Busy down time

On Wednesdays, we get a day off from the Institute, which is good because we still have a bunch of things to do to get set up around here. For example, the first sheer curtain looked good enough that we bought another set for a different window, so now we can have more light in our rooms. The living room got reorganized a bit to make a better place for the WiFi router and my laptop. We went to the mall and to Ikea, buying more stuff for the apartment and some exercise equipment: a floor mat, some hand weights, and a foam roller. We actually feel good enough to start trying to work out again! 

In the morning, I had a followup visit with the cardiologist, who gave me a clean bill of health. She did an echo-cardiogram and a stress test, and everything looked fine, which is what we expected but we'll all rest easier knowing for sure. Her final comment was something to the effect of "you didn't have a heart episode; you just fainted". Here is a picture of us in front of the equipment she used:

And here is a fairly typical parking job in Italy; that's our car outside the doctor's office:

I have now parallel parked a few times and got it right the first time. It's easy because the car is small. It's a Toyota hybrid, which seems to get great gas mileage.

We also went to a different cell carrier store to see if they would accept our US credit card for automatic payment. The guy was very helpful and said that they absolutely could, so we started the process of porting Dee's number over. However, when he asked for our codice fiscale (fiscal code, kinda like a tax ID number), which we won't get for several months, he said that he couldn't take our credit cards. Sigh. So we'll just have to go to the store every month to pay the bill.

Several other friends from church are coming to Rome later this month. One of them offered to bring an entire suitcase of stuff for us, which they will then fill with stuff they buy here to take home. Awesome! There are definitely some things we'd love to have, so we're making a list to give them, with an assist from our son Rich who is gathering things from around the house.

We also went to Metro, a club store kinda like Costco, but it turns out we didn't have our member card, so we couldn't go in. The office can issue us another one, so we'll get there in a few days. They apparently have a bunch of things not easily available here, like tortillas, hot dogs, and cheddar cheese, so it's useful for our cooking.

Tonight we're bushed after running around all day, but this place really feels like home.

Taco Tuesday

Things are settling in a bit. We did shopping this morning for the food for Taco Tuesday, as well as some useful household items. For example, we bought a curtain rod to hang some sheers over the bedroom windows so that we can keep the tapparelli (rolling vertical metal shutters) open and let light in while we are getting dressed. It seems that every day we come carrying with a bunch of big bags full of stuff for the Institute: food, supplies, etc. That will probably diminish somewhat as we stock up and figure out what we're doing better.

Only six kids showed up for Taco Tuesday today, so everyone got plenty of food. My wife had me cook the meat this time while she did the chopping -- I'm learning to cook as bit as well as wash dishes! School seems to be in full session now, so a bunch of the kids have classes that make it difficult to get here during the day.

 

Our neighbors from Carlsbad, Jim and ClaireS, showed up this afternoon, bearing welcome gifts: four bottles each of taco seasoning and baking power, which are apparently not to be found anywhere here.

You can see my official missionary apron, which I tend to wear a lot during the day.

I'm also helping Pamela, a single LDS woman who is living in Rome for a while, reinstall Windows 7 on her older laptop which is having problems. This is the kind of thing I like to do to help out friends, and I'll probably offer my free IT services to the kids once things get settled more. Our Amazon order contained a few tools that I often need for fixing PCs, such as a USB DVD drive.

In the afternoon, my wife decided to try to make tortillas by hand from scratch. Maybe we'll use them next week instead of store-bought ones. Dario, one of the GANS, was excited to learn how to do it, and they worked together for quite a while:

The result was warm and delicious, especially when you put Nutella on it, as Claudia demonstrates here:

In the evening there were two English classes, beginning and advanced, taught by the young missionaries. We also had an online Institute class on Jesus Christ and the Eternal Gospel, taught by Ugo using Zoom online conferencing. He couldn't be there in person, so he taught from home and I set up Zoom on my laptop to display on the big screen TV. There were five kids in the room, plus about 25 other locations around Italy.

Jim and ClaireS also brought us a 3D figurine that we had made before we left, but which didn't arrive in time for us to take. It was a Christmas present from my wife's cousin Jim, who lives with her parents in South Pasadena. It's small (about 4 inches), but very life-like, and the resemblance is impressive. We plan to use it somehow at the Institute as a placeholder for us😊

It was a very good day today! We're tired but pleased. These kids are really great, and the spirit is very strong when they are around.

First Family Home Evening lesson

Another really good night of sleep, and today I felt normal all day for the first time in a couple of weeks. My wife is also doing a lot better. Life is good.

In the morning we attended our first zone conference, a large one with missionaries from all over the Rome area and from Naples. They had us stand up and introduce ourselves and bear a testimony, along with all the other new missionaries, and everyone was surprised at how good our Italian is -- all those trips over the past decades paid off! They even laughed at our little jokes. Unfortunately, we had to leave after only a couple of hours to go open up the Institute, so we really didn't get to meet many people yet. Doing so involved driving across the entire city, passing the Vatican and crossing the river. Traffic is starting to feel normal here, which is scary.

It was a fairly slow day at the Institute, which was welcome in a way. We were able to catch up on some stuff from home, and my wife sent out our first weekly attendance report, making a fancy spreadsheet which will be helpful in tracking who is coming. For home evening only a few kids came, which was disappointing, but we think they were a bit overwhelmed after such a long day yesterday. 

My lesson consisted of going around the room and having everyone share something brief that touched or inspired them from General Conference. It's always interesting to do that, because we listen to the same talks, but everyone gets something different out of it. Then we played a trivia game about modern apostles and Presidents of the church; I made it up and it was too long and too hard, but they learned some things.

Afterwards we had snickerdoodles again. This time my wife taught me how to make them. We are really enjoying our time together, laughing more than we ever do at home. Things are starting to feel a bit more routine after a rough start.

Our first package from amazon.it arrived at the office today, bringing a few things we've been missing. The Balzottis, another missionary couple who live in our apartment complex and work at the office, brought it home for us to save us the trip. Since we are big Amazon customers at home, it's comforting to have the option here, although the selection online isn't quite as good as in the US.

MTC firsts

Written by Dee:While we were at the MTC, the first missionary from Iran was there. And also, the first missionary from Japan to go Korea. These are exciting times!

Trevor

Written by Dee: I've been wanting to write about some of the wonderful people we've met during our time. First of all, our young singles (called GANS in Italian, for Giovani Adulti Non Sposati) are really terrific. One very talented young man is Trevor. When I first met him, he told me was from Utah, and I thought he was kidding--his Italian is sooo good! He lives here and teaches science and math and English at a school. He's also quite a cook. He showed up with an apple pie he made, complete with decorative leaves and flowers in the crust. He also made french toast out of bread he had baked! Needless to say, his talents are quite appreciated. We had many hours at the Institute today watching conference sessions, and his cooking brought lots of smiles to faces. And to top it off, he even cleans up after himself. Wow, great guy.

General Conference Sunday

Today was a very long and very wonderful day. We went to the Institute to watch the recorded Priesthood session at 11am, followed by all kinds of food starting about 1pm: french toast by Trevor (a GANS from Utah who served a mission in Milano), my wife's famous fruit salad, a ton of great baked pasta by Ugo, an apple pie by Trevor, and some awesome pastries by Sheyla (a GANS from South America). Here are a couple of photos:

Sorella Whiting's fruit salad

Trevor's apple pie

Later in the afternoon we watched the recorded Saturday afternoon session, followed by the live Sunday morning session at 6pm. There were about 16 GANS present, so the place was hopping. We are making some good connections with these kids, and it's a lot of fun.

We watched all the sessions in Italian to hang with the kids who don't speak English, while about half of them watched in English in another room. Many of these kids have served English-speaking missions or have learned English well enough in some other way. As a result, we didn't get quite as much out of the talks as we usually would; Americans talk fast, and Italian has roughly twice the number of syllables for most words, so the translators have to talk doubly fast. We got the gist of the talks and most of the stories, but it's certainly not our native language! But the spirit was strong and there were a lot of good points to ponder. We'll enjoy reading the talks in English once they are available.

General Conference Saturday

After sleeping in a bit, on Saturday morning we did some shopping, including a trip to Ikea, which is nearby and also close to the temple site. The GPS took us around the area a few times, but we finally made it. We bought a bunch of things for the apartment which help make it more comfortable. For example, we bought some small padded rugs to put by the side of our bed. I have foot issues which make walking and even standing on this hard marble floor somewhat painful, so having some padding helps me a lot. Also, I can now kneel for prayers without contemplating knee surgery <g>. As with any trip to Ikea, it took a while, but was well worth it.

We then did grocery shopping for the next few days at the Institute, since we won't have another chance until Tuesday. By the time we got back home, we were pretty tired, but there was time for only a quick bite of lunch before heading down to the Institute. A few kids came in to watch last Saturday's General Women's broadcast recording at 4pm, and then we watched the Saturday morning General Conference opening session live at 6pm local time. Sunday we expect a bigger turnout.

Some friends of my former mission companion, Elder Draughon from Alabama, were in town as tourists and came to join us for the "evening" session. Afterwards, they took us out to a late dinner at a nice restaurant just downstairs. We had met John and Julia in Alabama in June when we visited the Draughons, and it was a fun evening. They insisted on paying for our dinner, because that's what you do for missionaries -- I guess it was our first dinner appointment!

By the time we got home, it was pretty late, but we slept really well and are headed for a long day of Conference at the Institute in a bit. The mission president called last night to see how we were doing after our first week, and the verdict is overall quite positive. I think within a few days we'll be completely done with cold symptoms. My chest is still sore from the CPR, and I am still a bit weak each morning, but overall we are getting there. 

There were some wonderful and inspiring messages yesterday, and we look forward to more today. I especially liked our friend Sharon Eubank's comment that acts of creation and inspiration are spiritual gifts -- that has certainly been  my experience.