Ugo spoke in Sacrament meeting, and also another member. By the time they were done, we only had five minutes left, and still had another speaker to go. We expected to run over as usual, but the last speaker surprised us by skipping many pages of his talk and we ended on time for the first time in several weeks. I was very impressed, and told him so!
Mauro, a BYU prof and good friend of Ugo, was in our ward with his family. He is a native Italian, but his wife is from the San Diego area. Her Italian accent and cadence are amazing; I thought she was a native. Apparently they lived in Rome for a couple of years while he was doing post-doc work at the Vatican, and she obviously picked it up very well.
Dee taught Primary second hour and is apparently doing good things with the kids. Her change of scenery to a different room has helped calm the kids down, and she and they are having fun together. No one asked for the toys, and they were very involved in all the learning activities. It was wonderful. We had Mauro's children, who were very attentive, and some of our more lively children were out of town, so I don't claim credit for the positive outcome. I brought an eyedropper and let them fill it from a bowl and use it to fill a jar. Each time they did the dropperful, they would say something they were grateful for. It was a big hit. However, this is the great part: I brought a visual aid from THREE WEEKS ago and asked what it was about, and Levi, age 6, nailed it. Wow. A little problem at church is that we have no drinking fountain. Poor Levi was so thirsty. When I showed him I had a water bottle, he was more than ready for me to squirt some in his mouth. I taught my temple prep class second hour, which was enjoyable. We talked about the blessings of temple service, reading a lot from D&C 109, the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple. After church, the Hubers gave us a big shopping bag of things we had requested from the commissary. We don't know how much to pay them yet, but it was great to get some good loot.
Next Saturday evening there will be a baptism in our ward: a young refugee named Chris. He started coming to the Friendship Center a while back and said that he always saw all the Mormons as having a light about them, so he wanted to learn about the church. Anyway, he requested that I be the one to baptize him. Of course I am honored to do so, but I don't really know him that well, just having had a few brief conversations. I did bring my baptismal clothes just in case, so it will be nice and I'm honored to use them.
Soon after we got home from church, Wes and Alyssa returned from Florence and Venice. They were hot and tired but had a great time. I picked them up at the nearby Metro Jonio stop. We all took it easy in the afternoon, hanging out in the air-conditioned back rooms.
In the evening we drove over to meet Daniela, Alyssa's cousin, the daughter of Aurora and Alberto from Agrigento. She is clearly an intelligent and lively woman, and looks way younger than her years. She has two cute little dogs and a cat. We got to meet the dogs. I particularly liked Mia, two years old. She was excited to see a cousin .She lamented that she has six cousins who live outside Italy, and it tears her heart. She has never spoken to four of them. We had set up a dinner at a pizzeria just around the corner from her house. It was not a tourist spot, and only Italians were there. The menu was completely in Italian, too. Who knew it was common to get pizza without sauce, or without cheese? We also had dessert. I learned that semifreddo has different ingredients than ice cream. Wes had a strawberry semifreddo that was the best of the bunch. She was delightful, fun and talkative. We translated for her and Alyssa, but of course it is a somewhat limited way to facilitate a conversation. It was a wonderful evening, with great food and company. We tried to pay for the dinner, but Daniela said, in effect, "no way -- you brought my cousin to see me!"
