Rainy Wednesday

By law, in Italy you apparently have to put snow tires on your car during the winter. It's not exactly clear where the law applies -- I doubt it is required in Sicily for example -- but it is necessary here. So the office set up an appointment for me to take in our car to get the tires switched. I assume we'll do this in reverse next spring. The tire shop isn't too far away, but it is hard to describe how to get there, so I followed Anziano Balzotti over there in the rain through heavy traffic. With all the normal cutting in and out of cars here, it is difficult to follow anyone closely, but fortunately he has a red car which is easy to spot, and I never let more than two cars get between us. Once we arrived at the entrance, we had to go down a narrow and very steep driveway to the shop, then make a sharp, narrow turn. With all the rain making things slippery, it was pretty exciting. Once we got down there, we had about three inches on each side to maneuver. They had told us I could wait while they changed the tires, but when we got there they said it would be at least 90 minutes, so I said I'd come back. It turned out they called four hours later to say it was done, so I made the right decision. I helped Anziano Balzotti pair his phone with his car on the way back, so he got something out of the trip.

Dee did a bit of local shopping, including pizza bianca, which we both are pretty much addicted to, as well as getting some passport-style photos at a booth on the street for our permesso application appointment Friday. I went down later and did that too. 

This evening there was a memorial service for a young man in our ward, Sebastian, who was killed in a car accident one year ago. I think it's kind of a Catholic thing, not usually done in Mormon churches, but it turned out very nice. We went there directly after being dropped off to pick up the car, complete with new snow tires. Sebastian had 25+ friends show up, plus family. The young missionaries sang "I Am A Child of God", his favorite hymn. A number of people gave remembrances of him, including his mom who was awesome. He had had a premonition that he would die young, and right before his death he and his mom had shared with each other what they would like to happen at their funeral. After the remembrances, Bishop Perego (Ugo) gave a masterful talk to the mostly non-Mormon audience, explaining our beliefs about the "Plan of Salvation". He encouraged everyone to serve and lift our fellow beings, just like Sebastian did. It was an enjoyable and memorable event. Of course, afterwards there was food for everyone -- our ward seems to specialize in that!

Missionaries from Rome 3 Ward

As we were leaving, we asked Anziano Fuller about his transfer to Sardegna tomorrow, and he said he needed to go the mission home tonight so they could take him to the airport in the morning. He was trying to figure out how to get there from their apartment near the church, but far from the mission home. My wife realized that we should do it, since we live near the mission home, so we dropped by his apartment to get his luggage, which barely fit into our small car with the three of us--Anziano Fuller is about 6'4". We then drove through the traffic and rain and arrived just fine. The mission president called, looking for us, just as we pulled in. It was nearly nine o'clock. Traffic was terrible on the way! They unloaded his stuff and waved goodbye, then closed the gate on us, so we had to call back to ask them to re-open it. 

The letters with PIN numbers for our new credit cards came in the mail today, so we should finally have separatee chip-and-PIN cards without transaction fees!

An interesting and unusual day. It basically rained all day, fairly hard for much of the time. The plan was generally to stay home and take it easy, particularly for my leg, which is doing somewhat better.  But instead we got to partake of the wonderful spirit in the memorial service tonight, and we're glad we didn't miss it.