Elder Sabin, who is from Poway in San Diego, was in our ward. He is a Seventy, serving in the Europe Area presidency in Frankfurt, here in town for the Open House. Ugo spoke first in Sacrament meeting, and then Elder Sabin was the concluding speaker. His talk was wonderful, speaking without notes for almost half an hour about the fact that we are eternal beings, with several moving personal experiences. Anziano Castro, new to our ward, translated from English into Italian and did an impressive job.
We now have five Anziani in our ward, at least for three weeks until three of them go home. They extended a few weeks to help out with the Open House: Ferrara, Crook, and Castro. Anziano Sanchez is also here, and we have known and really enjoyed all these Elders before. Sorella Harmon is also back in Roma 3.
There was a guy in church who played the piano whom we had never seen before. I couldn't tell if he was American or Italian. Anziano Clark had been slated to play, but this guy was there earlier and had volunteered. Turns out that he is from Alabama and knows my former companion (Monza, 1976) Anziano Draughon! Small world. He served a mission in Spain and was able to get along well enough in Italian.
Anziano Clark told us an amazing story about his violin. On Thursday he got off the train to Cosenza and forgot his prized violin. He and his new companion (Odom) were chatting to get to know each other, and Clark mentioned that he loved to play the piano and the violin. In the middle of the word "violin", he froze and turned pale, realizing what had happened. He thought for a minute, called Trenitalia (the state train company) and arranged to have an Anziano Smith he knows in Messina (far south) get on the train when it passed through town. Anziano Smith found the violin and somehow got it to some Sorelle in Catania (yet further away) who as it happened would be flying up to Rome for the Zone Conference this weekend. So when Anziano Clark got back here on the train, two days after going down, the violin would be on its way to him. It all worked and he got it back. Incredible!
While waiting to pick up the two Anziani at the mission home, two couples about my age walked up and started taking photos in front of the gate. I got out to talk with them. The two men had served in Rome in the late 1970s, each working in the office there for a while, and it was their first time back in Italy. They came with their wives for the Open House. We chatted a bit. They really wanted to go into the home, but I told them how very busy the President was this day and they decided not to ring the bell.
Apparently Roma 2 and Roma 5 wards were overwhelmed with Americans, there for the Open House. Some were there individually, and some were on group tours. They couldn't all fit in the chapel and were in overflow rooms upstairs and in the basement.
A while after lunch I dropped the two Anziani at the temple for Zone Conference later, then drove to the airport to help pick up some of the 18 missionaries flying in from Bari for the Zone Conference. The Anziani would be here for less than 24 hours, but the Sorelle will spend the week here working at the Open House. My load was three Anziani and a bunch of luggage in our trunk, dropping everyone off at the temple. Then I came home for a little while.
Just after 7pm I went to the Benincosas, who live right across the hall from the new apartment of the Canfields. They are trying to share WiFi across the hall, but it wasn't working well. I moved the router so that the line of sight was better (fewer walls), and I installed a WiFi repeater. It took a while to set up but seems to be working well. They think that I am a wizard. All the senior missionaries here are asking how they will get by without my tech support. I also helped free up some disk space on Anziano Canfield's laptop and updated some drivers to try to fix his audio problems.
From there I drove back to the temple a little after 9pm to pick up our four Anziani. It was raining pretty hard. There were three of us seniors waiting in the parking lot, so Anziani Willey and Thacker got into my car and we had a fun visit, calling it a Priesthood meeting. Finally the Zone Conference ended, and I drove our missionaries home to grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon, apples and honey mustard that Dee made. Everyone loved them and had some sloppy joes as well. By then it was their bedtime.
As promised, you can see that it was a traveling day for me. Dee got some time at home and a short nap, but she had plenty to do. In the evening we got some bad news from Jim and Claire, newly arrived in Rome with the white shirts we had ordered for Daniele. Their car was broken into: all their luggage (as well as our shirts) was stolen, including iPads and their passports. Yikes! We were able to give them some helpful advice via messaging and a phone call, but it will not be fun. Fortunately, we have some other friends, Steve and Linda, coming here in a couple of weeks and maybe they can bring shirts if we order some more. In any case, we were up very late, with an early morning to come. This Sunday was fun, but definitely not a day of rest.
I loved both of the sacrament talks too. The meeting ran over because it's easy to underestimate how long translation takes. Then I was off to Primary in our new room. Our ward is being remodeled, so we only have four rooms available. Some of the kids like to resist participating. Jasmine wouldn't come sit everyone. Levi laid on the floor, glowering and picking the plaster off the wall. But once we started my lesson/activity, they were all smiles and wanted to participate. We used the typical hide an item game. A child got to hide the item, and we used the practice song (louder or softer volume) to guide the seeker. They sure knew the song by the time we were done. We also did some fun stuff to learn the first article of faith by heart. And I printed some pictures as wallets on card stock, a picture they had never seen before. This new Come and Follow Me manual has some terrific art work. I told them some of the Bible story and tied it to the activity and picture. This week, I'm getting a lock for our cabinet. I am so sad to only have a few weeks left. I love those kids.
It was also great fun to treat the elders to some cooking. Elder Stout shows his delight, and Elder Clark loves to come back for more. They were all laughing and enjoying each other and we all had a good time together. It was a long day. I had gone to bed about 12:30 and got up at 5:30 to shower and dress before they got up (saving water and just nicer to get dressed without them walking around.) So that's why I took a little nap. This coming week, I need to come up with something new for teaching the song.
Doug was a dynamo, doing all that driving. I was grateful for some time at home. We rarely have a free morning, let alone a Pday, so I treasure a little computer time. I am not thrilled about daily (too much) blogging, but since Doug is talking about my doings, I usually weigh in. Sometimes I just add a little anonymously, and sometimes I simply can't keep up and skip. It means a lot to Doug, so here we are.