What a craaaazy week!!!

This has been one of the most INSANE weeks of my life!! I'm not even sure where to start, so I guess I'll start at the beginning:
Monday: I had to work in the morning with Wes on the PowerPoint. At times it seems like he wants miracles worked, but I love him to death, and have a hard time telling him that it won't work. I guess I will just have to try to work miracles...lol! In the afternoon I had more advanced training with Rainbow. I had a chiropractor appointment and then a dumb half hour session that is held every Monday night at the chiro's for new patients called "How to stay young for the first 100 years" it was interesting and BORING!

Tuesday: I had a demo at a chiropractors home at 11:00 on Tuesday. I was a little unsure of myself, so I had asked for somebody to go with me on the show. Rob, who is actually the guy who hired me, was assigned to go with me. What was going to happen was he was going to do the show and I was supposed to take notes and pay close attention...pretty much first hand training. We met at the office at 10:30 and got everything together before heading out about quarter til 11. We get to their house and he comes out looking very disheveled. Apparently the doc had no idea about the appointment and his wife was still in bed cuz she wasn't feeling well! Company policy is that both the husband and wife have to be present in order for us to show the machine. UGH! Soooo....we went back to the office. I had some errands to run and then there was more advanced training at 1:00. That went well then I had to work for Wes later in the day.

Wednesday: My demo from Tuesday got rescheduled for Wednesday at 11:00. So once again Rob and I hit the road on our way to the show. This time however the results were quite different. :) Both doc and Mrs. were awake and ready to let us show them the Rainbow. Rob did a great demonstration and had both of them convinced that they needed/wanted a system. However, doc had to open his office at 12:30 so he had to leave, thus we did not get a sale!! :( T'was sad....if there had been 1/2 hour more for us to demo we could have sold them one soooo easily! :( Oh well I guess... There is always training for the Rainbow at 1 that is optional to attend, so I went to that and then had a chiro appointment, and then worked for Wes. Then the day began to get REALLY exciting, let me explain:
My best friend's mom had died the beginning of December. They are missionaries to Italy and she had been buried over there. Faith had just begun her second year of college at Northland Baptist Bible College in WI when Mrs. Pieri was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She got so sick that Faith went home to be with her. Within about three months Mrs. Pieri went home to be with Jesus. Faith did not go back to school, but instead stayed home and helped her family through the hard time. Joseph, who is the Pieri's son (they have 2 children) graduated from high school this year. So the Pieri's came back this summer so Faith and Joseph could both go to Northland, and they had a memorial service on Friday.
So.... we were planning on leaving Thursday morning to drive to Antigo, WI which is where the memorial service was to be held. Well, mom came up with the idea of leaving late Wednesday night so that we could get through Chicago at a decent hour. All well and good, but I still had a LOT of work that I needed to do for Wes, and I had not even begun to pack, on top of that I was exhausted. I finally completely lost it, and just cried for a LOOOOOOONG time!! I was totally overwhelmed! Mom came into my room and held me and let me cry for a while, then she ended up doing most of my packing, cuz I couldn't even think about packing at the time! LOL! We left around 9:00 for Zion, IL which is where the hotel that mom booked for us for the night was. I convinced dad to let me drive through Chicago which was FUN!! We hit some construction, and traffic, but it really wasn't that bad! :) The hotel was really nice and since we didn't have to drive the whole way on Thursday we got to sleep in a little bit! :)
Thursday: We drove through Milwaukee and right outside of it is Menonomee Falls, which is where Falls Baptist Church is, and part of the church is Baptist College of Ministry where several kids from our church have gone to school. Right now two guys from my church are on their singing tour group this summer. They happened to actually be around the entire week, so we got to swing by and see them. :) It was nice. None of us had ever been there before, so we got a tour of the church and classrooms. We also stopped at the Wings as Eagles airplane hangar in Oshkosh, WI. Dad and Mom are going to be putting in an alarm system in August while Samuel is up there for flight camp, so dad needed to check a few things out. I think around 4:00 on Thursday we pulled into Antigo, WI which is where we spent the rest of our time. Probably around 6 or 7 the Pieri's came over and spent the entire evening with us! It was really nice to see them again (the last time we saw them was when they brought Faith to the U.S. for college 2 years ago), but it was hard without Mrs. Pieri.

Friday: The memorial service wasn't until 2:00 so we were able to sleep in, which was WONDERFUL!! Around 10:30 we left so the cleaning people could clean our room. My family ran some errands, but I stayed at the hotel working on the work for Wes. It was nice to get some things accomplished. :) Originally the plans were that we wouldn't see the Pieri's until the service, but plans changed and we ended up meeting them and some of the other family at a restaurant for lunch. It was really nice. The memorial service went really well. There were so many people who were able to give testimony to her VERY close walk with God. There was a lot of praise and glory given to God, and all in all it went really well. Friday evening Bro. Pieri's brother from Michigan stayed in the same hotel that we were in, so the Pieri's came over again and stayed until around 10:00. That was our good-byes to them...it was sad. :( However, they are supposed to be coming to IN sometime in July, so we will get to see them again!! :) :) :) YAY!Saturday: We got up earlier than the 2 days before, but it still wasn't too bad. We were packed and on the road about 8:30. No excitement on the trip home. We got back safe and sound about 6ish.

**********

*****Falls Baptist Church*****

*****Mom at Wings as Eagles*****

*****This was on the floor*****

*****Sorry this is up side down, but its cool*****

*****I'll admit it was tempting*****

*****Me and my bro******

*****Faith and Joseph Pieri*****

*****Bro. Pieri*****

*****Joseph at the funeral dinner*****

*****I was sitting on Angela's lap cuz she decided to sit in my chair!! :-*****

*****Me and Faith...best friends*****

*****Angela and Sasha, they are sisters who were adopted from the Ukraine*****

*****Chicago=traffic*****

*****This cop kinda startled me cuz I thought he was a taxi and then all of a sudden I saw THE cop!!*****

*****This truck had a really funny license plate considering one of my nicknames!!LOL!!*****

*****U.S. Cellular Field, formerly Wrigley Field, where the White Sox play...GOOOO SOX!!!*****

Recalling Italy

Today marks the third anniversary since my dad and I went to Italy on a missions trip! We visited with the Pieri family in Aprilia, about 40 minutes south of Rome. We were able to spend 10 days over there, they are days that I will never forget. I will treasure their memories forever.
The food was beyond delicious, mmmmm, real Italian food. I want some now! :) The European chocolate was sooooo good! I want some of that too! YUM!!
The people were cool. Many could speak English, but pretended to not be able to understand, it cracked me up! :) One story that sticks out in my mind is of the first day that dad and I were there. Faith, Joseph, and I went on a walk cuz I needed to stretch my legs after a long plane trip (I don't remember how long it was exactly). We met this lady on the street who came to the Pieris church occasionally. Faith and Jo introduced us, and interpreted a question from her to me. The question was: "Which do you like better, America or Italy?" Uuuuhhhh what do you say to that? Finally I told her that I thought Italy was gorgeous (which is the honest truth) but I liked America better just because that was where I lived. That answer satisfied her. Talk about awkward!
During one of the church services Bro. Pieri asked me to give my testimony. As I spoke he interpreted for me. As I was speaking Tonino, a BIG man in the mafia, interrupted me and asked me what in the world I had done that was bad enough to send me to hell. He couldn't believe that God would send a 15 year old girl like me to hell. It was definitely an experience, and made me REALLY nervous. But thankfully I was able to answer him, and finish. If you've never spoken through an interpreter before, it's rather difficult, and interesting.
So much has changed in these 3 years. The first big change was in 2007 when Faith graduated from high school and started attending Maranatha Baptist Bible College. We were able to see the Pieris several times during that summer while they were travelling around the mid-west. Little did we know those few precious times would be the last times we would ever see Mrs. Pieri again.
The next great change came the following year when I graduated from high school and moved to New York to attend International Bible College.
By far the most significant change began in September of 2008 when Mrs. Pieri was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Faith returned to Italy to be with her mom. In December Mrs. Pieri went home to be with her Savior. Her work on earth was complete. We'll never understand why it was that God took her, but we can rest in the fact that she was saved, and is now in the presence of the Almighty God, singing His praises.