Wow. So it's been a crazy week. I'm finally here!!! The 28
hours of travel were crazy... But it was a fun experience.
So we all got here, and did a little bit of training.
Everyone in the mission leadership speaks to us in english.. I'm not going to
lie. It's really nice. Then after training we went out with the assistants to
the president and a couple of the office elders to go to the Duomo. They drove
us part way, and then we all got out and took the metro (basically the same
thing as the subway in New York) and we just had to go around and talk to
everyone... hahahahha it was insane. There was a huge soccer game that night
so.. things were a little rowdy in the metro and by the duomo. But we were
safe. Don't worry. 
Then we went back to the mission home, and all went out to
dinner. Pizza, lasagna, and gelato. I literally have never eaten anything so
good in my life... It was amazing.
Then the next day we had a little bit more training, and we
met our trainers and found out our first areas!! So I'm serving in Torino right
now. It's a big big city. Our area is huge... Our ward boundaries are really
big. (Dad you can work your bishop magic and look up my ward and see my exact
boundaries. it's torino 2) It takes us like anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour
to get to some members apartments. Oh and speaking of apartments, i haven't
seen a single house yet. It's all just apartment buildings everywhere. Our city
reminds me a little bit of New York. But smaller. And less people. My trainer
is Sister Gunnerson. I LOVE HER! She is so sweet. She's 24, and she has
been serving for 7 months now. She has the most beautiful singing voice and
she's really funny and sarcastic. We get along really well. So she and I got
all my luggage together, and headed out for our area! We drug my waayyyy heavy
bags to the metro, and from there we took a train. Then we went on foot for a
bit to a bus. Then we took 2 or 3 busses. Then we walked a little bit further
to our apartment. We also speak english with each other which is nice. She
helps me with my Italian though which is great. 
Our apartment is HUGE! It's very open and we could probably
put on a dance recital in our living room.
Our ward is awesome!! Everyone is so sweet. All the women
come up and bacci you (the *kiss kiss* on both cheeks). There were about 7
times on sunday when someone came up, kissed me, asked me something, and then I
just looked at sister gunnerson with a blank face and she gently said..
"um. so where are you from...?" I couldn't believe that I couldn't
even understand that phrase! Italian here is so different than what we learned
in the MTC! My life is literally The Best Two Years right now...
Our district is great too! We had a district meeting on
monday and they were all super cool. We Our zone leaders are the elders that
serve in our ward with us. They're great.
It's absolutely beautiful here. I love it. The air is so
thick with cigarette smoke and I've had a few headaches form it. But I'm sure
I'll get used to it eventually.
We ride the busses and walk everywhere. Sometimes the metro
if necessary. It can all be a little sketchy at night. But we do everything we
can to be safe!
I'm so tired. My body is exhausted. I can understand about
45% of everything I hear. So my mind is exhausted too. But this missionary work
is incredible. We have taught a few lessons so far. We taught a brand new
family on sunday night. A husband, wife, her brother, and their 3 year old son.
They have been catholic basically their whole life, but non-practicing. One of
their friends daughters just got baptized a couple months ago. They were
curious and asked us to bring them a Book of Mormon. As we sat with them in
their home and taught them for the first time about the retoratino of the
gospel, it was honestly one of the most incredible moments of my life. The
spirit that we all felt was so strong. They were listening with not only their
minds but their hearts. We could tell that they were feeling really good about
what we were teaching them. They agreed to read The Book of Mormon and we will
be going back to teach them again on Sunday. They were so so so sweet. (I am in
love with everyone here already!!!) Sister Gunnerson and I just skipped down
the 4 flights of stairs and freaked out and smiled and almost missed our bus
home. We were so happy for them and it was just a really good and wonderful
lesson. I just love it here.
The people crack me up. They talk for days at a time. They
are the least efficient people ever... hahahah it's really funny. And they're
loud! But I love it! Church was hilarious. So i was asked to go up and speak
apparently, I thought I was just supposed to share a brief testimony... oops.
One of our Zone leaders spoke after me, and later he complimented me on
"giving a great first talk..." and I said.... "talk?? I thought
I was just supposed to share my testimony!!" so that was great. But
anyway. Point is. People just talk all the time. hahaha the whole time. They
listen to. When they don't have anything more important to say. It's seriously
the funniest thing ever. My companion and I just look at each other and laugh
sometimes. It's awesome.
For P-day today, we cleaned our apartment, went grocery
shopping, waled around centro, which is a really nice part of torino, and went
to a cool egyptian museum. We saw all sorts of ancient and cool stuff. We saw a
couple mummys too. So trippy! We also had pizza and gelato. Oh my heck..... Gelato.
Just. Oh my gosh. It's so good. I'm so glad we walk so much...
I'm so excited to keep learning italian and to improve on my
speaking and understanding more this week! It's hard... But it's such a
beautiful language.
I can't wait to teach more this coming week. I love being a
missionary... It's the best job in the entire world.
i love you all!!! I miss you tons.
until next week,
Sorella Tokarski
