He's going to kill me...

...but I couldn't pass the chance to post these videos of Antonello singing old church songs last night at his sister's birthday party. It was supposed to be a surprise party but everything went wrong in the beginning from his parent's being stuck in traffic for over an hour to people showing up an hour early saying "surprise!"...but despite the bad start, we ended up having a fabulous time eating, talking, laughing, dancing and singing! Here a few pics from the party and a couple videos of "the singers"! I'm totally going to die when Antonello gets home from tutoring so I better hurry and post them! Ciao with lots of love!

It's the season...

...for SOCCER!!!!

Antonello, Franco (dad), Fabio (best friend), Memo (friend from church), and I all watched another soccer game tonight. There is at least one a week, sometimes more and since I have never followed soccer in my whole life, it has been quite fun, I must admit.

Well, it's definitely fun to watch games with Antonello; I think he may be the loudest and the most passionate fan I have ever seen. (besides my mom with all her sports teams!) Every kick, every foul, every goal; he is right there in the action and best of all, I can watch the game through his face because it tells me exactly what is going on. It's really funny.

I am happy to tell you that NAPOLI won tonight!!!!! It was 2-1, against a team called Juventus from Northern Italy in Turin. Below, you will see a picture of two of my favorite players, Lavezzi and Hamsik and they happened to score BOTH of the goals tonight!! Bravo boys!

some life stuff

I DID IT!!! Woo-hoo! Four weeks of language school has brought new friends and a deeper confidence in speaking Italian. Here are some photos of my class the last two weeks; we laughed together, we ate together, we made plenty of mistakes with our Italian and always had patience with one another. On my last day of school, there was a little party after class and the whole school came together and had WINE to celebrate another month! It was so much fun hearing everyone speaking Italian, as well as we all could, and being brought together because of this beautiful language.

one of my teachers, Emma, on the right

Now that school is over, I will probably be attending Centro Italiano for a couple more weeks in November, but until then, I have been asked to help out with the children's ministry at Antonello's church. Last weekend, I observed all of their classes and was asked to impart any advice, new ideas, etc., to their program. Right now, I am helping with making some posters for their curriculum and hopefully will be able to create a music DVD for the kids to worship with.

With Antonello in school every day, I have A LOT of time by myself...and grammy. :) So, until school starts again, I will be busy with studying on my own and something that I have found very helpful in speaking this language is reading. SO, I asked Emanuela, Antonello's sister, if she had any childhood books for me and she gave me some old pop-up books, Cenerentola (Cinderella, which originated in Napoli) and Biancaneve (Bianca=white & neve=snow). It helps to be familiar with the story but there are words and VERBS that I still need help with!

Today, I went to school and delivered some little gifts to my teachers and the front desk. They are absolutely wonderful people and their kindness and generosity inspires. After traveling to downtown Napoli, I have been in need of a coat, so I bought one today. There is something so powerful and amazing and strengthening to be in a completely different part of the world and be able to speak another language and have others understand what you're saying.

It was a good day.

..."stress and change and sacrifice."

Here are a few pictures from this weekend and apart from turning into a pro soccer player (do you like my cool uniform?), we have had the most beautiful sunsets lately. And, aside from both of those things, I am in my last week at school. To be honest, I am extrememly happy and sad at the same time. I feel like I have hit a wall with my italian so thinking of finishing in 4 more days brings me joy but I also don't want to give up.

As much as this experience has brought laughter and "memories to last a lifetime", I still miss America and I so desperately want to "go home" soon. Talking to Doug Valenzuela, the missionary who is Antonello's pastor from Twin Lakes Church, yesterday at church, he said, "At least when I moved to Italy I had my wife, Diana, who spoke english and we shared the same culture. Where you are living and what you are doing takes a special person to do that. I would have given up already if I was you."

As encouraging as those words were to me, I feel like I am not that special person. I don't know if the deep love that Antonello and I have for each other is going to withstand this stress and change and sacrifice. Maybe I am not the right woman for this story.

I would give anything to see the ocean right now...

a short video taken from grammy's balcony

2 down, 2 to go

My first two weeks of school have passed so I thought I should post a picture of my good-lookin' class for all to see.

From left to right you have:

• 1) Luciano-he's from Madagascar and speaks French so he has that throat thing going on when he speaks Italian. He is very sweet and has a beautiful smile that he readily shares with the rest of us.
• 2) Teresa-she's from Mexico and is at Centro Italiano with a group from her university. She's had an easier time picking up the language seeing how close Spanish is to Italian and was the only other girl in the class so we bonded right away.
• 3) me :)
• 4) Marcella-she was one of my teachers (Maria was the other one and I didn't get her picture last Friday but will post a pic soon!) Marcella was absolutely wonderful and so PATIENT with our broken Italian; it was her last day this past Friday because she usually only works during the summer months so I will have a new teacher tomorrow along with Maria.
• 5) Ezron-sweet Ezron is from India and has the most beautiful singing voice. He became my buddy and him and Antonello got along right away. He spoke some English so we were able to communicate a little easier with that. He is going to Rome soon to study theology and hopefully become a priest in 3 years! Mamma mia!!!
• 6)Giascinto-he is also from Madagascar and is friends with Luciano. He carries around one of those electronic dictionaries so we always knew we could count of him to be a fast translator!
• 7)Taka-he's from Japan and we had a blast together! He is in Naples for a year and is studying to be a pizza maker!!! He's one of the funniest people I know and along with Ezron and Teresa, his time at Centro Italiano is finished.

All 3 of them have already finished their course and won't be there tomorrow so I will have new students in my class...it truly makes me sad when I think of it. We sort of became a little family these past 2 weeks but you know what new people means........new memories, so bring it on!

Below is a picture of Piazza di Gesu which is located right by my school. There is also a cute library to the right of this statue where they sell a wide array of english books! Hooray!!!!

As my time at Centro Italiano is coming to an end in 2 weeks, I remember the fear and trepidation I felt when I had a month, 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week, 1 day left until school started, and to read about it in my journal now, I have a deeper trust in God. He is so faithful and although I might have said that before, I not only say it now, but know it. I have experienced his faithfulness in a way I have never before.
As the cover of my journal says:

"She's turning her life into something sacred: Each breath, a new birth. Each moment, a new chance. She bows her head, gathers her dreams from a pure, deep stream and stretches her arms towards the sky."

question

Do you ever just want to push the fast forward button on life to pass a difficult time so you can see what is on the other side...to see if all of it is worth it?

once upon a yesterday...

Once upon a time...

...I met an Italian man who, after 6 days of knowing me, approached me and shared his heart with me. He told me he thought I was special and beautiful and that he wanted to know me better.

Once upon a yesterday...

...this Italian man and I traveled back to the exact spot where he said those sweet words over 1 year ago.