Donny Osmond fireside

Sunday was the annual Primary program in our ward. Last year was a very entertaining chaos, but this year's ended up very nice and conventional, even though they didn't start practicing until about three weeks ago. In the US they work on the program for months. Dee and Jenna jumped in to help organize things, and the result was wonderful. The Pickerds happened to be there for the second year in a row. It is is interesting that Italian, being a completely phonetic language, is easy for even young kids to read. They have no concept of spelling bees here: if you can hear it, you can spell it, and if you can see it, you can pronounce it

My Sunday School lesson went quite well. We never actually opened the scriptures, just telling the stories (Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah) from memory and discussing how to apply them in our lives. I had all kinds of things prepared, but this was even better. Dee brought some fun games for the kids to play in Primary after the program was over, including drawing on some paper on the wall with the markers in their toes. She is so good with the little kids, loving all those activities right along with them. After church the Primary Presidency, including Dee, had a meeting to plan for the new system starting next month. It apparently went very well, and Dee is pleased at how they are already looking ahead. It was the last Sunday for Sorella Palmer, who was very sad to be going home. She is a delightful gal and we will miss her.

We had a relaxed afternoon at home. I worked on my lessons for next weekend. I also put together a one-page list of Dee's Italian ancestry to use in talking with the law firm about applying for Italian citizenship.

In the evening there was a missionary fireside over at Rome 1, put on by Donny Osmond. His son Joshua is finishing his mission on Monday, including serving three months with us at the Institute. It was great to see Anziano Osmond again -- such a nice kid, shown here with Jomar and Anziano Waddell.

L-R: Osmond, Jomar, Waddell

Donny is quite the entertainer, very warm and humble. He and his wife came over to pick up their son and offered to put on this event. Donny sang and played a song he had written for an older son entitled "Whenever You're in Trouble". He also sang a hymn that he wrote, "He Lives", together with his son and a chorus of six young missionaries. He gave a 20-minute talk, in Italian! He had written the talk, bearing testimony of the gospel, and had a friend translate it, then coach him on pronunciation. He did an amazing job. The accent and pronunciation were both very good, though not perfect, and everything was completely understandable. He made it fun, getting laughs at his off-the-cuff remarks. Apparently had made a pact with his son to wear the same tie, with Joshua's photo on the back, for the two years of his mission. Donny is looking forward to wearing a different tie soon! The program is shown below.

 

We had invited several senior couples to drive over with us, but they were all busy ahead of time with other things, so we went alone. It was a delightful evening, enjoying visiting with friends as always.

Probably the highlight for us was seeing Sergio, a long-time member of our ward, get to meet Donny. Sergio became a big fan of the Osmonds in the 1970s and ended up joining the church. Dee took Sergio up to meet Donny right before the meeting started, and Sister Huber ran up and snapped a photo of them. She is going to make a framed print to give to Sergio, who was beaming! Sergio's native language is French, and he speaks Italian with a very heavy accent. His comment after hearing Donny speak was "he speaks Italian better than I do!"

Sergio, Donny, President Pickerd