First full day in Rome

We each slept a bit last night, but not enough. This morning I felt very weak and still a bit woozy, with lots of pain in my chest from the CPR. There's one intercostal spot in particular that feels a bit depressed and is painful to the touch, so it was hard to get a deep breath. By afternoon, however, I started feeling much better. My wife is actually in worse shape than I am now, still exhausted, with runny nose and coughing, and feeling sick to her stomach tonight. Hopefully a good rest, after staying awake all day, will help us both get on track tomorrow.

The Thackers, the couple we are replacing, took us down to the mission office in the morning. There we met President Pickerd, who spent a bunch of time to orient us as a senior missionary couple. Then he took all of us to lunch (not vegan for me!). After that, the Thackers took us to the mall where we changed the apartment internet connection to my credit card and went to Auchan, a huge store like Target or Walmart on steroids, then to Lidl, where they buy most of their groceries. We checked off a bunch of things from our need-to-buy list. It was so kind of them: this was their final P-day, when they could have been doing lots of other things, but they used it to help us figure things out. Here's a photo of us with the Thackers:

This evening we went to a BBQ with all of the senior missionary couples in Rome, at the home of the Paulsens, who serve as mission secretary and financial officer. The occasion was to honor the Thackers, who finish their mission next week. It was nice to meet everyone. Here's a photo of the group:

Our first order from amazon.it (Dee's hair dryer, and a Waterpik-like device) arrived at the office yesterday, and we picked it up tonight. Awesome.

Wish us good luck for a long and restful sleep tonight!