Oranges for refugees
Wednesday morning we had our district meeting. Normally it would be Thursday, but the Sorelle have a repairman scheduled to come to their apartment at that time. We headed out about 9:15am, and the traffic was pretty bad on the freeway. Dee drove, trying to get more familiar with the route to church, but Google Maps routed us a completely separate way, so that didn't help her much. We got there a few minutes late, but we were not the last ones to arrive. Our new DL, Anziano Moscon, is a very good guy, with a nice style but quite different style from that of Anziano Ferrara. It is frankly somewhat of a pain for us to go there, given the hour and the distance, particularly since their work doesn't really apply much to what we do, but we thoroughly enjoy interacting with and getting to know them.
On the way home, we stopped at Metro, which is right on the way, just off the freeway. We got a bunch of beef and chicken for the next few weeks of meals at the Institute, plus a few other things. However, we forgot the main reason we wanted to go there, which was to see if they sold oranges in bulk at a good price, so we could take a bunch to the Baobab refugee camp later in the evening. After we got home, I walked down to Conad and the Chinese store, getting some produce for us and a few things for Dee's cooking, as well as four big bags of oranges -- about 20 per bag -- for only 2.95 euros per bag. So it all worked out well.
We also found out that FM was able to pick up and cart off all the old chairs and the piles of cardboard box remnants, which was very good news. On the bad news front, our very old washer has started leaving spots on some clothes, and it seems to be some kind of goo or oil residue. So far Dee has been able to clean it all off, but that is not how laundry is supposed to work! I suspect that we will need to get a new washer soon. It would be nice to be able to use fabric softener, as that dispenser doesn't work in our current machine.
The light switch in the wall for our overhead light in the back bedroom has started functioning only intermittently. There is always something to take care of. A few days ago I sprayed WD-40 equivalent on the hinges of the elevator door on our floor, and it finally stopped squeaking.
I worked on editing the stake choir music, finding sheet music online for the fourth song, which had eluded me. It was the second week for the Knieses at the Institute on Wednesday afternoon. She baked brownies to serve with the ice cream, and they had six people show up, which is awesome, considering that until recently it was not unusual to have nobody show up all afternoon that day.
In the evening we went to the Baobab refugee camp to serve food again. Claudia made some pasta, the Knieses brought salad, and we brought our bags of oranges. Two of our nonmember kids, Margie and Andrea, also came along to help serve. With the warmer weather, the camp seems definitely larger than during the winter, and they actually ran out of food with another 10-20 people still in line. Right at that point, Sheyla showed up on her scooter with a big bowl of warm pasta, saving the day.
We visited with a number of the refugees while dinner was going on. One guy came up to me and tried to ask in broken Italian how to be accepted into the camp, having just arrived in Italy. Apparently, because I had on a white shirt and tie, he thought I was in charge. I had to tell him to talk to one of the actual leaders. There was also one guy from Kurdistan with bright red hair, which stood out quite a bit. He was very friendly and took our group photo at the end, then got into a photo himself:
We were home by 8:30pm, which was a very welcome early night for us. Everyone seemed to enjoy going there. It always reminds us how blessed we are.
