We found out Saturday night that our Primary President, who was slated to teach, would not be there Sunday after all. Her mother, who lives in another town, has cancer and dementia. She developed a fever, so Monica couldn't leave her. Silvia was panicked about needing to teach. She doesn't even know how to find the lesson on the gospel library app. I talked her off the ledge and told her I would help some, but I wouldn't teach the lesson. I told her I usually spend four or five hours, and since I was teaching Relief Society and it was already 7pm, I couldn't do it. She was really surprised to hear how much time it takes. So, I sent her the lesson that night and printed it for her in the morning. There was a cute little activity included in the lesson, which the kids really got into.
We had nine kids, ages 5-11. One is a severely autistic boy who is very pleasant but unable to participate. At the beginning of Primary, they were doing their usually running and screaming and throwing things. I offered them some play-dough (called Pongo here) and told them to sit down to get it. They really liked it, all ages, and it calmed them down. Then I asked them to pick a number between 1 and 25. The winner would be the day's class president. I got guesses from 3 to 29. One boy asked me how old I was. I told him I was a LOT more than 25, and he was shocked. Lia, age 5, guessed I was sixty twenty. Another guessed eighty. Nicolas, age 9, got it exactly right.
Anyway, I told them I promise to make a lesson that they will want to listen to, and that we lose a lot of time when they don't behave. I showed them a bag of activities I bring every week that we don't get to use. That really surprised them and got their attention. I hope for good things in future weeks.
My Sunday School lesson on Isaiah 40-49 had lots of good discussion; I handed out pieces of paper with different scriptures for each person to read and comment on, about attributes of the Savior mentioned by Isaiah. Everyone had something good to say, with me leading the discussion, and that portion took up almost all the time. Dee then taught her lesson in Relief Society, which she said went really well. The lesson was on personal scripture study. I used a short video on William Tyndale, from a talk by Elder Christofferson. The video was only available in English, so I used Camtasia to add captions in Italian. Afterwards, Elia (the bishop's wife) said "forte!" There's also a thought-provoking page from Alex Boye called "What would happen if we treated the Book of Mormon like we treat our cell phone?" I will share it here with you.
After church, Dee spent almost an hour with Melchiorre, a single older brother in the ward, working on his family history. It was just a start, but she loves doing this. Meanwhile, I helped the young missionaries make sure they have a photo backup strategy. Wherever possible I want to make sure that they have multiple copies of their photos. We are particularly sensitive to this because we lost our own mission slides in a 1996 wildfire. The newer missionaries have phones with a USB-C port, so my cables that allows them to backup to an USB flash drive don't work. In the evening I looked for some cables with USB-C on Amazon and ordered some to try.
From church, we drove about 45 minutes to have a wonderful lunch at Fabrizio's house. He lives way out in the boonies. The drive was beautiful, with green trees overhanging the road. Often we were the only car in sight driving on narrow country roads. His daughter Giorgia (who wasn't present) had made lasagna which we thoroughly enjoyed, though he gave us far too much! Then we had a very tasty chicken alla pizzaiola dish, and finally some pastry.
During and after the lunch, we had a really fun visit. Fabrizio is full of entertaining and faith-filled stories. He is very sharp, very devout, and talks really fast! We all laughed a lot, and it was great to get to know him. One fun story, typical of what we heard, is that about twenty years ago he bought over 1,000 silk ties for about $1 each here in Italy, flew to the US, and went door-to-door selling ties for $10 in Utah. This was all his idea, and he ended up selling them all and making money on the deal. He even knocked on the door of President Hinckley (president of our church at the time) in Salt Lake City, gifting four ties to him via his bodyguard. At a church general conference some time later, President Hinckley was wearing one of Fabrizio's ties!
It was raining a little on the way out, but on the way back it was really windy and pouring in the dusk on those narrow roads. There were times when the drive was scary, but we made it home in one piece, having loved the entire visit. Once we were literally out of the woods, I got to chat with Jim for awhile, and then with Wendy when I got home. But soon my stomach and head were hurting me a lot, and I was itching, even my hands and feet. I was in bed before 8pm.