Recently I changed the camera app on my Moto phone. The built-in one has been getting slower and slower to snap a shot, for no apparent reason. So I installed another very popular app, Camera MX, which seems to work very well. After a couple of weeks, however, I discovered that by default it was saving photos to the internal memory, not my (much larger) SD card, where they need to go. So I changed the setting to go there, but apparently in so doing I set the camera resolution to ultra low 😥😞 (e.g., 18KB for a photo instead of 2MB+). Fortunately I caught the problem after just about two days, without many photos taken. I then ran a file explorer app to copy the interim files from internal storage over to the SD card, but that reset all the file times and dates to 1970 (which is the zero date for the FAT file system). Sigh. That is a bug, not a feature! I will have to fix that sometime soon, which will take some work.
In the morning I took Wes and Alyssa to the local Chinese store just to show them around. Alyssa immediately started looking at the clothes. She is small enough that Italian clothing looks pretty appealing to her. I also walked to Conad and the Chinese store without a cane for the first time!
We all drove to the Institute a bit earlier than usual so that we could have AC (our office in the living room has no AC, and our guests are in the back bedroom, so I can't work there). I walked the two of them over to get some cash from the ATM, and I did so as well. Then I dropped them off at the Metro to go see the Colosseum and Forum, with some directions on how to walk to get the best view of the Forum (up behind the Campidoglio). They also went to the Pantheon, then went home to rest for the evening. They were really worn out. We later found out that Alyssa had some bad bug bites which were driving her crazy and had made it difficult to sleep, which is not fun.
In the afternoon, I gave Claudio some feedback on his new desktop computer component selections. Finally I was able to make a copy of the Institute door key for Dee that actually worked; it was expensive, but we now each have one again. Sandro from our ward came by to work with Dee on family history again, though they didn't find anything this time. It was P-day for the young missionaries, so we had a number of them around for a bunch of the afternoon: who can argue with AC and WiFi?
One very interesting recent development is that, with this heat, my wife has developed a taste for the Fanta orange soda that I love here. Ever since I have known her, she has never enjoyed soda, but something about a cold Fanta hits her just right when it is hot outside. We now have several big bottles in the fridge!
For my home evening lesson, I shared a brief video and some quotes from Margaret Barker, a Methodist minister and Old Testament scholar from England who has written many books, much of which is very friendly to LDS beliefs. She has developed a set of LDS fans, and I have read many of her books and seen her speak a few times. My lesson was mostly from her talk at the 2005 World of Joseph Smith conference at the Library of Congress, celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth, but also from a 2012 temple seminar in Logan, Utah, where I got her to autograph one of her books for me. She had many interesting observations about the Book of Mormon and its correlation with other ancient religious texts. It was a rather small group, but the kids seemed to really enjoy it. It was a terrific lesson, and the GANS were riveted on what Doug was saying. Jomar said it's the kind of reinforcement he appreciates for when his friends and family have questions or doubts.
The first president of the Rome Temple has been announced: It's Craig Pacini, and his wife will be the matron. They served as Mission President here 1999-2002. He also served here when he was young and he has dual citizenship. The people who knew him are so happy, and say he is a terrific man.