Tacos with Spanish rice

Wednesday morning I slept in until about 8am, finally feeling like I was caught up on sleep. That was an hour and a half more than I slept. We went to the 11am endowment session together, where they asked us to be the witness couple. Alberto and Raffa Perego (Ugo's parents) were seated next to us. The session was in Italian, and for the first time I did the whole thing without ever switching to English. I loved doing it in Italian! The temple workers say that this week has been one of the most crowded they have seen, which is great.  At 2pm I did some initiatory ordinances with Rhenald and Dexter. They each had a family name or two, and I gave them a few of Dee's as well, so we were able to complete eight of her names. I went to another session. As wonderful as it is to go to the Temple, sometimes I can nod off. This time, Marcella was sitting behind me and gave me a good whack on the back! 

The Hubers, who are presidents of the Young Men and Young Women in our ward, put on a taco dinner for our ward, with the kids helping to serve the tacos in a production line and handing out completed plates to everyone. We occupied over half of the eating area with just our ward. Ugo had suggested that I cook Spanish rice, and I was happy to do it, which is why we went to the store the night before. It's always tricky to use a different kitchen. My main concern was having a large lid for the frying pan. We found one lid, so I just used the same pan to make four batches. We also didn't have any serving bowls, so I put the cooked batches in a big pan. I burned the first batch while I looked for a lid, but it was early in the game and didn't set me back by much.  Several folks asked for more and for the recipe. It was great to visit with the Hubers as the meal was being prepared. They are an awesome couple. Here are some photos of the event:

 

Tables of Roma 3 tacos, with Bishop Magnanti on the left

 

Pamela, one of our wonderful young women

 

 

 

Several folks not from our ward asked if they could try it, and we gave them tacos to eat. The dinner started at 6:30pm, very early by Italian standards, and by 7pm all the food was gone. A few ward members showed up just after that and got nothing, which was stunning to them -- usually church dinners here start an hour or more after the announced time, but what could we do?

After dinner, I sat outside with a bunch of Italians of my generation, having a good time telling stories and laughing. Alberto and Raffa Perego were among the group. It had cooled off nicely due to a bit of rain. I didn't get a photo of our group, but here are a bunch of folks from our ward outside at the same time.

It turns out that my mom's friend, Sister Thomas, is in the apartment literally right next door to our room on the 3rd floor of the hostel. The full-time temple workers and the visitors are all intermixed. Here is a photo of us in the hall:

She and I each called my mom to tell her about it.