Missionaries returning

Friday was a longer day than usual, but for good reasons. There were two young missionaries returning to Rome from the Italy Milan Mission (my mission). We went with the Peregos to meet Sister Joyce Hernandez, originally from the Philippines but now living in Rome with her family, at the Termini train station near the Institute. She is in our/their ward, Roma 3. 

 She ended up staying with us at the Institute all day, waiting for her parents to come after work and to get released by her stake president.  

It was rather traumatic for her to take off her name tag and start using her first name again -- she loved serving! Among other cities, she had been in Lugano, one of my favorite places, and knows the Tiddia family that I had taught and baptized there in 1977.

Another young elder also returned from the IMM, Anziano Francesco Marataro, and got released at the Institute. It was fun watching all the kids rally around and love these missionaries, particularly JomarD, also from the Philippines and a good friend of Joyce, who couldn't hug her until she got released so he gave her a massive handshake (and a big hug later that evening :-)

In the afternoon, we had a Skype conference call with the mission president and a number of the other senior missionary couples, trying to coordinate and share ideas on how to strengthen the wards here. The Garretts, brother/sister-in-law to VelynA from our home ward, were on the line from Palermo. The mission president took much of the time sharing stories and insights from Elder Ballard's visit, including his friendly meeting with one of the Catholic Cardinals at the Vatican.

I taught my second Seminary Doctrinal Mastery class at 4pm, with only two kids there this time. We'll wait a few weeks to see if attendance can grow a bit, but it was fun -- the kids opened up a bit more and shared some good stories and thoughts.

Some of the kids started decorating the Institute for the Halloween party coming up on Oct 31. It's interesting that the holiday is now fairly well known here, though not as big as in the US; when we were here 40+ years ago, few people really knew much about it.

In the evening was the weekly Book of Mormon Institute class, taught by Ugo who is a natural teacher. He finished the book of first Nephi, focusing on the symbolism of the Liahona and building the ship to teach how to follow the Lord in our lives.  Next week Ugo will be out of town, so I get to sub for him, which will be two lessons for me in one evening -- I love it!

Afterwards we had wonderful sliced tortilla rolls with cream cheese, ham, and Parmesan, made by the amazing Sister Whiting who spent hours in the kitchen. You can see they were popular -- I had to hurry to get a photo before they were all devoured.

When we got home late, Sister Balzotti had three Amazon packages for us from the office. We had a fun visit down in the piazza with her; she's a hoot and has great insights. It was pretty late when we finally got to bed, but Saturday we have nothing scheduled until the evening. Nice.

We feel very blessed to be here and love serving these kids.