Chili dogs

Friday morning my streak of not sleeping long enough continued, so I was tired. I actually took a 30 minute nap in the late morning, which was a big help. Dee walked down to Conad to buy fruit for the Seminary & Institute training meeting Saturday morning. While there, she got a call from some folks in town looking to do family history in their ancestral towns; the Balzottis gave them her number. She spent half an hour on the phone with them while at the market, so I started to worry about her. 

I realized that I didn't have some of my usual visual aids for teaching the D&C, such as the small 1833 and 1835 replica printings of the books. They are available online at the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) bookstore website, but shipping was going to be $50. Ugo would like to have them too for his library, so he ordered them and had them shipped to the FPO box of a ward member from the US. 

Dee got a call from the tie shop below the Institute, saying that they found 20 identical ties at the factory that we can  buy. After discussing it, we decided to go ahead. We will give one to each of the past Ganziani we know, as well as future ones, as a memento of their service. They should arrive next Tuesday, in time for us to give them to the current Ganziani before transfers on Thursday.


In the afternoon, I finished my lesson prep, marking up the triple combination I found at the apartment. Riccardo came in to work more on his thesis. He came into the kitchen once to taste the chili my wife had prepared. She was working on a dessert but had the wrong kind of cream, so he called his mom to ask her advice -- very thoughtful! Dee still needed to walk to the market nearby, and she also got had another copy of the outside door key made -- hers has not been working well, but the new one was not much better.

Ludo's mom prepared a birthday cake for him, and Pam delivered it to me at Piazza Repubblica around the corner just before 5pm. It was a very nice cake, with cream puffs, and we got to sing happy birthday to him (one week late) after the Institute lesson. He was all smiles when all the GANS and the missionaries surprised him with the song, cake and warm wishes.

All day I sent out teasers on WhatsApp about the chili dogs we would have that evening, with photos and a link to a Wikipedia article. Jomar cancelled a trip so he could be here for them! Dee also made a popcorn dessert with chocolate, almonds, marshmallow, and peanut butter -- her own very tasty recipe.

 

 

At 6pm we had a brief missionary correlation meeting with Joyce, our new student council president, and the Ganziani. They had come up with some really good ideas for us to try going forward. We hope to have these meetings weekly.

There were a bunch of kids for my 7pm Institute lesson, almost all of them there early, which never happens. The room was full; we even needed to add a fourth row of chairs, so it was a great kickoff for the year. The discussion went very well: they seemed very engaged as we discussed the intro and section 1 and 2, along with the nature of revelation. I felt very good about my lesson. Afterwards, we had tons of hot dogs, but the chili ran out before everyone had two of them. The dinner was very popular, and not very hard or expensive. We will do it again!

 

 

Dessert

 

 

We had a few people we haven't seen for a while on Fridays, including Samuel. He gave me cash to buy him a used laptop on eBay to use in his Pathway classes, so hopefully I can find something appropriate at a good price. After dinner, a whole roomful of kids stayed around to play games. The place was hopping. Dee's feet were really tired after a lot of time standing up, but she was the hero of the day. I ended up changing to my cushy slippers for awhile.

The ZLs asked for a good photo of the temple from the missionaries to use in a lesson. The Ladispoli Sorelle had a gorgeous one that included a rainbow, which won the prize.

Ugo received an estimate of the build-out costs for the new location. As we expected, it was considerably higher than the budget we were given. Either we will have to figure out how to cut it down drastically (not likely), or find someone to help pay for it. Ugo has some ideas, so stay tuned.

We got home about 10pm, talking with the Pickerds on the speakerphone in the car on the way. They wanted to discuss some different ideas for how to use the Ganziani, as well as the new possible location. The conversation went on even after we got home, but we still got to bed at a reasonable hour, at least for a Friday night.


When I went to Conad, I also bought a bell pepper for Doug. In the checkout line, the woman ahead of me told me she likes to roast them over a gas burner, which is messy but the end result is delicious.  I agree. Then she looked me over and said that bell peppers are good for losing weight. Italians are not shy.


It was fun to talk with the people looking for Italian genealogy help. They wanted to try to get access to records from the diocese in a couple of towns, or the city hall. They have my number,  just in case there is something I can help with. They were pretty well prepared already.