Dual citizenship?

Tuesday morning I got a haircut, giving Francesco the barber one of the little cards with info on how to get a ticket to the temple open house, which starts at the end of next month. He was very pleased and said that he would sign up later that day. It was foggy and a little chilly out, but still not cold like last year at this point. We had forgotten that we needed ground beef and sour cream for tacos, so we left early and hit Lidl downtown on the way, for a medium-sized load including beef and Greek yogurt (a sour cream substitute). Dee also bought a bunch of chicken that she cooked all afternoon in the crock pot for an upcoming meal. That Lidl store is large and clean, with easy underground parking, and it is right on the way to the Institute. It is too bad we didn't figure that out some time ago! 

Lynn turned in her hours and expenses for the past few weeks, and I was able to enter everything into my spreadsheet and send it off to our CPA Norm, who computes the tax withholding. As usual, he responded the same day (the time zone difference helps in this case), so I would be able to transfer the money to her by evening here. It is amazing how much we can accomplish remotely and efficiently using the internet.

Turnout for Taco Tuesday was pretty good, with a few new faces, including Jeimy, newly moved here with her family from Alessandria up north, and Andrea, who has been working at the Swiss temple and is transferring here.The temple opening and hiring people is bringing a bunch of members to Rome from all over, which should be good for the church here locally.  Jeimy is a friend of several of the kids, including Danielle, and she just received her mission call to Phoenix, AZ, next door to Danielle's call in Tempe. She is sharp, friendly, and cute -- our Institute needs more female faces!

 

After tacos, a bunch of the kids stayed to play games while waiting for the gospel choir practice at 4pm. They are having a lot of fun in the choir, and more kids are coming to participate, singing a lot of African gospel music and rocking out a bit.

During the afternoon, I worked a little on my lessons, as well as looking into Italian (dual) citizenship for Dee. She qualifies due to her mom's family, but she has never gotten around to applying. It takes several years and a bunch of paperwork. However, it would give her (and possibly eventually me) an EU passport, plus the ability to come serve in Italy without the big hassle of applying for a permesso di soggiorno each time. I am much better at getting around to that kind of thing, having encouraged her to do it on her own a couple of times in the past to no avail, so I offered to start the process as her Christmas present; she heartily approved! We will see what happens. There is a law firm in Bologna that specializes in helping out with the process, and I may do a consult with them to get started.

Rodolfo came by after work for some more help with his Italian/Peruvian family history. Dee is good at that, and she also speaks Spanish well enough to get by with him. She asked if they could start their efforts with a prayer, and he offered to say it himself! Apparently he did a great job. The Sorelle in our ward are teaching him the missionary lessons, with Sorella Yanacallo speaking Spanish natively.

I also moved the fridge around and tried a couple of different floor plans to see how best to fit the new one. We need a smaller table, and finding one that works well may be a challenge, but it will be great to have the extra fridge space. Ugo is trying to order it  online but having some trouble using his church credit card from the US. Hopefully he can get it done soon so we can get the exact same model we already have. I also hammered back into place a couple of baseboards that had come loose. Walls are different here (plaster, not wood), so I wasn't quite sure how it should work, but they seem to be holding fine for now.

There was a fairly large group of kids for the evening English class, several of whom came for the first time here to the Peruvian food night last month. For some months there hadn't been many kids here for the class, and it is nice to have more energy on Tuesday and Thursday evenings now.

People leaving at closing time