Whitings: italy rome mission 2017-2019: Five languages

Thursday morning we both slept in. Dee woke up with a sore back that she had managed to tweak somehow. When we get back to Rome, we need to find a chiropractor, since from time to time we each seem to need one. They are not well known here, and every one we find on the web has an American name.

Below is a photo of the unusual faucet fixture in our room at the hostel. We have named it "Vlad" (as in Vlad the Impaler) because it has this big vertical handle that sticks up and is easy to hit on your forehead (or eye!) when you lean over to rinse your face. Fortunately, the end is not sharp! Remind us never to buy one like this at home 😉

In the late morning I went into the temple to do some initiatory ordinances, which I thought were to start at 11am. When I got there, the list said that it started at 11:30am instead, so I had apparently misunderstood. I sat down to read the scriptures for a while, then saw that a small group had gathered early. So I was able to do nearly an hour and finish the rest of the names Dee had given me. The ordinance workers were French and Italian, so they each did their part in their native tongue. Fortunately French is somewhat easier for me to follow than German, but in any case I know it all by heart from having worked at the San Diego temple for a year before coming on a mission. I went to a session while Doug was doing this.

At 1pm we did a two-hour sealing session, getting a whole bunch of names done from all the patrons, including Dee's entire stack. Of course, she will have more names in the future with all the work we have done this week, plus many more to come. The sealer, a Brother Rino Savian from Verona, speaks five languages -- Italian, French, German, English, and Spanish -- and we did some in each language. Those who knew said that his accent seemed quite good in all the languages, and he had it all memorized verbatim except for Spanish. One of the sisters there was from South America, now living in Italy, and we did her names in Spanish with Jim Huber helping out as a proxy, since he served his mission in Argentina; they lived in South America for a while, with him serving as a colonel in the US Army. Dexter was able to seal his paternal grandparents from the Philippines to each other, with him and Sharon as proxies. Brother Savian said that he didn't know Tagalog, although he had visited the Philippines once; thus he performed that ordinance in English. Kim Huber speaks French from her mission in Belgium, so she helped with some of the names that a French sister brought in. Dexter also helped, dutifully and correctly saying "Oui" at the right time, and then later "Ja" for some German names. It was very cool to hear all those languages done so well. The spirit was strong, and we were so glad to be there.

At 4pm we had a ward bus excursion to Bern, less than 15 minutes away from the temple here in Zollikofen. Apparently they do it every year. Swiss towns are so clean and lovely. There is a park down by the river where they keep some bears in captivity, so everyone headed there. Dee wanted to go see a yarn store, Magliamania ("Sweater Madness" in Italian), that she had read about online, in the other direction from the park. So the two of us split off from the group when we were all dropped off by the train station. It was about 15 minutes by foot, past the University of Bern campus. Dee really enjoyed visiting with the store owner, who had some beautiful samples of things she had made with each type of yarn. I was interested in visiting this particular store because they have hand-dyed yarn. I bought a skein of merino and mohair, fingering weight, that has brilliant neon touches on a bright gray background. Finding a yarn shop while traveling is a favorite tradition for Dee, and I encouraged her to buy a couple of skeins (didn't take much convincing!), including one made from yak fur. Knitting is not a hobby; it is an addiction. 😀

Yarn-bombed bicycle

Babette winding a cake of yarn from the yak skein

Hand-dyed yarn. See the bright one on the far right.

From there, we walked about 30 minutes through downtown Bern to the bear park just across the river, arriving in plenty of time for the 7pm bus departure. The walk was a lot of fun, with lovely architecture and lots of nice shops along the way. I have often said that, if I had to pick a country to live in other than the US, it would be Switzerland, having lived there for three months as a missionary and visited many times. This visit did nothing to change that opinion!

We saw the bears and visited with the other folks from our ward for a while. The weather was warm and pleasant. At 7pm we walked across the street to the bus waiting to take us back. It took a while to gather everyone else, but we were back before 8pm. I sat in the one seat where I have adequate leg room: in the middle all the way in the back, where my feet protrude directly into the aisle. Later I asked the bishop for permission to have that seat for the return trip, and he agreed, as I am easily 3-4 inches taller than anyone else on the bus. As if to prove that point, walking onto the bus, I slammed my head on a flip-down TV screen in the aisle, with a metal frame. It hurt for quite a while! Nobody else had that problem. As I may have mentioned previously, it is very common for me to be the tallest person here in a room without Americans.

Photos of the bears

We ate our dinner with the senior Peregos and enjoyed visiting. They told the story of our long-term connection and friendship to Daniele Salerno, who hadn't heard it all before. We really are family with them. Dee was completely exhausted, with her back hurting, so she hit the sack by just after 9pm. Here is a photo of the temple at night, from the window of our room at the hostel.