It's all ours now

The Thackers have finished their last day at the Institute, so it's all up to us now. The scariest part is driving there and back! We now have a mission car, but the roads in Rome are completely nuts. There's no straight way to get there. The way the Thackers like best involves many twists and turns. The worst part is the the bus/taxi lane, which you can get a ticket for using, are very poorly marked; the paint marking the lane is faint and looks like it's decades old. Even worse, the lanes keep changing sides: sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right, sometimes merged. I drove the route once as a passenger, and once as a driver, and it is very confusing. We have a GPS, which is not not up to the rigors of these roads! Tomorrow, without the Thackers to guide us, I estimate we'll take about a dozen wrong turns.

Back to yesterday: my wife woke up tired, coughing, and wheezing, and probably had a fever during the night. She sounded absolutely horrible. The mission nurse came over and said perhaps she should go to the ER (more like US UrgentCare clinics apparently). When you're sick, going to the doctor can be so tiring that sometimes it's not too appealing. The nurse also said she might be able to shake it herself with rest, tylenol and lots of fluids. So she opted to stay home from church and sleep, which she did for maybe four more hours. After that, she felt and sounded much better. Hopefully she's on the mend. We both slept fairly well last night for the first time in almost a week. I felt pretty good yesterday, but weak today, so I may go the doctor later in the week. Sorry that this blog seems to be all about health -- or lack thereof -- but these two weeks have been horrible medically and very unusual for us.

Sunday my wife missed a real treat. I got to attend church in our new ward, where Ugo Perego is bishop. It's a very small but interesting ward, with some Italians, a few Americans, and a number of foreigners, mostly from South America and Africa. The best part is that after church the Perego's 8-year old son, Sam, was baptized. Thus, his grandmother Raffaela Perego, Ugo's mom and one of our dearest friends in Italy, was in town for the event from up north, so I got to see her:

Here's a photo of me with the whole family at the baptism:

All the meetings were wonderful, full of the spirit, all in Italian. In typical Italian style, after the baptism they had a big lunch, so almost the entire congregation stayed two hours after church for the event and food:

After that, Ugo dropped me back at the apartment, where I took it easy for an hour or so -- jet lag was really kicking in, but I managed to stay awake all day.

In the evening, we had a surprise farewell party for the Thackers at the Institute. There were over 35 young people there to wish them well, and we managed quite a surprise: they drove us down, and we had to concoct a story about the event being delayed because they wanted to be there too early for the surprise to work. It's clear that all the kids there adore them, and we saw how much they love the kids in return. There were tons of hugs, laughs, tears and tributes.

We got to meet almost all the kids, but we don't have all the names down yet. It was late when we got home, but well worth it. 

Today we went into the mission office, read and signed some docs to get the car, got an Italian SIM card for my phone, and then spent the entire afternoon and evening down at the Institute, which will become our routine. Tonight was Family Home Evening, where Elder Thacker gave a 20-minute lesson on making correct choices ahead of time instead of on the spur of the moment, followed by games and treats. Nobody wanted to leave -- we had to push them out the door, which is a good thing. 

We also got our photo taken in front of the Rome temple, still under construction:

So, starting tomorrow, the Institute is all ours. Gulp. We have big shoes to fill, but we will love these kids, hopefully as much as the Thackers have done.