Wednesday is our day off from the Institute, and we had plenty to do. Late morning we made a long shopping run: Auchan for some food and supplies, Ikea for a few small items for home and Institute, and then Metro for a bunch of food for both. We went upstairs at Metro for the first time, and they have a lot of interesting stuff up there, including an office supply section which is akin to a small Office Depot. We haven't found anything like that here yet. When we got home, we made it from the car in one trip, but very slowly -- lots of bags, large and heavy, and only possible because we left half of it in the trunk for the Institute trip the next day.
After that, my wife soon walked down to the local stores to get a few items. Meanwhile, I made some phone calls and sent some emails to handle stuff for my in-laws' taxes, as well as figuring what to do for my upcoming 401(k) to IRA conversion. I also worked on my Friday lesson for a good while and am enjoying the translation process. The presentation requires a lot of cut and paste and formatting. I tweaked the layout a fair amount from the original (English) version, and it seems much improved to me.
This evening we went to dinner at Sugo with four other senior missionary couples, including the Smiths, who just arrived and are heading to Palermo tomorrow to take over from the Garretts. The Smiths are wonderful folks and will do well. He served in the Italy North mission in the early 1970s. This is one of the very few times we've been out to dinner at a restaurant here -- things are indeed settling down. The food and company were great. We hope to spend more time with the other senior couples, and we'd be happy to go that restaurant again.
My wife baked a bunch of chocolate chip cookies to take to our district meeting tomorrow, and also for the Institute. The house sure smelled good!
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Record attendance at Taco Tuesday
We are getting very good at all the prep for Taco Tuesday -- we have it down to under an hour after arriving at the Institute, including setting up the tables and chairs. The last few Tuesdays have seen fairly light turnout for the taco lunch, but today there were a lot of kids all day (17 signed into the register). Fortunately we had some frozen leftover taco meat from last week, which we defrosted in a hurry. There wasn't really space in the room for us to eat, which is a good thing. The place was hopping all afternoon and evening -- very nice!
There's a non-member girl from Honduras, Margie, a friend
of April, who keeps bringing other non-LDS classmates to the
Institute. Today she brought two other girls, both from Athens, to the meal, and everyone seemed to enjoy being together. Margie is our best "member" missionary! 😉
During the afternoon I worked on my Friday Institute lesson for a good while. I'm translating a Powerpoint presentation from my old Seminary lessons, on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, and a few of the quotes were difficult to convey well; e.g., there is no word for "subconsciousness" in Italian. Fortunately, Oscar used to work for the church translation department, so he helped me with the difficult parts by morphing the sentences a bit. Translation is such a challenging art! It's interesting that, in a number of cases, the Italian bible translation (Luzzi) seems to have "broken" the chiasm structure present in the original Hebrew by reordering the elements, which will make for some good discussion Friday. Jack Welch, who discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon fifty years ago, says that, in new BofM versions, they now instruct translators to carefully preserve the known chiasms.
We had choir this evening with Lorenzo. It's odd: we had three tenors, two basses (including me), and one alto (Dee). Usually choirs have plenty of women and not enough men, but it's the opposite at our Institute. It's difficult to practice without the melody part. I also gave Lorenzo a copy of one of our favorite Christmas songs, "Star Bright", written from the perspective of Nephites at Zarahemla waiting for the signs of Christ's birth. The song was originally composed in English and Spanish about 60 years ago. Lorenzo will translate it into Italian for us, as he has capably done with a number of other American hynns/carols. Not sure if we will get it in time to use this Christmas, but it will be nice to have at some point.
After choir was the online Institute class via Zoom. Ugo is up in Milano for work this week, so he ran things from there, while I used my laptop to log the kids here into the class. There are probably 20+ locations around the country online, and it's quite impressive to see that many live video streams up on the big screen. He will still be out of town Friday, which is why I'm teaching the class then. Friday is a major Italian holiday, the Immacolata, celebrating the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Apparently that's the day many families put up their Christmas tree. We weren't sure how many kids we'd have at our class due to the holiday, but it seems like most of them will be there.
My wife drove to work Tuesday morning, and I drove home. Our new cell phone holder for the car is really nice, far more rugged and stable than the old one. Amazon is wonderful, even in Italy. Usually we have packages delivered to the mission office and the Balzottis bring them home to us in the evening, but we have also had a few small packages (from both eBay.it and Amazon.it) delivered to our apartment via the doorman, Paolo. Our apartment tower is locked, so they can't deliver it to us or our mailbox, but Paolo takes good care of us. We just use our address with "in care of the doorman", and it works well.
On Saturday we're planning on going sightseeing in Naples for the day on the train with several other senior missionary couples. Anziano Knies is getting the train tickets for us all, since he does that a lot for transfers and knows the ropes. Italy now has very fast Freccia trains that go between many major cities, which take less time than driving and are generally reliable in terms of schedule, neither of which was the case back in the 1970s.
During the afternoon I worked on my Friday Institute lesson for a good while. I'm translating a Powerpoint presentation from my old Seminary lessons, on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, and a few of the quotes were difficult to convey well; e.g., there is no word for "subconsciousness" in Italian. Fortunately, Oscar used to work for the church translation department, so he helped me with the difficult parts by morphing the sentences a bit. Translation is such a challenging art! It's interesting that, in a number of cases, the Italian bible translation (Luzzi) seems to have "broken" the chiasm structure present in the original Hebrew by reordering the elements, which will make for some good discussion Friday. Jack Welch, who discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon fifty years ago, says that, in new BofM versions, they now instruct translators to carefully preserve the known chiasms.
We had choir this evening with Lorenzo. It's odd: we had three tenors, two basses (including me), and one alto (Dee). Usually choirs have plenty of women and not enough men, but it's the opposite at our Institute. It's difficult to practice without the melody part. I also gave Lorenzo a copy of one of our favorite Christmas songs, "Star Bright", written from the perspective of Nephites at Zarahemla waiting for the signs of Christ's birth. The song was originally composed in English and Spanish about 60 years ago. Lorenzo will translate it into Italian for us, as he has capably done with a number of other American hynns/carols. Not sure if we will get it in time to use this Christmas, but it will be nice to have at some point.
After choir was the online Institute class via Zoom. Ugo is up in Milano for work this week, so he ran things from there, while I used my laptop to log the kids here into the class. There are probably 20+ locations around the country online, and it's quite impressive to see that many live video streams up on the big screen. He will still be out of town Friday, which is why I'm teaching the class then. Friday is a major Italian holiday, the Immacolata, celebrating the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Apparently that's the day many families put up their Christmas tree. We weren't sure how many kids we'd have at our class due to the holiday, but it seems like most of them will be there.
My wife drove to work Tuesday morning, and I drove home. Our new cell phone holder for the car is really nice, far more rugged and stable than the old one. Amazon is wonderful, even in Italy. Usually we have packages delivered to the mission office and the Balzottis bring them home to us in the evening, but we have also had a few small packages (from both eBay.it and Amazon.it) delivered to our apartment via the doorman, Paolo. Our apartment tower is locked, so they can't deliver it to us or our mailbox, but Paolo takes good care of us. We just use our address with "in care of the doorman", and it works well.
On Saturday we're planning on going sightseeing in Naples for the day on the train with several other senior missionary couples. Anziano Knies is getting the train tickets for us all, since he does that a lot for transfers and knows the ropes. Italy now has very fast Freccia trains that go between many major cities, which take less time than driving and are generally reliable in terms of schedule, neither of which was the case back in the 1970s.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Sii Una Luce
Monday was quite chilly, but at least the sun was shining. In the morning my wife took the young sister missionaries who live below us (Ricks and Bryant) to the Lidl grocery store for their P-day shopping. It was the first time she drove solo, which she was really looking forward to. Lidl is much cheaper than Conad down the street, but harder for the sisters to get to without a car. They were delighted with the low prices, as well as the buffalo mozzarella, so probably this will become a regular Monday occurrence. My wife got some awesome bread with walnuts and "grano saraceno" (buckwheat) to try -- yum!
I climbed the stairs this morning for the first time since my leg started hurting a week ago -- only did six stories, but my leg didn't hurt at all afterwards. Tomorrow I'll try climbing up to the seventh floor a few times. It will be wonderful to put this episode behind me.
We are still trying to figure out what is going on with our new credit cards. Each one was rejected a couple of times with the new PIN, so we'll have to try it again until we get it working smoothly. On the way into town, we filled up the car at the Esso station just down the street, which usually happens once every couple of weeks. It's nice to have a hybrid with very good gas mileage (kilometerage? :-)
We also got the small version of our ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone) pass laminated and taped to our windshield. That way we don't have to remember to pull it out of the glove compartment each day as we enter downtown, which would result in a fine if we forget.
The afternoon was spent at the Institute working on lessons, including my three upcoming ones this weekend and Dee's FHE lesson. For some reason it was quite cold inside there, with the heat not quite kicking in for many hours, so we wore our coats. We also printed a bunch of different things, like lesson materials and some sheet music for choir Tuesday. There was a lot of messaging with Ugo and other GANS about various upcoming events; our phones were buzzing all afternoon. In the evening, Dee gave a very nice, brief FHE lesson on the church's "Light the World" initiative. In Italian, it's "Sii Una Luce" (Be a Light). We watched the video, and everyone got a copy of the calendar of suggested activities, using it as a base to discuss things we can do to try to be more like Christ.
Another thing that came up today was a chance to help create a document for new senior missionaries, covering everything from missionary work to tips about traffic, heating, shopping, etc. The Hydes, a couple in Naples who each served missions in Rome in the 1970s and also a mission together in Milano a few years ago, wrote a first draft with nine pages of good stuff, and we added a number of things to it, as did a few other couples.
A young man from Peru, Brigham (now that's a Mormon name for you!), came to the Institute tonight. He served a mission in Peru and is now living with his aunt and uncle in Rome, hoping to go to university here. First he has to learn Italian. There are a number of the GANS who speak Spanish, including Sheyla who is also from Peru, so he fit right in. It was fun in our FHE; we had Brigham give the opening prayer in Spanish, and Anziano Misa gave the closing prayer in Samoan! We are definitely an international group.
Afterwards, we had pandoro cake, plus some homemade Christmas cookies from Trevor with do-it-yourself frosting and sprinkles. He is good at surprising us with treats.
That's Brigham on the left in the photo. Then we had a long game of Cover Your Assets, won by Anziano Waddell with a big surprise on the last play of the game. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. There were a couple of newbies to the game who acquitted themselves quite well.
When we got home, there were no parking spots nearby, so we had to park several blocks away. That happens occasionally, and it's worse for us because we get home late after almost everyone has parked for the night. It's not bad to get a bit of exercise, as long as our load isn't too heavy to carry, which fortunately was the case this time.
Our first Amazon order in a while arrived, including a new cell phone holder for using Google Maps in the car. The cheap holder we bought at the Chinese store broke after a couple of months, and this new one feels much sturdier. I also bought the DVD Momenti di Gloria (Chariots of Fire), as a followup to my FHE lesson on Eric Liddell last week. We hope to have a movie night sometime soon.
I climbed the stairs this morning for the first time since my leg started hurting a week ago -- only did six stories, but my leg didn't hurt at all afterwards. Tomorrow I'll try climbing up to the seventh floor a few times. It will be wonderful to put this episode behind me.
We are still trying to figure out what is going on with our new credit cards. Each one was rejected a couple of times with the new PIN, so we'll have to try it again until we get it working smoothly. On the way into town, we filled up the car at the Esso station just down the street, which usually happens once every couple of weeks. It's nice to have a hybrid with very good gas mileage (kilometerage? :-)
The afternoon was spent at the Institute working on lessons, including my three upcoming ones this weekend and Dee's FHE lesson. For some reason it was quite cold inside there, with the heat not quite kicking in for many hours, so we wore our coats. We also printed a bunch of different things, like lesson materials and some sheet music for choir Tuesday. There was a lot of messaging with Ugo and other GANS about various upcoming events; our phones were buzzing all afternoon. In the evening, Dee gave a very nice, brief FHE lesson on the church's "Light the World" initiative. In Italian, it's "Sii Una Luce" (Be a Light). We watched the video, and everyone got a copy of the calendar of suggested activities, using it as a base to discuss things we can do to try to be more like Christ.
Another thing that came up today was a chance to help create a document for new senior missionaries, covering everything from missionary work to tips about traffic, heating, shopping, etc. The Hydes, a couple in Naples who each served missions in Rome in the 1970s and also a mission together in Milano a few years ago, wrote a first draft with nine pages of good stuff, and we added a number of things to it, as did a few other couples.
A young man from Peru, Brigham (now that's a Mormon name for you!), came to the Institute tonight. He served a mission in Peru and is now living with his aunt and uncle in Rome, hoping to go to university here. First he has to learn Italian. There are a number of the GANS who speak Spanish, including Sheyla who is also from Peru, so he fit right in. It was fun in our FHE; we had Brigham give the opening prayer in Spanish, and Anziano Misa gave the closing prayer in Samoan! We are definitely an international group.
Afterwards, we had pandoro cake, plus some homemade Christmas cookies from Trevor with do-it-yourself frosting and sprinkles. He is good at surprising us with treats.
Our first Amazon order in a while arrived, including a new cell phone holder for using Google Maps in the car. The cheap holder we bought at the Chinese store broke after a couple of months, and this new one feels much sturdier. I also bought the DVD Momenti di Gloria (Chariots of Fire), as a followup to my FHE lesson on Eric Liddell last week. We hope to have a movie night sometime soon.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Day of Rest
It was a very nice Sunday. There were some great testimonies in Fast & Testimony meeting, including a few from our English speaking members, who asked Brother Bosco from the bishopric to translate into Italian for them. He is amazing: a native Italian who served a mission in Spain and picked up flawless American English from his companions, without an discernible accent. After he translated a few times, a sister from South America, who speaks Italian but with some Spanish mixed in, got up and motioned him to translate for her too (we all chuckled, but he didn't get up to help :-). A couple of women told some amazing stories of how prayers were answered for them this week. Anziano Bentley, a young missionary who is new in our ward and is going home in a month, bore a brief testimony -- his Italian and his accent are very good!
After church, Alessio, one of our GANS young men, took off his coat and tie to wrestle on the hard tile floor with Levi, Ugo's youngest child (6 years old), who is a very energetic rascal. It was unusual to be sure, but they had fun. The ward members, knowing Levi well, thought it was cool.
After church we came home and broke our fast. Often that makes us rather zonked, but today we did well. I did some paperwork and we caught up on a few things. Right before it got dark, we took a walk around the block, which felt good. The temperature is in the 40s, so we wore heavy coats -- we're wimps from San Diego after all. My leg did ok, but I had to ice it afterwards.
We forgot to mention that, on Saturday when we walked into the local farmer's market, there was a huge vat where they were cooking/stirring polenta. My wife bought a small sample, with a little red sauce added (they wanted to put a lot more on it!), and it was delicious. Here's a photo:
My wife did a write-up on WhatsApp about our choir class at the Institute, promoting the fact that Lorenzo, our teacher, is a professional who usually charges a lot for his services and also a very spiritual man with a deep desire to help develop the musical abilities of the members. Hopefully this will increase attendance. I added a note that sometime (next year??) there will be a temple dedication choir which the kids could join, so this class is an opportunity to prepare. I mentioned my participation in the San Diego Temple dedicatory choir in 1993 and how wonderful that was for me.
I also sent out an offer to all the kids on WhatsApp to help them with their computers. It's something I like to do at home for friends, and hopefully this will give me a chance to bond with some of the kids.
After church, Alessio, one of our GANS young men, took off his coat and tie to wrestle on the hard tile floor with Levi, Ugo's youngest child (6 years old), who is a very energetic rascal. It was unusual to be sure, but they had fun. The ward members, knowing Levi well, thought it was cool.
We forgot to mention that, on Saturday when we walked into the local farmer's market, there was a huge vat where they were cooking/stirring polenta. My wife bought a small sample, with a little red sauce added (they wanted to put a lot more on it!), and it was delicious. Here's a photo:
I also sent out an offer to all the kids on WhatsApp to help them with their computers. It's something I like to do at home for friends, and hopefully this will give me a chance to bond with some of the kids.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Catacombs
Saturday was a fairly relaxed P-day. In the afternoon we did our first sightseeing since arriving in Rome, which should give you an indication that things are getting settled and fairly routine. We went with the Balzottis to see the Catacombs of Priscilla, which are less than a couple of miles from here and which we pass every day on our way to the Institute. Who knew? Dee did a Google search of things near our codice postale (zip code equivalent) and those catacombs popped up at the top of the list. There are about 8 miles of tunnels and 40,000 tombs in the walls, some which still have remains sealed inside. You can read about them here and here. The catacombs have art dating to 220 AD. One of Dee's favorite items was a wall plaque that included a typo. By the time the plaque maker gets to the fifth line of carving, he sure doesn't want to start over, so he just scratched it out a little and went on :) We took the tour, which involved a fair amount of walking, but fortunately my leg is doing quite well today. It was fascinating, and we may go again to get the English version of the tour instead of the Italian one we did today. Sometimes it helps to get a tour in English, and sometimes it doesn't -- depends on how heavy the accent of the tour guide is! <g>
We also had some time at home for paperwork and catching up on some stuff. We tested the chops of our electrical circuits by running the heaters in both bedrooms while also using a hair dryer. No circuit breaker popped, which is excellent news! It's rare for us to have someone sleeping in the other bedroom, and we haven't needed heat at night for a while, but fortunately we can heat both bedrooms if necessary. We also bought some pizza bianca at the farmer's market right outside our door and devoured it.
In the evening we went down to Conad to buy some food, mostly for us, and to the Chinese store for some kitchen supplies. Conad tends to be more expensive than Lidl, our discount store, but it's convenient. Even though it's more expensive, some things are much cheaper than in the USA. For example, their store brand pasta is 39 cents for a 500 g (1.1 pound) bag. It's always fun to see what they have at the Chinese store. This time we found tiny ziplock pill bags, which are handy for all manner of things. We were able to use our new chip-and-pin credit cards, although the new PINs that I had set didn't work -- we had to use the default PIN they had set at the factory. In any case, it's nice to know that the cards are working.
We just had transfers, so our sister missionaries are down to two: Sister Ricks is now a senior companion and she has a greenie from the United States, Sister Bryant. Sister Ricks is top notch, and we're expecting that Sister Bryant is wonderful, too.
Tomorrow is a fairly easy domenica (Sunday), particularly compared to last week: no lessons or talks. It's Fast Sunday, so we're looking forward to hearing testimonies. We love being in this ward. However, next weekend I get to teach Seminary, Institute, and Sunday School. Dee will teach FHE. Nice!!
In the evening we went down to Conad to buy some food, mostly for us, and to the Chinese store for some kitchen supplies. Conad tends to be more expensive than Lidl, our discount store, but it's convenient. Even though it's more expensive, some things are much cheaper than in the USA. For example, their store brand pasta is 39 cents for a 500 g (1.1 pound) bag. It's always fun to see what they have at the Chinese store. This time we found tiny ziplock pill bags, which are handy for all manner of things. We were able to use our new chip-and-pin credit cards, although the new PINs that I had set didn't work -- we had to use the default PIN they had set at the factory. In any case, it's nice to know that the cards are working.
We just had transfers, so our sister missionaries are down to two: Sister Ricks is now a senior companion and she has a greenie from the United States, Sister Bryant. Sister Ricks is top notch, and we're expecting that Sister Bryant is wonderful, too.
Tomorrow is a fairly easy domenica (Sunday), particularly compared to last week: no lessons or talks. It's Fast Sunday, so we're looking forward to hearing testimonies. We love being in this ward. However, next weekend I get to teach Seminary, Institute, and Sunday School. Dee will teach FHE. Nice!!
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Fingerprints
This morning we left early to go to the questura (police HQ) for our fingerprint appointment, the next step in obtaining our permesso di soggiorno. We went armed with all kinds of documentation, including our passports and some small photos. They said to expect from 1 - 2.5 hours there. It was on the other side of town, so we drove there, walked a couple of blocks, squeezed through a narrow pass (no road where we had to go) and entered the gated area after being admitted by an armed guard. We then waited in a tented area (fortunately it wasn't too cold) to be called in for our 11am appointment, after which we went through a security system similar to that at an airport. Dee had a water bottle, so they had her drink some to prove it wasn't dangerous, then let her keep it. The crowd waiting for immigration/residency papers seemed to be a mix of people from the Middle East, Asia, and South America.
We then climbed three flights of stairs to the office, where we showed our appointment paper to a woman behind a glass window. She asked if we were married, and I said "yes, but only for forty years." She said "congratulations," and then I added "we're newlyweds". At that she laughed really hard and told us to sit down and wait for our name to appear on the big screen. Either I really charmed her, or our American passports counted for something, because our name came up almost immediately even though the sitting area was completely full. We went into a room where a woman took our documents and asked for a signature, then took a few of our fingerprints using a digital machine. She said that our permesso would be available at the police station near us in 45 days. My wife asked if it would be exactly 45 days, or possibly earlier. She laughed and said "What do you think this is, America? No way it will be early -- 45 days at a minimum!" We were with her for maybe ten minutes, then they sent us back out to wait again. Our name came up after just a couple of minutes, after which we went into a different room where they took a complete set of fingerprints and palm prints. Then we were done, all in just over an hour. Not bad.
After all that, we arrived at the Institute a bit early and ate lunch. Then at 2pm we had a Skype conference call with other senior missionary couples from around the mission as well as the mission president, sharing success stories, challenges, and ideas. It was the Garretts' last such meeting; they have been in Palermo and are doing great stuff. Anziano Garrett's sister is in our home ward, so we met them in Utah before they started their mission.
I also spoke with the Herways, the missionary couple for LDS Charities, about how to purchase the items for our upcoming service project for refugees. Italy has a lot of refugees these days, mostly from North Africa. At 4pm I taught my Seminary class on apostasy and restoration. There were only three kids, but we had a really good discussion, with them doing a lot of the talking. I also had them install an app on their cell phones to help learn the 25 doctrinal mastery scriptures in Italian. The app looks to be pretty well done, and they were pleased to see it.
This evening the Book of Mormon Institute class was down to eight students. Apparently the stake president's daughter -- one of my Seminary students -- was having a quinceañera (her mother is from Colombia) which took a lot of our YSAs away. Ugo's lesson was really good, covering Jacob and Enos. He is awesome at making the kids laugh one minute and then have a very serious discussion the next, applying the scripture to their lives. Afterwards my wife's casserole with pasta, chicken, bacon, and sausage was very well received.
Here is a photo of the bulletin board, with a bunch of colorful post-it notes from last week's Thanksgiving, with the kids listing what they are thankful for, some in English and some in Italian:
We then climbed three flights of stairs to the office, where we showed our appointment paper to a woman behind a glass window. She asked if we were married, and I said "yes, but only for forty years." She said "congratulations," and then I added "we're newlyweds". At that she laughed really hard and told us to sit down and wait for our name to appear on the big screen. Either I really charmed her, or our American passports counted for something, because our name came up almost immediately even though the sitting area was completely full. We went into a room where a woman took our documents and asked for a signature, then took a few of our fingerprints using a digital machine. She said that our permesso would be available at the police station near us in 45 days. My wife asked if it would be exactly 45 days, or possibly earlier. She laughed and said "What do you think this is, America? No way it will be early -- 45 days at a minimum!" We were with her for maybe ten minutes, then they sent us back out to wait again. Our name came up after just a couple of minutes, after which we went into a different room where they took a complete set of fingerprints and palm prints. Then we were done, all in just over an hour. Not bad.
After all that, we arrived at the Institute a bit early and ate lunch. Then at 2pm we had a Skype conference call with other senior missionary couples from around the mission as well as the mission president, sharing success stories, challenges, and ideas. It was the Garretts' last such meeting; they have been in Palermo and are doing great stuff. Anziano Garrett's sister is in our home ward, so we met them in Utah before they started their mission.
I also spoke with the Herways, the missionary couple for LDS Charities, about how to purchase the items for our upcoming service project for refugees. Italy has a lot of refugees these days, mostly from North Africa. At 4pm I taught my Seminary class on apostasy and restoration. There were only three kids, but we had a really good discussion, with them doing a lot of the talking. I also had them install an app on their cell phones to help learn the 25 doctrinal mastery scriptures in Italian. The app looks to be pretty well done, and they were pleased to see it.
This evening the Book of Mormon Institute class was down to eight students. Apparently the stake president's daughter -- one of my Seminary students -- was having a quinceañera (her mother is from Colombia) which took a lot of our YSAs away. Ugo's lesson was really good, covering Jacob and Enos. He is awesome at making the kids laugh one minute and then have a very serious discussion the next, applying the scripture to their lives. Afterwards my wife's casserole with pasta, chicken, bacon, and sausage was very well received.
Friday, December 1, 2017
Working ahead
Thursday was a pretty slow day at the Institute, with no formal activities or classes there. Only Claudia showed up in person, and she got some family history help from my wife. I finalized my lesson for Friday. At 8pm we had a campus council meeting via Zoom to do some planning for upcoming activities, including a service project for the refugees.
In the morning we walked to the small open market just down the street for the first time -- not the big one a few blocks away. We bought some pillows (two for our living room couch and one for the Institute) and a furry blanket, plus a fleece sweatshirt for me, all very inexpensive. We also had the energy for language study and scripture study together, which has been rare because we've been so busy. It was wonderful and really set the tone for the day. It feels like things are settling down for us. Because it's the end of the month, I had to read the gas meters for us and the sisters below us and report that to the office. I also had to get an odometer reading and mileage report to the office for the month.
My wife
prepared two big casseroles a day ahead for Friday night's dinner. Now she'll only have to bake them for a while right before Institute class, which will be nice,
since we have a very full day.
My leg is doing a fair amount better, but still tweaks me occasionally😟. I probably should have iced it a bit more during the day.
Over Christmas, with the Institute closed, we are hoping to go down to Calabria for a quick visit with my wife's third cousin. Don Sergio* is the Catholic priest in a small village there. He is a very dear friend, but he's over 80 years old and has some health challenges now, so we really would like to see him. President Pickerd had some ideas on things we could do down in that area to help with the missionaries and wards, so that could make the trip doubly nice.
*Don is a title of respect for his position. His first name is Sergio.
In the morning we walked to the small open market just down the street for the first time -- not the big one a few blocks away. We bought some pillows (two for our living room couch and one for the Institute) and a furry blanket, plus a fleece sweatshirt for me, all very inexpensive. We also had the energy for language study and scripture study together, which has been rare because we've been so busy. It was wonderful and really set the tone for the day. It feels like things are settling down for us. Because it's the end of the month, I had to read the gas meters for us and the sisters below us and report that to the office. I also had to get an odometer reading and mileage report to the office for the month.
My leg is doing a fair amount better, but still tweaks me occasionally😟. I probably should have iced it a bit more during the day.
Over Christmas, with the Institute closed, we are hoping to go down to Calabria for a quick visit with my wife's third cousin. Don Sergio* is the Catholic priest in a small village there. He is a very dear friend, but he's over 80 years old and has some health challenges now, so we really would like to see him. President Pickerd had some ideas on things we could do down in that area to help with the missionaries and wards, so that could make the trip doubly nice.
*Don is a title of respect for his position. His first name is Sergio.
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