On the road
Wednesday was our day to travel to the other side of Rome and to Ladispoli to inspect four apartments of young missionaries: two sets of Sorelle and two sets of Anziani. The drive is about 35 miles each direction. It all went quite well. There were a few semi-serious issues/concerns, which we have to write up and submit to the office, but we were also able to fix a few things and make some helpful recommendations. Dee always brings treats for the missionaries, today including some ziploc-style bags from Ikea, which were big hits with the Sorelle -- they are not to be found anywhere else here! She also tells them that we are there not as spies to find out what's wrong, but more as home teachers to help them out. Anyway, they now really enjoy having us show up!
Here are Sorella Davis and I in Ladispoli, fixing a shower curtain which was too short to reach the tub (the shower rod is actually too high but can't be moved easily), by adding some extensions links to the hooks.
It was a bit precarious balancing on the edge of the tub, but no missionaries were harmed in the process. We also take aerators for their faucets, which often break, and we need to start bringing along extra light bulbs to replace missing/burned out ones. These young missionaries are so busy that they don't tend to get around to minor repairs. It's easier for us to just do it for them when we're there. I bring our tool chest and used it a few times today. We also brought a new cloth shower curtain that hadn't been installed yet in my bathroom, and Sister Wyatt in Ladispoli was delighted to install it instead of her old plastic one.
In Ladispoli, after inspecting the elders' apartment, we took them out to pizza for lunch. They were really excited about getting a free meal out -- much better than ziplocs for them! They are Anziano Adepojou from Nigeria, and Anziano Dunn from Poway in San Diego County. Anziano Adepojou is the one I wrote about a few months ago, whose father was killed in Nigeria because he was a Christian, and whose brothers drowned when they came together on a raft from Libya. You can see the video about his story here. Here are some lunch photos:
During lunch, I got a call from Vodafone, saying that they were going to credit 54 euros to my account to cover the extra charges incurred over the last nine days. They also explained how to fix the issue going forward. Overall, it was a good solution to the problem.
We left our apartment at 9:15am and got home about 4pm, so it was a rather long day. But we weren't done: after unloading and unwinding just a little while at the apartment, we headed out again. First we went to Metro to buy just a few things, mostly for the Institute next week, but also a couple of huge chunks of cheddar cheese, over three pounds each, one for Ugo and one for us. Metro is the only place we know where you can buy cheddar here. Italy has lots of phenomenal cheeses, but cheddar is basically unknown. Metro also has black beans, which I love; they're expensive, but I'm worth it.
From Metro, we drove to our ward (Roma 3) chapel, which is nearby. The ward has a new Dell desktop for use by the ward leaders, but they haven't been able to get the church MLS program installed on it, so I had offered to help. It took well over an hour, but I finally succeeded. I had to call tech support in Salt Lake, download the program, install it, and then configure it. There was also some junkware on the computer (it was added by somebody here, probably in an effort to help) that I removed, which sped the system up quite a bit. Since I'm not a clerk or bishopric member, I wasn't authorized to do everything, so we had to get Stefano Bosco, 2nd counselor in the bishopric, on the phone a few times. I was running Skype on my laptop to Salt Lake, and calling Stefano on my phone, both in speakerphone mode, so the two could talk. It all worked. Downloading was so slow over DSL that I used my phone as a hotspot for a few minutes, which went much faster. Anyway, by the time I was done, everything seemed to be in order, and the bishopric was ecstatic to get this long-standing issue fixed.
While driving to Ladispoli, my wife took some heavy black felt and made a visor extension for our car. The built-in visor is too small to really help, particularly when sun is coming in from the driver's side. I was skeptical, but it works great! She should start a business selling them--they're a great solution. It basically is a sleeve that can be pulled out to extend the visor, then it can be easily slipped back into place. I'll take a video sometime to show how it works, but here are photos, with it just pinned for now; she'll sew it together more permanently. Here are some photos, on our lovely marble floor.
Once home, I went to give the Balzottis a tablet we picked up today from the Sorelle in Roma 1st ward (as well as some amaretti cookies we bought for them to try), and they gave me an amazon.it package, which included accessories for my new laptop, such as a slip cover and some cables/adapters. One of these days I'll have enough time to turn it on finally, perhaps Thursday. I was also able to go online and submit a "self certification" of where we entered the freeway on Monday evening coming back from Bagoregio. The form has to be signed and FAXed (!)in, but hopefully it should avoid the huge fine.
We got home exhausted after over 100 miles on the road, but happy to have given almost the whole day in service to others. Good stuff.
