Questa è la mia vita: Church and students

Sunday morning we got dressed for church, ran to the grocery store to get the ingredients we needed for lunch, because we had planned to make gnocchi for dinner, but Rosina informed us that a dinner had been arranged with her students for Sunday night. So, we ran to the store for our ingredients and then walked back to the same Piazza, after dropping them off at the apartment, to meet Francisco to go to church.

We were of course there early and were able to hear them warm up. Church was REALLY good. Francisco delivered on the words to the song that he promised me. I really enjoy singing Kari Jobe's "The More I Seek You" in Italian. I am amazed at how much of the Italian I can understand when we are singing, praying, and even the message. His dad is a little harder to understand, but I understood about 90% of everything at church today! This is God...and God only! It helps that they are not native speakers, so their Italian is not as complex as a native, but they are still only speaking in Italian! The message was about how we do not know God's timing...we cannot predict the end of the world...he illustrated with the verses where Jesus talks about this same thing; we do not know when He is coming back. This is for God alone to know! I am so excited to be going to a church where they love Jesus, they invite and welcome the Holy Spirit into their meeting, they respect his presence, and they preach solely from the word of God. It really does go to show you that language does not matter, but the basics must remain the same! God is so good, and I am so grateful that this opportunity has opened up; this is an example of a prayer answered! God is good!

Nick enjoyed the service as well! Francisco and his dad brought us to the apartment. We talked on the way home about different random things; once again I was excited to know what was going on!

When we got home we started getting things ready to make gnocchi! This was so much fun!!! I will mostly have to let the pictures do the talking, but just know that we laughed and had the best time doing this!! It was definitely an adventure.

I peel the potatoes

Wine and Limoncello

Hot Potatoes

Then you mash

Put the egg and flour in, and start to form a dough

No? Not what you're supposed to do??

Making it into a dough

Did not have a hand...had to use my foot

Roll it out

Make the gnocchi

They were not perfect, but still edible

After I mushed it up...Nick looks devestated

Gnocchi mush...with homemade sauce

After we had gnocchi, we just hung out for a bit. It was raining outside. Then, we got ready to go out for passeggiata. It was still raining some, but we enjoyed our walk. We eventually escaped into the book store because the rain was picking up! I went straight to the children's books to look for what I wanted, and Nick headed off in another direction. Eventually I found him to show him that I finally found The Night Before Christmas, which in Italy is just called "La Notte di Natale", or The night of Christmas.

I really wanted one that people had not been touching, but when Nick went to ask if they had another one, they said no. So, he had the book and I continued to look around for another book I wanted. Eventually he came back and looked some with me at the copy of the book they did have. I agreed that it was good and I woudl keep it. Evetually I went looking for him again and when the shop owner saw me looking for someone he asked, chi?? I said I was looking for a tall man, and he immediately pointed to where Nick was! Haha!! Then, I asked Nick where my book was, and sweet boy had bought the book for me as my Italian Christmas gift!!! How sweet and thoughtful of him! I'd given him his Italian Christmas gift already! The other night in the bookstore I found a book about The Blues written in Italian! So, yay for perfect book gifts! I thought that was so incredibly wonderful of him! So, I also bought another book that I fell in love with; well, I fell in love with the illustrations. Then we headed back to the apartment, in the rain, because I KNEW that Rosina would NOT be late in picking us up to go to dinner with the students.

We ran the books upstairs and then went downstairs where Rosina was already waiting. She does NOT live on Italian time. I appreciate that about her! When we went to the restaurant, it was right across the street from the cafe where Lilla took me, and I had just shown Nick on Saturday! Crazy! There were a group of students waiting outside on us! Then we went inside, and more students came. There were a total of 13 students, plus me, Nick, and Rosina! It was such a fun night! We took a ton of pictures and had a great time! They are so much fun to be around, and to watch as they interact. I did not speak much because it was too much Italian all at once. They did cheer on my pronunciation of Cuddruriaddri, and taught me some new dialect. The food was AH-MAZING!! We had mostly appetizer like dishes...I took pictures. It was sooo good, and I enjoyed it so much! Mostly I loved watching them all interact with each other. It was a looong dinner, and it ended at the cafe across the street with the students getting gelato! The students were kind enough to pay for Rosina's dinner, as well as mine and Nick's. So sweet!! Our night ended after midnight, when all of the students had been picked up! This night did help me learn some of their names! It was so much fun! They even gave toasts. Pictures: