Transfers announced

Monday morning Dee left early on the subway for a 10am appointment with her foot doctor. She needs to adjust the orthotics, and things are generally going very well. I stayed home and cleaned house a bit, going to Conad to buy some produce. Then I picked up Anziano Benincosa at 11am to take him to the mall to try to reactivate his fiber internet connection at home. When we got to the mall, the TIM store was closed for renovation; his prior service was with TIM, so we had assumed that would have been easier. After contemplating our options a bit, we decided to get a new modem at the Wind/Infostrada store nearby. It took quite a while, with tons of paperwork, but the rep was sharp and friendly. It will take a week to activate their new modem/router, but they will be out of town for most of this week, so that's not a big problem. In the meantime, Wind gave him a data-only SIM card with 100GB/month limit that they could use for internet access if needed on an ongoing basis, which is pretty cool.

Coming back, I filled the car with gas and then stopped by the apartment to put two more loads of stuff in the car, having loaded three big bags of stuff into the trunk while leaving to go get Anziano Benincosa. The Knieses called to say that our new FamilySearch desktop computer had arrived at the mission office, so I dropped by to pick it up. By the time I got to the Institute, it was almost 2pm, our car was stuffed to the gills, and I was already tired from all the running around. Fortunately Dee had arrived at the Institute early to open up, and she helped me carry everything upstairs.

Our twenty new matching Ganziani ties had arrived at the store downstairs, so Dee went down to  pick them up. She decided that she would embroider a big "G" on the back of the tie. I tried to tell her that she didn't need to do that, but of course she is an unstoppable force of nature 😀

Ugo offered to teach Sunday School this week even though it is my turn, because he will be out of town the following Sunday. That makes my weekend a bit easier. I had a conference call with a couple of FM folks about the new Institute location we are trying to get, setting up a meeting here in person with them next week. For my FHE lesson I decided to use the talk by Bishop Waddell from Sunday, talking about covenants and working hard. It ended up not going all that well, as my questions didn't elicit much in the way of good responses, so I guess I messed up. But we had a nice group, and everyone enjoyed Dee's desserts: dirt cups (chocolate pudding with Oreo crumbs and gummy worms) and chocolate popcorn. Afterwards they all played Cover Your Assets, filling the big table without us even needing to participate.

Dirt cups

Adding the gummy worms

 

 

Playing afterwards

At 8pm the transfer calls started going out from the mission home. It took a while to get around to our Ganziani, but we soon learned that both of them will be leaving on Thursday. It wasn't a huge surprise, because they have been here two and three transfers, respectively, but we will really miss Anziano Lewis and Papritz, who have been wonderful. Anziano Mansell, who has been around here some the last week while he got some medical testing done in Rome, will be one of the new Ganziani. Each of the districts we are associated with here in Rome will be affected in some way, which is the nature of mission life. 

After I left the foot doctor, I took advantage of having some free time and headed out on a different route back to the Institute. I love seeing the beauties of Rome and also enjoy finding my way around on public transportation. I took the 170 bus and then strolled a little on the way to the Institute. I decided to treat myself to lunch at Quel Che C'è, which means what's on hand, a little restaurant near the Institute. I have walked by so many times and I'm glad I gave it a try. They go out in the morning and buy whatever appeals to them, then create the day's menu. They offered to mix it up for me, too. So, I had orecchiette pasta with asparagus and guanciale bacon, and grilled salmon with wide green beans, which they call Coral Beans. It.was.absolutely.delicious.