Fudge and Lollipops

Wednesday morning I went down early to the Chinese store to pick up some wooden sticks for lollipops for our evening activity. We drove to district council, taking a full cheddar cheese block that the five Anziani asked for -- it is hard to find here. Anziano De La Rosa, from Mexico, did our training in a mixture of the three languages: English and Italian, with a little Spanish here and there. He is very sharp, and his foreign languages are coming along, but he couldn't seem to stick to just one, which made it fun. Afterwards, the Sorelle presented cupcakes that they had made for my wife's birthday, and we each enjoyed one.

It was probably our final meeting together, with four of them going home right after the Open House. Normally, that would be cause to do our photo of stacked chairs. However, we were in a bit of a hurry, and it wasn't clear that we even had enough chairs to cover all these "old"! missionaries! So we just did a photo with everyone holding their number of transfers in the mission:

 

From there, we drove two of the Sorelle home to inspect their apartment. The other two drove home on their own in their new car. We found a number of issues, including a dead smoke detector and a freezer that is not working -- it just always fills with ice and can't even be closed. I replaced a light bulb too. But the big deal is that they have had no hot water or heat for the last week. They don't complain, but yikes! The repairman is supposed to come on Thursday, so we hope that will fix it.

Then we drove to Metro on the way to the Institute. First I had to get the new card with my photo on it, which lets us get in. Anziano Thacker had gone i person to add me to the approved list. Getting the card went easily enough, though maybe Dee won't be allowed to go in on her own anymore; however, they don't seem to check the photo ID, so maybe it will be ok. We stocked up on ground beef, cheddar, white chocolate, jalapenos, and sour cream. After all that extracurricular activity, we arrived late -- around 2pm -- at the Institute, but fortunately Ugo was already there to open the place.

At 2:30pm we had a student council meeting, with Ugo, the Ganziani, Joyce, Sheyla, Noemi, and us. We did our planning for March activities. It is strange to think of us not being there for all of them.

Chris Erhue came by. I let him use my phone to make some calls, since his SIM card has no money left on it and I have unlimited minutes. He also wanted to make photocopies of his permesso doc; fortunately he had a scan of it even though it has been stolen. We printed both sides on card stock, then glued them back to back, and he had the card laminated at the copy shop downstairs. It almost looks legit, if you don't examine it too closely, and he took extra paper copies to use. Despite the immigration expert warning him that the government can take his kids away next month, he doesn't seem to think they really will do so. I don't know what to say, since I don't really understand the laws here, but there are some new nasty regulations which he probably shouldn't dismiss so easily.

Turns out that Noemi loves strawberry Pop Tarts. Dee had asked if there was anything she could bring from the US. Joyce later went out to do an errand, so I gave her some cash to get some Pop Tarts and a Dr. Pepper (for me) at the America Land market nearby. Noemi is excited to get them Friday! Dee may bring even more back if she has time during her quick trip home.

Dmitri from Germany, who has visited many times before, was here with his friend Manuel to see the Open House. They spent the evening with us. Our activity was having Dee show everyone how to make Oreo fudge and lollipops. Everyone loved it, both the making and tasting! Dee was all grins, very happy with the result. 
I learned both of these recipes from YouTube and Google, and made them one time for practice. That just shows how easy they are. Everyone should try it! The fudge that they had made themselves needed to harden in the frig for an hour. When I brought it to them, they cheered like they had seen a touchdown! I loved their reaction.

Crushing Oreos for the fudge

Mixing fudge ingredients

Putting wooden sticks into the hot lollipops

 

Enjoying the results!

Playing cards and eating fudge

Linda decorated and wrapped some lollipops

Linda De Martino came by, and we drove her home on our way to our place. We are allowed to drive non-members, but not members in our (mission) car. By the time we got home it was late, almost 10:30pm. Dee had already had a lot of calls and messages with California, and she would stay up even later doing more of that. She has told her parents that she is coming, and everyone is very relieved to know that she can help for a while.