Sunday was a special Stake Conference, called because Bishop Chris Waddell (our former stake president in Del Mar) of the Presiding Bishopric and his wife Carol were in town, apparently so that he could check on the temple status. It was only to be a 90 minute meeting, which is unusual. So the stake choir reconvened with only one practice, to sing a number we had performed in May. Sorella Celestini asked us to be there at 8am to warm up for a 10am meeting. It seemed way too early to me, but my alarm was set for 6am (and Dee's even earlier). Awakened from the soundest sleep I had had in days, while I was slowly waking up I had some unkind thoughts about Sorella Celestini 😉, which I eventually repented of. We left for the nearby hotel, where our stake conferences are held, at 7:50am with the two Sorelle who live beneath us. We assumed that most folks would be late for practice as is the norm here, but that was probably the method in her madness. She herself didn't show up until about 8:30am! Anyway, we warmed up and ended up doing two numbers, one for prelude and one for the intermediate hymn, and I think we sounded pretty good.
Our Stake President Rondinelli gave a nice talk, as did Jenna Perego (in Italian) about Seminary and the temple. Then Sister and Bishop Waddell took the rest of the time. Their talks were wonderful, with live translation from English into Italian. The translators, Sorella Teodosi and Daniele Salerno, each did a masterful job. The Waddells were good at breaking their talk into sections that were the right length for translating. Bishop Waddell explained a little bit what his calling was all about: basically the temporal affairs of the church, including temple and ward buildings, investments, etc. He has always been a great speaker, using very few notes, but he has definitely improved even more since I had heard him last in person. The spirit was very wonderful during the meeting.
The AC at the hotel was sorely lacking right up until the time the meeting started, but fortunately it finally kicked in and we were comfortable (well, at least the Americans were!). The closing hymn was announced as number 43, but when they started singing it was clear that it was something else. Our problem is that there is no easy way to figure out the Italian hymn number even knowing what the hymn is in English, and we generally do not know the titles or the lyrics well enough yet that we can fake it. That is exacerbated by the fact that the lyrics were re-translated about 30 years ago, after we had learned a bunch of them by heart in the 1970s, so we were lost. Fortunately somebody ahead of me showed me the number: 34. So somebody had a dyslexia moment, but we were able to sing well after those first few seconds.
The Sorelle came back with us in our car. Dee had lunch and then a well-deserved nap. The Sorelle had an appointment at 2pm at the chapel, and we were going to drive them over. Their appointment cancelled, so we got to stay home longer. We left again just before 3pm for the Roma 2 chapel, where the Waddells had a meeting with all the missionaries from the Rome area, maybe 40 or so. The mission took a group photo, and they also shook everyone's hand. We only had a chance to chat with them for a couple of minutes, but it is always good to see old friends, particularly because their son had served here as a Ganziano for over four months.
They both spoke, and Bishop Waddell's talk was particularly inspiring. He talked about the nature of covenants and working hard. One great insight was that the words "convenient" and "covenant" are rarely used together in a phrase. He talked about Christ's sacrifice, and the pre-mortal covenant he made to fulfill it, which was represented by 15 words in three phrases: "here am I. Send me", "Not my will but thine be done," and "It is finished." He said that missionaries plant seeds and do not always even know how they affect lives. Just a year or two ago, 39 years after his mission, a woman from Spain contacted Sister Waddell on Facebook to ask if her husband was the same Elder Waddell who had served in Barcelona. He had taught the family when she was 5 years old, but they didn't join the church at that time. Turns out that the family did join a few years later; she served a mission and is married in the temple. It was a very touching and sacred experience for him.
After the meeting, we dropped off Sorella Balzotti and then the Benincosas at their apartments, since their rides had had to leave early. The modem/router at the Benincosa apartment just stopped working, probably because whoever had been paying the bill finally realized it and closed the account. Since they don't have a car yet, I offered to come over Monday morning and take him to the mall to try to get service re-established. Fortunately, with Iliad they have 40GB/month of data each, so they can use their phones as hotspots in the meantime.
Doug did a good job of covering the day.