Chiara's baptism and four guests

Saturday morning we deservedly slept in. Anziano Thacker came over to get the last pairs of new sheets for apartments, and I gave him my now-cancelled credit card. He laughed at the story of what had happened to it. I walked down to Conad for a full load of stuff, mostly produce, for us and our guests. Dee spent all morning and much of the afternoon cleaning. Cleaning doesn't last here. In one day, the floors will be dusty again. So, I did it at the last minute. I helped some here and there, but she likes working alone for the most part. I listen to talks or a book while I work, and also needed to do some organizing. The place looks great after all her efforts.

There was a baptism at 5pm at the Roma 1 chapel for Chiara, who has been coming to the Institute for some months now. She is a good friend of Franz, who performed the baptism. There were a lot of GANS in attendance, as well as three "emeritus" Ganziani now back serving in other parts of Rome.

Franz and Chiara

The GANS group

Ganziani emeriti: Waddell, Lewis, Wijesundera

After the baptism, we stopped at Lidl to buy some bacon for bacon apple grilled cheese sandwiches with honey mustard--yummy! Then we drove across town to the Institute, where four Anziani from Calabria had just arrived on the train -- two from Cosenza and two from Crotone. Dee went home on the subway with Clark and Odom, while I took Stout and McInnis and all the luggage in the car. The beds for four of them barely fit in our back room, but the front room doesn't have a heater, and it has been cold of late. Dee fed them chicken enchiladas, prepared Friday and baked on Saturday, which they happily devoured. Only two people can sit in our kitchen at any time, but it worked out fine to stand around.

On the way home from the metro, Elder Clark noticed some pastries in a bakery window. They're called Bugie, which means lies. They have other names, too, like Chiachiere, or gossips or just Frappe. They are a typical part of the Carnevale time, just before Lent. They're basically deep-fried pie crust, coated in powdered sugar. So we got some for them to try. You can see the plate in the picture below. 

L-R: Stout, Clark, McInnis, Odom

It was really fun to have them around, with lots of laughter. Anziano Clark is an incredible pianist and violinist; he just left Roma 3 for Cosenza on Thursday, so he is spending a lot of time on trains this week. Anziano Odom is from San Marcos, right next to our hometown of La Costa. Anziano McInnis is an opera singer, and Anziano Stout has already graduated from BYU with a degree in theater. They sang together in four-part harmony while they were getting ready for bed. A very talented group! We organized the shower and church schedule for the morning, and then they were out at the 10:30pm bedtime for young missionaries.

Friday:
On Friday, I got in touch with an American named Josephine who is going to the Rome campus of St. Johns Catholic University. She really wants to meet people and also wants to join us for our upcoming Temple Open House tour. She is from an LDS family, but not participating recently. We look forward to meeting her!

Also on Friday, we saw Carolina Guidara and her younger brother. They live really far away, so they don't usually come. 

I spent some time on late night phone calls to get Dad's prescription eye drops authorized for the skilled nursing facility .It's worth it.

Help for Chris

Friday started by learning that my mission credit card had been cancelled by mistake. Anziano Willey was trying to clean up some unused cards from missionaries who have gone home, and he inadvertently added mine to the list. I told him that it wasn't a big deal, since we rarely use it. With less than two months left, it isn't worth trying to replace it. Then on the way to Institute we filled up the car, which had gotten pretty low. The credit card connection on the pump didn't work, so I had to pay cash, but managed to fill the car exactly for 35€. Overall, it was a bad morning for credit cards!

Manuel came early to the campus, waiting for Jomar who didn't show until much later. Aisha was here from Malta with family to see Rome, and Manuel and Jomar had planned to accompany them. After a while, Manuel just went out with her family and without Jomar, who is admittedly hard to get in touch with.

My Seminary group was 11 kids, even with two of our regulars missing. Our lesson was on the restoration, specifically talking about D&C 1:30, a mastery scripture which includes the phrase "the only true and living church." We discussed what that means and what it doesn't mean, in particular that it doesn't imply that we are better than anyone else. I noted how much I have learned about faith from many of my non-LDS friends. Then we played some scripture games, ending with bingo as always. Dee had made an apple pie, but only some of the kids ate some. Desserts just aren't as big of a thing here. Ugo was there for the evening, and he is very delighted with how much these kids love coming and being together. It will help them be accustomed to coming to the Institute when they get that age. His wife, an early morning online Seminary teacher herself, says that this class is one of his most inspired ideas ever, and we sure love it!

 

A few of the Seminary kids are working on a puzzle

Dee spent almost the entire afternoon preparing enchiladas. There were several interruptions which were welcome but ended up making it challenging to get the dinner finished on time. She came through in  her usual wonderful fashion (just barely in time, whew!), including a nice salad. Samuel came for the evening, and I gave him about 15 minutes of help with his homework and English, but that was all the free time I had. Friday seems to work best for him, but it is too busy for me, so I encouraged him to try Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday if he wants more help.

Chris, our Nigerian friend who is living on the street, came by after I called him. He has been looking for a place to stay, but it will probably take a while. We gave him a used smartphone, which he really needs. Dee also fed him, and we gave him a used coat, plus a blanket, pillow, and USB battery. These are all things we can live without, and it isn't much. Another friend paid for him to stay in a hotel for the next three nights, which is a real blessing for him, particularly since the weather is very cold right now. When we messaged later in the evening, he was feeling very blessed for all these things in one day.

Institute class was on D&C 88, a long section with lots of profound teachings. There was a fairly big group by the end, and we had some very good discussions on the eternal nature of our body, light, teaching, and choosing what kind of people we want to be for the eternities. 

The two new Ganziani, Faletti and Rouse, showed up and introduced themselves in class. They seem really sharp and energetic. Dee's dinner disappeared quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

We ended up leaving for home after 10pm, rather late even for Friday. Dee had to call home to talk with her sister Donna, because Lynn was not feeling well and couldn't come. We also had a bunch of food to pack up and bring home for our guests this weekend. Most of the kids were still hanging out, which is always fun to see.

Repairs help us learn words

Thursday morning I got a haircut, my penultimate one here as a missionary. Francesco, my barber, still hadn't gotten a ticket to the temple open house, so I left him a little card with the website address. One the way into town we stopped at Lidl, getting a few things for the Institute but a bunch of stuff for home, with four missionaries staying two nights with us this weekend. We were able to sort it at the checkout stand into two separate purchases, and most of the stuff for home stayed in the trunk all day.

The afternoon and evening were very light at the Institute, as usual for Thursdays. It was transfer day, with young missionaries traveling all over the mission. Often we get a bunch of missionaries dropping in while waiting for trains, but no one showed up all afternoon. That was great, in that I was able to finish most of my lesson prep, and Dee prepared a bunch of ingredients for Friday night's enchilada dinner, as well as baking an apple pie for dessert after Seminary. She also did an inventory of all the stuff in the freezers and reorganized them. We have a bunch of frozen taco meat, cooked chicken, and Sloppy Joes, which she will go through before we leave. We are not sure how we every survived with only one fridge.

Apple pie ready for Friday

I have been trying to get the photos off of Anziano Castro's tablet. The screen has died, and he didn't have an SD card for his photos, so they are stuck inside.  He goes home in a few weeks. There are several things I have tried so far, and it is nice to have Dee's tablet as a working guinea pig, since it is basically the same model. Unfortunately, nothing has worked so far. It would be a shame to lose all his mission photos, so I am not giving up yet.

The church FM folks sent a handyman by to do an annual check on our hot water heater. While here, he also fixed a few things: reattaching some baseboards which had come off, adjusting the lock on the bathroom door, patching some paint, and reattaching the two coat racks which had fallen off the wall. Part of the problem is that I don't understand how things work here, especially since there is only mortar and no wood in the walls. For example, I had tried to reattach the baseboards with nails, but that lasted only a few days. He was very fun to talk with, teaching us the names for things that we didn't know: a toilet seat is either "copriwater" (lid for the WC) or "tavoletta" (little table, a Romano phrase), while a freestanding coat stand is a "uomo morto" (dead man, also a Romano phrase). The screws holding our new toilet seat had come out after only a couple of months, so I put in some slightly bigger ones; hopefully they will last better. If not, he said that we would need to buy a high-quality seat for 50€ or more; everything here is very expensive.

Handyman checking the hot water heater

With our new Ganziani arriving late (one from Palermo on the train), I prepared to teach the English class, but nobody showed up. They probably knew about the transfers, but I would have enjoyed teaching. The Benincosas showed up to teach their new self-reliance class on finding a better job, with Jomar, Riccardo, and Junior attending. 

We left early because Dee had a 9pm call (noon California time) with the social worker and staff at my father-in-law's convalescent facility. On the way home, we were held up for a while by a bus which tried to turn a tight corner and basically couldn't make it, blocking traffic from both directions. It was entertaining and frustrating to watch him try to maneuver; finally he just backed up and let everyone pass. Dee took the call at home. They basically gave her a report on his status and progress. He is putting on a little weight and can walk around, though his balance is not good. He is also participating in activities and making people smile, which sounds just like him. It seems too early to know when he could go home, but the level of care and attention there seems good.

I was really tired from having woken up too early, so I crashed by soon after 10pm.

I cooked all.day.long. Making dinner for 30 takes more than one day. I enjoy it, but I also need time for other things, like Primary prep and paperwork. I haven't submitted reimbursement receipts for months, haha. It's not going to calm down anytime soon. Next week the Motts are coming! And so are a bunch of other people, due to a Seminary and Institute convention.

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Wednesday morning we left early to go to District Council at Roma 3. On the way, we stopped at Todis, where Dee found over 20 packages of tortillas for upcoming meals, including enchiladas Friday (Institute) and Saturday (missionaries staying with us). She also got some hamburger buns for Sunday dinner: Sloppy Joes. The missionaries will really like these meals. American food! Cheddar!

At the chapel, workmen were there starting a significant remodel. The back half of the building was walled off, but fortunately they had moved most of the Primary stuff into the room Dee requested, and we got help from the Anziani to put the rest of the things into place. I also helped the workers turn on the circuit breakers for the plugs in the back room, with help via phone from Ugo. Our meeting was very nice, and we will be losing Sorella Brock and Anziano Clark to transfer this week. As always, we miss these wonderful kids, but the new ones always impress us too. At the end we took our typical transfer photo with chairs stacked to show how many transfers each missionary has served in Italy. Next time will be our last photo.

L-R: Clark, Whiting, Yanacallo, Muce, De La Rosa, Brock, Ashton

We drove the Anziani to their apartment with the trunk stuffed full of their new linens from Ikea, as well as a new digital kitchen balance from Amazon and some graphite powder for their front-door lock. From there we went to Metro to stock up on cheddar (over eight pounds), beef, sour cream, and some paper goods. Metro is a membership store, with the mission office paying the fee. They just started a new system, and our old cards don't work, though they let us in this time. After all that we still managed to arrive at the Institute right on time at 1pm. It took a couple of trips upstairs to unload everything.

Anziano Clark is transferring down to Cosenza via train on Thursday (5+ hours) and then returns Saturday for the zone conference, staying here with us. Ganziano Kane is transferred to Sardegna but has to come back to Rome two times in the next few weeks: once for zone conference, and once to apply for his permesso. Travel is expensive in this mission, which is very spread out and includes three islands: Sardegna, Sicily, and Malta.

Just after 2pm I left for the Roma 3 chapel again, this time to meet with the bishop and Chris, our friend from Nigeria. I was basically there as translator, although I did have some input. Chris has lost the room he was renting, after his former boss (who wasn't even paying him for his work) told his landlady to kick him out. Chris quit working for him, since he wasn't being paid, and then the former boss apparently told the landlady to kick him out, out of spite. So he is living on the street, working during the day now selling guided tours. He sleeps in the train station and has nowhere to take a shower. It breaks my heart. The bishop said that the ward could probably give him some financial help with rent, but that we don't have any way to help find him a place. He gave Chris some people to network with, and I checked with Samuel. It is an extremely sad and difficult situation. Apparently if he can't get an apartment and a job by March, his wife will be kicked out of the refugee camp in Lecce and the government will take their two young children away. Also, he has two unreliable phones: one which can make brief calls, and one which can receive calls. He cried part of the time, which is very understandable. As missionaries, we are not allowed to help financially in such cases. There are certainly thousands of people suffering in the same way all the time here, but when you know the person it is very tough to see. We should all count our blessings.

My 45th high school reunion in Richmond was just announced for July, and I hope to go to see my good friends again. Dee's 50th is coming up this fall, in South Pasadena near where we will probably be living. Not that we are getting old or anything. Our question of the week at district council was "what do think your life will be like in ten years?" The young missionaries all talked about education, marriage, kids, career. Dee said that she hoped that we were still alive 😃.

By the time I got back, it was nearly dinner time. I still haven't found much time to work on my lessons this week, but Thursday should be a more free day. For our activity, we had a game night, with about half a dozen kids showing up for Five Crowns (I played) and Cover Your Assets (I didn't). It is always fun to hang with the kids. We finished off the rice pudding from Monday, which was a big hit again, and then a Pandoro as well.

Rice pudding break during Five Crowns

Pandoro time

It was my father-in-law's birthday, so we called to wish him well in the convalescent home. Wendy sent cookies and flowers from our family, and Lynn got flags and cake. Wendy sent a goodies box from Harry and David, which he devoured, as well as a nice boquet, both from all of us. Lynn brought ice cream cake. Dad ate a huge piece and Mom had two helpings. They had enough for 48 people. Cousin Jim also came. The center gave him balloons. He is still pretty confused, often thinking that my mother-in-law is Dee. Apparently he is eating well, which is good, but every day he asks why he is there and wants to come home. He also can't remember that we two are in Italy. It is hard to be so far away, even though we love what we are doing here. We feel blessed to have Lynn and Jim managing the bulk of the load. My sister-in-law Donna flew from Missouri to LA and will join the on-the-ground team there on Thursday.

 

Talking with us on the phone from Rome

Lynn is very positive about the skilled nursing facility. It is clean, the staff is always coming by, the food is good. Tomorrow I get to talk with the staff about his progress. Dad snacks all day long. They bring goodies and hot chocolate. He really likes sweets.

We're starting to make appointments in Carlsbad (dentist, eye doctor, etc.) , but since we're sharing a car, we're trying to synchronize.

Math tutoring

Tuesday morning Anziano Thacker called, wanting to pick up his share of the linens that we had bought at Ikea the day before. Dee took the time to organize everything, and he carried away two huge bags full. Wednesday we will give another two bags to the Roma 3 Anziani for their apartment, which is expanding from two to five missionaries this week and needed a lot of stuff. Then the remainder will be down to a manageable size.

It is raining a fair amount these days, but the weather is still warmer than last winter in general. We got to the Institute in time to have food ready for Taco Tuesday, but almost nobody showed up at first. Fortunately, they trickled in over the first hour and had a good-sized group by the end. Maybe the weather has something to do with it. Here is a photo after about half an hour, but even more kids showed up later.

 At 3pm we had our student council meeting. Joyce is back from a month visiting family in the Philippines. She was with us in person, as well as Sheyla, with Ugo and Noemi by video. A couple of the other council members couldn't make it, so it was a little more sedate than recent meetings. We planned activities for February, with some fun ideas if we can pull it off. Noemi also suggested that we reach out to a list of kids who haven't been coming much recently. Joyce runs a good meeting.

Anziano Castro is finishing his mission, extending a few weeks to help with the temple open house. He is being transferred to Roma 3 for the duration. When he announced that, Joyce and Manuel (both from Roma 3) and I all did a happy dance together with him. It was fun! The energy of these kids is infectious.

Dee went down to a little restaurant right down the street, called Quel Che C'è ("Whatever There Is"). They make something different every day. Ugo needs 55 sack lunches for a Seminary and Institute meeting of folks from all over Europe next week. She asked for a quote for the lunches on Ugo's behalf, which they will give her Wednesday. At first Ugo had thought that the two of us might put everything together, but we said that we were probably too busy to do that, and they have the budget to simply pay for it.

Samuel came by for help with his Pathway class. He got a C last semester in his intro class, which is probably the easiest class he will ever have. But given where he is coming from, that is a great accomplishment and we are proud of him. He now has a basic math class and wanted my help. It is elementary-school level stuff, but he doesn't seem to know it, so I taught him about decimal numbers, addition with carry, etc. He had some knowledge of times tables, but had never heard of division. He admits that math isn't his strong suit, and it was indeed slow going. At one point, he finally understood how to do carries in addition, and he got the biggest grin on his face and gave me a high five! That felt good. I am not sure that he will be up to this class, but he is trying hard.

Aisha, a fairly recent convert from Malta who is leaving on a mission for the Philippines soon, came by. She knows a bunch of the kids from various GANS conferences, and everyone was happy to see her. They all played games together for much of the evening and had a lot of fun in English class. She already speaks about five languages, and now will add Tagalog.

In the evening, Ugo couldn't make it in for his online class, so he asked me to set up my laptop for Noemi and Veronica who were participating from here. That was ok, except that I wasn't able to do any work (e.g., lesson prep) in the meantime. Also, the girls hung out in the library well after the class ended, without letting me know that my laptop was available. It was a little frustrating, but we ended up having some great visits with a number of the kids and the Ganziani at the end.

Two full shopping carts

The Monday Dilbert cartoon was about people with PhDs: 

I sent it our to our kids and ask them not to judge me, nor our son Wes who is working on his PhD in math.

We left home early to go to Ikea to buy a whole bunch of linens for various apartments around here that will host missionaries for the upcoming zone conferences. On the way, we scouted out the walking path from the underground mall parking to get to the temple, as that may be useful if the Open House parking gets overloaded. Dee had gathered orders from several other couples and apartments. We completely filled two huge carts, spending almost 1000€ of mission funds. It almost didn't fit into our small car -- for a minute we thought about leaving Dee at the mall while I drove it home (I would have made the sacrifice, haha), but we barely were able to get it in, although I couldn't see the side mirror due to Dee holding a big bag.

Two full carts on the way to checkout at Ikea

The stuff filling our living room

When we got home, we fortunately found a great parking spot. Paolo, our wonderful doorman, insisted on helping carry stuff with us, so that we were able to get it all upstairs in only one trip, plus two elevator loads.

When we got to the Institute, Sammy came in to say goodbye, that he wouldn't be around for a while. We were so sorry to hear that we won't be seeing him. Dee taught Italian again at the Friendship Center, given a small class of beginners instead of the larger intermediate class. So her games didn't go quite as well with the smaller group. This is probably her last time teaching, with a new intern coming on board there, which is good because she has so much else going on. Meanwhile I did some initial lesson prep, printing out the materials.

In the late afternoon, I walked over to the nearby hotel where Holly and RD were going to stay. He hadn't been able to navigate cancelling their reservation via the hotel site in Italian, so I was able to get it all cancelled for them. Arsene, the young Catholic priest from Burundi, stopped by to say hi. He is sad that we will be leaving soon and said he would come visit us in California sometime, which would be cool. We agreed to go see the temple Open House together next week, and I went online to get the tickets for us.

Our FHE group filled the library, and we had a lot of fun. Dee selected the question of the week, asking where they like to go eat, and where they would like to go that they haven't tried yet. Everyone really got into it, and we ended up with a nice list of restaurants to try. We should have done this a year ago! My lesson was on Martin Luther King Jr, with it being the US holiday, explaining a bit of historical context for the Jim Crow laws which were prevalent in the south when I was a kid. Fortunately, thanks in large part to his efforts, those practices disappeared by the time I was a teenager. I talked about how his non-violent methods really changed minds throughout the country, and that one good person can make a big difference by standing firm to his convictions. We watched the last five minutes of his "I Have A Dream" speech from 1964 on YouTube, with Italian subtitles. Several of the kids had good questions and shared some experiences about racism in their lives. Everyone was very attentive and seemed to enjoy it.

Then we had warm rice pudding by Dee, which was very popular, followed by a game of Cover Your Assets.

Rice pudding

Game continued until after we left

Meanwhile, things were happening in South Pasadena. My father-in-law can't remember why he is in the convalescent facility and desperately wants to come home. I praised Mom for helping Dad to get better by encouraging him to eat and exercise. I told her he IS eating and says he likes the food. I reminded Dad of his fall and how thin and weak he is, and that he needs the time in the skilled nursing facility to improve his life. It turns out he desperately wanted to see his mail, so I asked Lynn to bring it and he loved it! I'm so glad I can talk to him every day. Dee's sister Donna arranged to fly out there from Missouri on Wednesday for a couple of weeks to help with the team effort. It is difficult to be so far away, but Dee is involved by phone as much as she can.

No room?

Sunday night I woke up after a bad night, having had a stomachache and not enough sleep. Dee had to wake me up in time to get ready for church. I was not feeling well, but an Excedrin helped quite a bit. If I hadn't been able to go, she wasn't comfortable driving by herself, so it was good that it worked out. I like to bring treats to the missionaries when we inspect their apartments. This time, they had to cancel due to working at the Temple open house, so I gave them their treat before Church. It was Twix bars. One of the American sisters gave a gasp and fell into my arms. She said, "it's been sooo long." (She is on her first transfer, haha.) The other American sister was estatic, too. The two Italians were pleasant but not jumping up and down. The difference was hilarious.

Sacrament meeting started and ended on time this week. The bishopric announced that some remodeling of the building will start this week, for a month or so and that half of it will be inaccessible. It will be interesting to see what they do, and our building can probably use some refreshing.

After that I taught my Sunday School lesson on Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, basically the Christmas story. Since everyone knows the story, I just led a discussion on a number of issues and questions that I came up with. The class was large, and a whole bunch of people participated, with good comments and questions. Everyone seemed really engaged, and I felt great about it. The spirit was very strong. I closed by reciting the words of a Christmas song from an old cantata we sang in Richmond 2 Ward in the 1970s, which I applied to finding room for Christ in our own lives:

No room, only a manager of hay
No room, He is a stranger today
No room, here in His world turned away
No room, no room

No room, here in the hearts of mankind
No room, no cheery welcome could find
No room, surely the world is blind
No room, no room.

Angels, in heaven up yonder
Watch with amazement and wonder
To see the Son of the Highest treated so.
No room.

Dee used the Uno game from the prior week to do singing time, and the kids paid attention pretty well, actually learning the lyrics to the song. After church, I helped Samuel with his laptop, which worked the first time. I didn't do anything, but it seems fine, and he was happy. Maybe his phone hotspot was misbehaving the day before. 

After Church, I took the markers, bulletin board pics and other stuff home, since that part of the building will be blocked off. We wanted to clean out our primary cupboard, but since Doug and I needed to do inspections, it will have to wait. We have two nonmember kids in our primary who are real treasures. They want to learn and love Jesus and are participating. It's great to have them.

I also spoke with Chris, the Nigerian immigrant whom I baptized last year. He is really struggling with finding a job, which is a common issue here. His wife and two children are in a refugee camp down south, and if he can't help them soon she will apparently be kicked out of the camp and the kids taken into custody. Our heart aches for the difficulties these refugees go through. I encouraged him to talk with the bishop, who knows how Italy works (and doesn't) much better than we do, and I offered to help translate between them if needed.

We waited a while for the Anziani to finish and then drove them to their apartment to do an inspection. It had been too long. The place was actually reasonably clean and organized as such things go here, except that the furniture and bedding is really old and worn out. We will buy them some new sheets, blankets, and mattress pads (of which they had none), also because they will be getting extra missionaries this week.

In the evening, the Pickerds had our senior couple potluck dinner at the mission home, which happens usually once every six weeks. There were three kids of soup and a bunch of breads, all wonderful. For dessert Dee made peanut butter and butterscotch haystacks, which we love but weren't as popular as with the kids. It was great to visit with a bunch of the other senior missionaries, about twenty in all. I sat where we spoke mostly Italian. Afterwards the President gave an update on the mission, with Dee and I translating for the Simoncinis.

Dee making dessert in our kitchen

The potluck spread

There was a flurry of activity back in South Pasadena, with Dottie having some eye problems after a procedure this week. She said her eye hurt, she was seeing double and couldn't read. Then she went to bed. After a couple of hours, she still wasn't up and Jim told me about it. I phoned her doctor. He was very concerned. Pain and vision changes require immediate attention. But when Jim woke  her up, her eye wasn't hurting anymore and it wasn't red or anything. It takes Lynn, Jim, and sometimes Donna and me just to keep things afloat.  Dee almost had Jim run her to the doctor, but finally it seemed that it was ok. Almost every day there is some kind of health or emotional crisis going on, and we're doing our best to handle it all.