This was our first Sunday with "only" two hours of church. During our testimony meeting, an elderly visitor got up from his wheelchair, with help, and bore his testimony. Elder Jessop was in the first group of missionaries called to serve in Italy, in 1966, and his Italian was surprisingly good after fifty years. He is here for a few months to help organize volunteers for the open house. In his setting apart by Elder Benson, he was promised that he would perform miracles. He told some great stories, including one where they were asked to give a priesthood blessing to a boy who was in the hospital expected to die any day. The kid they blessed walked out of the hospital the next day, completely healed. After the meetings we enjoyed visiting with him, as did many others.
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| Elder Jessop with Dee |
The Hubers brought us more loot from the commissary, restocking our stash of peanut butter and Hershey's Kisses--both very popular here. Ugo gave us a bunch of stuff to take into the Institute, including some food, paper goods, books, etc. We swapped him for the big block of cheddar cheese he had us buy for him at Metro the day before.
On the way home, Dee reported that the Primary kids loved her games and begged to play them again next week. They behaved quite well, which is a testament to how well she connects with that age. The challenge will be helping train the other leaders to know how to continue what she is trying to model for them: making Primary more fun and engaging. One thing I'm emphasizing is preparing ahead of time. Another important aspect is variety and participation, instead of lecture. The ladies love it. I have the advantage of Pinterest in English, hehe. Anyway, we played Sing or Dare (Cantare o Sfidare), with the children in a tight semicircle. They were much better behaved and loved the game. Many thanks to Doug for translating it.
I had two new children in my senior primary class. Martina, 10, and Ciro, 9. They are friends of some members. They loved the class and participated. Their mother told me they would come again, since her children liked it. Our challenge is getting her little 3 year old to acclimate, but it will happen.
Once home, we had a lazy afternoon and evening, with Dee taking a nap and me working on several things at my computer. In the evening, Dee made some phone calls back home. Anziano Willey came over for some help with his new Wind "saponetta" hotspot, which ended up being a two-minute fix. We were also able to recommend a few other things for them, including getting another credit card for security reasons, with an Italian mailing address to help with some auto-pays here. Anziano Thacker came along too, and he figured out how to light one of the burners on our stove that hadn't been working. It was a very productive and brief visit.
Dee seems to be coming down with a cold, just as mine seems to be done. Bummer. Hopefully it will be one of her very quick colds, which last only a day or two (making me very envious).
One fun story about Italian happened recently to Dee. She was at the dentist and wanted to give personalized invitations for the Temple open house to each of the staff there. One of the assistants is named "Emanuela", but Dee wasn't sure whether the name had one or two m's. She asked the receptionist, who just said slowly out loud "E - man - ue - la." Dee responded "yes, but one or two m's?" The woman repeated again, with exasperation, "E - man - ue - la!" Why spell it out when you can just pronounce it clearly? Italians can hear the difference between single and double consonants, which is obvious to them but hard for Americans to hear and pronounce correctly. Two m's would have made the pronunciation "Em - man - ue - la." Dee finally got it and chuckled to herself. I'm pretty good at pronouncing double consonants correctly, but I still missed what she was telling me, haha.