Sacrament meeting on Sunday was unique and difficult. There were three speakers, two from the Philippines and one from Congo. For none of them is Italian or English a first language, or maybe even second, and there was translation involved to some extent in each talk. Simeon, an older gentleman who speaks Tagalog first and maybe Spanish second, had someone translate the written portion of his talk on faith into Italian so he could read it, which was fairly intelligible. Then he had Joyce (one of our wonderful GANS) come up to translate some stories he wanted to tell from Tagalog into Italian. The two of them seemed to be having communication issues, as they would stop from time to time to have a discussion in Tagalog between the two them about what he wanted to say, then Joyce would try to explain it in Italian. Something was definitely lost in translation, as unfortunately neither Dee nor I could follow very well. Then Dexter, a man in his thirties from the Phillipines (and one of my temple prep students), gave a talk in fairly good Italian, though occasionally he would switch to English for a sentence or two.
The final speaker was Lauriane, from the Congo, who speaks only French (little Italian or English). She gave a talk that we really had a hard time understanding. It was on conversion and/or repentance. Another brother from Africa was at the pulpit to translate into Italian after each sentence, which he has done quite well in the past for her. Something about her written talk made it hard this time. They kept stopping to look carefully at her paper as if trying to decipher what was written, and then they would discuss it in French before he would translate into Italian. The biggest problem was that she was right in front of the microphone, so we could hear her well but couldn't understand the French, but he was off to the side so we could understand most of the little bit that we were able to hear. At one point, the bishop, who apparently speaks some French, got up to join them, and it became a tag-team kind of thing, with each one chiming in with a phrase, sometimes in French and sometimes in Italian. Anyway, finally the bishop whispered to her that the meeting was overtime, so she finished quickly.
I don't think that I have ever seen or heard such a meeting before. It was entertaining to be sure, but I didn't feel like I had the gift of tongues that day. Poor Sorella Davis, a great missionary new to our ward, was translating everything into English for the wireless headsets and struggling mightily. We heard her because she was sitting right behind us most of the meeting, although later she moved closer to the front in an attempt to hear better. She made it fun, however, by throwing in some quips here and there; e.g., after announcing one of the hymns, she added "this is one of my favorites!". At another point, she threw in something like "good luck with that." Dee would occasionally turn around and translate a phrase for her that she was struggling with. We were sitting at the very back, right in front of the air conditioner. We will miss this ward when we go home; they really give it their all, and love each other, and we love them. The unpredictability makes it fun, too.
During Sacrament meeting, the air conditioner on the other side wasn't working. Margarita, our RS president, suddenly got up and moved to our side to try to get some cool air. But it wasn't good enough for her, so she moved to the foyer. Foyer sitting during Sacrament meeting is very rare here, but you do what you've got to do.
My Sunday School lesson on Elisha went well, with good discussions and comments. Everyone seemed to be paying close attention. I asked someone to tell the story of Naaman before diving into a discussion, and she jumped right to the punch line: "he was healed of leprosy by Elisha." I said, "yes, but the details are really interesting and helpful to apply in our lives", so we walked through the story carefully and all shared some interesting insights. That kind of lesson always feels good. Dee apparently had a successful Primary lesson for a small group, which she made lots of fun for them. I started out with opening a box of sugar cubes. That really got their attention! I invited them to build something. They thought it was so fun to use a new material, and to nibble on a few cubes as well. Then I showed a great video of the Good Samaritan which our Church put out. It has no speaking, so it's more universal. Then I videoed the children telling the story themselves. There were only three children: Benedetta, who is 7, Bruno, who is 5 and mostly speaks Spanish, and Levi, who is turning 7 and likes to talk in English. He also likes to take his shoes off and to run away from the class. Oh, I also had homemade cookies at the end of class. Levi missed out on that because he couldn't be found.
After church, we stayed around to do some family history work with Dexter, Sorella Magnanti, Margarita, and Sergio. The latter is half French and half Italian, born and raised in Tunisia but has lived here for over 40 years. His Italian is very difficult to understand, due both to his heavy accent and not understanding Italian grammar well. Anyway, we were there for almost two extra hours and had some success finding names and straightening out some things in their FamilySearch accounts. The church internet is so bad that we just use Dee's phone in hotspot mode; her 50GB/month come in handy!
Dee brought cookies left over from Primary, as well as cheese and bread, so we all had something to eat, including a few "interlopers" who enjoyed the cookies with us 😋. Dee also brought apple slices, and several times Sergio said "those will make you fat!" We also had a spirited discussion about the evils of air conditioning, which none of us Americans agree with. Sometimes we shake our heads at the cultural divides, but we still love every minute of being here with these wonderful folks.
We got home about 3pm and then had the rest of the afternoon and evening at home. I have no lessons to prepare for next weekend, for the first time in months! It is nice to get a break, but I love teaching, so I will miss it. We took a walk around the block together, and we also reviewed the upcoming week's calendar. I watched a few more of the recorded talks from the recent FairMormon conference. Dee spoke with our daughter Wendy on the phone. It was a good day, and we were able to get to bed earlier than usual.
Wendy sent us a good article on fake Amazon reviews. I recommend it. She finds such great stuff. I'm so glad she shares it with me.
Doug helped Dexter with his Philippine family history. I was able to find records for his town online and Doug was off and running, reviewing dozens of pages in the hunt for a certain ancestor. How generous of him.
I love being able to work in the air conditioned back bedroom, but my internet connection isn't very good back here and sometimes I can't load web pages. It's still worth it.
I have been without compression stockings for TWO days now!
I got to work on the Kraken mitts for Levi. I hope to have time on the Temple trip to finish them for him. His brother Sam wants some, too.
In preparation for my Primary class, I watched a lot of stuff on The Mormon Channel on Youtube. There are some great videos. Since it is NEVER a good idea to count on wifi, I wanted to download the video. Doug helped me work it out. It seems to be easier with Firefox than Chrome.
I'm so happy to have found my new shoes (which I can wear with the orthotics) that I've begun looking for more in the same line. But I'll probably have to wait for the fall line to come out. The comfort shoe stores are very low on stock. And now they're closed for Ferragosto anyway.