Sunday we had our usual church meetings, with no class for me to teach. I was asked to sub for the music leader in Primary, doing the singing time. As always, we really enjoyed being there with our fellow ward members. Cristiano from our bishopric asked me to give a talk in Sacrament meeting on July 7, which I will enjoy in all my spare time. Afterwards we stayed for a bit so that Dee could help Grazia with her family history. That of course included a bit of food, but they didn't get too much time together before we needed to leave and she needed to meet with the bishop. It was fun to see how many other members were hanging around for quite a while after the meetings -- we really do like being together.
I went to Primary for the first time in several weeks. Jasmine, who is about 5, gave me a hug. I'm up on crutches now. I just sat in the background during the class time. Silvia kindly got me an adult-sized chair. Then we all went to Sharing Time. As I said yesterday, I had printed eight pictures and put the names of the songs on the backs. I stuck these to the blackboard. The kids LOVED it. One child would come up and get to choose a picture. Then, they got to decide how to lead the song. For example, they could make us sing loud or soft, stand up or sit down, etc. They had a grand time and really got into it. I was touched that they asked if they could keep the pictures. That was fine with me! When singing time was over, I was surprised to see big tears rolling down Jasmine's face. She hadn't had a turn!
From church we headed straight downtown to the Institute for a 4pm student council meeting. It wasn't worth driving home (which is in a different direction) to be there for less than an hour. Dee baked some of her now-famous cookies for the group, and I spent most of the time configuring my new tablet and installing almost all the same apps as on the old one. Dee taught me a nicer way to do that, using the Google Play website on my laptop. The new tablet is almost ready to take over, but of course now the old one is behaving better. I am still happy to have a much newer model. There are only a few left on the site at that amazing price, so we asked Chiara if she would like one. She has a pretty old tablet. She was more than happy to receive it, along with a purple case. Maybe we can send it home to her via Wes in July.
Our student council meeting was good, with three of the members present online via Zoom, and only us two, Ugo, the Ganziani, and Pres. Pickerd present in person. His wife was in Utah for their son's wedding, so he had more free time than usual. We talked a lot about missionary work and how to improve it. We have almost ten non-members who participate regularly in events at the Institute and at church. None of us have seen anything quite like it before, with activities sometimes having more non-members than members, but none of them seem to be progressing toward baptism at this point. So we discussed how we could encourage our GANS to bear testimony more frequently about the blessings of the gospel in their lives. We also planned activities for the new few weeks.
After the meeting we discussed our Napoli Institute class with both Ugo and the President. Dee and I needed some direction on whether the mission wants us both to go there (and will pay for two train tickets); the answer was yes. Ugo explained that he is happy that we have students there willing to have class, but no other ward is having any classes during summer, other than our Institute campus of course. So it was good that we all understood the situation. Ugo would prefer to have a local teacher down there, for many obvious reasons, but I will finish this class in early August and then we will figure out what comes next in the fall semester.
From there we drove the President and the two Ganziani to their new apartment, which the President had never seen. We hung around outside while he went in, then gave him a ride home. It saved him time and allowed us to have some good discussions on various issues. He told us that he would easily be able to get us permission to go to Florence with Chiara over Christmas, which was great news. When we got to the mission home to drop him off (not far from our apartment), we sat outside in the car for another half an hour or so, talking about things going on in the mission and at the Institute. It was very kind of him to spend all that time with us, as he is so busy. I think that we all felt it very worthwhile.
We got home by 8pm, early for us, but it was still almost 12 hours since leaving home. Marilyn called to say that they finally got home ok, after being stranded overnight in Chicago without luggage; their flight was late and missed the connection. Our daughter Wendy talked with Dee for a while and also called me to wish me a happy Father's Day. Italy has a different day for that, but we Americans still celebrate it over here. We love our kids.
I am putting minimal weight on my crutches and doing very well, so I even tried on my brace. It is so uncomfortable. I asked the doctor if there was anything else and she is going to send me a picture of a different brace.
Claudia, an amazing young woman who is president of the student council, just got a job at the England MTC. She'll be leaving us for a year. She will be terrific. Her English is completely unaccented and sounds native. Amazing.