Quick Little Update

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Hello Blog People!

It's been a long time since I've written. I'm sorry. Honestly, I'm a week late on trips that I've taken, and I promise I'm working on the Siena trip and it should be up soon. I just wanted to give a little update on my life from the past few weeks. So here are the bullet points. 

- The school chaplain is gone for a few weeks. He is in the U.S. going to a conference and spending time with his family. I'm excited for him, but that does mean that I have increased responsibilities. I have to play music or find musicians to play for each of the spiritual moments, and I had to help lead our Sabbath school last week. Most people are willing to help out, it's just a matter of finding the people. I cannot wait for a break at the end of the week, even though it won't be super restful because...

- Over Thanksgiving break (which we do get here because most of the students are American and they want to make us feel at home) I'm going to a national Adventist Evangelism conference as a representative for ACA and Villa Aurora. I'm going with one other ACA student, some volunteers, and some theology majors. We are going to sit in meetings go to workshops and sell Villa merchandise to the people attending. I'm looking forward to it (I did agree to go) and it should be a valuable experience. And most likely once in a lifetime, so that's fun. I leave on Friday and come back Sunday. 

- I have started to assemble a couple worship teams and at the beginning of this past week, we got together and played music together to get a reading on people's talents and abilities. OH MY GOSH, it was amazing. I had such a great time. We were able to harmonize and play workshop music together with a few different instruments and we played for 2 HOURS! It started my week off really great and was such a blessing. I have honestly missed doing worship teams with people playing music together and creating and listening to beautiful harmonies. Having this little session filled my soul, especially since we were praising Jesus the whole time. 

- Last week we had a grammar test, a conversation quiz, and a phonetics quiz all in the same week. The last two were on Monday, so there was some space between all of them. But it was very stressful to be studying for those. We hadn't had an oral conversation quiz like this one before, and the list of things we had to know was kind of long. But it ended up going pretty well. 

- Christmas markets are starting to pop up around Florence and the rest of Europe and you can tell people are ready. Christmas music is starting to be played. Lights are displayed on the buildings. I realized that the jump from Halloween to Christmas makes a lot more sense when you aren't in the USA. Why would other countries celebrate Thanksgiving if it wasn't a part of their past? They do still celebrate Black Friday though (lol). 

- I go home in less than one month. I'm beyond excited. I cannot wait to see my friends and family. I miss them so much. I'm excited to see my best friend and my pets and my siblings and parents and grandparents. I'm excited to do all the Christmas traditions. I cannot wait to go to different events to support my siblings and other friends. I cannot wait to catch up with people. I cannot wait to drive my car!!! Oh my gosh! I miss driving. It's always the little things that you end up missing more than you realize. I just cannot wait to be home. I miss it so much. 

- Today I went to an art exhibit, but it wasn't normal. It was more of an art immersion experience. We walked into an old pharmacy in the city center and one of the rooms had a bunch of screens: on the walls and on the floor and ceiling. The screens showed a bunch of beautiful flowers in various different colors. It was beautiful. 

    That's just a little bit of what has been going on. The biggest thing is that I'm ready to go home. If I wasn't going home, I think I would be depressed right now. But I'm going home so that's not a problem lol. Hope to get that last trip post out soon. 

Ciao,

            Ellie




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