Zone conference
Friday morning was Zone Conference at the nearby Roma 2 chapel. It had gotten down to freezing overnight and was quite chilly. Fortunately my new boots kept my feet nice and warm all day 😊. We left at 8am for the 9am start, because we're supposed to be there 30 minutes early and we had no idea how long it would take to find a parking spot. Sorella Balzotti came with us, calling just as we were leaving -- she couldn't believe how early we left, so we had to wait for her for a few minutes as many of our neighbors headed out. One was quite striking: a very well dressed women, wearing a short skirt with high heels, rolling a suitcase and wearing a motorcycle helmet. I wish we had a picture. Not sure how she was going to travel with that particular combination of items, but it looked to be very cold for her!
Turns out that we found a parking spot very close, but it was a parallel parking spot with very little extra room. Even worse, there was a van unloading stuff in front, so I couldn't get all the way past the spot to start backing up. Even though it took me about three tries, I made it fit! Here's a photo of what it looked like later when we left, after somebody else had closed us in even a bit further, by less than a foot. It was still very impressive, if I do say so myself. Take a look:
Dee writes: It would be more impressive if the car didn't have so many scratches and dents, vbg. Actually, I'm the creator of the custom horizontal dents on the side of the car.
The conference ran until 3pm, though we had to leave at noon for the Institute, and it was not our usual zone because we skipped ours on Wednesday to go to Napoli. Still, we thoroughly enjoyed it. The Pickerds reviewed some of the mission rules, particularly for dress and grooming, and the zone leaders (and sister leaders) talked about how to improve our Italian. A bunch of us shared ideas for things that worked for us. They also challenged us to start a one-week "fast" from English, using only Italian among ourselves. We took them up on it and so far have been enjoying it, though it is difficult -- there are so many words and phrases that just roll off the tongue in English and are longer and more roundabout in Italian, and plenty of holes in our vocabulary. Fortunately we can still write the blog in English. 😉
We drove to the Institute via a different route, since we were not coming from home. For months now we've been mostly taking familiar routes, but for various reasons (construction, disallowing a left hand turn that we used to use, etc) in the past few weeks we have been forced out of our comfort zone in terms of driving routes. Thank goodness for Google Maps. It's fun to see new things along the way--well, old things that are new to us.
During the afternoon, we had a fair number of people show up. My wife baked and frosted four carrot cakes during the day, with some help from Donatella. One was for Seminary, one for Institute, one for a computer group meeting Saturday, and one for a ward activity Saturday evening. So she was busy. I did a bunch of dishes during the day, as did Dee.
For my Seminary class, we had a record of nine kids there! The word seems to be getting out that it's a happening place to be on Friday afternoon. We played games to help them learn their scriptures, and there was a whole bunch of laughter as we did so.
At our 7pm Institute class, there was a larger group than we have had in a while, which was very nice. There were some new faces, plus ones we hadn't seen in a while, such as Oscar, who has been very busy with school and other things. We discussed 3 Nephi 12-17, including Christ's sermon at the temple, which is one of my favorite lessons to teach. It explains what it means in practical terms to be a true Christian, with very high standards to meet. Everyone took turns reading verses, and we had some good discussion. One of our online students, Sarai from up near Milano, couldn't make it because she has decided to go on an internet "fast" for a couple of weeks. I told her how impressed I was that she wanted to do that, and that spending time on the internet could indeed be addictive, so we talked about how she could make up the lessons she will miss.
For the dinner afterward, my wife made Sloppy Joes, which were very well received, along with french fries, clementines (mandarin oranges), potato chips and carrot cake. We like to tell people that we are on a culinary mission. The whole place was very full and buzzing with good activity.
It was quite late when we got home after the cleanup, and we were cotti (literally "cooked"; which is what Italians say instead of "exhausted")! To top it off, the elevator in our apartment malfunctioned and wouldn't take us up to our floor (7th floor using the US numbering). It actually got stuck between floors and wouldn't go up any further, so for a few seconds we thought that we might be spending the night in the elevator. Fortunately, it took us back down to the ground floor, so we got the privilege of walking up six floors carrying a bunch of bags on our very tired feet.
The whole week has been very busy, and this weekend will be too as you will see. Still, we wouldn't give any of it up. Fortunately next week looks a little easier.
