Motts here for tacos

Tuesday was a busy day. In the morning Dee walked to the local open market to get a new tablecloth for the Institute kitchen, as well as some lettuce and tomatoes for tacos. Her favorite necklace vendor, Abdulla, wasn't there, but fortunately there will be more chances to get jewelry. On the way into the Institute, we stopped at Todis. Dee ran in and found ten packages of hamburger buns, each with six buns, so we are good for the coming weekend if she makes Sloppy Joes. 

Our group for Taco Tuesday was fairly small by recent standards. The Motts showed up, taking a taxi to get here quickly after their group tour at the Vatican. They got to meet about half a dozen kids, and they were both very friendly and outgoing with everyone. We visited with them for a couple of hours, showing them around the Institute and discussing how some things work here. It is nice that they had this opportunity to preview their assignment and ask a bunch of questions. They also brought two large and heavy rolling duffel bags with them, filled with stuff for their mission, including the forever-important taco seasoning. We will keep their bags at the apartment until they arrive in March to replace us. Ugo and Jenna each dropped by for a little while and got to meet them in person.

Ugo, the Motts and the Whitings

Linda De Martino was there for tacos, which rarely happens. She comes to Rome each week from Battipaglia for school, then takes the bus home Friday evening to work there over the weekend. Her job there is ending, so she took time off school for a job interview nearby and will see if that works out. It was good to see her; she absolutely loves Dee.

After tacos, Junior left to go to the temple Open House. He had gotten a ticket online, but he may also go with the big group of kids Wednesday night. Arsene messaged me to say that he was running a high fever, so we will postpone our visit to the temple together until next week.

Chris came by to print out his resume and documents, and he also had a taco. His new job, selling guided tour tickets on the street, isn't going very well; it is the wrong season of the year.  Samuel came by to do some Pathway homework, and of course we got to feed him too. He worked alone for quite a while and stayed until evening. Eventually he needed help with his assignments. He is learning the parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, but has no concept of how that works. Dee did a good job trying to explain it and walked him through the assignment. At one point he finally grasped one of the ideas and his face just lit up with a huge grin, making it all worthwhile, but he still has a long way to go to understand this stuff. He is trying so hard!

At 5pm we had a missionary committee meeting, with Joyce, Veronica, us, and the two new Ganziani. They are very sharp and enthusiastic, and we were able to train them on their role here. 
I showed them the Covey  matrix of urgent/not urgent/important/not important. They hadn't seen it before. It's a clear tool for life planning and I love it.

Anziano Faletti

Anziano Rouse

English class at 7pm with the new Ganziani had just one non-member, Ludovica, who has been coming for a while and visited the temple in the afternoon. She loved it! There was a handful of our kids who were in English class with her. Afterwards she went home, but the others went out to McDonalds for dinner and then stayed to play games. Sami from Perugia also spent the evening with us; he flies to India Wednesday for a six-week service project -- very cool.

Ugo  came by to make tiramisu for the European Area S&I training meetings going on this week at a hotel around the corner.  A couple of his colleagues, one from Puglia (Ettore) and one from Albania, were there as well.

Team Tiramisu: Ettore and Ugo

Dee was so busy all afternoon and evening that she never had time for dinner. Similarly, I was several hours behind checking messages. She cooked herself some nice salmon after we got home.

Linda and I both cried when I told her we only have seven weeks left. She tried to put a good face on it, saying we have Skype and Whatsapp. She didn't want to go to class with red eyes. I'm sure going to miss her.