Futile trip to the bank

On Thursday morning we have our DDM (District Development Meeting), so we left here at 9:15am to drive to our ward building. The meeting went on a bit longer than usual, but it was really wonderful. Anziano Bentley does a great job leading the discussions, and today everyone contributed in some nice ways. I was asked to give the language tips, and I taught three different things, one of which is a detail of helping verb conjugations that we Americans often get wrong. The other two were useful idioms. When I said that I would explain how to say "serves you right!" in Italian, Anziano Mars perked up and said "I want to write this one down!" 😊 In case you were wondering, the phrase is "ti sta bene", which can mean either "that looks good on you" or "serves you right", depending on context. 

It's great having Sorella N'zoungani in our district: she is of African descent but born and raised in Italy, and she speaks a fair amount of English, so we can run our grammar tips past her for confirmation. When I asked if "ti sta bene" was right, she said yes, it means something like getting bad karma for not being good. My other idiom was one Oscar taught us for "strong suit" -- it's "cavallo di battaglia", which literally means "battle horse".

Sorella N'zoungani also shared some nice cooking tips, and we all discussed small miracles we have experienced in the recent past. We also read some from Preach My Gospel about our callings -- how to serve better and with more power. Overall it was the best DDM we've had. We're sorry it's the last one with Anziano Bentley, who is going home in January. We'll have zone conference next week, then we're going to Calabria, so no more DDMs with him. Afterwards, we practiced the simple skit we'll be doing Saturday at the ward Talent Show/Christmas dinner -- it's interesting to have a talent show as part of the Christmas party, and it will be fun. Here is a link to a YouTube version of what we are trying to do. It's very funny and involves no talking at all. Nobody else wanted to do the main part (the guy who gets all the diseases), so I get to be the ham, not that I enjoy it or anything!

We are definitely living in a foreign culture. At DDM we were discussing giving things up while we are missionaries so that we can focus on the work. Anziano Bentley said that it's a very personal thing, that each of us makes different sacrifices. He asked what thing(s) we missed most that we had had to give up as missionaries. I said "clothes dryers". There were seven Americans and one Italian in the group. All the Americans nodded their heads vigorously and said "yep", while Sister N'zoungani frowned and asked "what would you need that for?" It was rather funny to see the cultural divide!  I can give several benefits of clothes dryers: getting clothes dried in an hour instead of 2-3 days, having clothes come out without wrinkles (and thus not needing ironing), having clothes that are soft when you put them on instead of dried stiff, and not taking up a whole room of the apartment with clothes drying racks:

You can see our back bedroom is basically full of drying clothes, some of which have been there for at least two nights. It has been rainy/humid, so stuff isn't drying very fast. My wife can't do any more laundry right now because there's no place to put it to dry! The photo shows five loads drying: one of whites, two of darks, one of towels, and one sheet. Each sheet is a load by itself because our washer is small, and there's no place to put the other sheet until the first one dries, so it is waiting to be washed. Maybe we need another drying rack? 😕

We got to Institute a bit early and had some prep time, particularly my wife who has several big meals to cook coming up, plus a talk in Sacrament meeting this Sunday. There were a handful of kids there during the day, as is usual on Thurdays with no scheduled activities. Tomorrow is a big day.

I found some very cool USB cables on ebay.it. They can work for either Android or iPhone, via a clever arrangement shown below. The iPhone connector can be detached, revealing a micro-USB connector for Android phones, but the iPhone end stays attached to the cable so you don't lose it. They come in half a dozen bright colors and are very useful for the kids, since they use a mixture of phone types -- mostly Android but with some iPhones. We provide a few USB chargers at the Institute, each with one of these cables, so it works for whatever phone they have. I bought one for each of us to carry around as well.

iPhone

Android (micro USB)

In my eternal quest to get an Italian credit card, I took a walk in the afternoon to a bank nearby (BNL) to try to open an account, having seen that one of the couples we met going to Napoli actually had a BancoMat card from that bank. The system is very different here! First of all, you have to go through a kind of screening just to enter the door. There's a button to push which opens up a huge cylinder, kinda like one of the airport scanners. You walk into the thing and it closes behind you, then opens the door in front a few seconds later. At least it did so for everyone else, but for me it said (in Italian) "please back out of the cylinder and [unintelligible]". I was quite puzzled. The second time I tried it, I waited a few seconds longer and it repeated the phrase in English, something to the effect of "put your bag into the locker outside". I had my computer bag on my shoulder, holding a bunch of the necessary docs. Outside there were a number of lockers with electronic keys. I took my documents out of the bag, put the bag into the locker, removed the electronic key, closed the locker door, and then swiped the electronic key over the lock, which locked the door. This time I was able to get into bank -- progress! 

When I got inside, somebody asked me what I wanted to do, and I said "open an account". The lady looked at me rather annoyed and asked "do you have an appointment?" I said that I didn't know that I needed one. She sighed (body language said "stupid American!") and explained how very busy they were today and it would be a lot better if I came back with an appointment. I asked if I could do that online, and she said yes. So I went out of the bank, through the exit cylinder, and went to the locker to get my bag. However, the locker just blinked red at me when I swiped the key over it. I tried several times, and then I read the fine print that said that I had to "validate" the key inside the bank to open the lock. So, I went back through the cylinder into the bank and asked how to validate the key. Another sigh and another look of "stupid American". The guy pointed at the little machine where you validate the key by swiping it in front, which I did, then went back out the exit cylinder, unlocked my locker, took my bag, and headed back to the Institute in the rain. There I found that the online appointment system didn't work. I will try again next month. We are clearly living in a foreign land!

Here is a selfie of my new haircut:

In the afternoon I got a call from the young sisters living in the Roma 1 ward. We inspect their apartment once every transfer; i.e., six weeks. They had a couple of problems, one serious (electrical short in their medicine cabinet light) and one slightly less so (broken bathroom window). It's great that they knew to call us. Ultimately I called Anziano Balzotti, who followed up. Sounds like it may take an electrician visit to fix the circuit breaker issue, while the landlady has someone scheduled to replace/upgrade the window next week.

At 8pm we had an Institute council meeting, with four different locations via Zoom. We reviewed all the upcoming activities and talked about how to better support the full-time missionaries. Anziano Waddell said that it is very awkward for them to invite young females to come to the Institute, because it sounds like a pickup line: "wanna come back our apartment/office for a free English lesson?" 😀 So we talked about having the sister missionaries possibly spend more time around here.

We got home about 9:30pm and called our dear friend Lucille, who turned 97 a couple of days ago. She was delighted and surprised to talk with us. We loved hearing her voice. It was a very good day.