Interesting Tuesday

Yesterday my wife noticed that there was a large rubber gasket hanging loose under the front bumper of our car. It apparently had been scraped loose when the bumper hit a curb as we pulled in to park somewhere. They keep the bumpers very low on cars these days, possibly to minimize wind resistance? When I called him, Anziano Balzotti (the mission "car czar") said that this had already happened twice to him, and he knew how to fix it. So this morning at 8am, we met downstairs in the piazza. It was cold and drizzling, and he laid on the ground for about 15 minutes with a screwdriver to put it back into place, with me holding an umbrella over him. I had brought down a big piece of cardboard (from our printer box) over him, so at least he wasn't directly on the pavement. He showed me how to do it, so it ever happens again -- heaven forbid -- I can do it myself. After that I was pretty cold the entire morning.

Taco Tuesday was fairly lightly attended, but there was a small and steady stream of kids throughout the afternoon. Below is MatteoS showing how tacos are done.

The computer network is all working fine now; it seems that the issue I finally identified was indeed the required fix. In the afternoon I signed up for my first Facebook account ever, so I can post stuff on the Institute Facebook page. I never wanted to do it for security and privacy issues, but I only gave my Italian cell number, not my email, and I turned off almost all their "features", so it's worth trying for the sake of our mission. I also helped Alessio, a nice GANS from our ward, do his first batch of FamilySearch indexing. He picked it up pretty quickly.

I took photos of our two Ganziani to post on the Institute wall, along with all the others who have served here.

Anziano Misa

Anziano Waddell

In the evening I set up my laptop to run Zoom for Ugo's online Institute class, since he is up in Milano and thus taught remotely. The Ganziani ran late to teach their advanced English class, so I subbed with no notice and had fun. There were four men in the class, and we basically just spoke English for the hour. I explained life in California and how it differed in many ways from Italy. They were quite good at the language and we had some useful discussions on bank accounts, credit cards, Bancomat, taxes, weather/drought in California, residential areas (like our home neighborhood) where you can't walk to any store easily, etc. The latter is quite fascinating to them -- most Italians have a hard time relating to American suburbia, as it simply isn't something they experience. It was a fun hour; I'd do it again happily anytime.

It is quite chilly tonight, at least for Rome, so we are really hoping for radiators to turn on tomorrow.