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.