Open market; off to Paris

I forgot to mention that Monday marked nine months since we entered the MTC in Provo, so we are basically half-way done with our mission. It is going too fast, and we do not want it to end. A mission or something with a known end changes how you think. The importance of physical things diminishes. For example, if something is good enough to last for a few more uses, we don't think much about it. Our time is limited, so we want to spend everything we've got on the people we're serving. Our time in life is ALWAYS limited, but we tend to forget that and often fritter it away. A mission is a great lesson to everyone. The young missionaries talk about being born when they enter their mission and dying as they leave. It's a little shocking to hear them talk about dying so casually, but the "little life" of a mission is a good lesson. All of us have trouble believing it will end so abruptly and completely.

Tuesday morning I dropped off Dee and the girls at the open market a few blocks away, with Dee riding her trusty scooter Gino so that she could roll/walk home afterwards. Lu is awesome at bargaining, getting a great price for three pieces of African jewelry. We may have to fly her back when we need to purchase something big 😉. I drove on to Lidl to buy a few things, including freshly baked loaves of our favorite breads for the girls to try -- they had enjoyed them a day old, but fresh is so much better.

The girls brought carry-on luggage in the car to the Institute, for their flight to Paris later, and they helped us prepare for Taco Tuesday. We had a very small group, probably due to this being finals month. 

 

However, later in the afternoon a bunch of kids showed up and helped finish off all the leftovers, which is rather unusual but very welcome. We had crack chicken as well, left over from dinner with Marilyn and Lu. Elder Melling, who had served here with the Thackers, was here on splits. He lit up and said, "Crack Thack!" Claudia was excited that she had just aced her toughest exam. Linda came by much earlier than usual, and we had a good visit. She took a taco home to have for her dinner in her little rented room. 

Jhamil spent some time with Dee, who is becoming quite a good friend and counselor to a lot of the kids. He has quite a few responsibilities with his family, and he is having trouble accomplishing his personal goals. He feels selfish if he does something for his own future. So, I talked with him about Steven Covey's urgent/not urgent/important/not important grid. The things in the not-urgent-but-important area are so easy to postpone, but they're the ones that make the difference. I encouraged him to recruit his family to help him so he can get an education and a better future job. He left high school to watch his toddler nephew so his single sister, who is even younger, could finish high school. She is now 18, and the baby is about two years old. This is a very difficult situation for a poor family, and caused by the breakup of his parents' marriage. His dad is an alcoholic and violent. His mother was a lawyer in Bolivia, but here, she is a caretaker for the elderly and makes very little money. Anyway, although he is willing to sacrifice to help his sister, he needs help so he can progress, too. 

I also had a nice, long talk with Chris, a non-member American who is here teaching school. He's a friend of Margie's and has started coming by. He is also in a Mariachi band here! Who knew that Italians like mariachi?!  They are hired for various events from baptisms to parties to the American Embassy's Cinco de Mayo celebration. 

Leftovers waiting to be devoured

Also, Noelle, a new American au pair, came by, with lots of questions about things to do here. She is a terrific young woman. We're glad to have her here and look forward to getting to know her better. She wants to climb Mount Vesuvius and wondered if it was okay to do solo. We told her how risky it is in Naples and strongly encouraged her to go with a buddy. Later, when Chris came by, I told him what she wanted to do, and he might do it with her!

So, we had four young adults today who wanted some Whiting company, in this order: Noelle, Chris, Jhamil and Linda. That pretty much took up the day, and I treasure those conversations. 

We found out that Junior, who was born here, and whose grandfather was Italian, is not an Italian citizen. (He is standing by the refrigerator below.) Italy's laws allow you citizenship until you're 18 and then you have to do something to stay a citizen. So, he is a citizen of Camaroon only.

Some of the locusts 😀

Just before 2:30pm the girls and I walked over to Termini train station. I helped them buy tickets for the airport train (the Leonardo Express) and walked them to the correct platform where they got on the train and found a seat just before it took off. An airport train departs every 15 minutes and takes 30 minutes to get there. They hopefully now know how to take the train back on Friday afternoon. They arrived in Paris in the evening without too much drama and will have two full days there.

After that I walked over for Gospel Choir practice at the Friendship Center. We had almost 20 singers, and we learned a fun doo-wop round, in addition to practicing Amazing Grace again. It was really enjoyable. The director, Alessandro, is energetic and funny. I teased the sister missionaries that they shouldn't do the jazzy dance moves :)

Ugo's Institute class had a guest speaker via Zoom, Mauro Properzi, who is an associate professor of religion at BYU. He and Ugo have been friends for a long time, and he is also from northern Italy. I didn't get to listen live, but will watch the video recording that Ugo posts of the class. Mauro talked a lot about his academic career path, which I think that Ugo hopes will encourage some of the kids in their career hopes and plans.

Anziano Melling was one of the early Ganziani and was there on splits. He is now one of our ZLs, finishing his mission later this month. He is a great young man and an amazing pianist. His old photo on the Ganziani wall of fame was not very flattering, so we took another photo to post for him. He goes home in two weeks.

My four-year old Samsung tablet is slowly dying. It charges most of the time, but not always. I use it at church as my scriptures and for Gospel Library, and for reading in bed at night. So I want to replace it, but electronics here are much more expensive than in the US. Perhaps I will buy one on Amazon back home and ship it to our son Wes to bring next month. There may be no big rush, but the old one could die any day, so I am still mulling over my options.

We got home a bit early, with still some light outside at 9pm. Dee was exhausted and went right to bed. Our life here is busy with fun and fulfilling things, so it is the right kind of exhaustion.