Friday mostly at home

Institute was supposed to re-open Friday evening with Ugo's Book of Mormon lesson and a dinner. However, there was a dual-stake event for Young Men and Young Women, and a bunch of our GANS were involved in running it. Thus, Ugo cancelled, so we had one more down day, which was good, particularly since my wife hasn't been feeling well. She seems to be on on the mend after a couple of days of light coughing and low energy.

Today I performed several fun acts of service. Anziano Paulsen's personal laptop had a bunch of problems, including running really slow. Turns out the culprit was Norton Security, which was messed up and incredibly difficult to uninstall. Friday morning we finally succeeded in getting that done, and the laptop seems to be running fine now. He was delighted and called me his hero!

The Sorelle below us had complained that their hot water heater didn't last long enough for two showers. We had similar issues when we arrived, but the problem was resolved by turning up the thermostat. Other missionaries have mentioned the same problem when we inspected their apartments. Unfortunately, the water heaters in their apartments do not have a thermostat at all, even though they are otherwise very similar in appearance to ours. Probably their model was a few euros cheaper😞. The thermometer reading of their water is middle of the range, as opposed to ours which is at the high end. My wife noticed during inspections this week that the spot where we have a dial to adjust our water temp is a blank circle on theirs, but the housing can be taken off by removing two screws. I took it off and, sure enough, underneath was a knob to turn, hidden inside. After turning it up, now their water is much hotter. It will be particularly nice for them at zone/mission conference time, when they often have a number of other Sorelle staying overnight.

Our thermostat knob

Theirs has a placeholder instead

Removing the screws that hold the cover in place

The cover is off, exposing the thermostat knob

Behold the little red thermostat knob hidden inside

This afternoon I ran out for a while to wash and vacuum the car, which was pretty dirty after our hike at Bagnoreggio on Monday. Then I went to the mall, where I visited Vodafone to have them explain some stuff. It was very frustrating, though I finally got my answers. They seem to use intentionally confusing terms and language, probably to make it so people don't ask questions and just pay their bill. For example, there is one feature that costs 2 euros per month, and it's something we don't need. The description says that it is "Free Sunday calls". Turns out that the calls are free on Sunday, but the feature isn't.  Here is a part of the Q&A today:
   Me: Is this feature free?
   VF: Yes, but it costs 2 euros/month and is included in your plan
   Me: So it is free, or am I paying for it?
   VF: It's free, but you can't get rid of the 2 euros/month
It went on like this for some time, on several different topics, seeming like part of a Monty Python skit. I think I finally understand what is going on now, but I can't believe how evasive and confusing their terminology is. All the phone companies here seem to do it. In the US, there would be class-action lawsuits! By comparison, the US cell phone carriers seem like paragons of honesty and clarity. Having said that, cell service here is generally much less expensive than in the US, with lots of competition, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much. It will still take a few weeks before they install the fiber -- can't wait!

At the mall I also looked for a winter suit, to no avail. As I mentioned a while back, my two mission suits are basically for spring and summer, with wonderfully light and breathable fabric. So we'll look a bit downtown next week at some men's clothing stores not too far from the Institute and see what happens. A counselor in our bishopric told me that Italian suits aren't comfortable for him, with very tight legs. I bought a couple like that here in the 1970s. They looked good, but I could barely lean over. The joke was that people could tell whether a coin was heads or tails in the pants pocket of an Italian suit. Hopefully I can request a more generous cut. Stay tuned!

I also made a brief Ikea run, to get some Ziploc bags and a chef's knife for the Anziani in Ladispoli, who don't have a good kitchen knife. We had ordered a universal remote for their HVAC units, which work great for AC but not for heat without the remote -- a prior set of Anziani managed to lose the remotes last summer sometime. Unfortunately, Amazon tried to deliver it Friday while they were out, so they can't get it probably until next week, given that Saturday is Epiphany.

Dee writes: This evening we ran to Conad for some food because many things will be closed on Epiphany. There were two young people inside asking for donations for a charity. The young man, Simone, was familiar with the elders and knew they aren't allowed to donate. He told me he couldn't remember their names, but they were really nice, American, tall and wore ties. This doesn't narrow it down much :) He mentioned that they had invited him to their free English classes. The young woman with him, Valeria, perked up at that and said she would like to go to the classes. So I got to give them our card with the addresses of the local Church and the Institute. It's always great when a nonmember says things that make another nonmember get interested. I hope we see more of them!