A Brazilian in St. Johns, Arizona !?

It was windy and rained pretty hard most of Monday, which was nice because otherwise I was going to have to get the car washed. There was a ton of food and other stuff to carry in to the Institute, so we got a bit wet in the process. We spent a bunch of time in the afternoon at the Institute working on lesson prep: Dee for her FHE lesson, and I for my Friday Institute lesson and my talk on Sunday.  I also tried to make reservations to see the excavations under St. Peter's Basilica in June or July with our guests then. Apparently it an incredible tour, but they were already booked through both months; bummer. We will try in the fall when my sister Karen comes to see us.

I also had a number of calls and emails with the US to prepare for paying taxes, ours and my in-laws'. It seems to be all under control now. My US cell number has been forwarding (via Google Voice) to my MagicJack number and app on my cell phone. The voice quality and general stability of the MJ app has been spotty at best, so I finally plunked down about $50 for a Skype number for one year. I will have Google Voice forward to that number instead. Dee has been doing it that way for a few months, and it has worked very well for her.

It was P-day for the young missionaries, with a Zone Conference coming up on Friday. We had a bunch of them in and out all afternoon and evening (our WiFi is a real draw for them, as Monday is the only day they can send emails), including an evening planning meeting for the ZC by our Zone Leaders (without us). As always, we love being around them all. 

At one point in the afternoon, from down the hall I heard somebody say "St. Johns, Arizona" a couple of times. That is the (very) small town in northeast Arizona where my parents were born and raised. So I walked down to find out who knew about it. Turns out that our Anziano Conatti from Brazil spent his year as a high-school exchange student in St. Johns -- small world!! He really enjoyed his time there, but his comment was that he went from a city of 12 million people to a town of 4 thousand. Dee: He started naming Oversons, Udalls, Tenneys--all relatives. To hear it come out of his mouth was pretty surreal. I later called my mom to tell her.

One of the missionaries who came by for the ZC planning meeting was Sorella Bryant, now at Ladispoli after spending a few months as a greenie in the apartment underneath us. It was good to see her; she was very warm and grateful for what we had done for her. She insisted on having taking a photo of the two of us with her.

My wife whipped together another apple pie in the hour before FHE, given the leftover ingredients from Friday. I was surprised how quickly she was able to do it, but it turned out great and got rave reviews.

Her lesson was on how we can use time effectively, including service, and she did a nice job. She got a lot of good comments from the kids, and they really enjoyed it. We had one girl from the campus council, Maria Jose, who usually has FHE with her family at home, but tonight she was with us, which was delightful. She's thoughtful and bright, dependable and likable. 

Dee writes: I asked them what would they would do differently if they had only two weeks to live. Most of them said they would spend time with family. Doug joked he would want to go to the pizzeria where Alessio works and eat a pizza he made. Alessio immediately retorted that if he only had two weeks to live, he wasn't going to be at work! Elder Wujesundera said since he's on his mission, he wouldn't do anything different, feeling he was doing what the Lord wants him to do. Pretty touching. We talked about getting older, too. Sheyla said that now when she takes a little one to the park as a babysitter, people think she's the mother. It's always a shock when that happens. Jomar talked about how much he regrets the year he lost when he didn't know what to do with his life, and we talked about the joy of being able to start again wherever we are. Jomar told us the quote "It's better to say 'Oh, well' than 'If only', and that it's better to get over being a rookie and possibly being embarrassed sooner in life rather than later. Alessio hates to have his picture taken, so I quipped, "What's the difference between a good picture and a bad one?" The answer: "Ten years".

 

We got home a bit before 9:30pm, and the rain had stopped. The weather is still fairly warm, and the rest of the week is supposed to be only slightly cloudy and nearly 70F. It is nice to have spring be here.