Mystery melon

Monday we left early to hit Lidl on the way into the Institute. It had been a while, and we needed a bunch of food. We were thinking of going to Auchan at the mall, but decided that was too much and too early for one day, so we will try that Tuesday morning. We finished pretty quickly at Lidl, leaving time to fill up the car on the way and still arriving early at the Institute. Dee bought a lovely multigrain baguette, which we almost finished on the drive into town. 😋 Lidl has great bread!

Fabrizio dropped by, exhausted from having their six-week old baby boy unable to keep food down for a few days and thus spending much of the prior night in the emergency room. He ate lunch and then crashed on the little couch in one of the classrooms for a while, with AC making it comfy compared to his job selling tickets outside in this heat (upper 90s, high humidity). It was good to be able to help him out in a small way.

The Pickerds called us with a couple of items to discuss, including the fact that the Rattos will not be able to teach the Institute class in Napoli because of his new calling as the branch president in Castellamare. They will be so busy, learning the language while trying to get to know and serve the members of the small branch. It's amazing what we can be asked to do on short notice, and how so many rise to the occasion. We talked over a couple of possibilities. Ugo wants to be in charge of deciding who will teach the class, since that position ultimately reports to him, and President Pickerd was happy to turn that one over to him! They also talked about trying to find replacements for us when we leave next March, asking if we had any ideas.  Part of their job is to recruit senior couples. We have bounced it off a few people we know who served missions in Italy, but no takers so far, though I may try to ask more. With the temple coming, there are a number of senior couples coming to work in the visitors center and as temple workers, which perhaps dilutes the pool of otherwise available folks. Speaking Italian is definitely a requirement for our job, since not all of the GANS speak English.

Chris, the Nigerian immigrant who got baptized just over a week ago, came by for some help with paperwork for an upcoming job interview. He studied electrical engineering in Nigeria and has experience working as an electrician, so he brought his certificates and letters of reference for me to scan and print/email for him. His English is very good, without the usual heavy accent that most Nigerians have. He hung around a while doing some stuff on our office computer, so again it was nice to help out. If he gets an interview this week, I may drive him around, since the Canfields are out of town.

Dee bought a little melon of unknown type at the market last week, leaving it out for a few days to get nice and ripe. She loves melons, but when she cut this one open and tried it, it tasted exactly like a cucumber, not a melon! Very strange.

Cucumberzilla?

I called TIM to deactivate the other SIM card that we bought for Wes and Alyssa. They will only do it if calling from that SIM card, so I had to open my phone and swap it in. Again they gave me a hard time, not even really trying to understand what I was asking. One of the agents even hung up on me after a few questions. Sheesh. Finally I got it done, I think.

I went out to try to find some good shoes for all the standing and walking, while still looking classier than at present in my old tennis shoes. I went out twice, walking over an hour overall. I found a pretty good option, but held off. That particular brand runs large, so a size 36.5 (US 6) fit me. I haven't worn a six since Chiara was born! Anyway, they're not right for me, so too bad.

Dee gave a wonderful home evening lesson, based on the recent Gospel Doctrine lesson on the Psalms. She had us read from a few of them, talking about praising the Lord and giving thanks. She then went around the room and had everyone say something that they were thankful for. Several of the comments were very touching. She then went around again, telling something about each person that she was thankful for. They absolutely ate it up! It is nice to be able to make someone's day by praising them. She is doing awesome things as a teacher these days, often changing the lesson plan on the fly based on comments and the spirit. At the end, Anziano Lewis had us sing an Italian hymn (not in the English hymn book), written by Lorenzo Rossato based directly on one of the Psalms. It is a favorite of one of the wards in Palermo where he served, and he is awesome on the piano and has an incredible voice. All in all, the lesson was terrific! Manuel, who just turned 18 and started coming to the Institute gave the closing prayer and was thankful for the splendida lezione (splendid lesson). He told us he wants to grow in the gospel, and he is certainly attentive and sincere. He's a great young man and we love having him.

Next we enjoyed some peanut butter chocolate bars, which Dee had made last Friday. Mmm! Then card games, which continued long after we left for home at 9pm. There was lots of laughter at the game table. So fun! It was a small group, but everyone had a wonderful time.

 

 

When we got home about 9:30pm, Dee talked with her cousin Lynn, who is helping out with Dee's parents several days a week. It seems to be going great, and Lynn has had several very clever ways of getting them do things that they need to do but don't get around to otherwise. Her presence is a really blessing for us right now!

Busy Sunday

Sunday morning I woke up with a stomach ache. It may or may not have been the Nigerian food, but in any case I felt cruddy and weak. If I hadn't had a lesson to teach, I probably would have stayed home, but I took some Alka Seltzer and headed out. During the intermediate hymn in Sacrament meeting, when everyone stands up, after being upright for a few seconds I had to sit back down. Fortunately, by the end of the meeting, I was feeling quite a bit better. Our students from Napoli posted a couple of photos on WhatsApp of them dressed up for church; they clean up real nice!

 

My temple prep class on symbolism during Sunday School went very well, with a great discussion among the four of us. Billy, a long-time ward member from Nigeria, came into class looking awful. Turns out he had a horrible headache, and tears were streaming down his face from the pain. I put him right under the AC unit and had him take his jacket off, which was certainly more comfortable. I offered him an Excedrin, which is the one medication that can get rid of my (now blessedly rare) headaches, and he was willing to try anything. By the end of the class he was feeling and looking much better, and by the end of the third hour he said he was doing great. He asked me for details on what it was, and I told him that I was pretty sure it was not available here, but I gave him the active ingredient list. Ugo's dad is a pharmacist; some years ago he saw me taking one, asked what was in it, and told me that no medications in Italy were allowed to contain caffeine. One friend in the US, upon hearing that fact, opined that the "coffee lobby" must have had something to do with that law 😉😁. I had two other pills in my bag, which I gave to Billy for future use, and he was very pleased. It was good to be able to help him out, as I have been there before.

Meanwhile, Dee taught Rhenald's Gospel Doctrine class, on King Solomon. Several people told me how much they had enjoyed her class, and Simeon (from the Philippines) told her he hoped she would teach next week. It was a rare opportunity to teach in English. I really enjoyed preparing and teaching the class. We had three Africans and three Filipinos along with one missionary. Chris, a new member, showed up in a white shirt and tie and was loving his new look. I'm teaching their class again next week. I really appreciate her doing that so that Rhenald could attend my class. After church, Rhenald said that he would be happy to put on a Nigerian food evening at the Institute sometime, which should be fun.

After church was over, we stayed around for over two hours. First, there was the monthly Relief Society birthday refreshments and singing. Then, we had a scheduled Family History hands-on workshop. Dee and I brought our three laptops, and Monica, an expert family history consultant in the ward, brought hers. I got to help Jenna Perego, using her laptop, so we had plenty of computers. She is very sharp, running Linux on her laptop (my kind of woman! :), and she quickly picked up on the descendancy research method that I showed her. She was so excited to find an actual name for temple work during the hour we had together, and later she spent hours on her own finding even more relatives. She said she needed to do it before her father woke up in the USA and snatched it himself. I also got to show descendancy research to Monica and she loved it.

After that we had a GANS council meeting via Zoom, with Ugo at home, we and Joyce at Roma 3, Francesco at home, and Sheyla calling in from somewhere. It was fairly brief as such meetings go, but we set some dates for September activities, now that the August break is upon us. All of this computer work (i.e., family history, Zoom) was done using Dee's 50GB data plan, using her cell phone as a hot spot. The DSL internet at church is still horrible, so it was nice to have a decent connection; wireless data speeds here are typically amazing (tens of Mbits/sec).

From there we went to the Roma 3 Anziani apartment, not far from church, to do our first apartment inspection. No serious issues were found, though they need a few new light bulbs which we will bring to them on Thursday. We were able to find a parking spot right next to their apartment building -- summer vacations have turned parking into an easy job these days! Here is Anziano Jensen in a nice apron sent to him by his mom. He is holding a bottle of Inka Cola, which is a Peruvian drink and has the flavor of bubblegum. He bought it for Peruvian independence day. You should see how holey his socks are! And he graciously invited us to have lunch with them. He had made some really nice pasta and a cake. We had a taste of pasta, but didn't eat the whole meal with them. They also have an interesting bookshelf constructed out of cardboard on their desk, done by some prior missionary living there:

 

We finally got home around 4pm, over 7 hours after leaving home for church. It was really hot outside, mid-90s with humidity, so we were very grateful to have some AC. Dee continues to do most of her work in the front room where it is hot; I'm not sure how she can stand it -- my woman is amazing! I finally got a few minutes to catch up on some bookkeeping and other things which had been slipping for a few days because we were so busy. 

I tried a brand new 128GB SD card in my phone, but it seems not to work. In theory, my phone supports cards that size, but in practice there seems to be a problem once the actual used space goes over 64GB. On the Motorola forums, a few people had experienced problems with 128GB cards, so I posted a description of my symptoms to see if anybody understands the issue. Meanwhile, for now I am back to using a 64GB card, without putting all my music (about 20GB) and other docs (about 10GB) on it. That is, I am  now using it only for photos, which still fit just fine.

In the evening we went over to the Knieses. Their Macbook Air laptops have not been able to connect to their modem/router for a while. My phone and PC connected just fine there, so I am not sure what the problem is. We had a really enjoyable visit while I was debugging. They are just awesome folks and lots of fun. My suspicion is that the modem/router is a poor router and maybe only marginally compatible with Macs (strange as that may seem), so I suggested that they buy a cheap separate router and connect it "in front" of the modem, thus bypassing the modem/router's apparently incompatible WiFi. Finally we had Sorella Knies come over to our place to try connecting to the cheap extra router we use to give internet access to the Sorelle beneath us. That worked fine, but when I carried that router back to their place it didn't work, so I was puzzled. By then it was getting late and I had a call to take, so we will try again in the next day or two.

Meanwhile, Sheri, a friend from Redding in northern California, called. She and her husband Scott got evacuated from their home this past week due to the local wildfire. They just got back home and all is well for them, but several members of their ward lost homes. Sheri is the ward Relief Society (the church's womans' organization) president, so she will help coordinate assistance to the families affected. After hearing of their situation, I had offered our help in giving her some suggestions and insights from having going through losing a home to wildfire way back in 1996. She called while I was at the Knieses, so I called her back after we got home.  We chatted for maybe half an hour, with Dee contributing some good thoughts too. Sheri seemed grateful for the input, which hopefully might help someone going through this now.

I phoned Sister Feil. They're a new senior couple stationed in Perugia, and she's going through the shock of Italian shopping. It will be fun to get to know them. They have three singles in their little group (not even big enough to be a branch), so we're going to try to incorporate them into some of our Rome activities.

I have been able to buy cilantro plants recently that I use for salsa. Since our little organic market is closing for August, I bought a second one. It's so hot in our apartment then they wither quickly. I hope they make it to Taco Tuesday.

African food

Saturday was a long day, only partly by design. We left for Napoli about 10:45am, carrying a bunch of stuff to missionaries there: a carry-on suitcase to give to Anziano Haws, a big box of stuff for Sorella Zapata from her parents, and an envelope of pamphlets for the Sorelle in nearby Caserta. In addition, we had our own shoulder bags. There was a bunch of walking involved, well over 1km total between the walks to/from the train stations. Fortunately, the big box was able to fit on top of the suitcase, kinda, which meant it could be wheeled, but every few minutes it would slide off and we would have to stop, pick it up, and re-center it. It was great to finally get it all there and deliver it, so that we didn't have to carry it back! 

Class went really well, our biggest ever, with seven students. Probably that had to do with the fact that we were taking everyone out to an early dinner after class and that we were bringing external batteries for everyone. The new senior couple, the Rattos, have been assigned to Castellamare just south of Napoli. The plan is for them to teach the class when it resumes in September, so we had invited them to meet the group. They participated nicely in the lesson, which covered Luke 22-23. I think that almost everyone had at least one comment or question during the lesson, and we had a very nice discussion about the last supper, sacrament, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. The spirit was really strong, and we sang sacrament hymns for opening and closing, chosen by Peter. 

 

After class, Dee handed out the remaining Powerbanks (USB battery chargers for their phones), which are very popular with the guys, who live in refugee camps. We then walked back toward the station, with the African restaurant they had chosen being on the way, just off the main street a couple of blocks. It was literally a hole in the wall: no sign over the door, very small, with just two tables for us to sit at, along with other diners. The Rattos couldn't stay, as they had been in their apartment for under 24 hours and hadn't even had time yet for grocery shopping. They had to take the train back to Castellamare, almost an hour, just past Pompeii.

The food was not at all familiar, but it was good. It was slightly spicy, as I expected, but the guys wouldn't let me try anything really spicy, which I appreciated! Dee and I shared a big plate of white rice with beans, plantains, and some kind of meat (bones included). We also tried the "semola", which was some kind of dough ball that they dipped into a soup kind of mix and ate with their bare hands, without chewing. They call it "swallow". Dee really loved it all! For me, who can't really tolerate spicy food well, it was good but not something I hope to repeat soon. But the guys loved it! They kept saying "this is our food!" It was only 40€ for all nine of us to eat our fill. The hygiene there may not be the greatest (hard to tell), but it was a wonderful experience, and it seems that they greatly appreciated our effort to try something from their Nigerian culture.

 

 

 

We were done within an hour from leaving the chapel, which was a surprise. I had anticipated a longer meal, so I had booked the last train back to Rome, at 7:30pm. That meant we had a 3-hour wait. We went to customer service to see if we could catch an earlier train, but we had the cheapest fares, so the only way was to buy a new ticket for each of us, about 90€ at that point. So we hung out at a little cafe inside the station for a few hours, occasionally buying something to eat or drink so we wouldn't feel guilty about occupying a table and enjoying the AC, which was definitely needed with the 90+ degree temperatures outside. Part-way through the time there, I realized that, even though the last train was a fast (Freccia) train, it took two hours instead of one to get to Rome. Aargh. To make it worse, the train ran 15 minutes late, so we got back to the train station in Rome about 10pm, then walked to the Institute and drove home. Thus we were gone basically 12 hours, with lessons to teach the next morning. It was long and hot and tiring, but we were smiling at what a nice day it had been.

I get to teach Gospel Doctrine Sunday, in English! Rhenald is the usual teacher, but he's in my husband's Temple prep class right now. I used some of the Napoli and train time to study, and also got to knit for the first time in a few weeks. I confess I napped too.

I was able to wear my new orthotics all day. They feel better and better, and my other joints are also happier. I'm so glad I tried them. And I don't use the walking stick anymore. However, it's great for speeding me up. It lengthens my stride, so I'm keeping it for long tourist walks.

A couple of weeks ago, Elia gave us some Taralli. This is a donut-shaped cracker or salty cookie which is typical of Naples. They're made with almonds and pepper (and pork fat). They are so delicious and I'm totally willing to overlook the less healthy ingredient. So, when we went there with Wes and Alyssa, I bought some. The ones I got weren't as good as Elia's, but we're savoring them just the same.

When we go to Naples, we don't bring our computers because it's pretty sketchy there. So, that three-hour delay was less productive, but worth it for the peace of mind.

Sloppy Joes and apple pie

Friday morning it was quite a bit cooler than in recent days, thanks to the rain the previous night. I actually opened the window in the back room where my computer sits and used a fan instead of the AC. We walked down to Conad, the Chinese store, and the local farmers' market, stocking up on food items for the house and for the dinner at the Institute in the evening. With one more week to go before closing up shop for August, we are trying to exhaust our supply of several perishable food items at the Institute, including beef, sour cream, cheddar, etc. We also bought a pack of six glasses for the kitchen at the Ganziani's apartment, since they had a total of three glasses for four elders!

In the afternoon, I finished lesson prep for Luke 22-23 Friday and Saturday, as well as reviewing my temple prep class lesson for Sunday. I also made followup phone calls about some of the apartment issues we found Thursday, speaking with several people in the office. Hopefully some action will follow soon. Dee spent the afternoon making a wonderful apple pie for dessert (12 apples!), as well as preparing some cooked chicken to be frozen for future meals, as is her wont.

 

 

Overnight Dee's new SIM card from TIM kicked in, turning off her old Vodafone plan but keeping the old number. However, the 50GB didn't show up, so I called customer support. They said that it was active, but that it hadn't posted yet, so to check on Saturday. They also said that the plan costs 10€ per month, not 8€ as promised verbally; it is still a great deal, but the lesson learned is to get stuff in writing. I also deactivated one of the two SIM card plans we bought for Wes & Alyssa and will do the other one Saturday. All of the jargon for cell phone plans here is very different than in the US, so it is hard to even know what to say. I prefaced my request by saying that I was from the US, where things are very different, and I didn't know the exact phrase so please help me, but I wanted to "deactivate the number". The agent said, in effect, "I don't know what that means." I tried again to ask for them to try to help figure it out, since I had been told I could deactivate it so as not to pay for the months we are not using it. Finally they put somebody on who spoke English, but I explained that the problem was not language but terminology, since the system was so different. We continued talking in Italian, with me explaining in general terms what I wanted to do, and finally he said "oh, you want to deactivate the offer." Yep, that's it. Seems like, with the detailed preface I gave, they should have been able to make the leap from "number" to "offer", but nope. Well, the "offer" on the second number should be much easier to deactivate now. 😏

People started trickling in during the late afternoon. By 7pm, when class starts, there were quite a few young people. It is very unusual here for so many folks to be on time! The classroom was completely full, all seats taken. Our lesson went well, though I didn't get as much participation as usual. The last supper and trial/crucifixion of Christ can be a rather somber topic, so maybe I will try a different approach in Napoli on Saturday.

Dee's dinner of Sloppy Joes, chips, and apple pie was very popular. We had over six pounds of beef, so a few of the kids came back for fourths! Assuming we would have plenty, we had invited the Balzottis to join us; he was really excited when he heard the menu, but unfortunately got tied up in traffic on the way back from an airport dropoff, so they couldn't make it.

 

 

 

 

Sadly, it was the last time that Noelle and Ashley, our summer visitors from the US, would be at the Institute. They have been really wonderful and have enjoyed being here as much as we enjoyed having them. Noelle complimented us as we left, saying that this was the best Institute atmosphere she had ever experienced. We will really miss them.

I am helping Claudio figure out what components to buy for his new desktop computer build. After dinner we spent some time on the amazon.it app on his big iPhone looking at various options and discussing them. Personally, I like doing this kind of thing on a big screen, but this generation likes their phones for everything. Several of the kids left to go watch the partial lunar eclipse together, but most of them hung out after we left.


On the way home, we called the Rattos in Napoli and gave them details about our Institute class Saturday. They plan to attend, which should help with the eventual handoff of the class. We also brought some buns and a glass jar of Sloppy Joe meat home to the Balzottis, delivering it to their apartment and then visiting for a while. It was late, so we couldn't stay too long, but they are always a lot of fun.

Last Sunday, our Relief Society President asked me if I would be a Jolly. That usually means wild card, so I wasn't really getting the request. It turns out she wanted to know if I could help visit some of the sisters in their homes as a fill-in. It's tricky for me because we're at the Institute Monday through Friday and in Naples on Saturday, with no P-day or free evenings. We often have things on Sundays, too. But I would love to have this opportunity, and soon Naples will be over. 

We've had some nice visiting time with our Ganziani, which is rare. They don't hang around the Institute, since they want to be out where they can meet people. They're really great guys. They each usually have twelve weeks, so it's not a surprise when one is transferred, but we love them and miss them.

I made a test batch of chicken curry with coconut milk rice from the recipe that Elder Papritz' mother sent me. I have never cooked with curry before. It was really delicious, and easy. I'll make it for Friday's farewell dinner.

I was sooo tired on Thursday that I could barely function. I took a nap in the car twice, and also fell asleep at the kitchen table. I'm so glad to be feeling better today.

Our dryer in La Costa doesn't heat, and I've been trying to decide whether to buy a new one or fix it. It's ten years old, so it's not out of the question to need a new one, and I will get a matching washer. But I would like to do it in person, which is eight months away. Poor Rich tumbles his clothes three times in the cool dryer trying to get them dry. Anyway, I talked to a sales person today in California and decided to go ahead and fix the old one. I hope this will make it last until I get home. There are too many variables. I don't want a front loader, but two short friends have ended up with washers that were too deep and now they have to use a stool to get the socks out of the bottom. Sheesh. Some of the new machines are bigger, and the vent in the back of the dryer is in a different position, which will make the dryer stick out further and interfere with the door to the garage. Definitely a first world problem, but I know I'll do better in person.

When we did the apartment inspection for the Roma 1 sisters, I told them that if the smoke detector won't stop, they can wrap it in a blanket and put it in the freezer. I made them laugh by warning  them not to try that with a baby when they get home. 

We're really enjoying the Italian vacation time of late July/August, because there are plenty of empty parking spaces around our apartment.

Apartment ministering

Thursday morning we headed out soon after 9am to inspect four apartments, two each in Ladispoli and Roma1. Traffic was good; we arrived a bit late but made up time as we went along. The Ladispoli Sorelle are both new to the apartment with the gorgeous ocean views. They like it a lot, but there are a couple of rather serious plumbing issues that we hope to get taken care of soon. They also had two missing light bulbs in their small back laundry/storage room; fortunately, I had brought my box of extra light bulbs and was able to give them replacements. For the Ladispoli Anziani, we brought them a replacement toaster and two plastic trash cans. They had been using just a trash bag, so they were quite pleased. The old toaster had been taped together by Anziano Dunn and looked very unsafe.

Unsafe toaster in Ladispoli

They also have had a bed frame for some time which was cracked, but it was hard to figure how out to get them a replacement with our small car. Fortunately, this time we realized that the Sorelle had two extra beds from back when there were four of them in the apartment. So we asked the Anziani to swap bed frames, as it is less than a ten-minute walk away. They liked the idea, and we joked that they could do "bed-frame contacting" as a way of starting up a conversation with people on the street. 

We then drove the half hour back to the Rome 1 area, visiting the Sorelle and then the Anziani.  The Sorelle have a washing machine that isn't washing or spinning very well, much like our old one, so we hope to get them something better. The Anziani didn't really have any significant issues. They ask us to stay for lunch each time, which is very kind, but we need to open the Institute. We left cookies at each apartment, so everyone likes us 😀🍪. In the past we told everyone that we are like their home teachers, there to help, not criticize, but now we have decided that we are apartment ministers!

In general, these young missionaries live in places that are not all that well maintained. It is understandable, because they stay there a short time, usually six months at the very most and often much less, so they have little incentive to spend time or money fixing things up, even if they had spare time or money. Also, the mission has almost 100 apartments to maintain, spread out over an extremely large area (all of southern Italy), so by definition they have to focus only on severe problems.

We got back to the Institute  about 1:30pm, only a little later than our normal opening time. Dee was tired and not feeling all that well, so she had slept a bit in the car on each leg of the trip. The Roma 2 Anziani came by to teach a missionary lesson. Afterwards we spoke with them about their apartment. It turns out that they haven't had an inspection in months, so we offered to the Balzottis to take over that one as well. Soon we may be in charge of inspecting all the apartments in Rome! Hopefully the power won't go to our heads. The Anziani were very pleased with the used blender we gave them earlier in the week (from the Herways), but they now are short on kitchen chairs and glasses since there are four of them instead of two. We told them that we would try to find them some.

We learned through the grapevine that the Thackers were able to get their MTC start date moved up three weeks, into mid-September, which will be a nice relief for the entire office staff. They are short-handed since the Paulsens went home last month for medical reasons, and everyone (including us) is working hard to pick up the slack. The Thackers will be awesome, and we look forward to seeing them again.

During the afternoon I worked on my weekend lessons a fair amount, and Dee made a trial batch of curry chicken with rice, which is Anziano Papritz's favorite meal. She used a recipe from his mom, having bought some ingredients at Auchan the other night. It turned out really well -- a unanimous consensus from the several of us who tried it. She may make it for the entire group for dinner Friday next week.

Turns out there was a transit strike scheduled from 8pm until midnight, which we hadn't known about. Nobody came to English class, because they wouldn't have been able to get home! Even the Ganziani left early so they could take the subway home in time. So the place was empty, and we got to leave a bit early, arriving home by 9pm. Along the way it rained really hard for about half an hour. It washed our car nicely, but then the umbrella we keep in the trunk broke when I opened it, so we got rather wet on the way in. Fortunately, it felt good, cooling things down. I love summer rain.

Before driving away from the Institute, we dropped by Signora Chirra at her cafe downstairs. She owns the big apartment on the first floor that we were hoping to get as a larger Institute facility, but it has been taking too long to get approval from Ugo's management and from the church facilities people to start working out a deal. She now has another solid offer, though she would rather have us take the place. Unfortunately, we had to tell her to go ahead with that other offer, since we can't give her a firm date when the church would be ready to proceed. Bummer. Maybe it will still work out, but I am not optimistic.

Peter, Paul, and President Pickerd too

Wednesday was Zone Conference, held right nearby us at the Roma 2 chapel since there was a funeral at the usual Roma 1 location. Thus, we were able to leave home later than usual, and we even found a nice parking space less than a block away on the first pass. Samy, who recently finished his mission in England, was asked by the assistants to attend and translate into Italian for Sorella Yanacallo and the Simoncinis. He seemed to fit right in and enjoy himself, though translating live is always exhausting. 

It was a good conference. Perhaps the most fun part was a male quartet, with lyrics written by Anziano Jensen (our DL) and sung to the tune of "In Our Lovely Deseret". He said he originally wrote it kind of as a joke, but it ended up having a good message and brought smiles to everyone's faces. The chorus starts with some fun alliteration:
   We will follow those before us: 
   Peter, Paul, and President Pickerd too!
Here is a link to the the full PDF of the sheet music (note: it seems to take a few seconds to fully load and display correctly).

Most of what they talk about  in ZC has to do with finding investigators and teaching missionary lessons, so it isn't directly related to our assignment. However, we love being there with the young missionaries and hearing the messages.

Midway through the morning, a new senior couple arrived from the US and the airport: Anziano and Sorella Ratto. They are originally from Argentina, each with Italian ancestry, but have lived in Utah for 30 years. Their Italian is still weak, but we have seen that the gap between Italian and Spanish is small enough that they should do fine. Apparently they grew up hearing their grandparents talk Italian. They each bore a brief testimony, and their English is heavily accented, but the spirit was very strong in what they said. Their plane coming over from the US had mechanical issues and had to return to Detroit, so they took 48 hours to get here and were absolutely exhausted. Soon after lunch they headed back to the mission home to get some sleep. The plan is for them to take over the Napoli Institute class from me in the fall.

They're staying at the mission home, and the President said he wanted to take them to dinner after a four-hour nap. The Rattos said, "you can try to wake us up, but we don't think it will work!"

One of the ZC traditions here is to have each of the missionaries about to return home give a "death testimony". You probably know that the missionary lingo is that you are born when you arrive and die when you go home, so you will often hear missionaries say something like "I was born in Palermo" or "I die next month" or "I killed Anziano Jones" (i.e., "I was his last companion"). It definitely sounds macabre at first, but actually makes some sense. Anyway, we heard from Anziani Jensen, Moscon, Rodriguez, and Youngblood, all of whom we have known and really admired. Anziano Rodriguez's testimony was particularly touching to me, as he spoke of all the family struggles he had before coming on a mission. These are wonderful young people.

At the end of the 6+ hour meeting, the Pickerds took group photos, first of everyone, then of the Anziani, then of the Sorelle. They also took photos of each companionship earlier, and everything is posted on their blog. We often have had to leave early to open the Institute, but this time we told the GANS that we would be late and stayed to the end. Thus, we were in the photos this time:

 

 

 

We got to the Institute around 4pm, and kids started showing up right away for our hastily-announced game night. It was supposed to start at 7pm, but there were five kids there by 5pm, and thirteen showed up in all. I played a fun card game (Tens and Twos) with them for a while, but once critical mass arrived I happily let the kids hang together. Dee put out some chips and cookies. There was a wonderful buzz, with lots of laughter. The group is really welcoming of new people, including Emmanuel from our ward who just turned 18 and showed up for the first time. Ashley apparently likes it here enough that she is looking for another nanny job to stay here and skip a semester of school. I think that speaks highly of the kids and the Institute.

 

 

 

Fortunately, Sheyla showed up. She is on the student council and has a key, so we let the kids stay on after we left about 9pm.

Since I'm planning to make Elder Papritz' requested chicken curry, I need fish sauce. We couldn't find it at Auchan, so I asked Google where to find an asian market. There was a Korean market only .3 miles from the institute, so I walked down there and got anchovy sauce. 

I was pleased to be asked by our former familysearch manager if I could look at some Italian genealogy. It was tricky and not solved yet. A common error is assuming that any document with a particular name is about the same person. Just because a name sounds rare to an American doesn't mean it is rare in the country of origin. 

I spent a lot of time talking with Donna and also got to talk with Lynn. We're all putting our heads together to make things better for my parents. 

At zone conference, I took the time to write down my own goals, along with the notes I took. I'm looking forward to reviewing it all.

We have one ward meeting at 3:30pm now, which is a new experience in Italy. They didn't want to meet at 12:30 because it would interfere with lunch and naps! 

Reverse Shoplifting, 50GB

Tuesday was a full day. We started out by leaving early to go to Todis for hamburger buns for the sloppy joes dinner Friday night. Dee also found that our tortillas were back in stock, so she bought eight packages, which will take us through the August break. We then drove to the mall. Dee went to Ikea to buy ziplock bags and other goodies, as well as "return" the pasta spoon we inadvertently shoplifted last time around; she slipped it into her purse before entering, then paid for it on the way out. So the net is even for Ikea, though we may have messed up their inventory twice! I called this trip "reverse shoplifting". 

Meanwhile, I went to Vodafone to see how to clear some paid services that keep getting enabled on her phone. It is very frustrating. Apparently there is a way to call them and block all such "offers" that we don't ask for, but it is not clear that it will actually block everything. When I called the tech support number, they said it would be a very long wait, and it was difficult to find the right place in the menu system to actually talk with a person. Finally later in the afternoon I was able to call and cancel the 5€ per week (!) service that got added, but then later she got another message that something else got enabled. Sigh. Fortunately, she won't be with them for long. I walked next door to TIM, their competitor, and they had an awesome deal: 8€ per month for 50GB of data (versus 16€ and 5GB on Vodafone) and unlimited minutes (she will pay for any outgoing texts, but she almost never does that anyway). I got her new SIM card, which will keep her existing number, for only 14€ net up front. Later in the evening, I decided that I would like the same incredible deal, so I walked over to the TIM store at the station near the Institute. I clarified several questions about the deal, all with very satisfactory answers, so I asked if I could buy the same deal for my phone. Unfortunately, the deal was only available for people switching away from Vodafone. Bummer. Well, Dee will have a ton of data now.

The two of us then met up and went to Auchan nearby to buy some stuff for the house and Institute, as our Auchan list had been getting long. I also hunted down some different hair products. The stuff I've been using turned out not to be curl-friendly. We then drove straight down to Institute, arriving in time to prepare for Taco Tuesday. We had quite a few kids show up, with a lot of energy around all afternoon. Several pairs of Anziani also came to practice their musical numbers for Zone Conference Wednesday, so we got to feed them tacos as well. 

 

Ariana, Claudia's "sister" from Utah, was also in town. I didn't know the full story, but it is quite interesting. Claudia was a foreign exchange student in their home during her senior year of high school, which is where she first honed her phenomenal English skills and was introduced to the Church. Ariana's dad had served a mission in Italy when he was young, so they had several Italian exchange students over the years. Claudia ended up joining the church while living there, with her parents' blessing, and later served a mission in Toronto after returning to Italy. Meanwhile, Ariana got called to serve in the Rome mission, more or less at the same time as Claudia was on her mission. Ariana's Italian is quite good, so she was a fun addition to the group.

We also had Almendra there. She is from Ecuador and recently returned from serving a mission in South America. Her Italian is still fairly weak, and her English is only slightly better, but she is a delightful and sharp gal, very willing to help. In fact, the Ganziani had a Spanish-speaking investigator at Taco Tuesday, and Almendra later helped them teach a discussion, not only translating but actively participating and helping. The Ganziani were very grateful.

My wife also spoke with the mother of Ganziano Papritz, whose shoulder bag was recently stolen with his ATM card, Samsung tablet, and mission cell phone. He was responsible for replacing the latter. His parents tried to get it shipped to him from amazon.it, but they couldn't get the transaction to go through a couple of times. Finally it went through, but Amazon shipped it to the family in Seattle! When they tried to mail it back, they were told it was illegal to ship anything with a lithium battery to Europe. We offered to buy the phone (and case plus screen protector) for him and have them reimburse us via a gift certificate at amazon.com. By evening we placed the order, to be delivered the next day, and his mom sent us the gift card (about $300), which included a gift toward gelato. We offer a full range of services here! Anziano Papritz said it was amazing that his mother "still existed" and that I could just phone her. Young missionaries are allowed to phone home only on Christmas and Mothers Day, one hour each time. That might seem harsh, but imagine how hard it would be if they were phoning their girlfriends and their families all the time.

I baked a bunch of cookies, which were enjoyed quite a bit by the young people and Ugo. I don't know what I did, but they came out different. I made a triple batch of dough, and probably lost count on one of the ingredients. Nevertheless, they disappeared quickly. After Ugo's institute class and the missionaries' English class started, Dee had the idea that we could head out early to go Auchan at the mall again. Thursday we are going to inspect four apartments. The Anziani in Ladispoli told us that they still hadn't bought the kitchen trash can that they told us they needed last month, so we decided to buy one for them. We bought them two  plastic bins, one for trash and one for recycling. I also bought some Aranciata Zero (diet orange soda) for me, some cookies to give out during our inspection visits, and some ingredients for a curry dinner for Anziano's Papritz next week, on what will almost certainly be his final Friday night meal here. After all that, we got home about our usual time. It was terrific to have the time to do all of that in our especially busy week.

Once home, I turned on the AC in our bedroom, and the smoke alarm right below started going off. It wouldn't stop despite pushing all the buttons, continuing to chirp every minute or two. I called the expert, Anziano Balzotti, who said that the ten-year battery was probably dead after three years, which tends to happen. He tried to walk me through the process of killing it over the phone, which is the only option at this point. I kindly offered to bring him the noisy thing, haha, and eventually I just walked it across the piazza to their apartment to disable it. They will get a new one for us soon.

Also, the parents of a sister missionary currently serving in Napoli came by with a package for us to take to her this Saturday. They live nearby and had set it up ahead of time with us, but with all the running around we had forgotten. Quite a long day, but we got lots of really good things done, and we enjoyed being with all the kids at the Institute.

Guest lesson by Noelle

Monday morning early it rained quite hard for a while, including water blowing inside our windows and making the floor wet. It was nonetheless very welcome and cooled things off quite a bit for the day. We headed out earlier than usual to do some errands: stopping at the temple visitor trailer to pick up a suitcase from the Terni Anziani to take to Anziano Haws in Napoli this Saturday, shopping for a bunch of food at Lidl (it had been a while), and then Dee went to Todis to look for tortillas while I filled up the car. Todis was completely out of the inexpensive flour tortillas we really like, but had some that were bigger and more costly. Hopefully they will get some of the old kind in stock again; if not, Taco Tuesday will not be the same.

The afternoon at the Institute was fairly calm, with me doing some initial prep for my lessons this coming weekend, mainly printing out all the materials on our nice laser printer. There had been a party for Veronica, who just finished her mission in England, on Saturday evening at the campus. We missed it because of the baptism, but we look forward to meeting her. There were several shopping bags with various items (food, clothing) left that we had to message around to find out what/who they were for. Ugo had also noted that our nice sign on the door was missing two of its very fancy gold screws that hold it in place. No idea how long that had been, but we will have to figure out how to get some more.

Dee made some of her now famous chocolate-chip cookies (with oil instead of butter), but somehow she managed to mess up the quantities while making a triple batch. They looked different but tasted great. She kept fiddling with the dough, adding this and that, making some tasty cookies for FHE, but finally put most of the dough in the fridge to think about Tuesday.

Several of the missionaries from around Rome, including our Zone Leaders, came by for a good while during their P-day. WiFi and AC are a nice draw! They also practiced a musical number they will perform at our Zone Conference on Wednesday. It is always impressive to see and hear how talented these kids are.

For home evening, we had Noelle, a wonderful gal here from Utah for the summer working as a babysitter/English teacher, give the lesson. She served a mission in New Zealand, and she was excited to be given the chance to teach. We gave her a taste of Italian ginger soda, which is very bitter, at least to us Americans. They love it and hate root beer, while we generally have the opposite reaction (me included). It is interesting how culture and familiarity can shape tastes. Here is Noelle's reaction to the ginger soda:

She also played ukulele for a while before FHE started.

We had several fairly new folks in attendance, including Ashley (also here from Utah as a summer babysitter), Almendra (a newly returned missionary from Ecuador), and Jhamil (from our ward, has started coming out regularly in recent weeks). Noelle taught from Pres. Uchtdorf's talk "Forget Me Not" in Oct 2011, and she did a great job, asking really good questions and getting participation, including some very heartfelt and personal responses. I translated for her into Italian, and Jhamil then translated from Italian into Spanish for Almendra. It was really cool to have the three languages going, with good interactions. The delay and repetition really gives you a chance to think about things.

Dee, Almendra, Jhamil, Jayno, Noelle, Ashley, Anz. Lewis, Jomar, Anz. Papritz, Alessio

Afterwards everyone enjoyed Dee's cookies and some card games.

 

Dee tried a new medication from her doctor to help with swelling from her injury. Unfortunately, it gave her a bit of a headache and nausea, which are possible side effects, so she will cut back on the dosage to see if that helps. Her new foot orthotics are working pretty well, though she still is getting used to them. They tend to be really comfortable for a while, but not all day yet, as the doctor predicted.

It turns out that Saturday night there was another baptismal service, up in Terni. A very sharp husband and wife, both attorneys, who had been investigating the church for quite a while, finally got baptized. They should be a great addition to the church. They requested Anziano Balzotti and President Pickerd to baptize them, so we had three "old" missionaries each performing a baptism that night, which has to be a rather rare occurrence.

Two big Sunday meals

Sunday morning, Ugo invited us for a cookout at their home that evening. They are wonderfully social and have invited us a number of times, usually with short notice, but thus far unfortunately I have not been able to make it there. Dee went once without me in April, when I had a bad cold. So we really wanted to go this time. They were inviting other American families to come start festivities around 4 or 5pm. We brought a change of clothes with us to church, assuming that we would go there directly from church, after a few activities that you will read about below.

Sacrament meeting was quite good, with Chris getting confirmed by Elder Canfield. Sorella Huber and her daughter Mailea, who is leaving for BYU this coming week, each spoke in Italian, doing a nice job with content and language. Then they had several teenagers bear brief testimonies about their experience at the Italian FSY (For the Strength of the Youth) Conference this week. Dee and I had just been commenting to each other that they don't seem to have youth speakers in Sacrament Meeting here, so they proved us wrong! Apparently FSY is very similar to EFY (Especially For Youth), but EFY has a trademark on the name, so internationally they change it. Not sure if it is just in Italy, but the kids had a wonderful time. It was quite hot outside, and the AC was doing fairly well until midway through the meeting when some of the Italians in the back opened the window, warming it up. Our two cultures will never agree on air conditioning! 😀

My temple prep lesson went very well, though Rhenald couldn't make it because he had to teach the English Sunday School class. He team-teaches it with Irene, and she had done it three times in a row and wanted him to do likewise. Dee offered to cover for him the next two weeks so that he can attend my final two lessons, and he was very grateful. She is wonderful; even though she doesn't love teaching as much as I do, she will do anything to help me out. In our lesson we discussed ordinances and covenants, and I think that the points were covered in an interesting way.

The bishop of the ward prior to Ugo was in town on vacation from Paris with his family. As you can imagine, there were a lot of hugs all around from friends who remember him fondly. After the third hour, his wife, when she saw my name tag, said "oh, your wife taught Relief Society. How did she learn to speak Italian so well?" People here are always surprised when a senior sister speaks the language, and Dee is really good at it. Several people commented to me how much they enjoyed her lesson, and she felt good about it.

After church, our partying ward had a lunch to honor the old bishop. Everyone stayed around. The Canfields now want to change to our ward once I explained that we eat like that fairly frequently! There was a great spread, with a lot of variety and plenty of food for everyone.

 

 

After the lunch, we drove Sorelle Nelson and Harmon home so we could do an apartment inspection. That is a new assignment we picked up from the Balzottis to try to offload them. It is not far from the chapel, so it is fairly easy for us to do. They inherited the place a few weeks ago, from the Spragues and the Simoncinis. It is a very nice apartment, particularly compared to their prior one, and they love it. Everything was in great condition, with only a few minor issues to report, such as a missing gas detector. It is five flights of stairs up (about 2.5 floors) without an elevator, which is not as high as we had been led to believe, so Dee made it up the stairs just fine in her regular shoes, which she wore to church as a test. She is doing very well. We also took a few minutes to preach the gospel of backup to Sorella Harmon; Sorella Nelson already got the lecture a while back. I will bring a USB on-the-go cable and flash drive to Sorella Harmon next time we see her.

After all that, it was still too early to leave for Ugo's, particularly because we assumed it would start much later there than he had projected. The local wards had thrown them a curve by changing schedules from morning to late afternoon, meaning that people would arrive much later. So, even though it was a 25 minute drive in the other direction, we drove home; that allowed us to change to casual clothes more easily. Dee also took a little nap, well needed after being up late the night before to finish her lesson. We finally left home about 4:45pm, arriving at the Peregos place at 5:30pm, without hitting much traffic at all. It was nice to have some time alone to visit with them, particularly Jenna, who had hurt her back on a trip to Albania last week and didn't even make it to church. Dee helped slice some stuff up while we talked in the kitchen, with Ugo starting the barbecue outside below. The guests, the Woods and the Olmo families, each got there about 7pm, with several teenage kids in tow, which livened things up nicely. The men cooked a ton of meat: steaks, sausages, and arrosticini, which are skewers with mutton, like this:


There was far too much food, so everyone was stuffed. The company was also wonderful. We left 8:45pm, later than we wanted to be out but about what we expected. It was worth it.

Brothers Woods and Olmo at work

One of the best parts was that Levi spontaneously gave me a hug! I think this is due to two things: having lots of interesting activities during his Primary class, and offering to knit him some gloves with a Kraken on them. A Kraken is a sea monster, like a huge octopus. He can hardly wait!

I wore my flats to church all right, but afterward I switched to my tennis shoes with orthotics for the evening. My foot still swells since it's in the healing stage.

The fridge died at our California home, and the new one was supposed to be delivered Friday. Then Sears rescheduled to Saturday. Then, their truck broke down and they said it was cancelled. But they showed up anyway. Rich had no fridge for several days. Sears gets the prize for going above and beyond.

Baptism

It was great to have a day at home on Saturday, with only one lesson to prepare. I caught up on a number of things, including fixing the time/date on a bunch of my photo files that had been messed up by a file explorer app. One of the magnets on my new tablet cover came loose, and I tried unsuccessfully to superglue it back in. I also worked on my temple prep lesson for Sunday.  In the evening late I marked up the lesson material for my class the next day and printed out some quotes to have the students read.

The camera on my Moto G5 Plus phone stopped working. At first I thought it was the app, then it happened with two camera apps, so I thought it was the camera. Then I found that, when I took out the SD card, the camera worked fine. My current theory is that my 128GB SD card might be dying. That theory would also account for why taking photos had been slow for a while. For now I put a new 64GB card in, which seems to be working ok, but ultimately is too small for the number of photos I should take by the end of my mission. Maybe a reformat of the old 128GB card will do it, but I might just buy a new one.

At 7pm we had a baptism for Chris, a Nigerian refugee/immigrant who has been participating at the friendship center. He has become good friends with the Canfields, the LDS Charities missionaries working there. Chris has a wife and two sons who live in Lecce, but he is here looking for work. What a nice man! His English is very understandable compared to many of the immigrants. My wife sat down with him before the baptism and asked questions to get to know him. He cried when he showed her a picture of his young family. He asked me to baptize him, which was an honor, though I really don't know him that well yet. I had brought white clothing from California on the off chance that I might get to baptize somebody, so that paid off.

 

 

 

The baptism went off without a hitch, but the garment bag I had used to hold my street clothes had a problem. The zipper pull broke off as I was getting dressed, in such a way that I couldn't get my clothes out! This was a very cheap (3€) garment bag that I had bought on Amazon. At first I thought I could get the zipper to open, but I finally had to rip the bag to get to my clothes. It was weird standing in the bathroom wearing just a towel around my waist and no way to get dressed! I had Chris go get Dee after he got dressed, but by the time she got there I had already ripped it open. She was afraid that I had fainted or was ill or something. Being in a hurry because it had taken a while, I slipped on my black dress shoes without untying them first. It hurt like crazy! I tried again, same result. Finally I realized that I had left a big plastic sock sorter in the tip of my shoe, which was causing the pain. Anyway, finally I got dressed and came out to rejoin the service, without everyone knowing the comedy of errors that held me up.

Afterwards, being Rome 3 Ward, we had a great spread of desserts and lots of visiting.

 

I also brought in a new microphone that I had purchased on Amazon after the old one died. There hadn't been a way to do live translation in our ward for a few weeks. The missionaries used the new mic to translate the service from English into Italian for the locals. Since Chris doesn't really speak Italian, it was the logical choice, and we all chuckled that they were the ones wearing headsets this time.

The Canfields were there for the service. Elder Canfield will do the confirmation on Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Their apartment (on the 2nd floor American style) had recently been burglarized overnight while they were home asleep. The thieves got three cell phones, a bit of cash, and Sister Canfield's wedding ring (the big loss, obviously). As they told us the story how the thieves used a ladder and cut through the window screen get inside, all the Americans immediately responded with "Wait! You have window screens??", which are basically unknown here.  Now we know where to get some. 😀

I really appreciated having some time at home. Of course, there were about six loads of laundry. I also got to concentrate on my lesson for Relief Society. I teach on the fourth Sunday of each month, and I have the same topic for six months: ministering. I have very little direction on materials, so it takes some creativity and prayer to come up with a lesson. Since Wes and Alyssa were coming, I actually started to prepare far in advance, but as the lesson got nearer, I changed tack and focused on Jesus' examples of ministering. Doug gave me some good input, and I had some of my own insights. He is such a great teacher and has a deep knowledge of the scriptures. For novelty, I made a word search puzzle to hand out. We'll see how they respond to that. Games in Relief Society!