Funeral

Monday morning I went to a local bank office to try to see about getting a Bancomat card. The lady told me briefly about a card product that she thought would be easy to set up, and I now have an appointment Wednesday morning to discuss details. I later read up on the card, which seems like a prepaid MasterCard; that probably won't address the issue, but we will see.

The funeral for Dario's mother was in the early afternoon across town at the Roma 1 chapel, so we kept the Institute closed for the afternoon in order to attend. We went straight there from home, filling up the car on the way. The turnout at the funeral was quite good, with the chapel almost completely full, about half with family and half with friends from church. Dee writes: I found a place to sit with my scooter in front of me as a footrest. The service started on time, which is rare here, and it only went 30 minutes, so several people missed the entire thing. It was fun to meet some folks we had known only by name (e.g., Matteo's parents*) and visit with some old friends. Dario seems to be doing ok, all things considered. He gave the closing prayer and was then surrounded and hugged by almost everyone. 

*Matteo Salerno, who is now on his mission to Canada, is the youngest child in his family, about 14 years younger than the prior sibling. His mother was 46 and his father 53 when he was born! His father still looks like he's in his fifties, and reminds me of Vern Farrow.

We got to the Institute just after 4pm. It was P-day for the young missionaries, so several of them were there (the good WiFi is a real draw for their weekly emailing), including two Sorelle who had gone to serve at the opening day of the LDS Charities Friendship Center, in the basement of a local Episcopal Church. On Mondays they do women's health, including yoga. The group was small for the first day, which is probably good as they work out the kinks, but hopefully it will grow as the word spreads. The Sorelle loved it. Due to their shift there, their P-day was shifted to later.

Signora Chirra from the cafe downstairs came by with a beautiful paper flower bouquet that she arranged for my wife for Mother's Day. She really likes Dee. It has heart-shaped Perugia chocolates and lovely paper flowers.

My wife gave a wonderful FHE lesson, using a story from Elder Hales in a 1988 talk about how to make decisions, without getting swayed too much by what everyone else says. She showed a brief clip of him talking in 1988, followed by what he looked like last year, soon before passing away. The kids were rather startled at the difference: they had known him only as an old man, so it was cool for them to see him vibrant. At first my wife's questions weren't getting much response, but then a couple of the kids shared something, and soon everyone was jumping in with a personal story or lesson. It was really cool to see them excited to share. The group was small, but everyone shared something, even those who are usually quiet, which was neat. Afterwards we enjoyed store-bought cookies, as there had been no time to cook during the day. We also watched a couple of YouTube videos with some amazing dancing; all the kids really enjoyed them. Jomar's brother Jerwyn is a dancer, so it really resonated with him.

Right before going home, we got a very worried email from our friend Sherry back home. Several important things on her computer (e.g., genealogy files and password manager) stopped working entirely. I had helped her buy and configure the system last year before leaving, and she loves her big dual-monitor setup on the Lenovo T460s laptop and docking station, which is the same model that I use. Anyway, after we got home I spent some time via TeamViewer trying to figure out where the files went and why her online backup program (BackBlaze) didn't have backup copies. Nothing made any sense for quite a while, and we were about to give up for the night, when my wife asked whether we had checked the recycle bin. We were so busy looking at the more complex components like Dropbox and BackBlaze that it took awhile to think of the recycle bin! Sure enough, she had inadvertently deleted a bunch of her files. We restored the files from the trash, and everything was cool. We were just delighted that we got the problem resolved. It was late when we got to bed.

On our way home, we had learned (to the surprise of no one) that Anziano Conatti was getting transferred this Thursday to Caserta. He has been here for the typical two transfers, so it was his time. He has been a wonderful missionary and a fun personality. Sorella Muce below us will be transferred to Messina, leaving the trio of Sorelle here to work together. And in our district, the wonderful Anziano McConkie is going to be the new District Leader in Palermo 1, to be replaced by an awesome missionary, Anziano Jensen, our new district leader. Change is a constant here, but we always love the young missionaries.