Airport and Naples

Saturday morning I left here with the girls at about 8:45am for the airport for their trip home. We loved having them here, but every good thing must end. Here is a photo of them and their luggage squeezed into our tiny elevator to go down to the ground floor. I took the stairs  down for the six floors.

There was no traffic on the freeway, so we got there in plenty of time. Dee didn't come because our car is too small for all of us with their luggage. After hugs all around at the airport, I headed home, again hitting no traffic. 

There was a package for me -- my new Huawei Mediapad M2 8" tablet -- but no time to play with my toy, other than to plug it in and charge it. It got decent reviews and was available for a great price on Amazon: about 130€ for the LTE version, compared to about 300€ for the WiFi version. So I jumped at it, and hopefully I will like it. The cover for it that I ordered had already arrived. This is his Fathers Day gift from me, even if he does know the price. It was very convenient for him to need new tech near Fathers Day.

After being home less than an hour, I headed out on foot for the subway to go downtown to catch my train to Naples. Everything went very smoothly, arriving in Naples in plenty of time. The train ride down is only 70 minutes. The weather was gorgeous, warm but not very hot or humid. I checked out the taxi line outside the Naples train station in case Dee needs it next week. It looked to be only about 10-15 minutes, so that might work. The problem is that the train itself is so long, and it would take her over 10 minutes just to walk off the train platform. Fortunately, her speed and stamina on crutches are improving quickly, and maybe she won't even need crutches soon.

My institute lesson was on Luke chapters 6-9. There were three students, all Nigerian, including ex-Anziano Adepoju from our mission. He first name is Bolaji and he is living in Pompeii, working at a hotel there. It was good to see him. The other two were Sunday (last week I thought he was saying "Sonde", so the African accent and cadence in English is still tough for me) and Peter. These guys all know and love the Bible, and we had some really good discussions about the stories and miracles in those chapters.

Bolaji, Sunday, and Peter

At one point, where Jesus said "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you", Bolaji shared a parable his mother used to tell him. The other two agreed that it was a well-known wisdom story from Nigeria. It goes as follows:

If two brothers go into a room and talk about life and both come out laughing, there isn't truth in it. But if two brothers go into a room and come out with serious faces, hating each other, definitely there is truth in there.

I really enjoyed teaching and learning from these guys. We were talking about Jesus hanging with poor people, which often at home is rather an abstract concept, but here these guys are poor, so it is a different discussion. Peter and Sunday are looking for work, but it is extra difficult for immigrants who do not speak Italian.

After the lesson, I walked the seven blocks back to the train station and got a bite to eat while waiting about an hour for my train. It departed on time and hit almost 300km/hour (180 mph) for much of the trip back. I then went to the subway and took it up to Jonio, then walked the 15 minutes home. I stopped at the Conad market on the way to get some fresh produce and arrived at home about 7pm. It had been a long day with lots of walking, and I was hot and exhausted. I went out for a walk around our piazza and surprised him. It's so nice to be moving at least a little. It felt good to get out of missionary clothes and relax for a while.

We spoke on the phone with our daughter Chiara, who is planning to visit us over Christmas, discussing the timing for her trip. She wants us to go to Florence, Pisa, and maybe Venice with her. We will have to get permission from the mission president to leave our mission boundaries for a few days, but hopefully that will work because the Institute will be closed. Later we spoke via WhatsApp video with Wes and Alyssa about their trip coming up shortly. Alyssa will try to get us some contact info for her grandfather's relatives so that we could visit them next month. If their trips are as fun as Marilyn and Lu's, then we will be very blessed.

My big thing of the day was walking to the Chinese store with my crutches for the first time. I left Gino at home and just walked. I was very careful on the uneven blacktop and steep ramps, and did fine. My foot didn't hurt afterward, either! I also did a ton of laundry, which is still a thrill in the new machine. A load done in an hour! Huzzah! Then I started to work on my Primary singing time. After a bunch of quick messages back and forth, I decided to review eight songs they know well. I wanted to make a game, so I printed out some clipart (kitten, dog, star, race car, soccer ball, etc.) and put the name of a song on the back of each one. I'll stick them to the wall and let them choose. This is a simple thing we do all the time in California, but it will be new to these children.

In the morning, I went to our little farmers' market downstairs and got pizza bianca (pizza with only oil and salt) and some excellent cherries. The girls had it for breakfast and left with smiles and flour on their faces. The cherries are also a Fathers Day treat for Doug.

Marilyn is a wonder woman who travels light. Her suitcase only weighed 36 pounds, with 50 pounds allowed. So, she took some stuff home for me. She also left me her very nice footlet socks. I gave her some new ones I had, which are really good but too thick for my wide feet.

The Friendship Center for Refugees had their open house, but with Doug in Naples, I didn't go. I heard they had a great choir as well as drummers--I guess that means African drummers. Sounds like fun!