Another full day, and news from Rome

Here is a picture of the four couples in our district, left to right: Carpenter, Jensen, Whiting, Hafen.

 

Wonderful folks! We are all really enjoying studying and working together. One big challenge is learning to always call our spouse Elder or Sister, not using first names. Each of us has messed up at least once, and we kid each other when it happens.

FYI, the photo is in front of the mural of Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail in one of the brand-new MTC buildings. There are a bunch of other amazing murals, two per floor, that we really want to go see this weekend when we have a bit of free time. The way lighting is used behind the canvases is very impressive. You can see a couple of them here in a nice article on the new facilities. We don't get to train there, but it's not a very long walk from where we live and train.

Today in class we spent a meaningful period of introspection of how we can be more Christ-like in our personal lives, using a list of questions in the Preach My Gospel (PMG) manual. It's always good to think about how to improve. We also met with the Painters to teach each other a 20-minute gospel lesson that we had 30 minutes to prepare. We got to choose the topic, and each of us selected a few of the questions from the list to discuss.

We also had some more tech training. The LDS Media Library app is really cool and was completely new to us. It has tons of gospel photos, audio, and video, which can be put into playlists to use in lessons. The best part is that it's possible (and fairly easy!) to trim the audio/video to play just the section of a talk or video that is relevant. It's available to everyone, not just missionaries. Who knew?

Tonight after dinner we also met with the Painters to help them work on their family history. We love doing it of course, and I think we were able to teach them a few useful things.

Tomorrow will be the last day of general training and will end at 3:30pm instead of 4:30pm. We hope to get laundry done then. Next Mon-Wed we'll be doing specialized training for the Church Education System (CES, which can also stand for "Cooking Every Second"). CES is in charge of the Institute campus in Rome where we'll be serving. Then Thursday morning we leave for Rome.

Today we were delighted to learn from President Pickerd, our mission president in Rome, that we will be assigned to attend church in the Roma 3rd Ward, where our friend Ugo Perego is bishop. I have known Ugo since he was five years old, when my missionary companion and I knocked on his parents' door and started teaching the gospel to his mother, Raffaela. Long story, but the entire family ended up joining the church, and our families have been close ever since. We have visited them many times in Italy, and various Perego groups have been to our home in Carlsbad on a number of occasions. Ugo is also director of the Institute, so we will work closely with him and see his wife and five children regularly on Sundays. Nice!

Most senior missionary couples in Rome attend Roma 2nd Ward, the "international" ward, which has classes in Italian, English, and Spanish, and is a large and strong congregation. By contrast, our Roma 3rd Ward speaks only Italian, although there are many non-Italian immigrants there, and it is a smaller congregation, so we will be much more needed. The drive from our apartment to Roma 3rd will be considerably longer, but it is a good fit for us, so we are pleased to be able to serve there.

Training, teaching, tech, and no more foot pain!

Today was another full day of classes, including some wonderful scripture reading and commentary together as a district (Alma 5). We also prepared and delivered a lesson to the another couple, the Painters, our assigned teaching partners (not in our district), so we could learn better how to teach as a team and ask for commitments. We chose to teach Family History (our specialty!), with some doctrinal background and some explicit help for the branch they'll be serving, in Ramona near our home.The Painters then gave us their lesson, making a great analogy from the book of Ether about trials. Wonderful folks -- we are enjoying everyone here so much! Tomorrow we'll get a chance to review briefly each other's work with them.

We also had some training on how to use the Gospel Library tool on our phones and tablets, and there will be more of that tomorrow. They taught us how to use Tags, which we didn't really know about and are a very nice tool for preparing and organizing lessons.

Dee's old Samsung tablet just died. Well, it actually runs, but the USB port seems to be broken so that it can't be charged, after trying several different chargers and cables. Thus, we're ordering her a newer model tonight on Amazon Prime which should arrive here Friday. It's a pain to configure a new one, but better here over the weekend than once we hit the ground running in Rome. Yes, I'm probably a little jealous that she has a new one and mine is three years old, but I'll get over it <g>

My foot seems to be all better now. I slept well without any drugs, and it isn't sore at all, not even any twinges. The entire course of steroids has now been completed. Whew! I'm very happily not expecting any more problems. We fortunately seem to be mostly caught up on our sleep now after a few crazy days.

Busy day of training, no more zingers

Here is a photo of our missionary name tags. We are to wear them for the duration whenever we are out in public, including here at the MTC. They give our title/name, plus the name of the church in Italian:

Yesterday we received our passports with an Italian visa inserted. That was faster than we anticipated, and it's one less thing on our list of concerns.

Last night I was able to sleep fairly well, thanks mostly to a good dose of Norco. This morning my foot was much less painful, with swelling and soreness to the touch gone, thanks to the anti-inflammatory steroid pills. I've had a few small twinges today, but none recently, so hopefully I can sleep tonight without any painkiller (though I have them ready if needed).

We spent the entire day in training, using the missionary manual Preach My Gospel, discussing how to care about and teach people effectively. Even though most of the teaching will be done by young missionaries, it's nice for us seniors to know the program so we can assist when needed. Interestingly, the training is done by young, recently returned missionaries in their early twenties. Our two trainers were both young ladies and were very impressive. Apparently they change whom we work with each day. One of the other trainers, Sister York, had served in the Italy Milan mission (my alma mater), and we had a fun chat with her for a few minutes -- her Italian accent was excellent! BTW, yesterday we heard from the MTC mission president, Dave Martino. who served in Italy in the early 1970s, including two of my cities (Sesto San Giovanni and Lugano), and we also got to talk a bit with him in Italian, sharing some good memories.

Tonight we attended the weekly missionary devotional, along with all the young/old MTC missionaries. A large missionary choir -- hundreds of voices -- sang "Nearer My God To Thee" very well, particularly considering that they apparently only get to practice one time. The speakers were Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy and his wife, who gave wonderful, inspiring talks -- he's the one who gave the phenomenal talk in April 2016 about how we need to support refugees. It was wonderful when the entire congregation of about 3000 sang prelude hymns together, including a rousing version of "Called to Serve." The best part was when we changed two words in the chorus of "Army of Helaman" from "we will be the Lord's missionaries" to "we are now the Lord's missionaries" -- very cool!

First official day, with zingers

We officially started our training today, and it went pretty well, all things considered. There was some running around to different offices to get registered and acquaint ourselves with the campus, followed by some initial training and splitting us up into districts of four couples each. Tomorrow is our first full day, starting with breakfast at 7am and classes from 8am until about 4:30pm, so it's going to be busy. There's a small store for missionaries here in our building, and it had a nice selection of a bunch of things: medications, stationery, clothing, snacks, laundry supplies, etc., which we took advantage of. You can even order more missionary name tags, which we did.

The problem was my foot. Dee was exhausted and went to bed relatively early last night, thinking maybe she was coming down with a cold. She slept pretty well and feels much better today, perhaps avoiding getting sick. However, I woke up around 11pm with an intermittent shooting pain just below my right ankle. I took some Alleve, which helped a little bit, but I didn't sleep much all night for obvious reasons. In the morning, I felt something like a little bone spur sticking out there below the skin, which was red and very painful to the touch. The painful "zingers" in my foot came and went all day, one or two almost every minute, which meant that I wasn't terribly focused on the classes. 

This evening we went over to a local Urgent Care facility, where the doctor was a bit puzzled by my symptoms. He ultimately prescribed some steroid anti-inflammatory pills and some Norco, in case I'm still in pain during the night. Hopefully I won't be loopy tomorrow -- or at least no more so than usual <g>

While we were out for the doctor/pharmacy, we also got some dinner at a nice little Mexican place on State Street, then did some shopping at the grocery store next to the pharmacy. It was nice to walk around and get a few things we needed. You can tell you are in Utah when no one is surprised to see a missionary name tag and knows what it means. We took a Lyft back to the MTC and are now looking forward to some sleep.

Everyone has been really nice all day, and several couples checked up on me tonight to see how I was doing.

Provo, we are here (with photos)

Yesterday was a very busy day, between Dee finishing her packing, and both of us scurrying around the house cleaning and throwing stuff away. Our suitcases each came in at just over 49 pounds, which is good because of the 50 pound airline limit, though hitting that weight involved a few iterations of removing things. To weigh the suitcases, I stepped on our bathroom sale to get a baseline, then I stepped back on holding the suitcase up so Dee could read the weight and we could subtract to get the difference. Good thing I have been doing weight training! Next time we'll buy a luggage scale, which is inexpensive and much easier.

We each have two 29" suitcases (one two-wheeler, one four-wheeler), plus a small carry-on suitcase and a bag holding our laptop and other stuff. It's odd for us to have so much luggage: usually we do three-week trips to Italy with just a carry-on sized suitcase and a backpack. Senior missionaries serving in the US are expected to bring their own car, which they typically fill to the brim. Several of them today expressed amazement that we could fit our stuff into only 2+ suitcases. The carry-on is where we keep our meds so that they can't be lost by the airline. By piggybacking the carry-on suitcases using the built-in strap of the two wheelers, we were able to move everything on our own at both airports, but just barely! See the photos below:

Traffic was fairly light and we made it to San Diego airport early -- thanks to VinceH for dropping us off. Our flight to SLC and SuperShuttle to Provo all went very smoothly. The flight wasn't very full, so we got exit row seats with lots of leg room for me. We arrived at the MTC about 10pm MDT and took a while to unpack and get settled. Then breakfast and church were pretty early -- 7am and 8:30am, respectively -- so suffice it to say we needed a nap this afternoon! Nothing much else is scheduled for us until tomorrow morning, which is nice.We have our missionary nametags and have worn missionary garb all day long, so it feels pretty official.

Our room is small but clean and well designed, rather like a hotel room, with enough storage space for us. We are in the Jacob Hamblin building, named after my great-great-grandfather on my mom's side. The grounds are beautiful, with lots of pretty flowers all over. There are tons of young missionaries around, dwarfing the number of seniors like us. Our church congregation today was the "international branch", consisting of the seniors and the foreign missionaries here to serve in the US or Canada. The English we heard from them was pretty good, and they were from all over; the two who spoke were from Mexico and Norway.

Photos of our accommodations are below, including the view of the Provo Temple from our window:

Set apart

Last evening our wonderful stake president, President Clark, came by our home to set us apart as full-time missionaries, so we are official! He first visited with us for a while, trying to learn details about our mission assignment and sharing some advice from his time as mission president. Then he gave each one of us a long and detailed blessing, with lots of specific promises, which we look forward to seeing fulfilled.

I've never kissed my mission companion before. Life is good. <g>

As promised, I was able to get rid of all our old food and a box full of papers by "sharing" space in our neighbors' trash bins this morning, thanks especially to Marilyn & DaveC. We are still scurrying around packing and putting things away before heading to the airport in a few hours.

No car, but plenty of trash, etc...

It has been a very busy week, as you might imagine. We leave tomorrow afternoon, flying up to Salt Lake City to enter the MTC in Provo, where we officially report Monday morning. It wasn't possible to arrive there from San Diego on time leaving Monday, so we opted to stay a couple of nights early in the MTC, which will accommodate us. That schedule will certainly make for a more relaxed Monday.

Yesterday I packed my two large suitcases (29") and my carry-on, working from a list prepared over the past few months. It took me over four hours, and I was exhausted. It's interesting to trade off what you can fit in the weight and size limits, particularly for 18 months. In addition to lots of (missionary) clothes, we are bringing a fair amount of tech with us; not that we can't buy most of it in Italy, but over there it's more expensive and we won't have much free time. We also each have 18 months of prescriptions that our doctors (and the church's international senior missionary health insurance) helped us obtain without much hassle or cost. When I went on my mission in 1975, I had only one suitcase and a large briefcase -- not sure how that ever worked!  The airline penalties for being overweight are pretty severe, so we are checking each suitcase to make sure it is less than the 50 pound limit. Dee is packing today, so we won't be bumping into each other in the closet, which is good for marital harmony.

On Wednesday, we transferred title of my Camry to our son, so that he can have it on his insurance policy (we paid for his premium increase) and drive it a bit while we're gone.  When we get back, he'll transfer title back to us, or so we hope! <g> Today we sold Dee's 2004 Honda Odyssey van for blue book value to an old friend, VinceH, who will also use it to drop us off at the airport tomorrow. Dee will buy a new car when we get home. I will cancel our auto insurance policy once we get to Italy. It's the first time in forever that we don't own a car.

In going through our kitchen pantry, Dee found a whole bunch of food -- mostly canned goods -- which had long since passed its expiration date. Instead of giving it to a local food shelter as planned, we now had to throw it away. The problem is that our trash bin was already going to be quite full for some reason. Fortunately several friends kindly agreed to let us put some stuff in their bins (thanks ClaireS and CamilleH!). Tomorrow morning is when the trash gets picked up; it's usually Friday but is delayed because of Labor Day, which is too bad given our schedule. Anyway, don't be surprised if tomorrow morning finds me scouting out free space in the bins of our next-door neighbors to slip in some extra stuff! It's very odd to walk into a pantry and open a fridge that are mostly empty, particularly with a wife whose family DNA dictates overproviding wherever possible, especially where food is concerned.

On Wednesday we each got our final vaccinations: Hepatitis-A for me and Dee, and TDAP for me. I've had about eight shots as part of this process, and Dee roughly the same number. The local CVS Minute Clinic has been great to work with, since they allow us to make appointments and then show up with a wait of only a few minutes. There's a surprising amount of medical stuff to take care of in preparing for a senior mission, and everyone has been very helpful to us in getting it all done.

Tuesday night I went to a St. Louis Cardinals game versus the San Diego Padres with three friends -- BillG, DickM, and MikeV. Many of you know that I'm a diehard Cardinals fan, and each year I try to see them when they are in town. It was also my final baseball "fix" until the 2019 season, as there isn't much baseball in Italy. However, there is a town called Nettuno, just south of Rome, where American GIs taught the kids how to play baseball during and after WW II. Nettuno calls itself "the city of baseball", and the game is still very popular there, with a small league of teams playing each year. You can read about it in a fun book called Baseballissimo by Dave Bidini. I doubt I'll make it to any games there, unfortunately, although maybe it would be fun outing for our YSA kids?