Huge lunch, plus refugee dinner
Wednesday was a nice day. The Magnantis had us over for lunch again, with lots of great food. They admit that they don't usually eat that much for lunch, but for company they really put on a spread! We had several kinds of fish, risotto, fried zucchini, salad, and fruit. Dee writes: I particularly like the octopus and the risotto. So does Elia, the wife in this couple. I was absolutely stuffed and didn't eat very much the rest of the day. This is a great couple. They have such a good relationship, communicating with each other with respect and interest. They showed us the Tiffany glasswork that he does, as well as the amazing art their daughter has created. Francesca is at BYU Idaho. She is not a member of the Church, as her parents joined only ten years ago.
After lunch I gave Sorella Magnanti the laptop, with newly installed Windows 10 and an SSD. At first it misbehaved a bit, not connecting well to their WiFi, but after a reboot it was doing much better. I also bought her a USB 3.0 case to hold the old hard drive (only 9€ on amazon.it), which she can use for backup. There is definitely a learning curve for her to use Windows 10, but overall it will be a nice upgrade for only 80€; they were pleased. Stefano, the husband, looked on and noticed a tech tip or two that he was delighted to learn.
From there, we went to the Family History center at the Rome 2 chapel, back near our house. Instead of class this week, Dee held a FH lab there, helping out all the students. Due to license restrictions, some of the images which the church has scanned can be seen only at an authorized FH center, so we were able to help the students get some work done there that they couldn't do at home. Sorella Magno from Roma 2 ward was also there to assist and invited us to return anytime. I loved the excitement of these fine people as they learned a few tricks for navigating in the online images and found the substantiation for the info they already had, and then some new things as well. They love my powerpoints, but actually putting it into practice is a wonderful experience.
I helped the Magnantis and Eleonora find an original document, such as this:
We were there for a couple of hours, then headed home to change clothes so we could go help serve food to the Baobab refugees. A big group of GANS (more than 20, including a bunch of BYU study-abroad kids) had already met at the Institute to prepare the pasta, and then they brought it over by car and subway. Most of the immigrants speak Arabic and maybe a little English. Elder Conatti had the idea to show them Google Maps on his tablet and ask them to point out where they were from.
Given the timing, we just met them all at the refugee camp, where we had been a couple of times already. Traffic was bad on the drive over from our apartment, but it still only took about 15 minutes. While stopped in the lane waiting to get onto the freeway, we got rear-ended. Fortunately, it was a fairly gentle bump, and neither we nor the car seemed to be hurt. We both pulled over, and a girl about 20 years old came out to apologize: she had been looking at her phone. Her dad was in the car behind her, so he was there too. I suspect she got quite a lecture when they got home! We checked things out and were all happy that everything was ok. We didn't get upset, which is perhaps not the norm here for such situations, but I did say to her "this is a good lesson for you." Dee even gave them a temple card, asking them to look for the open house (no, we don't know yet when it will be!)
At the refugee camp, we parked safely but slightly illegally, along with 50 other people. The kids were great, jumping right in to help out with serving the food:
Everyone had a great time, and we finished much more quickly than last time. It was also fairly warm out, particularly compared to last time in February, which is very nice for them. It's always good to be reminded how blessed we are. We hope to do the refugee activity regularly.
We were delighted to be home before 9pm, quite a rarity for us. I tried my new Italian USB keyboard. It will take some getting used to, as the Enter and Shift keys are slightly different in size and location, not to mention all the punctuation keys being completely changed. I will give it a week or so to see how it goes -- hopefully my brain can adapt fairly quickly. Stay tuned for updates on that.
