Stacked chairs
Friday morning was our weekly district meeting, postponed from the usual Thursday due to Sorella James having her "death" interview with the mission president. -- she goes home next week. We left home extra early because of the time required to work the stair lift, but there was no traffic so we arrived plenty early. Thus, the young missionaries had not yet arrived, and I got to do everything myself, including going up and down the (30+) stairs three times. Dee writes: This is called fitness training through service. Taking the tarp cover off the lift was a rather dirty experience, thanks to the recent rains. But we did figure it out and got Dee upstairs without incident.
Sorella James got to teach our training for the meeting, filling the whiteboard with her outline of the gospel. She has a strong testimony of the Savior! She is a top-notch missionary, with a great personality and a wonderful work ethic. One part I liked was her five points on the side. Both hands: Use all you have at your disposal. Hard things: Hard things happen to everyone, and you can get through it and even get better from some of them. Pivotal days: For missionaries, transfers are pivotal days. You go to a new place where no one knows you and it's up to you what you'll be like there. But everyone has opportunities for a fresh start. Daily thoughts: You can make a lot of progress by deciding what you'll think about every day. Earn God's trust: Be true and keep the commandments to be worthy of God's trust.
My wife brought her 9x13 pan of lemon bars, which were very thoroughly enjoyed. At the end of the meeting, we got to participate in a very cool mission tradition which occurs at the final district meeting before somebody goes home. We had never heard of it before. It's called Chairs: Each missionary in the district stacks up chairs to indicate how long they have been out on their mission, one chair per transfer (6 weeks each). Then everyone takes the number from the hymn number box, so that you don't have to count, and sits on top of the stack. Those who have been out for a while are rather precarious, particularly because the chair stacks lean forward a bit. Setup took a while, but it was really cool, as you can see. Dee decided it was wiser for her to take the picture than to climb on a stack herself.
Sorella James has a flag for friends and companions to sign throughout her mission, as a neat memento of her service. They call it a dedica; some missionaries have little books instead. We all got to sign it. Her last name is Giacomo in Italian, and at one point she ever got a name tag with Sorella Giacomo on it, which is cool (though it is no longer allowed to have the incorrect name). So my little message said, "Giacomo, you rockomo!"
From there we went straight to the Institute, leaving the missionaries to put the tarp back on the stair lift. In the afternoon I finalized my lesson, on the last three chapters of Moroni. Next week we will start studying the four gospels from the New Testament. When we were at District Meeting, I overhead Sorella James say she needed to figure out how to get her photos off her tablet. I said, "Do you remember the part where my husband has a PhD in Computer Science?" Her eyebrows shot up and she was thrilled to have his help. So, he copied all her photos onto an old flash drive and now she is covered. He will keep an extra copy, just in case.
I also walked over to the bank (BNL) to see about opening an account and getting a Bancomat card. That is the Italian ATM network, and it is the only type of card accepted at many gas stations. We have one local gas station that takes credit cards, but in general they are hard to find except right along the freeway. Basically, the bank official told me that it was very difficult to open an account because they are an international bank with headquarters in Paris, not that that made any sense to me. He wanted to know what income I had, and when I told him that I was retired (pensionato), he wanted to know where my pension came from. I tried to explain that I didn't have a pension, but had saved up money for retirement; that is a rather foreign concept here, with the government providing a pension for everyone. I am not sure that he ever really understood it, though he was very kind and really tried to understand what I wanted. I think that opening an account here seems to involve a lot more red tape than in the US, where they just kinda take your money. Anyway, he finally suggested that I just get a prepaid card at the Post Office, which sounded very easy. However, after looking that up later on the internet, those prepaid cards are credit cards, not Bancomat, so it doesn't work for the one thing that I need. I will try a different bank near home next week and hope for better luck.
Meanwhile, my wife was cooking a carrot cake and two of her famous pasta casseroles with ham, cheese, and ranch. I helped by handling the very large pot of water for the pasta, which is difficult for her right now, as well as doing a bunch of dishes throughout the day. Mostly I prep while sitting down, and it sure causes a lot of mess in the lap!
In the late afternoon, Ugo taught an Institute class in English for some BYU students here on study abroad. A number of them were returned missionaries from Italy and so they spoke Italian pretty well. One woman (a leader of the group?) served in Catania about 25 years ago under Mario Vaira, the first stake president in Italy whom I knew from serving in Monza in 1976. We told her that we had served long ago, and she said "me too". Then we said it had been over 40 years, and she looked quite surprised.
My Institute lesson went really well, probably better than any one I have given here so far. Much of that was due to a slightly different cast of characters, who knew how to be much more reverent. My stories and points of discussion all seemed to touch home and evoked a lot of good interaction. Ugo was there, and he also had a bunch of good comments. Dee thought that his presence may have helped out with the kids paying more attention, except that I have seen him have the same issues. In any case, it felt great to end the Book of Mormon on such a high note.
During the class, we got a notification that Dario's mom had just passed away from cancer. She was in hospice, so this was not a surprise, but it is hard for him being left effectively as an orphan (his dad is not involved at all in his life) at 20 years old. The funeral will be Monday afternoon, so we are going to be there and will close the Institute for the afternoon, encouraging all the kids to be there to support Dario.
After class, all the great food got devoured fairly quickly. A few kids showed up at 8:45pm, hoping to get some dinner, but it was already gone.
We took Sorelle Summerhays and Helgesen (in the middle of the back row in the class photo above) home with us, which was nice because they could carry stuff and help Dee with some of the steps, while I drove around to find a parking spot. The scooter folds and fits very nicely into the trunk, leaving room for a few more things, but big shopping loads with her in the car are a bit of an issue now. However, all in all, this injury could have been much worse, and we feel fortunate. We will feel even better once she is back to walking.
