hAlLoWeEn PaRtY

Today we had the most magnificent Halloween party at the church, all planned by Kimberly. It was complete with orange and black streamers, candy corn, chili and baked potatoes with the most divine cheese sauce, chocolate chip cookies, and caramel popcorn!!! We played some really fun games like bobbing for apples- yes, I bobbed and I won! It was such a blast. My face got drenched with water but it was well worth it. We had a fun wrap-the-mummy relay race with toilet paper. I couldn't suppress my laughter when Anziono Welch was wrapping Anziono White with toilet paper and he was making him spin around and around and A. White kept saying "I'm getting really dizzy man!" As he hopped to the finish line I really thought he would just topple over into the wall instead of actually crossing it. After the relay we had an eat-a-biscotti-from-the-string race and needless to say Antonio, the only boy in the competition, blew everyone else out of the water. He ate his biscotti in two huge bites. If you are wondering why we were eating biscotti instead of donuts its because they don't have donuts in Italy, so we used the only thing that we could think of that would stay on a string nicely. After that we played another relay game that consisted of running down the hall, popping a balloon, eating the candy inside, then racing to tag the next person in line. All the games were so much fun and got all of the members that were there involved and interacting with the rest of us. There were some very creative costumes that spiced up the night as well. To name a few were: sale & pepe (salt and pepper, very clever), witches, lauren dressed up as a garlic (quite hilarious, she even had a sign on her back that said "draw me"), elizabeth was a piece of contemporary art, a referee, angels (whose wings were white purses with silver sequence and their paper halos were held up by a wooden spoon…), and eve-peter's 7 year old daughter- was the cutest little red riding hood you have ever seen. As you can see most of the costumes were very resourceful and quite entertaining. I lacked anything special and dressed up in black and orange--I know I am pretty lame in comparison but there were two others that followed suit so we all fit in with each other. After playing games the BYU girls all split up and went into different classrooms so that the members and all the little kids could trick-or-treat to the 5 doors. It was fun to give out candy to them and I think they all enjoyed it very much. Kimberly's mom had sent her little grab bags of american candy to her that she graciously handed out to the rest of us. Included inside were warheads, pop rocks, chup-chups, starbursts, and caramel apple suckers. We made Antonio (a very attractive, single, Italian guy about 25ish, dressed in the sexiest black and orange outfit- complete with Levi's, who is studying in Florence but lives in Siena, who just happens to have just started taking english lessons at the church on Tuesday nights and wanted to come to our sweet party…) try some of the warheads and pop rocks. Priceless faces were produced. He was shocked of the level of sourness the blue warhead brought to his mouth and even more surprised by the popping of the pop rocks on his tongue. Gotta love american candy! Afterwards the missionaries shared a nice spiritual thought and the clean up began. It surprisingly only took about 10 minutes to clean up, which I guess makes sense when you have 50 pairs of hands all working at the same time in such a concentrated area. The rain was pouring and Autumn and I were not looking forward to the 40 minute walk we had ahead of us. Then the most magnificent thing happened. As we were standing and talking with Antonio (or Italian Hottie as I would like to refer to him as…) offered to give some of us rides home. None of us really responded for fear of what Peter would say but as he walked away to say Ciao to the Elders and other people at the party, Autumn and I took the initiative and asked Peter how he felt about it. The second miracle happened of the evening and he said yes!! It was a great moment. Upon returning to our area of the building he asked again if anyone needed a ride home and the two of us took him up on the offer. Not only was this going to save us tons of time and getting soaked from the rain, but we would get to ride in a car with Italian Hottie! It was so great. The three of us ventured out in the rain, which he so graciously shared his umbrella with us on the way to the corner where he told us to wait for him while he went farther down the street to pick up his car. A couple minutes later he pulls up in a black VW bug and let us in. I cannot express the excitement I felt when I saw his cute little bug. I miss mine tremendously and very enthusiastically told him that I had the same car as him back home. He got a kick out of that and kept saying "its true?!" The smell inside was similar to mine and he even had a flower in his vase (a red rose if you were curious…). He asked me what kind of flower I had in mine…I love that the vase is a universal "bug" thing. We listened to some pretty sweet house-techno music as we drove through the wet and winding streets just on the outside of the old city wall. The drive was fast and only took about 7 minutes. We thanked him very graciously and hurried inside when he dropped us off 5 feet from our door. I was so grateful when I walked into our bedroom after only 10 minutes of leaving the church, dry, warm, and completely and utterly happy. The night was a blast, the food delicious, company delightful, games exciting, and the ride home- bliss. Autumn and I immediately changed into our comfies and climbed into bed to work on our journals before bedtime. After about 30 minutes there was a knock on the door and Giuseppe informed me, "sibley", that I had a phone call. It was none other than Peter calling to check on us. He wanted to "make sure we got home safely after sending us off with some strange italian man". Haha it was so funny. He is totally a worrier and completely fills the role of father for all of us here. He thought it was pretty funny they call me Sibley, I wish I could have heard the conversation that he had with Giuseppe while trying to get one of us on the phone. Overall it was a great halloween despite my lack of costume and I am going to bed one happy, satisfied girl.