Cooking ahead

Compared to last week, Monday was fairly warm, with highs in the mid-50s, but very rainy. Dee went out for a quick local shopping trip in the morning, including trying to get a new key re-cut for the Institute door. Last week we gave her copy to Maria Jose, the newest member of our council, so Dee had a new one made on Saturday. It didn't work on Sunday, so she took it back to the local hardware store. The guy there re-ran the same key through the copying process, but with no better luck when we got to the Institute, unfortunately. Tuesday we'll take the key back and have him try again, hopefully with a new blank this time. For 15 euros, it needs to work!

We got to the Institute right at 1pm and spent a nice afternoon there. My new boots are comfy and warm. I started prep for my two Friday lessons, and Dee did some prep for her Thursday lesson on Family History. This Wednesday will be very busy with four apartment inspections and travel, with no time for lesson prep, so it was good to get started.

I downloaded a Taboo game on Doctrinal Mastery from Etsy for 3 euros and started translating it into Italian for Friday afternoon. It's great having Foxit PhantomPDF, a PDF editor, so that I can write over the English fairly easily. The kids should enjoy the game. Also using PhantomPDF, I also started translating the song "Star Bright", a family favorite about the coming of Christ to the new world, into Italian. We'll be covering that event in 3 Nephi one week from Friday, and I will try to get a couple of the kids to sing it for my class. Jomar has an amazing tenor voice, and he said he would try to learn it. I got Adrian to help me a bit on the translation, since he likes to write poetry, and he can read the Spanish lyrics to the song. He had some good suggestions.

We also did some cooking prep, anticipating a big turnout for Taco Tuesday. Sunday was a national election here in Italy, and some of the schools are closed for a couple of days afterwards because they were used as polling places. Don't ask me what the result of the election was; I don't understand Italian politics (it seems that not many people do). Anyway, we probably need more food. So I cooked two kilos (4.4 pounds) of taco meat to use as backup on Tuesday, and Dee cooked a batch of Spanish rice for the same reason. We'll make the usual amount on Tuesday, but have an emergency supply in the fridge. She also made two carrot cakes, one for FHE Monday and one for after choir on Tuesday. If you think our life here revolves around cooking, you're right!

Dee writes: 
Alessio, one of our GANS, works every night except Monday, so he is a regular at FHE. He came early and we got to talk a lot He's a maker, so very adept in the kitchen and lent a hand. He speaks very fast and throws in some dialect, so I have to be on my toes. He's such a great guy.

 

 

 

 

 

The Ganziani gave a great FHE lesson tonight; we like to ask them to do it occasionally to give us a break and for the kids to see them in action. They taught about how to seek and receive inspiration and revelation, sharing some scriptures and stories. Anziano Conatti told a story about a day in Palermo recently when he was shopping for socks. The spirit just stopped him in front of a store, which didn't seem to sell socks, but he called his companion back to go inside with him. There they found no socks, but the sales gal had just lost her mom and was angry with God and rather distraught, so they were able to share a bit of the gospel message with her and raise her spirits. Anziano Conatti said that initially he had no idea why he stopped, but it was like he couldn't move his feet to go past the store.

There was a pretty good turnout, including Michela and Federico, whom we haven't seen much here in the past few months due to their travels. As is typical these days, we had two non-members present, as well as Blake, a less-active member. It's good to see them all mixing together well as a group. After the lesson, the carrot cake disappeared pretty quickly, and then a bunch of the kids stayed on to play games, so we got to come home about 30 minutes earlier than usual.

We look at our calendar and see it chock full of events. It's not what you would think of as a retirement, but we sure are having a wonderful time here!