Our district meetings are really great, very inspiring. Anziano McConkie led the training, talking about wanting to serve forever instead of taking it easy. He did a nice analogy with the nine vs three Nephite disciples in 3 Nephi chapter 28, where Christ said that the three Nephites would be "more blessed" for their desires to serve forever, even though the nine had made a fine choice. We had a good discussion about serving. Dee writes: I took the opportunity to encourage them to start planning now to be senior missionaries. On average, one or two couples from each USA stake are on missions, a woefully low number. I told them that they need to be prepared physically and financially to do it. Simply wanting to is not enough, and it's more expensive and complicated than going when you're young. I also wanted to honor the Spragues, who are near the end of their mission and have done so much loving work here with the members as MLS (member leader support). There is no one coming to replace them 😟. The young missionaries were very interested and surprised by the lack of seniors. In fact, the list of current opportunities for seniors is 38 pages long! Young missionaries talk about their mission as being born (when they arrive) and dying (when they leave). Elder McConkie mentioned that some elders says they're dying, meaning they're already checking out and thinking of what they're missing at home. He said he wants to be "murdered" on his last day, still going strong.
On our way from the chapel into town, we stopped at a Lidl store which is basically right on the way. We had gone there once before, but I found a very direct route this time. Among other things, we bought two six-packs of two-liter water bottles. Bottled water here is really cheap, about 20 US cents for two liters. All the kids at the Institute drink the bottled water: it's part of the culture, even though the tap water tastes fine. Our challenge isn't the cost, it's just carrying in all the weight. We also got a bunch of food for upcoming meals at the Institute, plus a few things for us.
We arrived at the Institute just in time at 1pm. It took several trips up from the car with all the Lidl stuff. The afternoon was pretty slow, since there was another sciopero (public transit strike). At least it was on the lightest day of our week this time, instead of Friday. We basically spent the afternoon preparing our lessons. In the evening, my wife gave her family history lesson online, with a few students sick/missing. She said it went pretty well, though it was hard to match her prior week's masterful lesson.
Surprisingly, despite the sciopero, the English classes had three students: one Italian, one Iraqi, and one Peruvian. It's fun to get to know these folks, even though we just greet them at the door, since the young missionaries teach the English classes almost always now, especially with two new Sorelle here. Afterwards Sorelle Johnson and Muce were stranded there due to the sciopero, so we happily gave them a ride home here at the end.
When we got home, the Balzottis had a couple of Amazon packages for us, including my wife's new 27" monitor:
We were really tired from the late night before, so I crashed earlier than usual. Still needed some time to finish off my lessons for Friday, but there would be time for that after a good sleep.