It is raining a fair amount these days, but the weather is still warmer than last winter in general. We got to the Institute in time to have food ready for Taco Tuesday, but almost nobody showed up at first. Fortunately, they trickled in over the first hour and had a good-sized group by the end. Maybe the weather has something to do with it. Here is a photo after about half an hour, but even more kids showed up later.
Anziano Castro is finishing his mission, extending a few weeks to help with the temple open house. He is being transferred to Roma 3 for the duration. When he announced that, Joyce and Manuel (both from Roma 3) and I all did a happy dance together with him. It was fun! The energy of these kids is infectious.
Dee went down to a little restaurant right down the street, called Quel Che C'รจ ("Whatever There Is"). They make something different every day. Ugo needs 55 sack lunches for a Seminary and Institute meeting of folks from all over Europe next week. She asked for a quote for the lunches on Ugo's behalf, which they will give her Wednesday. At first Ugo had thought that the two of us might put everything together, but we said that we were probably too busy to do that, and they have the budget to simply pay for it.
Samuel came by for help with his Pathway class. He got a C last semester in his intro class, which is probably the easiest class he will ever have. But given where he is coming from, that is a great accomplishment and we are proud of him. He now has a basic math class and wanted my help. It is elementary-school level stuff, but he doesn't seem to know it, so I taught him about decimal numbers, addition with carry, etc. He had some knowledge of times tables, but had never heard of division. He admits that math isn't his strong suit, and it was indeed slow going. At one point, he finally understood how to do carries in addition, and he got the biggest grin on his face and gave me a high five! That felt good. I am not sure that he will be up to this class, but he is trying hard.
Aisha, a fairly recent convert from Malta who is leaving on a mission for the Philippines soon, came by. She knows a bunch of the kids from various GANS conferences, and everyone was happy to see her. They all played games together for much of the evening and had a lot of fun in English class. She already speaks about five languages, and now will add Tagalog.
In the evening, Ugo couldn't make it in for his online class, so he asked me to set up my laptop for Noemi and Veronica who were participating from here. That was ok, except that I wasn't able to do any work (e.g., lesson prep) in the meantime. Also, the girls hung out in the library well after the class ended, without letting me know that my laptop was available. It was a little frustrating, but we ended up having some great visits with a number of the kids and the Ganziani at the end.