Anziano Lawler

Friday was a very full day, as is typical now. About 9:20am I left to work two hours at the guard gate again at the temple. It was much busier this time around, with volunteers entering and a lot of guests show up in the wrong place, so I was able to direct them to where to park down the street. One volunteer from the US talked with me for a minute from his car, then saw my name badge and said "Anziano Whiting! I'm Bill Lawler." He then got out of the car and we hugged. He was a freshman roommate of EricB, my good friend from Richmond, and he served his mission in Milano. We were in Genova at the same time starting in late 1975 for a few months.  He and his wife came to Rome to volunteer for a few days at the Open House. I didn't think to get his phone number, but I did send him a Facebook message. Maybe I will run into him again Saturday evening when I volunteer again.

After only 45 minutes, someone came to relieve me. Obviously the assignments got mixed up, but I was happy to come home and work more on my lessons. Despite sleeping very well, I was tired all day. We left early for the Institute, stopping at Todis on the way for some buns and flat bread. Dee wanted to prepare two meals: one for this week and one for next week (Sloppy Joes, which freeze very nicely). She also made more fudge as well as two carrot cakes, one for after dinner and one for Monday night at FHE. She is really planning ahead here to make my life easier.

Matteo came early from school as usual. He needed help with his English literature class, so I got to help him write a summary of a passage from Romeo and Juliet ("a rose by any other name") -- as if I were some kind of expert on Shakespearean English! ChrisE also came by. He is in a tough fix and it is not clear what he will do next, but I encouraged him not to ignore the experts who are telling him his kids are at risk. The life of immigrants everywhere seems very difficult.

For Seminary, my lesson was on plural marriage in church history, using several family stories that I really like. It is so hard for us to wrap our minds around frontier life and thinking from the 1800s. They had a lot of good questions and comments. Class is harder recently because two of the kids (the grandsons of the Canfields) do not speak Italian, and I forget sometimes to translate into English. There was no time for scripture bingo this week. Matteo seemed very hung up on the fact that God could change commandments to adapt to the circumstances, even though I and the kids pointed out a number of examples from the scriptures. After class he and I had a long discussion about it. Finally I understood that he was trying to apply Greek philosophy to the problem, in which God is an abstract being outside this world, not ever needing to change based on the circumstances of his children. He is a very sharp kid, and ultimately I think he understood my points. I forgot to take a picture of the group this week, but we had about eight kids. Dee's fudge was very popular with everyone. Dee made the new batch with Valentina, who doesn't eat sweets but loved learning how to make it.

Institute class started with only three kids, but by the end it had filled up quite a bit. We had visitors from Milano (Nelson, who is coming to Rome on his mission in April) and Malta (two girls we met at the YSA conference in Assisi in September). My lesson was on D&C 94 - 100, talking a lot about the temple, sacrifice, endowments of power, and speaking by the spirit. It is really good to get everyone involved in the conversation. Christian was in my class for the first time in a while, and he seemed to be really with us; maybe the temple visit helped him want more spirituality in his life. Dee's dinner was very popular, although the flat bread was a bit dry compared to last time we used that.

 

Anziano Blake, who served in Rome about the same time was we served (we overlapped a while in the LTM but didn't remember each other), was there with his wife for the Open House. Ugo brought them by, and he and Dee had a good time trying to make connections. Linda came on a Friday, for the first time (I think), because she usually goes home to Battipaglia for the weekend. She has applied for a one-year job at Disney World in Orlando and hopes to get it. We drove her home again.

The Ganziani showed me a possible layout for a new "business" card for the Institute that they can give out to GANS-aged kids when they meet them around town. It has contact info, plus a list of our regular activities. It looked pretty good, but I suggested some small changes that they liked. Next step would be to get the mission to pay for printing, which Anziano Willey seemed to be willing to do if I approve the design. Dee gave a package to Anziano Rouse that somebody brought from his family to the Open House, and we gave a bottle of jalapenos from Metro to Anziano Faletti, who loves them!

We got home late, about 10:30pm. I went to sleep fairly soon, but Dee stayed up as is her wont these days with everything going on. She spoke with some folks back in LA, including her dad's bishop, who had some nice things to say. He called my father-in-law the most memorable person he had ever met, to which we all can agree: if you have ever met him, you remember him! He also said that often the problem, when a ward member is in the hospital, that they struggle to get enough people to visit, but in her dad's case they are worried that too many people will visit him! That is a real testament to how much he has loved and served his congregation.