ciao!

Hi family! oh my gosh, i havent written on here in so long! we only have 4 more days left of school, and i am pretty excited. it has been rrrrrrrrrreally hard. but hopefully i learned something. well, cinque terre was amazing! of course, and i actually swam in the ocean. i think the 2nd time ever. it was pretty scary, and i peed my pants, but it didnt matter because i was in the ocean. but it was very touristy, and out of control. but, we stayed in tents with beds. yes i camped in cinque terre. it was gross. last weekend we went to venice and tried to go to the heineken festival. we were suppose to see the killers, pearl jam, my chemical romance, and linkin park. but as you all probably heard from celery, there was kind of like a mini hurricane the italians are calling it, and it blew all the speakers down, while the first band was playing before we got there, and injured a bunch of people, so they cancelled everything. but the good news is i bought some cute shoes. i also bought bob his own diary. i found this cute book called, il mio diario, and it is all in italian but it is for dogs. i am so excited to show you gu ys. next week we head down to bari, lecce, alberobello, and napoli. it is kind of scary because we have heard the mafia is very rampant down there and because of this, there are hardly any police down there. two years ago---this is an awesome story by the way, a new political figure tried to take the mafia out of the south, and the mafia beheaded him and put his head in the piazza and used it as target practice for anyone else who tried to get rid of the mafia. marco told us this story last night after we told him we were going. then we realized it will all just be part of the experience. ?? well, love you guys, and miss you a lot. T i heard you had surgery and hope you are okay! let me know!

hmm...

well! what an interesting week-so we once again have been rained out of doing everything we planned this week. it is actually supposed to be rainy until the start of july. so on a scale of one to crappy, i am going to give it a 10. speaking of crap, two days ago, it was raining so hard that our school was on lock down because the entrance of the school was full of poo. the sewers had overflowed, and we had to stay in the school till they cleaned up all the poo. so, that was a fun event. i have class four hours a day, and my teacher's name is eduardo. we have twelve people in our class, and our teacher is so funny. i think i laugh myself to tears everyday. and i am not going to lie, most of the jokes are about my cute little dog bob. he is one of the main topics in our class daily. most of our class is conversation, so we usually will make up stories about bob, our lives, and other things. each day gets better, and i am so excited to be here. this weekend we are going to cinque terre, which will be beautiful. but we called the elders in the town to find out where the church was, and they said it was supposed to be raining all weekend there, also. imagine that. well, love you guys! and figure out how to add me as your friends! give bob a kiss-mom that is your job.

i am glad you guys actually are reading my posts! its amazing...thanks for keeping me updated on bob. oh man, i cant even tell you guys how much i miss him. i feel like i am a bad parent...i want to add you guys as friends so i can read your posts, but i cant understand this blog in italian, so if you guys are able hack on to my page again and add you guys as my friends. i want to see what is going on with the utah jazz(silent j) and gunner, and josie, and of course what paige bought at last chance this week...hehe kidding! well, this weekend was pretty average. friday we were rained out, so we had a mini shopping day, then we had sleepovers because marco went on a weekend yoga trip in the mountains, so we had the apartment to ourselves. saturday we went to florence, which was so full of tourists it was a drag. but i did buy some wonderful presents for my lovely mother and papa joe. then on sunday we just did touristy things in siena. but today we are renting bikes and riding around the country side. i havent ridden a bike in about 10 years (not even kidding) so lets hope my cankles can hold up. i will let you know if i end up taking the bike for a walk. oh and then, we taught marco to say "bomb.com" it was pretty great. he couldnt understand why we said it because it doesnt translate in italian. lol. but jessica and i made a new cute friend named emily, she is 28, returned missionary, and going back to school. yesterday we went to church, and it was fast sunday. it was so amazing. i can't tell you all how blessed the people in the church are here, even though they have nothing. their primary has one little boy, the relief society consists of 3 or 4 women, depending on the sunday. but the spirit in the small little building makes the hair stand up on my arms. the missionaries make up most of the ward, and there are 4. so the mission has actually grown since the last time i came when there were only 2 missionaries in this area. i miss everyone so much, and am excited to come home and spend the summer with you guys. so ben and linds, you better not be moving soon!