shout out to the missionaries.

When you live in a foreign country, American missionaries are great. When we first got here they helped us a ton and we became good friends with them. Then they'd get transfered, new ones would come in and we would have to start the cycle all over again. So we started to not put so much effort into it and not get so "attached". Don't get me wrong, we still have them over for dinner often.
Today I had to take my sisters old bike and Ryan's bike into the bike shop with Abbey. 2 bikes, 1 adult and 1 toddler, doesn't add up. So Ryan called the Elders and asked if they would help me. Sure enough they came over and walked one of the bikes for me and did all the talking because there is no way I know how to describe bike problems in Italian. I was so grateful for their help and we went our separate ways. A while later at home I got a call from the sisters asking if I wanted to go get ice cream with them. I really fought this since I'm dieting at the moment but didn't want to turn them down so I agreed. All 4 sisters came over and we ended up going to a pizza place, then they wanted to hang out longer so we went to the big city market. I felt like I was taking up precious teaching time but they said they thought I could use some english conversation. But eventually I did need to get home to get things done before the kids came home from school so they offered to walk home with me and then they offered to help me. What??!! Seriously? Of course in my mind I know the polite thing to say is 'no' but I also don't want to deny someone the opportunity to serve and they were very sincere about the offer so I said 'okay'. They detailed my kitchen and organized my shelves and swept floors and i was able to go through my kids toy box and do other "jobs" that get put on the bottom of the list. I felt so much gratitude for these missionaries and it also was a great feeling to receive their service. love them.