've made this whole trip.