Day 25: Someone You Judged by Their First Impression

I'm going to assume the prompt means to ask for someone I misjudged. And who's to say that I'm wrong? While that could describe the vast majority of people I've met, including many many of my closest friends, I'll share just one.

The first thing I remember noticing about Sorella Bellows was her running. And running. And running. And running. At the MTC we had gym time for something like 45 minutes every day. Because we spent an average of 10 hours per day sitting in a classroom, gym time was essential to our sanity. My district, and most of our branch, played volleyball whenever we could get a court. Otherwise, we sat around and watched the Elders play soccer. (It was summer, so we desperately wanted to be outside. But we didn't really want to play contact sports with 19 year-old boys--yes, Elders, you may have thought some of the sisters were hot, but we mostly just thought you were...in need of some time to grow up.) Anyway, this one sister, who was also going to Italy, would always run around the soccer fields. For the entire hour.

My companion and I decided to run once. We made it around the field approximately one time. And while we were running that one lap, she passed us. It wouldn't really surprise me if she passed us twice. I asked her how many laps she had run. She just laughed and said, "I try not to count." Don't you just hate those people? I mean, I like to exercise (although I may not have loved it nearly as much then), but people who just run and don't even want to know how far they've gone? There must be something wrong with these people. So, basically all I knew about Sorella Bellows was that she ran a LOT. And once I got to Italy, she would be in my mission. I think we may have had some limited interaction during class break, but it didn't help my impression. She was sweet. Really sweet. A little too sweet, you know? And just really nice. Always smiling and so...sweet.

Now, I can be a nice person, compassionate even. But if I had to boil my entire personality down to one word, that word would be sardonic. (Here, I've looked that one up for you: sardonic--adj.--characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering.) In other words, I wasn't too excited about Sorella Bellows. And I didn't believe she was really all that nice.

Fast forward ten months. My mission, we find, is just past half over. Am I doing a good job? I'm not sure. Since arriving in Italy, I've been in three cities. The most recent of those is Brescia, referred to by some as the armpit of the mission. My companion is about to go home, meaning I will receive my sixth companion in as many transfers. That's a lot of change, particularly for someone like me who takes a long time to get to know people. I've had some ups and downs with these six companions. Some were great, some barely spoke to me. I hadn't gotten a letter from home in a month. We weren't having much success with teaching. I was pretty worn down. I definitely wanted to be there, but I was unsure whether I was doing any good.

And then came the transfer call, telling me who would be my next companion: Sorella Bellows. I'd had several ideal companions picked out. She wasn't one of them. I just knew I would be miserable. We would have nothing in common and it would be another miserable companionship. After all, my meanest companion had spent our six weeks together telling me all about how wonderful Sorella Bellows (who'd been there just before me) was. I was a miserable replacement. And now, Sorella Bellows was coming with all her sweet superiority to make me even more wretched. God was certainly punishing me for my sardonic ways.

To make matter worse, between the transfer call and the dreaded arrival, I received an unwelcome email from home. My brother, who had promised at Mother's Day that he would NOT be getting married before I came home was engaged. I actually burst out crying in the middle of the internet cafe. The Elders were very concerned. I was upset enough to think about going home. I grudgingly taught a lesson on faith that evening, having none but desiring to believe anyway.

And then she came. I spent the entire bus ride home apologizing. I can only remember one of the reasons. Amidst packing for home, my companion and I hadn't had time to clean. Sorella Bellows insisted that she wanted to help me clean the apartment. And she meant it. She told me to stop apologizing. And she meant it. And so I did. I found that she was nice, and kind, and sweet really, but not in the way that I'd thought. Best of all, she didn't particularly enjoy the mean companion either. Within three days, we would kneel down for companionship prayers and decide an hour later that if we were going to talk instead of praying, we should at least give our knees a break and sit on the bed until we were actually ready to pray.

We found people to teach. But even when interested people were scarce, we still had a wonderful time looking for more. We rode our bikes all over Brescia, discovering beautiful scenes and wonderful people. We even went running, early in the morning when the streets are quiet and smell like fresh bread.

As our transfer together neared its end, I begged the mission president to let me stay in Brescia just six more weeks. So he did. He even let us go to the opera in Verona together. Sorella Bellows was completely willing to get behind my dream of seeing the opera and understanding it.

I think it was from her that I truly learned about charity and what it means. I learned volumes about compassion. I learned what it is to love someone with no reservations, no guile and no fear, just pure love.

There was a heat wave the summer we were companions, with temperatures over 104 degrees (we got very tan). I guess it should have been miserable with just one fan between us. But we biked around, sweated a LOT and had a wonderful time. I'm not a summer person, but I think I'll always consider that the best summer of my life. Even now, whenever I run I think of Sorella Bellows, and I think part of the reason I enjoy running is because of how much I love her. It reminds me of her, and brings me peace.