Church and Pantheon

Sunday morning we all went to church at Roma 3. The girls had live translation for all three hours. It was fast and testimony meeting because of stake conference the week before. I did my fast from breakfast to breakfast, more or less, including my time in Naples. Marilyn had given me a nice blue tie from Florence, which I wore to church. Dee walked up the stairs at church without the lift for the first time since her accident. 

The elderly Vardeu couple showed up for the first time since we have been here. They are both not in good health, but this was the 40th anniversary of their baptism into the church, and their extended family was all there for a family reunion. It was very cool. Their son Sergio had to help Sister Vardeu stand up and get to the podium, and then she was quite funny. She pulled out her scriptures and several pages of paper with notes, and then said "I just brought all these pages to scare you; my testimony will be brief."  😃 She had her husband come up and stand beside her. He has Alzheimer's, but he quipped "at least nobody had to help me stand up." He was far shorter than she. They were pillars of the church for years, and their kids and grand kids are pillars today (including several of our GANS). It was a very sweet moment.



My Sunday School lesson on Ruth and Hannah went pretty well. I took a somewhat different tack, talking a lot about how to better welcome immigrants and new people, of which we have lot. There were a lot of good comments. The girls stayed in the chapel for my lesson, with Dee translating, and they seemed to enjoy it. Usually the young missionaries translate, so it was a rare experience for me. Sometimes I would get caught up in the story and forget to share, oops. The AC was working in the chapel, but it had turned to heat by the end of my lesson -- apparently somebody had (inadvertently) set the timer to switch modes, making it very uncomfortable for a while. For Relief Society, there were several English speakers, so the young sister missionaries did the translating and the people used headsets.

Martine excitedly told me she got a job, to start Monday. She'll be babysitting full time, and is very glad to finally have some income.

We got home and Dee put together a nice light lunch with bread (including Lidl's wonderful buckwheat walnut loaf), new cheeses, cookies, and chicken salad. After that the girls took a brief nap, and then the three of us headed over to the little visitor's center at the temple. 

From there we drove downtown to leave the car at the Institute for Monday evening, and we also took a bus to see the Pantheon. It is such an impressive building, but we forgot that we had a Rick Steves audio tour to listen to. From there we walked to Piazza Venezia and took a bus directly home.

 

 

Dee made crack chicken for dinner while we were gone, and we had some strawberries. After that we walked down to the bank by Conad for Lu to get some cash from the ATM. We had a lot of wonderful visiting the whole day.

By the end of the day, my ankle started to hurt. It turns out that the break in my foot was also sore, so I overdid it today and will take it much easier tomorrow.

When Marilyn and Lu went to Florence, Lu turned off the lights in their room by pulling the key card out of the slot. She didn't realize this turned off all the power to the room. This means that Marilyn's CPAP turned off, their phones didn't charge and the refrigerator got warm. Now we know to explain the key card situation to our future guests.