The power of food

As usual, Friday was a big cooking day for Dee. It was a glorious day, sunny and warm. In the morning she went to Todis to get apples to make more pies than originally planned. I spent a bit of time finalizing my lessons during the morning and afternoon. We went into town a bit early, because she wanted to do a trial run of the pie to make sure it worked, and she had two pasta casseroles with ham and cheese to put together as well. Dee wisely sat down for her kitchen activities when possible, to save her energy and her feet.

Dee writes: Several of the kids offered to help with various things, at just the right moments. Boy, was I grateful, because time was pretty tight to get everything done. It takes a long time to get everything ready to feed twenty people. Marilene grated a whole bunch of cheddar cheese for the casseroles, and we really enjoyed visiting with her. She just has joyful personality. Doug did a bunch of dishes (and so did I). Grace also helped out a lot with final prep and with serving. It's really great to have these one-on-one times with the GANS. They're really opening up to us. 

The pie shells prebaking. I made Dutch apple pies. 

You can't beat that crumb topping.

 

For Seminary, we had "only" six kids this time. A couple of months ago that would have been a huge class. A couple of the kids showed up later, after class, due to some conflicts such as a dentist appointment. We played scripture games from before, including Taboo and the ever-popular Bingo, plus we did a new game involving a form of basketball. One kid takes the little ball -- made of balled up paper wrapped in masking tape -- and starts shooting it into a trash can about ten feet away, while I give a clue for a scripture. The other students then have to find the scripture in their paper Book of Mormon and open to it. Once everyone has found the scripture, the basketball shooting stops and we record the score. They enjoyed it quite a bit, but Bingo is better!

While several kids were waiting for Seminary to start, Dee asked me to put out some cookies and Nutella in one of the classrooms, as every horizontal surface in the kitchen was full. There was also a young married couple (former GANS :) who had missed their train, waiting there for the next train. Food is powerful stuff! The place went from half a dozen people just sitting and not interacting much, to everyone standing at the table, eating, talking, and laughing.

We have a new Ganziano, with last name Wijesundera. He is from Boston, with parents from Sri Lanka, and he joined the church just a few years ago in Florida. He attended Pepperdine University for a couple of years before his mission. We are looking forward to getting to know him.

My Institute class covered the final eight chapters of 3 Nephi, the end of the visit of Christ in America. It included the final two chapters of Malachi which Jesus shared with the Nephites, so we had great discussions about tithing, Elijah, family history, scripture study, the name of the church, three Nephites, etc. I forgot to take my usual class photo, but it ended up being a pretty good-sized group, with many people sharing stories and comments.  In addition to the class being mostly full, there were two students online listening in.

After my lesson, the place was packed with kids, not all of whom made it in time for the spiritual part, but they didn't miss the food! 😀 We are just glad that they are there. 

 

Grace at the stove, in the plaid skirt.

 

Anziano Wijesundera, in the white shirt

 

As is usual for Fridays, we got home a bit late. I then spent some time on the phone with our accountant back home, Norm, talking about the tax returns for us and for my in-laws. We each will end up paying more taxes than anticipated, which of course means that it was a good year. No alarms were set for waking up Saturday morning. Nice!

Airport run

Thursday was quite a busy day. We left at 6:40am to take Sorella Ricks to the airport for her transfer to Cagliari. She was ready ahead of time, and we wheeled her big suitcases out to the car in the rain. This is the first time we have been asked to help with transfers, and we are glad to do our part. Traffic was pretty good, with a few minutes of slowdown on the freeway, but we got there in about an hour and dropped her off at the curb. 

A few minutes after we left the airport heading home, expecting some rush hour traffic, we got a call from the Balzottis. They were bringing a brand-new ("greenie") sister to the airport as well, but traffic was horrible: they were completely stopped for 20 minutes, on the same route that we had used half an hour earlier. The problem is that Sorella Palmer was landing from Palermo on an early flight, en route to Pescara on the train later in the morning, and they wouldn't be there in time to meet her. These young missionaries travel without cell phones, but they asked us to find her and drive her downtown to the train station. All they knew was that she was on RyanAir. So we first reprogrammed Google Maps on my phone to return to the airport, which involved an effective U-turn by exiting the freeway and coming back. Meanwhile Dee looked up flights from Palermo on RyanAir and we figured out which terminal she would be at. 

We got to the airport and parked in the temporary spots, called "Kiss and Ride" (yes, in English!) Then we walked into the terminal and checked the monitors, which showed that her flight had landed. So I waited at the arriving passenger exit, while Dee scanned the curb outside. After about ten minutes she showed up, rolling all three suitcases (two big, one carryon), which barely fit in our little car. We know her from inspecting her apartment at Roma 1 for a few transfers: a very wonderful young woman. She was exhausted from having gotten up at 3:30am without time for breakfast, so we got her something to eat and headed into town. She fell asleep on the way, which was good. As expected, traffic was bad going downtown at rush hour. It took us an hour to get to the Termini train station, where we dropped her off in the care of the Zone Leaders who were coordinating all the transfers coming and going. We then headed home, without much traffic because it was a bit later by then and we were headed out of town instead of into town.

We got back home a bit after 10:30am, at which point we finally had some breakfast. We hadn't eaten before leaving, assuming that we would be back much sooner. I still had to shower and get ready for the day. Dee actually took a brief nap, while I had one later during the afternoon at the Institute. We got to the Institute at the regular time, and I spent much of the afternoon working on my Friday lessons. I also went to the Post Office around the corner to return an item from Amazon that had arrived in a "not exactly as advertised" state, waiting less than 15 minutes there. Dee cooked a bunch of chicken in the crock pots, to be shredded and frozen for future use. Our freezer is pretty full at the Institute; we are well stocked. Ugo just found out that our food budget has gone up a fair amount, and there was much rejoicing. It has been challenging to feed all these kids for only 150 euros/month.

Thursday is a light day at the Institute, so we only had a few kids show up. One was Daniele, who is in my "computer club". He was downtown waiting to see his girlfriend from Milano, here on a school trip, and we got to visit for a good while and bond a bit. He is very sharp and really likes technology. David Perego, also in the computer club, just posted his desktop design for about $11K. He said that he knew he wouldn't actually have the money to build anything anyway, so he choose top-of-the-line everything and maxed everything out. I asked him to write up a brief description of what he chose and why. By contrast, my design costs just over $500. Daniele says that he has started working on his design, so the project seems to be going well.

There were missionaries coming in and out all day as the transfers proceeded. We have such a great location, only a few blocks from the main train station. Turns out that our district in Roma 3 ward just doubled in size, from four young missionaries to eight. We are not sure how or why, but it will be fun and good for the ward. 

Surprisingly, nobody showed up for English classes in the evening, which has only ever happened one other time. With all that was going on, maybe it was for the best. Actually, one young man showed up more than an hour late, when the class would already have finished, so he just headed home.

Trevor also showed up in the late afternoon to help my wife make some apple pies. He has quite a talent for cooking and baking, and Dario (whose mom just went into hospice) had asked my wife for apple pie. So it was a great opportunity to do something for Dario and to visit with Trevor. My wife spent several hours with him in the kitchen and enjoyed getting to know him better. He will go home to Utah in June because his permesso to continue teaching school here was denied. My wife had cancelled her Family History class for this week because this was the only time Trevor could fit into his busy schedule. It was a worthwhile tradeoff for her.

 

 

 

We home a bit late after waiting for some things in the kitchen to cool down enough to leave in the fridge. Both of us were exhausted after a long and enjoyable day. There is something delightfully refreshing about being around all these wonderful young folks all the time.

Brazilian food

Wednesday was our day off, and I spent most of it at home working on my upcoming lessons. Dee was here in the morning but left for the dentist just after 2pm to check the screw that fell out of her dental implant. Apparently she did a very nice and careful job of putting it back; they were pleased and all seems well. Dee writes: Dr. Scrascia said now I can be HIS dentist :) From there she went straight to the Institute for our evening activities. I love walking across the Ponte Milvio bridge and looking at the Ponte Flaminio bridge next to it. You can google it if you'd like to see it, too. Or come visit us! I went to Lidl about 3:15pm to get a bunch of food, mostly for the Institute, then drove it straight downtown, which is much nicer than trying to carry it up into the apartment and later down to the Institute. Every so often we buy a six pack of 2-liter bottled water, which is inexpensive but a pain to carry. Fortunately, when I arrived about 4:30pm, there were two Ganziani and two GANS to help carry everything up in one trip.

At 5pm we had our campus council meeting, where we discussed upcoming activities, as well as how we can better publicize "rules" for conduct at the Institute. It's not so much that we have had any big problems, more that the kids don't always know what we expect of them. One thing that Dee and I need to do better is ask for help in setting up and cleaning up; the kids are almost always willing to help, but we don't ask enough. Ugo is a very good mentor and counselor for these kids, some of whom are still quite young. 

At 7pm we had another awesome Wednesday night activity: a class in Brazilian cooking by Anziano Conatti. He had done a very nice job preparing things, and he gave everyone an assignment to help make something. There were rice and beans (made by Ugo), a fried dough with chicken and veggies inside, and some chocolate balls. I don't remember the names of anything, but it was all delicious. A whole bunch of kids came, including six non-members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dee writes: I went out to try to find a wooden match that Anziano Conatti needed for his cooking, so I asked at the shop downstairs. They sent me to a tabachaio, but they were closed. On the way back, I felt impressed to cross the street, which took me past the same downstairs shop. An employee was outside sweeping the street. I had never seen him before. He asked me if I had found the tabacchaio and we talked for a moment. Then he asked me where I was from. He was very excited to hear I'm American and told me how much he wants to learn English. So, I got to give him a card with the address where we have English classes. He was thrilled to hear about the free classes our Church offers. I believe I was led to him and I was so happy that I had listened to the prompting.

After two very successful culinary evenings, we want to do it some more. With three GANS from the Philippines, maybe next month we will have them teach us how to make Philippine dishes. 

We bid a fond farewell to Anziano Osmond, who is headed south to Lecce. He has been a great addition to our group. Here he is crying, not just because he was sad to leave us, but also he had just sliced a bunch of onions for the meal 😀😉

 We left at 8:30pm, a bit early because we needed to get up so early for a morning airport run, and the party was still going. We trust that they will have cleaned up well!

Back to work

After a long and busy holiday weekend, we were back to the Institute on Tuesday. It felt very odd to have missed Monday there.  The weather was sunny with the high temperature hitting 70F, so spring is definitely here, and it is very welcome. 

We had a smaller group for Taco Tuesday than in recent weeks, partly perhaps because folks were exhausted from an all-day stake service project cleaning the beach in Ostia on Monday. Several of the kids showed up quite sunburned. 

We had a new visitor from the US: Natanya, who will be living in Rome as an au pair for three months. Her mom Connie, who served a mission in Milano in the 1980s, was also there. They fit right in. We exchanged contact info and filled them in on all the activities available at the Institute. After lunch, Dee walked them down to a local Chinese store to buy a plug adapter and phone charger. Dee writes:As you would expect, the mom is a little worried about her daughter, even though they're both excited about the opportunity for Natanya to live in Italy.


Choir was quite fun. The group was small, but Lorenzo said that he wanted to teach the kids how to direct music, not just sing. So he had Matteo and Margie each give it a try in front of the group. Both of them know music quite well but had never directed before. They both did great for a first time! Matteo started out with some confusion, but caught on remarkably quickly. It is much harder than it looks. Margie in particular was immediately in charge of the group, and they both smiled a lot at the learning experience. Ugo brought a chocolate lamb cake, which was very well received.

Dee writes: Jhamil, a young single from our ward (originally from Bolivia), came in to sign up for Pathway. It was the last day and he had to pass the English qualifying test. Pathway is an online program to get a college degree through BYU Idaho and a great opportunity for these young people to get an education at low cost.

Grace, one of our singles, got robbed on the metro and lost her phone. Lorenzo, the choir teacher, also got his phone stolen. His wife had it in her purse on the bus and someone bumped into her. The bump was actually a distraction to steal from her. Jhamil told us he witnessed an old woman get beat up by two men on the street in Bolivia, in the middle of the day, as they stole her purse. He was just a little kid when he saw it, and it left a big impression. The nice part is that some neighbors saw the robbery and chased the guy, retrieving the purse. This was all a good reminder to us to be more careful. Wednesday I'll be on the bus to the dentist, so I appreciate the wake-up call.

In the evening there was a small group for English class, plus Ugo's class via Zoom with a few students in person. We got to leave a bit early and were home by 9pm, which was nice.

Monday evening the missionary transfers were announced. We are losing Sister Ricks below us after about six months, going to Cagliari in Sardegna. Anziano Osmond is heading to Lecce, and our DL Anziano Ferrara is going to Napoli. We have loved these wonderful young missionaries and will really miss them, but their replacements will be awesome as well.

Temple in Richmond!

Being obedient missionaries, Sunday night we went to bed instead of staying up until midnight to watch the final session of conference. Wow, did we miss some good stuff! I downloaded and watched the entire session in the morning. They dramatically revamped that Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching programs, changing the name to Ministering. Here's a humorous take on it:

Then, at the very end, President Nelson announced new temples, including one in my home town: Richmond, Virginia! When I woke up Monday morning, there was a flurry of excited emails from Richmond friends. Very wonderful. All in all, it was an eventful conference weekend.

The Monday after Easter is called Pasquetta ("little Easter") and is a national holiday in Italy. So we spent most of the day at home, with the Institute closed. It was good to be able to catch up on a bunch of paperwork. Just after 9am we left here to go downtown to the Termini train station to pick up luggage from Sorella Holmes, who is going home this week. Dee writes: Since the supermarket was closed, there were almost no cars in the piazza, and Doug had a hard time finding the right way to go! We took Sister Holmes' two suitcases to the mission home, where we got to chat with the Pickerds for a few minutes. The President wanted to know how things are going at the Institute and if we need any help. We let him know how much we love what we are doing and that things seem to be going well, with a few small suggestions and requests. He chuckled at my (partially true) statement that we are serving a "culinary mission".

In the afternoon I ended up spending a lot of time trying to install the new Italian keyboard on Dee's Dell XPS 13 laptop. I had bought it from the UK on ebay.it. It arrived a couple of weeks ago and looked fine, but I hadn't had time to install it yet. Whereas replacing my Thinkpad keyboard was a pretty simple and quick procedure, not even requiring the laptop case to be opened, the Dell replacement procedure was incredibly complex, basically taking everything out of the guts of the laptop just to get to the keyboard. I had never seen a laptop like that inside. There were about a dozen components and connectors to remove, each with a different set of screws. The instructions were ok, but not perfectly clear, so it took me a while to figure stuff out. Finally, having reached the keyboard, there were thirty (30!) screws holding it in place. Sheesh! The laptop is very small and light, but there is obviously a price for that.

Before

The keyboard exposed (can you count the 30 screws?)

It took me well over an hour to get to that point, whereupon I took out the old keyboard and put in the new Italian one. Then I replaced everything, which took a good while to put back together. Finally I turned the laptop over and opened it to test it everything out. To my horror, I found that the keyboard didn't fit! The problem is that each key has to fit in a separate hole, with each one like an island. In the Italian version, some of the keys are a different shape, and there are more of them! I had bought the keyboard for our specific Dell laptop model, but apparently the keyboard for the European version is physically different from the US one. Aaargh! Here it is.

Obviously I should have checked more closely ahead of time, but who knew? So, I took it all apart and put back the original keyboard, which was slightly faster the second time around. The whole process took over 3 hours and gained nothing. I was frustrated, at both Dell and myself.

Afterwards, Dee took my Italian keyboard stickers (9€ on ebay.it) and placed them on her keycaps, reconfigured Windows to use an Italian keyboard, and was very happy. Shoulda just done that! 😥 Here is the original sheet of stickers, then the same set after she removed what she needed to convert her keyboard, then her new keyboard with stickers attached:

 

I have had more productive afternoons, let's just put it that way, but I always learn something new when doing computer repairs.

Ugo and I talked about what scripture class to teach after I finish the Book of Mormon on Friday nights next month. I asked if I could cover the four Gospels over the summer, and he liked it. So I am delighted and will start planning for that.

Ten hours at church

Being General Conference weekend as well as Easter, and because we're in Italy with the time difference, we went to our ward for a 10am viewing of the Priesthood session from the night before. Dee: Why ten hours? Keep reading.

They announced a change whereby they will now combine Elders Quorum and High Priest groups in each ward, which wipes out Ugo's brand new calling. So we kidded him that he can't seem to keep any callings these days! 

I had downloaded the Saturday afternoon session in English and Italian, but the Priesthood session wasn't available for download yet in Italian, so we watched it streaming. The internet connection at our chapel is very slow, so that was a concern, but it seemed to work ok. At noon, we had a three-hour potluck lunch plus barbecue provided by the ward, including a bunch of our GANS whom Ugo had invited. We all ate a LOT! Dee writes: I love the Italian cakes in the shape of a lamb or a dove. They have a topping of almonds and sugar, and sometimes a cream filling. And Elia's artichokes are amazing, made with an herb called Mentuccia, which I've never heard of. It's called Lesser Calamint or Lemon Balm in English. I brought peanut butter bars, which were a big hit. We don't know why peanut butter is so pricey here, but it's rare. The Italians love it and the Americans crave it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also got to meet the new senior couple in our mission, Elder and Sister Simoncini, who are native Italians from Palermo, Sicily. This is their third mission, and they are a very sharp couple. They will be in charge of the temporary temple information center, a trailer with a picture window overlooking the temple site. It will be open until a bit before the open house; after that they believe that they will be in charge of the actual Visitors Center at the temple once it opens. Right now they are staying in the Spragues' old apartment, but in a couple of months they will move into an apartment right across the piazza from us. Until then they plan to attend our ward, since it is close.

One of our young singles, Junior, is learning about the Church. It's really touching to see him studying. And, he came to the whole Sunday gathering. He is a really nice, thoughtful guy.

We also had two other investigators at Church, both middle-aged men who have been studying with the young missionaries. They're both getting baptized Saturday! Russell works at a bed and breakfast and about three months ago, two couples stayed there. They told him it would be better for him to stop drinking coffee, and invited him to learn more about the Church. So, he did. Now he wants to come to Church every week, so he wants to get a different job. His wife is also starting to show interest. The other man, Fabrizio, is also blossoming in the Church.

I got to meet Davide Brando, one of my online students. He is the husband of Dalila Vardeu. They're expecting their first child and she is studying for her degree in family history through BYU online. Her BYU profs don't quite know what to do with her, since they want to teach people to find their ancestors in the USA federal censuses. But she is quite bright and managing it all. Her husband is also terrific, and I loved getting to talk with him.

At 3pm, being very full, we watched the Saturday afternoon session, using my downloaded copy in Italian in the chapel, while streaming English in the bishop's office and French in the clerk's office for a sister we have from Congo who only speaks French. No one dozed off after the big lunch, vbg. Surprisingly, the internet worked well enough for two simultaneous streaming sessions. However, when it came time for the live Sunday morning session (6pm our time), we tried doing three live streams in Italian, English, and French, and it started buffering a lot. So I took my phone and had our French-speaking sister watch in low resolution, using my data plan (only about 400MB for the two hours), which allowed the other two streams to work ok.

For the little kids, it was a great event, with lots of time to run around barefoot and play with their friends. Church is  more relaxed here as far as children are concerned.

Everyone was excited to hear from Elder Massimo De Feo, a Seventy in the European Area Presidency, who was the first stake president here and is very beloved. He gave a nice talk in English, though we only heard the translated version. Overall there were some wonderful talks during the day. I will later read them all in English and probably get a lot out of it. 😀

The Magnantis got the news mid-day that her 89-year-old father had fallen and broken his femur, so they had to leave to go see him in the hospital. Dee and Jenna were in the kitchen with Elia when she got the news, and she was understandably a bit shaken. She and my wife are now good friends; She asked Dee to offer a prayer, which helped calm her down.

Our son Rich emailed us to say that he had bought a dog named April, and that he would send us more details and photos once she stopped using his phone as a chew toy. For just a second we each thought "Whaaaa?" but then we realized it was April 1st. Good one!

I also got an email from RogerK, my penultimate mission companion, in 1977 in Pavia, along with some photos which brought back memories. We lost our mission photos in the 1996 wildfire, so it was awesome to get copies:

Me with my trusty steed (Pavia 1977)

Pavia Elders, March 1977 (Roger and I on the right)

Me tracting (Pavia 1977)

Roger and wife with the Giusto family (Pavia 2017)

After getting home about 9pm, Dee spoke with our daughter Wendy, and then we had a nice video call with our son Wes and his girlfriend Alyssa. She has Italian ancestry, and they will be coming to see us this summer after Wes graduates from Cal State Fullerton, before starting grad school in the fall. Maybe we will go visit her Italian relatives. We're really looking forward to their visit.

Next week we plan on only being in church for three hours, but this was definitely one of those wonderful Italian days: lots of food and the spirit, friendship, and no hurry.

General Conference Saturday

Saturday was a morning and afternoon mostly at home. I walked down to the farmer's market for some bread, then to Conad and the Chinese store for a few things. It rained on and off but was fairly warm, which is good because our apartment heat is now off until next fall. As you may recall, the radiators get turned on by the management under a fixed-price heating contract. We can adjust the temperature, but not whether it is on or off. Fortunately we have our overhead electric units if it turns cold. I also read the gas meters and our odometer and sent in the monthly reports to the mission office.

About noon I installed the new keyboard with the Italian layout onto my Thinkpad laptop. It was fairly easy, though a tad more complicated than shown on YouTube. So now I guess I am fully Italian, though I still mistype a bunch. Dee had a scary moment when the screw in her implant fell out. She left a message for the dentist, but in the meantime she was able to just screw it back in. It uses a pentalobe screwdriver bit, which I fortunately happened to have in the very nice 60-bit set I bought here for computer use. For now she will just carry the bit with her; hopefully it won't come loose while she is eating! Dee writes: I'm pretty awesome!

Just before 4pm we headed out to the Metro store to get sour cream, which was out of stock last time. There are still no jalapenos available, but Dee bought extra before, so we're okay for Taco Tuesday. From there we drove in the rain downtown to the Institute, where we watched the first session of General Conference live at 6pm local time, with the library big screen streaming in Italian and the main classroom in English. Fortunately we have enough internet bandwidth there to support two video streams. We expected just a small handful of kids, but Ugo promised lasagna, so we had probably 15 total, slightly more than half of whom watched with us in Italian. It was nice to have an event that I didn't cook for :) It was interesting to both of us how much easier it was this time around to listen in Italian; six months ago, right after arriving in Italy, it was exhausting and not as easy to follow. I love to watch Conference and knit at the same time, so it was doubly great.

It hadn't quite dawned on us that there would be a solemn assembly first thing, with all of us sustaining the new First Presidency. We had a new member and an investigator with us, plus very few of the member kids would have remembered the last time this happened: 10 years ago with President Monson. So we tried to explain briefly what was going on. It was a very nice session, and it was cool to see and sustain the two new apostles. I have enjoyed their talks over the years, so they should be great additions. After the session we had a wonderful meal, with lasagna and some Easter cakes, shaped like a lamb and a dove. The place was pretty full.

 

 

 

 

As a followup to my Friday lesson, I sent out a couple of favorite quotes on the resurrection to the class members on WhatsApp, one of which I had tried to remember and translate on the fly during class (but didn't do a good job :-).  Here is the first one, by Steven Davis, a protestant scholar, from his book Risen Indeed -- Making Sense of the Resurrection:

"People who reject the resurrection of Jesus Christ typically do so on the grounds that the very idea of a dead man living again is absurd. Despite the fact that I have been arguing on behalf of belief in the resurrection … there is a sense in which I agree with this sentiment. I believe that Christians need to recover a sense of the shocking absurdity of the very idea of resurrection."

And here is the other one, from a book entitled The Resurrection of the Son of God by Tom Wright, an Anglican bishop and well known New Testament scholar:

"The biblical language of resurrection ... involves, not a reconstruction of life after death, but the reversal of death itself. It is not about discovering that the grave is not such a bad place after all. It is not a way of saying that the dust will learn to be happy about being dust. The language of awakening is not a new, exciting way of talking about sleep. It is a way of saying that a time will come when sleepers will sleep no more."

Happy Easter. He is risen!