Esther's baptism

Saturday we stayed home in the apartment all morning and afternoon, which was nice. Dee did a bunch of cleaning, in view of the young Anziani coming to stay with us for Zone Conferences the following weekends. In fact, next weekend they are coming from far enough away that they need to arrive Saturday and stay two nights. We each worked on our lessons for Sunday a while. I made Facebook posts on the Institute group for two of our big activities the week before, with a bunch of photos. 

On the Facebook group for my Italy Milan Mission era, they are planning a reunion here in Rome in September to see the temple. We have attended a few of them in the past, always in Salt Lake. Dee and I agreed that it might be fun to come back to Italy later in the year while we are still fresh in people's minds, but we won't know for some time whether that could work.

Samuel called with laptop WiFi problems, which made it impossible for him to complete his first Pathway homework assignment for the new semester. He got a C grade on his first semester; not bad for a first time, especially with his background. I tried to help diagnose the problem over the phone, but between his accent (very difficult for me to understand), lack of technical terminology, and a bad phone connection, I quickly gave up and just told him to bring his laptop to church or to the Institute. He said that he would do so.

My father-in-law's church ward in South Pasadena is reaching out to help. Our old friend Laurie visited him last week, and his new ministering family is trying to go see him. We asked if someone could take Dottie to see him over the weekend while Lynn isn't around , and they will try to organize something. We are truly grateful for wards who really try to serve each other.

In the evening, we went to Esther's baptism at the Roma 2 chapel nearby. We only know a little bit about her fascinating story. She barely escaped Nigeria with her life, leaving one daughter at home with her mom; her other daughter died somewhere in this process. Anyway, she first showed up at the Friendship Center with a hopeless countenance and attitude, but she has come alive as she has been taught the gospel. The Canfields do a wonderful job of loving these immigrants, who have lives far more difficult than we can imagine. The ceremony was in English, and it felt odd to sing the hymns in English instead of Italian. Anziano Kane and Sammy gave very nice talks, and the Roma 5 Sorelle sang a beautiful arrangement of "I Am A Child Of God". It was Anziano Mansell's first opportunity to perform a baptism.

Canfields with Esther

Esther with a bunch of missionaries

Special ties

Friday morning we got to stay home, which was nice as always. On the way into town, we got a phone call on the car speakerphone from the Assistants, telling us about the special zone conferences coming over the next three weekends. The President got permission to bring all the missionaries here for a brief zone conference at the chapel on the temple grounds, as well as a tour of the temple. That involves a lot of travel, and they asked if we could put up four Anziani for one night at our place on the next three Sundays. It will be tight, but we are glad to be able to help. This really is a special time in the history of the church in Italy, and we feel very privileged to be here. It is cool that all the missionaries here get the chance to participate. We have all been inviting friends and acquaintances to go to the open house. Here is the little card we give out (front and back):

Soon after we got to the Institute, Matteo and Andrea showed up. Andrea is a young nonmember who has been coming out for the last week. His English is pretty good, though Dee was able to teach him a few things, such as the fact that the "ed" ending on verbs or participles usually does not add a syllable; e.g., "returned" has two syllables, not three. He was really surprised and delighted to learn that fact. He works part time for AirBNB, checking people into the rentals and giving them a few pointers about Rome. He would be around almost all day and evening, except for running out to do his job a couple of times.

The afternoon was busy, even by Friday standards, with a number of Seminary and Institute students showing up earlier than usual. It was good that my lessons were mostly ready, because there was a lot of good visiting with the kids and not much time to polish my lessons. 

We had twelve kids in the Seminary doctrinal mastery class, with a lesson on the restoration and scripture games. I invited Andrea to participate and he sat in on it. It had to be strange for him to hear all these new terms and scriptures, but he was smiling and later told me (in effect) that he thought there was a good method to my madness, since the kids were really involved and learning. It was fun to have so many kids in there; I think that 12 is the most ever.

Daniele was there after work for most of the afternoon. He got on the FamilySearch computer and worked on his genealogy. Dee went in for a while and gave him some tips, which surprised and delighted him. She is very good at family history, in case you didn't know! Several kids came and sang some very spirited karaoke, led by Jomar and including Nahomi and Andrea, which is always fun to hear down the hall.

Daniele doing genealogy

 

Karaoke

Our friends Holly and RD wrote to say that they were cancelling (or at least postponing) their trip to Rome next week. Bummer. We were looking forward to seeing them. 

Maria Jose, one of our student council members, asked me how the hunt for a new location was going. I told her about the one place we had seen recently that looked promising. When I told her where it was located, she immediately said that she would never go there at night, as the area is dangerous. We looked at it on the map and I explained how close it was to Termini station, but she wasn't convinced. I think that is a nail in the coffin of that location for us. If we used it from 9-5pm, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but most of our traffic is at night when the area is usually deserted. She is small and spunky, and she is working on her mission papers. She went to the Ecuadorian consulate to check on her documents, and a woman there asked if she was legally allowed to sign because she looked like she was only 12 years old! Maria Jose, who is 20, was not amused!

During the afternoon and evening, there were at least four missionary lessons taught at the campus. Missionary work has definitely been picking up as our numbers have increased. We have two more baptisms scheduled for the next week.

We had a good turnout for the evening, many of whom even went to class 😏. Our discussion was on D&C 84-87, mostly on section 84 about the priesthood and purpose of the church. There was a lot of lively discussion (and laughter) as we went over the various topics. Nahomi and Andrea were both in the class. 

Institute class, with Maria Jose on the far right

At the end, I gave Ganziano ties to Anziani Kane and Castro. These ties do not quite match the ones we have given so far, as that model is not in stock, but I told them that they were "special" ties for these two who were pressed into Institute service for just a few weeks. And of course they had the big "G" embroidered on the back. They were delighted, and the kids laughed and clapped really hard. We still have three of the original ties left for our remaining two months, which should be enough, just barely.

Dinner was pancakes with sausage. My wife has an awesome pancake recipe, and there was Nutella, maple syrup, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce for the kids to put on their pancakes. They were going crazy for the food! Did I mention that my wife is good? The place was very full, with a number of our non-member kids inviting their friends to join. Andrea was scandalized that you could put sweet stuff near sausage, but Dee explained that it is a breakfast in the US, and then it made sense to him. I also had a nice conversation with him about the Book of Mormon, which is completely new to him, and I encouraged him to read it.

Sciopero: light day

Thursday morning we both woke up well rested. It was nice for Dee to sleep in bed instead of on the couch. She is in general feeling much better about her dad, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

Just before 10am I went with Anziano Willey to see about their home internet, which had stopped working after a few days. Parking was impossible near their place, but fortunately they have an extra reserved spot inside which he let me use. The Infostrada clerk said that they had run out of fiber lines, which is odd because it was already working at first. He said that we could return everything, or try DSL, which is slower and still has a very long contract. In the meantime they are using their MiFi device, but that isn't good enough for long term. So we walked down the mall a few yards and found a TIM kiosk, where they promised good service for only a little bit more per month, so he signed up. We shall see.

Meanwhile, Dee went to the local open market to look for a new blanket for the campus (rare, but occasionally handy for naps or someone feeling sick) and a new tablecloth. They didn't have any of those, but she fortunately was able to drown her sorrows with some nice new necklaces from her favorite African vendor. She also stopped at the pharmacy on the way back and stocked up on some meds.

It was a planned public transit strike day. Fortunately for us, this one was not on Friday, our big day, as most of them have been. Thursdays are usually slow anyway, and this time only one GANS showed up all day: Junior, for English class in the evening. It was nice to have some time to prepare for lessons.

I got some temple open house tickets in February to go with our landlord, Marco. I had sent him the link to get his own tickets, but he asked if I could go with him and help explain things, which is nice. His mom may also come along. 

Some Sorelle came by to give a missionary lesson at the campus, and they were wearing pants! It was so novel that I had to take a photo.

We were able to leave early for home, hitting Lidl on the way to get the rest of the ingredients for pancakes and sausage Friday night. Traffic was bad, and that store didn't have enough sausage, so we also went to another Lidl near our house to get the final packages of sausage.

Lynn was able to take Dottie to see my father-in-law at the skilled nursing facility, which was great. She was complaining about how hard it was to find parking, but I said that she couldn't complain compared to Rome! Dee followed up with this photo of a recent parking job on our street:

After teaching my Italian class at the Friendship Center, I took Pam to look for shoes. Her feet hurt on her long shifts at the Temple. There's a great shoe store near the Institute and Friendship Center called Geraci. I bought my beloved Gore-Tex boots there. The lady was extremely helpful and Pam left with a new pair of shoes. Since it's January, they were 40% off. The government decrees that January and June are for sales. 

With the slow day, I was able to get some paperwork things done. I have a lot to finish up before we come home, and most of it is paper. My nemesis.

We had leftover Savoiardi cookies and cold orzo, the barley drink that is used as a coffee substitute. I really like dipping the cookies in the orzo!

Carbonara and Saltimbocca

Wednesday morning Dee was pretty tired, having been up late and sleeping on the couch, but not getting a call from her dad's doctor. She had a long chat in the morning with her cousin Lynn, who had a more optimistic view about how Papa is doing. I went out to the Chinese store to get a meat mallet, which was needed for the dinner in the evening. Dee went to Conad to buy some meat, asking a number of nice elderly ladies (you know--my age) there for advice as to what kind of meat to buy for carbonara and saltimbocca.

We heard from our good friends and former neighbors, Holly and RD, who are coming to Rome for a quick visit next week. Their son David is a pilot for American Airlines and can get them good flights tickets. I spoke with RD and gave him a few suggestions for a hotel, etc, then sent him a followup email with more details. We are looking forward to seeing them.

When we got to the campus, one of the classrooms had a big sign for the birthday of Sorella Brooks. It looked great, but we needed the room in the evening, so I called to see what their plan was. They had just finished district meeting and then went out to lunch, and they said that they would be back to dismantle it.

Dee went and taught the Italian class at the Friendship Center again. Everyone loved her games and several asked if she would be teaching next time. She is very good but a bit overextended, so it's not clear if she will continue. We had a blast, playing "I've Never" and charades with verbs. These games are great because everyone speaks and also has to listen for comprehension. My classroom couldn't hold them all, so we moved into the big main room, but people were laughing and having such a good time that we were disturbing another class and had to move again. 

Chad Phares from church headquarters was here in the evening to give a talk to our kids on using social media to promote the temple open house coming up. I had originally told him that on Wednesday nights we usually have small groups, but Ugo put out the call and we got a great response, including a dozen or so locations across Italy and Albania (in the Rome temple district). The fact that Simone was our chef, cooking delicious pasta carbonara and saltimbocca, plus tiramisu (without coffee), probably had a lot to do with it! Simone told me he only wanted me to help, so we did it alone for the first hour and a half, but then we had to rush it and he asked a couple of friends from his home ward to step in. They were a great team, and I got to slip away and talk to some people.

Chad's presentation was not very long, about ten Powerpoint slides, suggesting a hashtag (#vieniavedere, or "come and see") to use in their posts. The room was overflowing, and the kids enjoyed it. Then we had to wait a while for the dinner to be ready. It was well worth the wait, and Chad and his colleagues loved it! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also used the tiramisu as a birthday cake for Chiara, singing all together with a couple of candles.

We ended up staying late, with lots of cleanup, but it was a really fun evening, with wall-to-wall people. A number of non-members were there, including Nahomi and Andrea again. 

When we got home, Dee finally was able to talk with her dad's doctor, who painted a more positive picture than we had been fearing. He was transferred out of the hospital into a skilled nursing facility, where Nana told him that he has to eat a lot to get stronger and come home. Dee was able to talk with him briefly and felt relieved that he seems to be in good spirits and is thinking clearly. He even thanked me for setting up his stay in the skilled nursing facility and said he was going to eat and do everything they say. She was able to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

We were planning on 12 for dinner and ended up with 42. We managed by cutting up the saltimbocca and adding more pasta. Simone was terrific and a lot of fun to talk with. He asked me to be his speaking partner while we cooked, and had a lot of good questions about English, like may vs can, contractions, how to use since. The most memorable was when he asked if there was another word he could use instead of the word toothpaste. He says it's the hardest word to pronounce. Italian doesn't have the th sound.

I had a nice talk with Andrea, who is a very likeable young man, trying to figure out what he is going to do with his life. I told him I joined the Church at 19 and that the gift of the Holy Ghost is a big help in making these important decisions. He went to one of our churches for the first time last week and really liked it. He says he has a learning disability, and I praised him for the ways he works around it. He loves to learn. 

Linda, another nonmember, had returned from Christmas in Battipaglia, where her boss had her work alone for 12 hours at a time and then didn't want to pay her for the hour she spent taking down the kiosk. Sheesh.

Coniato vs. cognato

Tuesday morning found Dee finally back in bed after sleeping on couch much of the night. Her dad's doctor called her after 2am here, but it rang once and then went to voice mail. It is frustrating not to be able to get answers to some questions. Apparently her dad will be released from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility in the next day or two, where we hope he can regain some strength.

We left early for Institute, stopping at Lidl on the way to get food for a Wednesday night activity. Unfortunately, we didn't find all the ingredients, so we will need another run to a market. Taco Tuesday had a medium turnout, but with two new nonmember kids whom we haven't seen before, Andrea and Naomi. They ended up staying all day, playing games and visiting and then attending the evening's English class. 

As we were about to have the blessing on the food for lunch, with newly baptized Andrea (a different Andrea) there, Dee tried to be clever and say that he was the newly minted member, using the word zeccato (zecca is the word for a coin mint). Anziano Castro piped up, saying that the word she needed was probably coniato, which means newly minted or forged. Then Sammy jumped in with a clever play on words, that cognato (which means brother-in-law but has almost the same pronunciation as coniato) means when he would marry Anziano Castro's sister. It brought down the house. Anziano Castro yelled "nooooo!" and jokingly picked up a knife to threaten Sammy. We all laughed hard for quite a while.

After lunch, I drove up to the mission office to have a meeting with someone from the church offices in Frankfurt who helps manage cell phone contracts for all the missions in Europe. Anziani Thacker and Willey were in the meeting, as well as President Pickerd on speakerphone for a while. We are paying far too much; apparently our current carrier is not living up the pricing agreed on in the contract, but they make it very difficult to understand (and thus address) the details. Anyway, we had a good discussion about how to proceed and try to save more money. It seems clear to me that we should make a number of changes right away, but things seem to move slowly here.

Grace came by the campus to make tiramisu for the Wednesday evening activity. It was done Mormon-style: delicious orzo-soaked savoiardi cookies (no coffee) with Nutella added. She made a double batch because we will also celebrate the birthday of Chiara, a friend of Franz who has been taking the missionary lessons and plans to get baptized soon.We had bought ingredients at Lidl in the morning, but not enough for the double batch, so Dee sent Andrea and Naomi out to get some more at the small local supermarket. She was afraid that it would be prohibitively expensive, but it wasn't too bad. The whole process took much of the afternoon.

Grace making tiramisu

Noemi came by just after 6pm to meet with Dee as her English partner for her Pathway class. Her English is already amazingly good, but she is always trying to make it better. For example, Noemi at one point said "in fat", but what she meant was "in fact"; it is hard to hear the difference, and the Italian equivalent is infatti, so the confusion is understandable.

In the evening, Ugo held his online class on Isaiah, while there was a big crowd of young people for the missionaries' English class. Apparently several of the nonmembers in the class started asking questions about the temple, so they spent most of the time talking about that and inviting them to the upcoming open house. There haven't been that many kids around on Tuesday evening for a while, and it was great to have so much energy filling the place. We love our assignment here! Simone was there for Ugo's class, and he said that we are his favorite senior couple ever. It is dawning on people that our time is short, and we are all sad.

When we got home, I did a few things to help prepare for our return. First, I had our names added to our son Rich's auto insurance policy so that, once we get home, we can drive my Camry; we transferred the title to him before leaving. It actually lowered his premium a little bit! We will get our own policy soon after arriving, but this buys us some time at first when we will be very busy. I also spoke at some length with Verizon and finally had them activate an old SIM card on Dee's US phone, even though it can't be used until we have access to a Verizon tower. Having spent all the time on the phone getting to somebody who could help me with that unusual request, it was worth paying an extra month or two so that we can have cell service when we get off the plane -- one less thing to take care of later.

Hoping to talk with her dad's doctor, Dee planned to sleep on the couch again, so that her phone ringing wouldn't bother me. Fortunately, the couch is comfy. We installed a different phone app (Groove IP) on her cell, hoping it would work better. She has spoken with a number of helpful people at the hospital, but still hasn't gotten all of her questions answered.

Cartoon

Monday morning I went to Conad to get some supplies for home as well as produce for me and for Taco Tuesday. Dee walked to the Chinese store to get some things for her Italian lesson. We then left early to get to the Institute for her to finish lesson prep there, including printing out a bunch of things on card stock on our nice laser printer. 

Making games for Italian class

While she was out at class, I printed out materials for my lessons this weekend. I also offered to teach Priesthood in a couple of weeks, and Jair, our Elders Quorum president, quickly agreed.

We found a really cute and wonderful cartoon of the two of us, drawn by one of the GANS. At FHE we would learn it was Riccardo. Here it is:

My personage, with a tie and scriptures in hand, says "let's take a photo and then eat!" which is what I say each Friday after class. Dee, with kitchen utensils in hand, asks "who wants seconds?" We were chuckling all day about how clever and true-to-life it was. Obviously they are most impressed by my spiritual lessons! 😀

In response to my (probably fake) quote of Jesus the other day, our daughter Wendy shared a different and clever one with a very modern twist: Jesus said, "yolo lol jk brb." For those who want a little translation, that would be: "You only live once. Laugh out loud -- just kidding. Be right back!" 

A guy named Nabil, who is just over thirty years old, showed up in thelate afternoon. He said that he is Italian/Arab, born and raised here, with a father from Morocco. Most of his family is there and he seems to be alone. We learned that he joined the church a few years ago, but he is very quiet and withdrawn, so it was hard to learn much about him. Jomar recognized him, after he stayed for FHE. Nabil found and shared the quote of the week with the group.

We have started asking a question of the week at home evening, going around the room and having everyone respond. This time it was "name one of your favorite singers or bands." It was really fun, with everyone selecting very different types of music. Anziano Castro said his was cumbia music from Argentina. When Riccardo said that he knew that music and named a famous song, Anziano Castro got so excited that tears came to his eyes. Everyone laughed and had a great time. I said Gladys Knight, fwiw, while Dee chose Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

The Ganziani then gave a very nice lesson on faith: what it means, how to increase it, how to show it. They got a lot of participation and comments out of the group.

After the lesson, we tried the new crepe maker that Dee was given by one of the American temple construction worker families who went home. Grace jumped in and expertly cooked almost all of them, spreding them with Nutella. The whole group stood around in the kitchen and visited while they were waiting for their crepe. It was really fun, with the room filled with energy. We didn't leave until late, about 9:30pm, but we didn't care because we were all enjoying it so much. Several of the kids, including Sammy, Jomar, and Dario, were very hungry and first devoured a dozen crack chicken sandwiches, left over from Friday night.

 

Grace with her concoction

 

Jomar tries his hand

Grace at work

We really are enjoying the "temporary" Ganziani, Castro and Kane. Anziano Kane said that he hopes to stay on as a Ganziano, in part because he wants to get one of our "killer ties". Sammy, always looking for a new English phrase, asked what that meant and wrote it down. He also learned the difference between slick and sleek.

Once we got home, Dee made some phone calls to California and ended up sleeping on the couch for a good while, waiting to get a call from my father-in-law's doctor. Sometimes the time change works in our favor, but not so much in this case. Papa will still be in the hospital for at least another day or two, and we are trying to understand better what is going on. The doctor called at 2:45am, but Skype sent it to voicemail so fast that I didn't get to talk with him, grr. Doug has now lovingly switched me to GrooveIP, which rings eleven times before going to voicemail. So, I'll try again the next day.

Andrea gets baptized

Dee was up late Saturday and early Sunday to prepare her Primary lesson and a game for singing time. The game (thanks, Pinterest!) uses a subset of the Uno card deck, with each color for a different segment of the song, and each number or special card being a different action. The kids loved it: Levi even asked if he could take it home to practice the song! Dee was tired for lack of sleep, but it was worth it.

Our bishopric hasn't quite got the new one-hour Sacrament meeting thing down yet. For the second week in a row, we started late and ended almost 15 minutes late, which cuts into lesson times for the second hour. They had the Boscos and Monica Frulla speak, all of whom are moving away and will leave a big void. President Melone from the stake also spoke for a few minutes at the end. He was there to release Brother Frulla as ward clerk and sustain Gamal to replace him. All the talks were really good, just too long. However, nobody here seems to be ruffled by it, so we just need to roll with it. 

In the middle of Sacrament meeting, we got a message from Jim in South Pasadena. Since it was the middle of the night there, I knew without even reading the message that it was trouble. My father-in-law had fallen and hit his head hard in the bathroom and was unable to get up. Jim asked what to do. Dee suggested calling an ambulance to take him to the hospital, which is apparently what happened. We know that they admitted him, but we don't know yet all the details. Jim and Dottie came back home from the ER and collapsed into bed. It is a relief that Jim is there, and he is carrying a big burden for us. 

After the two hours, we had a farewell lunch for the Boscos and the Frullas. This is three luncheons in one month, always with a great quantity and variety of food. We love our ward! 

 

 

 

 

At my request, the FM folks just installed a new WiFi access point on the ceiling in the hallway, right in the middle of the church. It seems to cover every room in the place now, which is awesome! However, it still needs to be configured, but hopefully next week all the teachers will have WiFi access in their classrooms, which has not been the case here before. The current WiFi comes only from the far corner in the clerk's office, which barely reaches the chapel, let along the classrooms. With the recently installed fiber internet service, we will finally have a reliable and fast network at church!

We came home for just a few minutes and then headed out for the baptism of Andrea at the nearby Roma 2 chapel. I looked it up on this blog: he was contacted on the subway last February 1st by Anziano Waddell, on splits with Adrian. The baptismal ceremony was very nice, with talks by Jomar and Almendra, a wonderful musical number by Anziani McConkie and Anderl ("Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in Italian), and prayers by Grace and Sheyla. Here is the group of GANS who were able to attend:

Andrea right in the middle

Andrea is a freelance journalist, so he is slated to have a tour of the temple on Monday with the VIP groups. My comment to him was that I was delighted to know a VIP!

I had a blast making the Uno game. I also got good attention from my Primary class. I have three nonmembers in it now. Now I need to work on my Italian classes. Sister Canfield said the class members loved it and has offered me a bigger room. It's great to have them speaking and learning and smiling.

I've been so busy that I didn't cook anything for the ward pot luck. Instead, I brought asiago cheese, bresaola (air-cured beef, thinly sliced) and breadsticks. Every single bit was gobbled up.

Thanks to Jim and Lynn, Dad is staying in the hospital. It turns out he has some serious health needs, and will go from there to a skilled nursing facility for awhile. More on that later.