Parking spot news

Monday was President's Day -- not celebrated in Italy for some strange reason 😉. The Pardon My Planet cartoon was another winner. That, together with Dave Barry's blog and calendar, helps make each morning fun for me.

We had a relaxed morning, which was nice. We got to the Institute a few minutes early to meet with our landlord, Marco, whom we had never met before. He wanted to give us a key to a new parking spot post. It is a U-shaped steel tube that locks in an upright position, making it so nobody else can park there; our key allows us to lower it to the ground and drive over it. Apparently there have been some issues with tenants trying to park in the courtyard without paying. The church pays about 135 euro per month for our assigned spot. These new posts should stop squatters from parking, though it is a bit of a pain for us to raise/lower each time.

Up position

Unlocked with a key and folded down

In fact, a guy from the copy shop on the ground floor keeps parking his motorcycle in another parking spot which he isn't paying for and which nobody else is renting currently. That guy printed his own "Emergency Exit" sign and taped it to their narrow back door, then claimed that the owner couldn't use the spot because it was blocking his emergency exit! The owner called the police to try to remove the motorcycle, and he asked me to come down as a witness that we are actually paying for a spot. It got a bit testy with the owner and the squatters in front of the police, who correctly said "we don't know who's right here; you need to get some kind of official letter or ruling". The good news is that the owner really likes us now because we helped him out.

Our friend Pam came by, freshly arrived back from the USA with some goodies that we had asked for: Tussin cough capsules, a 500-tablet bottle of acetaminophen , and a couple of 32GB USB 3.0 flash drives (available here, but at twice the price!). I'm also going to install an SSD in her new laptop, which I had her buy to my specs in the USA to save money. It's a pretty good barter deal as far as we're concerned! The acetaminophen costs about $7 in the USA. That same cost will get you maybe ten tablets here.

Alessio came by in the mid-afternoon to start working on his Tiramisu for FHE. Instead of coffee, he used Nesquick chocolate powder, and it was great. He is very competent in the kitchen. I had already cooked 1kg of meat for Taco Tuesday to help handle possible demand, so I was done in the kitchen when he arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dee worked on her FHE lesson most of the afternoon, and I tried to start on Pam's laptop, but needed tools from home. Kids began trickling in by late afternoon, including Jomar and Matteo, who each needed some rest:

 

We ended up with a pretty good-sized group, including two non-member girls (Margie and Alkmini), our two BYU study abroad gals (Torrey and Cami), and Blake, who came dressed California style (shorts and flip-flops, despite weather in the low fifties). Dee gave a nice, fairly short lesson, using a Powerpoint on the big screen with some fun pictures to discuss handling adversity. All our FHE lessons these days are in both English and Italian, which slows things down a bit but actually helps emphasize the points. Blake was up for reading a scripture out loud in Italian, which he did with admirable success.

Dee writes: I used a talk by Elder Holland from April 2016 "Tomorrow the Lord will do Wonders Among You", talking about how things can seem perfect one minute and fall apart the next. It even happened to Moses when he was on the mount talking to God and the people were getting set to worship a golden calf.  The main point was that the Lord blesses us for TRYING, and we don't have to do everything perfectly.

After the lesson, the yummy Tiramisu was quickly devoured, as well as the leftover casserole from Friday night. Then the games and fun started. They were still going strong when we left about 9pm, with Sheyla in charge.

GANS women: Margie, Sheyla, Torrey, Alkmini, Cami, Dee

 

Transfers got announced tonight. To no one's surprise, after three transfers here, Anziano Waddell is leaving, going to Bagheria near Palermo. He will become a senior companion to a native Italian and is excited to get the chance to experience Sicily. Anziano Osmond is staying here and will receive a companion from Brazil, Anziano Canotti. In somewhat of a surprise, Sorella Bryant from the apartment below will leave and Sorella Ricks is staying; there will also be a second pair of Sorelle in the apartment again.

With my father-in-law in the hospital, there's still a flurry of communication going back and forth, as we try to figure out how to get him home and how to address the longer-term issues. Everyone in the family is being very supportive and concerned. It's amazing how much we can do with email, phone, and messaging. We feel very blessed to have all these tools at our disposal.