The problem is that the plan was to watch the women's session at 10am, and it was not available in Italian yet. Since I had that one in English, Dee and the two Sorelle in our ward started watching that one on the computer in the clerk's office. I like to knit during conference, and the chapel is too dark. So, I went with English. We speeded it up to 1.1x, which is not noticeable, but helped us finish a little bit earlier. They young people were amazed. Meanwhile, Stefano Bosco from our bishopric was calling all around, to our Area Authority, to some of the translators here, and with the Stake President. Finally, he found it on YouTube, as a part of a long multi-session recording, so we were able to start playing it in Italian in the chapel at about 10:30am. Apparently we were the only ward around who had luck with that.
We left for church at 9:30am, and we arrived back home at 9pm, after a long and fun day. First there was the women's session, and then a 3-hour barbecue with steak, sausage, arrosticini, and lots of various foods that people brought in. I brought salsa, made with the last cilantro of the season. Who knew that cilantro had a season? Every bit of it was eaten up. Ugo had invited all the GANS to come, and we had a pretty good turnout. My job was to carry the meat from the grill around to the big room where everyone was eating. Somehow the outside door got locked and nobody had the key, so it was quite a hike. As the first bbq items got completed, I would walk into the room and be surrounded and the tray immediately emptied. Finally I said "only one each", so that everyone could get some. After about half a dozen trips, people finally started getting full. I hiked a lot!
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| GANS like food and conference! |
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| Stefano and Jahir and the special arrosticini grill |
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| Lining up to eat |
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| The initial cooking crew: Stefano, Jahir, and Ugo |
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| Keeping busy while waiting for lunch |
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| The full bbq team |
At 3pm we watched the Saturday afternoon session that I had downloaded, in Italian in the chapel and in English in the clerk's office. For that session, I set up my tablet with its data-only SIM to stream in Spanish for a couple of GANS who needed it. We had at least three GANS non-members there.
Then at 6pm we watched the live Sunday morning session, streaming this time. Dee did all the sessions in English, while I did it all in Italian because my tech support was needed sometimes. I worked on Sam's Kraken mitts. For example, when streaming the live session, there were major issues that kept stuttering. Each time it would stutter, the language would switch back to English. It seemed to be some combination of bandwidth problems on our end and congestion on the church HQ servers as well. Stefano kept lowering the video resolution to try to help, but for a while I streamed the session on my phone using cell data with WiFi disabled, and we played the audio from my phone over the speakers. It is nice to have enough data on our cell phone plans that we don't have to worry about using it up.
Dee did the live session streaming using her phone as a cellular hotspot to her laptop display, so as not to tax the chapel's already poor internet. At one point, the young missionaries were astonished at this senior missionary configuring everything. Anziano Payne exclaimed, "Sorella Whiting is clutch with technology!"
Afterwards we dropped our Sorelle off at their home near the chapel, then made the long drive to our apartment. We arrived home at 9pm, talking with President Picker on the phone for the last ten minutes of our drive. He had read our cell phone bill report and wants to proceed with our cost-saving suggestions, and, as always, he asked how the missionaries we work with are doing (everyone is doing great, as far as we can tell). He has a big load! It was a very long and very fun day, with lots of good food, good visiting, and great messages from our church leaders. Dee felt fine all day, though she started to cough after we got home and bedtime approached, so she would sleep again in the living room.
BTW, here is a photo from Saturday afternoon of me snaking the drain from Dee's shower. She says that it is now draining great, and she really appreciated me doing that dirty work.
Ylenia also came, with her German boyfriend. She joined the Church last November, without telling her parents. This was a really ugly situation, and they forbad her to participate. Things seem to be softening up for her, and she has managed to hang on to her beliefs. She is about to have her Patriarchal Blessing, and also wants to go to the Temple in Holland, where she will be going to school.
Our family history presentation has spurred some ward members to ask to meet with me. Melchiorre, who is not techy, wants help with his tree, which he started twenty years ago. Stefano and his wife wanted to meet with me during the three-hour bbq, but got too busy. I spent a few minutes with Itala, the wife, and Stefano was yearning for more. I have set appointments with all three. And then Sandra Ledebur also asked for crochet help. It's so fun to do all these things with them.
Our four kids took the time to have dinner with their grandparents last week, even though Wendy was in the throes of semester-end crunch. It was great to talk together again after the two-week stretch. She sure juggles a lot. I'm excited that Karen is bringing me the cards she made for me.
I now call this the Merciless Blog. Daily is too much, IMO, but I'm committed now and will keep adding my part. Get over it, I say!