Friday Festa

Friday was the Immacolata, a big national holiday here. Many of the stores (but not all) were closed. We weren't sure how many kids would show up: there was a lot of discussion about it on the Institute WhatsApp group, with some saying they can't and some saying they will.  With no school, my Seminary class got cancelled.

Finally I slept well for the first time in a few nights, which is really good. I kept waking up about 5am, unable to get back to sleep, so I have been pretty tired.

Our son Rich emailed us to ask what he should take with him if he gets evacuated in the wildfire near Carlsbad. That'll shake your day up! We gave him some suggestions and also asked him to video the contents of the house, which he did. He also asked which car to take, mine or his -- we decided on mine, since it's newer and probably worth more. It appears that our area probably won't be affected, but a good friend living about ten miles north did get evacuated from his place. Living in California is never dull 😉. The 1996 fire that destroyed our home (and those of 100 of our closest friends) seems like a distant memory -- may it stay that way!

After re-tasting her experiment in the morning, my wife decided to stick with the potato casserole, so we didn't need to make an extra run to the supermarket. It turned out great! There was ham, potatoes, and cheese galore.

 

Her experiment had been without the ham, just to see how the potatoes worked. That turned out to be a blessing, because one of the kids, Gustavo, is a vegetarian, so she pulled some of the experimental version from the fridge and gave it to him; he was so excited to have something to eat and finished it all off! Another girl has lots of food allergies which eliminated the casserole option for her, so my wife fixed her some fried ham and cauliflower, which the young woman happily consumed. We aim to please. 

At first we had only about four kids there when the class started. However, over the next half hour, a bunch more arrived, so we had 15 signed in by the time the night was over.

The lesson (Mosiah 1-8) went really well: my questions elicited a bunch of thoughtful and interesting responses. We were laughing and feeling the spirit alternately. The part on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon seemed to resonate with most of them. It was a big job to prepare the visuals, but their interest made all that effort worthwhile.

In discussing Mosiah 4-5, where the people fell to the earth overwhelmed by the spirit, I asked why we didn't fall to the earth that way (some have called it "Nephite disease" :-), or what do we do instead when we are touched as a group? They came up with several ideas, such as crying, clapping, meditating. Then, in Mosiah 5:2, where everyone (at least hundreds, maybe thousands of people) cried out unanimously, I asked how that could possibly work. We discussed several ideas, and then I asked when do we all speak unanimously in church? Oscar said, "when we sing!", and everyone seemed to like that as a possible explanation, one I hadn't thought of before.

Several kids showed up whom we had never seen before, which was terrific  - - we hope that they will be around more in the future. Here are a few of the new and the regulars.

 

 

 

 

We got home a bit late because the kids didn't want to leave. That was was great, although have to get up early Saturday for our day of sightseeing in Naples -- tough life!

With my Thinkpad notebook having acted up (it seems fine, but I'm concerned), I checked on the Dell Italian website Friday to see what deals they had. I like to have an extra computer anyway, because often there's some test I need to run that consumes the computer. I found what appears to be a very nice laptop, last year's model, on what must be a clearance sale, for only 200 euro with a three-year warranty. It originally sold for $1200 and got good reviews. With a one-year warranty, it's under $100 (!) so I ordered two of them. We can also use them for family history with the kids, particularly since it will have an Italian keyboard for them, which is much different from the US keyboard. We'll see how that turns out.