Church was very nice. The Sacrament meeting talks were great, including one by a sister from Africa speaking in English, translated by Brother Bosco from the bishopric. It was quite impressive that he could do it so well, because she has a distintive African cadence and pronunciation, but he didn't seem to break a sweat. He's amazing. My Sunday School lesson on the Abrahamic covenant seemed to go very well (my wife concurs with this assertion). My approach was somewhat atypical, with a focus on some of the sacrifices Abraham was asked to make long before the Isaac episode, and how we can be asked to make similar sacrifices. The class started small, due to the typical "hall meeting", but by the end there was a big group, very attentive and with lots of good participation.
Dee writes: Today, two different people told me about their life and the things they're struggling with. It's wonderful to be invited into their lives. One woman just lost her husband and is now a very reduced income, quite worried about how to make ends meet. The other is a couple who got married at about age forty. Six years later, they have physical problems and a bit of isolation from a move. Both of these invited us to come see them, which we'd love to do.
Afterwards we got to home teach Alessio, one of our GANS, for the first time. He wants us to visit him at church rather than at his place. We had a nice chat, which we kept brief because he needed to get home for a while before heading to work in the evening. He was wearing a suit that a departing missionary gave him. He also has others, but this one is special. At the end I shared a spiritual thought from Luke 24 about the disciples on the road to Emmaus, one of my favorite New Testament stories. I like to explain that, once they realized that their "visitor" was the resurrected Jesus (just as he vanished), their reaction was not "why didn't we recognize his face/voice?" -- it was "why didn't we recognize him by the spirit we felt?" The point is that spiritual things can be more real than physical things if we are in tune.
Dee writes: Alessio offered to make refreshments for FHE. Monday is his only night off, and he'll be traveling all around this week, working as a pizza maker at several restaurants. But he wants to spend his precious free time making Tiramisu Mormon style (with a barley-based substitute for coffee) to share with all of us. Whenever we thank him for something, he says "di che?" which means "for what"? He is very hard working, and not puffed up at all. When I have complimented him on his arms of iron, he says "piuttosto ricotta", which means, "more like cottage cheese". He found the Church by taking the free English class that the missionaries teach three or four years ago. What a difference it has made in his life.
We particularly enjoyed today's "Pardon My Planet" comic:
We heard from my sister Karen that they may be coming over to visit us in October, which would be wonderful! We exchanged a number of emails with ideas and details on how a trip might work. I also sent an email to my brother and sister, Bruce and Colleen, telling them that we'd love to see them here sometime too. Before arriving here, we weren't sure how much time we'd be able to give to visitors; now that we understand how our job works here, we understand that we can be pretty good hosts for family. 😀
We spent the afternoon doing some work to prepare for the week, but we also decided to invite the Knieses and the Balzottis here for the evening to share in the Reeses treats left over from Friday night. We had a great visit with them for a couple of hours -- fun folks!
There was also a flurry of calls to and from people back home because my father-in-law hasn't been well and was in the hospital overnight. His short-term memory is getting pretty bad, and he doesn't communicate well with doctors. Hopefully, from afar we can help them help him.