Jx3: Philippine food night

Wednesday morning I left at 9am to pick up Anziano Mayer at the airport. It takes just under an hour to get there, almost all freeway, and this time I knew my way around well enough to not get lost. I arrived at 10am, just as his flight from Palermo landed on time, which was perfect because it takes a while for passengers to be ferried into the terminal and get their luggage. There is a place to meet incoming parties as they exit security, where I waited for about an hour and fifteen minutes. These young missionaries travel without cell phones (the companionship cell phone/SIM card stays in the ward), so it is difficult to contact them while traveling. After about 45 minutes I started messaging with the APs and the Balzottis to see if they knew anything. They agreed that he should use his tablet to log onto the free WiFi to tell somebody what was going on, but we heard nothing. 

Finally he showed up. One of his big suitcases hadn't arrived onto the carousel for a long time, well after he had gone to customer service. Unfortunately, the luggage carousels at the Rome airport are behind security, even for domestic flights. Anyway, all is well that ends well, but it took far longer than anticipated, and I was pretty tired from standing up and paying close attention for over an hour to look for him -- there is no place for anybody to sit down there. Each missionary travels with two large suitcases and one carry-on sized one, which barely fit into our small car. We actually had to stop right before getting onto the freeway to slam the trunk shut harder so that the warning light and sound would go out.

From the airport, I drove him to the Rome 3 chapel, where Anziani Jensen and Stucki were waiting for him. There is a beltway all around Rome, called the GRA, which I ended up completely circumnavigating. On the way home from there, I stopped at Metro to buy meat and sour cream, plus a few other small items, for upcoming Institute meals, arriving home about 1:30pm with a ton of stuff to carry upstairs. Fortunately I got a decent parking spot on the corner, so I could carry it all in one trip; it was too heavy to go very far. Dee had stayed home because (a) there wouldn't have been room for her in the car with all the luggage, and (b) she had to wait for the med tech to come retrieve the magnetic machine that she has been using to treat her foot while sleeping. After grabbing a quick bite of lunch, we headed downtown, arriving at the Institute about 2:30pm. We had alerted the kids that we would be late (1pm is the usual opening time), so it was not a problem.

During the afternoon I finally wrote up the results from our five apartment inspections last week and emailed them off to the mission office folks. I also wrote a brief note to the Balzottis and the APs, with suggestions for young missionaries to use during future travel when problems arise. The challenge is that there is little good "corporate memory", as assignments change regularly, and people come and go, but hopefully they can spread the word to let people know what is going on if you're detained. Not having cell phones when you travel is a big throwback -- not sure how we survived back in the day, but it sure seems difficult to contemplate now.

For our Wednesday night activity, we had Jayno, Jomar, and Joyce prepare cibo filippino (Philippine food). Jayno made bilo bilo, which is a rice flour ball cooked with bananas in tapioca, coconut milk and sugar. It is a snack, slightly sweet. Jomar made lumpia, which is a fried spring roll. He prepared all the filling, and we all stuffed and rolled the little pastries, which then got fried. It was fun and tasty. They have what they called "banana ketchup" to dip them in. Joyce had to work until late, so her dad made some pancit, which is a noodle dish with liver, chicken and shrimp. Her mom made maja, which is a sweet with coconut milk and corn. We all ate until we were stuffed!

Jayno preparing bilo bilo

Dee helping

 

 

Banana ketchip

Jomar at work making lumpia filling

Jomar and Jayno at work

 

Preparing the lumpia filling

Bilo bilo cooking

Making spring rolls together

Joyce with her noodle dish

 

 

Lumpias after frying

 

Singing together after great food

Anziano Ruiz, whom we met in December in Cosenza, was in town with his family, on his way home after finishing his mission this week. He knows a lot of the GANS kids, so he dropped by with his brother, and they enjoyed the evening as well. He was a ganziano before they had the name, in the days when they all met at the Roma 2 chapel.

There were a lot of dishes to wash, so we got home late, about 10pm. Sorella Johnson wanted to borrow some super glue to try to nurse her shoes along for a few more months, so they came by for a few minutes. We will really miss her. Apparently there is now a second companionship of Sorelle living below us for a while, until their new apartment slightly north of Rome becomes available in Roma 5. It was a long and wonderful day.

When the guy came to pick up the magnetic therapy machine, I noticed that they had drastically undercharged me, so he hastily phoned the office and sent me an updated receipt. 

I wore the lighter brace for several hours, but it's never as comfortable as the boot, and I think I overdid it the day before. My foot was really hurting by the time we got home. Tomorrow I'll watch it.

I made a bunch of chocolate chip cookies so I could take some to the refugee class in Naples and still have some for our local youth, and I cooked loads of chicken for future meals. I had it nearly all done and cleaned up before the filippino event began, except for the chicken. We ended up taking it home since it was too hot to put in the frig.