In the afternoon I went down to the little restaurant just below us to invite Signora Chirra to our open house this Sunday. She's a delightful lady who proudly announced that she is almost 80 years old and has been married for 60 years. They own the larger apartment on the floor below the Institute that we hope to be able to get approval from the church to rent as a new, larger Institute location. I was able to also meet her daughter and granddaughter there. She said she'd come to the open house, and she also gave me some pastries from their store and told me to send my wife down. Dee went down a while later and Signora Chirra showed her some of the Easter egg candy things she makes to sell. She also asked Dee a bit about the church, what we believed in, etc. So hopefully we'll get a chance to explain things a bit more to her soon.
For my Seminary lesson, there were six kids, even without a couple of our regulars. We did some of the same scripture learning games, plus a new one where you try to give a clue using (difficult to identify) consecutive words from one of the 25 doctrinal mastery scriptures, pausing about 30 seconds between words. Each student has a printout of all the scriptures, which they search through frantically. The winner is the one who can get through the most words without anyone finding their scripture. I did one as an example first, just to show them how it worked, and surprisingly I ended up winning with six words! Bingo is their favorite, though we did the plate game again for the newcomer.
My Book of Mormon lesson went pretty well in the evening, covering 3 Nephi 1-9. I showed the video of "Star Bright" at the appropriate point in the lesson. The kids here don't seem to have the same rules for not talking during lessons; as my wife observed, in the US, at least when they talk they know that they shouldn't be doing so! Anyway, I was able to make it work, mostly by pausing when the the talking got a little out of hand. We had some good discussion about how to make choices in the face of adversity.
The most effective part of my lesson (judging by how quiet it got) was when I talked about Christ saying "how often would I have gathered you a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings". I shared a favorite story from KathyR, a longtime member of our ward in Carlsbad, who told of her grandmother who actually had a chicken coop in the backyard. One night there was a fire, and the whole thing burned. In the morning, they found the mother hen with her wings spread to protect her chicks, but the mother was burned to death. As they picked up the mother hen, the baby chicks all walked out, alive. It is beautiful imagery, showing how much Christ loves and sacrificed for us.
For the dinner, my wife made chicken Thai pasta. It's a different taste for them, and we're not sure that everyone liked it, but there were a bunch of very happy faces eating it, and it disappeared quickly. We got home pretty late, but it was fun to see the kids all hanging out together.
Dee writes: For the Wednesday activity, the gans went out with the missionaries to do a gesso (chalk). I don't know who first thought up this activity, but it's lots of fun. They take a sheet and lay it on the ground in a piazza and draw something on it. People gather around to see what they're doing and they get to talk to them about the Church. Alkmini, who is not a member of our Church, also came! They had a great time and hopefully touched some hearts.
