What were you grateful for this week? So many things!! Getting to Italy without a problem; pasta, pizza, gelato; my cute host family.

What was the most challenging part of this week?Trying to find the church building, lol.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.Well, I let the little girl do my hair and let the little boy beat me in arm wrestling… Don’t know if that’s above and beyond what I’m supposed to do, but I had a lot of fun doing it!

Tell us about your week! Well, it was my first week in Italy, so it was a little bit of everything! I felt a lot of emotions this week!

I spent a lot of time being exhausted from the jet lag so hopefully this next week is better that way.

I’ve walked around the little town that’s now my home a few times since arriving, and there’s so much that is so different from Utah. I’m becoming fascinated by all these huge old Catholic churches. Also, I wish I spoke better Italian. It’s such a beautiful language, and the people speak it so vibrantly.

I have loved getting to know the host family. The kids are so much fun. They love to play and get into mischief, and they make me laugh. They discovered that I’m extremely ticklish, which is both a good and a bad thing because I end up getting tickled a lot, but usually I win tickle fights.

One of the coolest things I got to do was go to Salone Del Mobile, which is design week in Milano. It’s basically this huge collection of furniture and design elements for the home and the workplace. I saw so many awesome things, and it helped me better understand my own design style as well as taught me that I’m passionate about design. That was definitely a dream come true.