Sunday morning, after a sound sleep, I woke up tired, with stronger cold symptoms. Thankfully we have meds that help to a large extent, so I was able to make it through the day at church and beyond. It was just above freezing when we left for church.
On the drive there, Dee and I were talking about how to get the dress shirts that Chiara brought to the Rondinellis, so that we can know which type to order for Daniele's mission. We have friends coming over for the open house next month and will ask them to bring the shirts here, but we need to get the process going soon. When we arrived at church, there was President Rondinelli at our ward -- bummer! But then I asked him if they would be at their late afternoon ward, and he said yes. So I arranged with the Thackers to take them a bag with the shirts that Chiara has brought for them. I dropped the bag off at the Thackers' place after getting home. Worked great.
Stefano Bosco was released as a counselor in the bishopric, but no replacement was named. Odd. They are moving to Frankfurt very soon and will be greatly missed. Sacrament meeting was not very full, due to holiday travel. There were three talks. The first was by Sorella Brock, here in Italy just over two months. Her pronunciation and grammar were excellent, much better than many missionaries out far longer. Then Sorella Muce spoke about the temple. She is originally from Albania but has lived in Italy most of her life, having recently obtained her Italian citizenship. She is really sharp. Her sister served in this mission before her. Her parents are not members but are very supportive of their daughters, and she told of how she went to the Swiss temple to get an answer about whether to serve a mission and prayed for a week. Obviously the answer was yes, because here she is.
The final speaker was Stefano Bosco. He told an awesome story about when he was 15 years old. He was having questions about his faith and feeling a bit rebellious. There was a kid in his neighborhood, Carlos, who was a gang member and full of trouble. Stefano's dad asked him to not hang with Carlos, no matter what else he chose to do. One evening he was playing soccer in the neighborhood, and Carlos came up to him on the sideline during a break, asking if Stefano was a Mormon. Stefano was defensive and worried, expecting trouble, but he admitted that he was a member. Then Carlos started asking all kinds of questions about the church, so they talked until 10:30pm. Stefano ended up bringing Carlos home to his dad to answer the questions better. When the front door opened, Stefano's dad saw the two of them standing there and turned white. Stefano thought he looked like he was going to have a heart attack. When Stefano explained, they came in and had a wonderful gospel discussion until 2am. Carlos was baptized not long afterwards and is now a counselor in the bishopric in his ward. The two consider each other spiritual brothers and hug each time they see each other. Carlos says that Stefano saved his life. Stefano thinks it was the other way around.
The second hour I gave my "lesson", which involved just reading the version of the "Other Wise Man" story that I had abbreviated and translated, with help from Sammy. You can read it here in both English and Italian. It went quite well, I think, with everyone paying rapt attention. It helped that only one member of the class had ever heard the story before. I always get emotional at the conclusion of the story, due to the wonderful message. My timing was perfect, ending right at 11:30am.
Meanwhile, Dee was in Primary, which she said was pretty crazy. The kids just don't know how to behave, though she often is able to control them better. She had worked on her lesson late the night before.
After church we gave two of the Sorelle a ride home. At one point, Sorella Muce said -- only half jokingly -- that she feared she was losing her (almost native) Italian, being surrounded by American missionaries speaking only English and bad Italian. We got a chuckle out of that.
After lunch, I dropped Dee and Chiara off at the catacombs nearby. Their tour group was big, and the guide's English apparently wasn't great, but they enjoyed it. They then figured out how to get home from there on the bus and subway, instead of calling me to pick them up. Back at home, I sent in our odometer and gas meter readings to the mission office for the month. Then I reorganized the photo folders on my phone. Having taken over 10,000 photos so far on our mission (!), it takes too long to access the full list over USB on my laptop, so I made a folder for each year, which should keep things more manageable for the duration. I do not expect to continue to take that many photos after we get home!
After our lovely salmon dinner, I went over to the Willeys' apartment. They are having all kinds of phone and internet startup problems, none of which are their fault (I am looking at you, AT&T and Infostrada). I was able to fix a number of their issues, as well as leaving them my extra phone running as a hotspot using their 100GB/month Infostrada SIM card until their fiber internet service kicks in. I also learned how to configure several things on iPhones, which is never intuitive for an Android user (and vice-versa, I'm sure). They were extremely grateful, as well as apologetic for taking me away from my family, but it was good to get them rolling. They are very sharp and wrote down all my suggestions. Later I emailed them links to several items on Amazon we had discussed, to help set up their home office.