Drying laundry

Well, the heat coming on for much of the day doesn't solve everything, but we know now that it does have a wonderful impact on our laundry schedule! You have to understand that almost nobody in Italy has a clothes dryer. It's probably due to some combination of the cost of electricity and the culture of air-drying clothes, which is reportedly better for the fabric's lifespan. So everyone has multiple clothes drying racks in their apartments, and/or they hang it out the windows (as you see in movies -- that's real life). 

Anyway, as it is has gotten colder, the laundry was taking longer and longer to dry, up to 3-4 days for many items. Back home, you can have a load of laundry washed, dried, and hung back up in under two hours. Imagine extending that to days. We were running out of clothes and of drying rack space. With some items, it was impossible to tell whether they were fully dry because they were so cold to the touch. The test was to feel the top of the item, then the bottom. If the bottom was colder than the top, it was probably still wet. Now that the radiators are working, stuff seems to be drying in a day or two. Also, with the floor tile being heated up a bit, perhaps it doesn't seem quite as cold in the morning. Maybe this winter won't be as uncomfortable as we were starting to fear.

Thursday morning we had district meeting over at our ward building. It was quite good, with our district leader, Anziano Wright, doing a nice job of leading the discussion about the work and about the study topic for today. We each shared a favorite scripture about faith. We learn from one another, talk about how we can improve, laugh a bit, and generally leave feeling uplifted, not to mention with a chocolate rice crispie treat in hand, made by Anziano Fuller.

From there we drove downtown to the Institute. That route is now becoming somewhat familiar and thus less daunting to drive. We arrived a bit early, and I took a nap because I hadn't slept very well. After that I felt pretty good and am definitely close to being over my cough/throat issues. My voice is only mildly froggy now, and I haven't had any Tussin pills during the day, though some throat lozenges were necessary.

My wife went out scouting for a butcher shop in the area to order a turkey for next week's Thanksgiving dinner that we are putting on for the GANS. She walked around Rome, finding that the three nearby Google listings weren't butcher shops anymore. Since Thanksgiving isn't a tradition here, you have to work with a butcher a bit ahead to get a whole turkey. Since she struck out downtown, we'll find a place near home and place an order. She also made a copy of one of my Institute keys that somehow had been mangled in my pocket -- very odd. 

I spent a bunch of time preparing my two lessons for Friday. I asked ClaudiaM, who speaks English beautifully after her mission in Toronto, if she knew the phrase for Attention Deficit Disorder. She said, "who has ADD?", and I replied "Isaiah"; she laughed. My lesson will cover part of 2 Nephi where Isaiah plays a role.

We had a very productive Institute council meeting this evening via Zoom online. It has been difficult getting everyone together in person, and this worked much better. We had four ward YSA representatives, us, Ugo, and the Ganziani present. We discussed some upcoming activities, missionary work, and scheduled the next meeting in two weeks, all within an hour. My wife kept the ball moving the whole time. She rocks!

Heat (sorta)

Wednesday is our non-Institute day. I am feeling quite a bit better, with a lot less coughing and meds, and I even had enough energy for a bit of exercising in the morning. The day was long and tiring, with several hours of driving, but our radiators are now on! Well, they are only on from noon to 10pm, but at least that's something to be grateful for. It was actually room temperature when we walked into our apartment tonight. We'll have to use our electric wall HVAC units for the rest of the time, but that only covers two rooms.

We did four apartment inspections today, in Ladispoli and in the western part of Rome, same as last month. Nothing really new, although the hot water heater for the Ladispoli sisters is out for a few days, so that's no fun. It was overcast and raining much of the day. We enjoy getting to know these wonderful young missionaries and helping them out. My wife buys cookies and leaves a bag in each apartment, which also tends to increase their enthusiasm ☺. One of the Ladispoli elders is Anziano Adepoju from Nigeria, with a very sad/amazing back story:
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj2LnxSHg2M
This is the caliber of the kids we get to work with.

After the final inspection we headed to Metro to get some food for upcoming events at the Institute. By then the traffic was pretty bad, so Google Maps took us off the freeway for a good while, going down really backwoods rural roads. Not sure it saved any time, but it was definitely different. We finally good back here and unloaded the car, then had some dinner and walked down to Conad to buy some food, mostly for us.

I need to work more on my two lessons for Friday, both Seminary and Institute. That'll be fun!

Refugee facility visit

We slept well and warm, because we left on the wall HVAC unit in our bedroom overnight for the first time. It doesn't seem to warm things up quickly, but over the hours it got the bedroom to a reasonable temperature, so much so that it was hard to leave that room when we got up! Each bedroom has one of those units, and we believe we can turn them both on without blowing a circuit breaker, but we'll maybe find out sometime. We were warned to be careful not to turn on more than one high-wattage appliance at a time, or we get to trek to the basement to reset our main breaker. Tomorrow the radiators come on, but apparently not until at least noon. Given the morning chill, maybe I can see why Europeans can be known not to shower daily!

In the morning we visited a facility of Intersos, an international humanitarian group (www.intersos.org). Ugo wants the GANS to do some service projects, and the Herways, a senior missionary couple with LDS Charities, has worked with Intersos successfully in the past and helped fund some of their facilities. Ugo told us yesterday how doing local service projects changed his life when he was GANS age, so he hopes to do the same for our kids. The Herways set up the visit and joined us there. Valentina, who apparently is one of the main workers there, showed us around their facility, which can currently house perhaps a few dozen refugees, though they have room and desires to expand. They take only minor children and single moms. They also have a  medical clinic for the community, and a mobile medical van. The refugees, almost all from Africa, get breakfast, dinner, and a bed to sleep in, plus bathroom/shower facilities, but during the day they are out and about, so nobody was there when we visited. It was cold and rainy today, so it's not pleasant to think what they go through. There are many much larger facilities around.  Most of the kids stay only a few days, hoping to get to France or Germany. Valentina said that they would be happy to consider any way we could help, and we would like to get something going on a regular basis, both with the GANS and with our ward, which meets very nearby. We'll need to talk with Ugo and see what makes sense. 

It was very touching and heartbreaking to hear and see how these folks live. My wife wanted to take her own (brand new) coat off and donate it on the spot. The Herways have gotten approval from LDS Charities for a 3000 euro budget for us to buy and distribute winter clothing for refugees. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but if everyone pitches in somehow we can maybe make a dent.

After that, we got to the Institute early for Taco Tuesday, which was good because I was coughing so regularly that I was summarily banished from the kitchen for the day. Thus, my wife did all the cooking and cleaning. We had a great turnout, and the kids hung around for quite a while together, including some fun group karaoke.

My wife helped a couple of the kids with their family history, and I mostly took it easy. I felt a little more energetic than yesterday, but not still not great, and I have borderline laryngitis. Hopefully I'm getting better -- we'll see what tomorrow brings.

In the afternoon, Ugo came from an Ikea trip with his daughter Sarah. They bought a kitchen step-stool for my vertically challenged wife, as well as a Christmas tree with decorations.

Tonight was the online Institute class, plus two English classes. The place was full all afternoon and evening -- very nice! The only bummer was that I couldn't talk or interact with people much.

Still coughing, but a nice day

I actually slept quite well last night propped up with a bunch of pillows, without coughing -- those Tussin pills are awesome. However, I was coughing pretty quickly after waking up, and it hurt to get a deep breath. Something odd is doing on with my chest/throat/respiratory system. I took a nap in the morning and another one in the afternoon at the Institute (at least it's warm there!), which is very unusual for me. I then felt pretty good for the rest of the day, though without much energy, but now that we're home I'm tired and about to lose my voice.

My FHE lesson was drawn from a story related in October 1977 General Conference by Elder Bangerter about when Spencer Kimball became president of the church. He said that most church leaders and members didn't expect much of President Kimball because of his age and poor health. However, at at one of his first major public talks, to the Regional Representatives of the church in April 1974, President Kimball knocked the socks off everyone with great vision of what the church needed to do. President Benson afterward arose and said "surely there is a prophet in Israel!" President Kimball went on to over a decade of inspired leadership. I then applied this story to our lives, that the Lord can help us in any calling or assignment to do more than we or anyone else would expect. There were about half a dozen kids there, and they seemed to be listening intently, so hopefully my lesson touched home with some of them.

My wife worked all afternoon on some cinnamon popcorn for FHE dessert, but had some problems getting enough of it to come out right, so she supplemented that with some cookies and Nutella, all of which were very well received after the lesson. 

We then played a large and spirited game of the card game, Cover Your Assets, which I surprisingly ended up winning on the very last play after being way behind.

We had one US visitor, Isaac (farthest away in the bottom photo), in town for a short holiday from BYU study abroad in England. You'll note my warm, stylish,and very Italian sweater, which are affordable at Auchan in several nice colors. I expect to be wearing them a lot this winter.

Cloudy Sunday

We drove with the Knieses to stake conference this morning. They are from Houston and are wonderful folks. She's the mission nurse and is helping our mission president's wife through her chemotherapy. It was good to visit and get to know them better.

The conference session was quite good and the room was packed. Jomar, one of our GANS, sang a solo in the stake choir and did a very nice job. He has an amazing tenor voice and is always doing karaoke at the Institute, which sounds incredible. It's fun to see friends from all over at such events. 

We came home and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening here catching up on things, mostly huddling in our living room near the space heater, with the doors closed to keep the heat in the room. Over the phone, I helped Jim recover my mother-in-law's computer from a backup, and I started work on my FHE lesson for tomorrow night.

It was slightly cold and cloudy all day. This morning I was still a bit under the weather, but since then I've been feeling pretty good, although my voice is a bit froggy. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Desk upgrade; stake conference

Today was our nominal P-day, but we have stake conference this weekend, so that cut into it a bit. I am feeling much better than yesterday, but still coughing a bit and not full energy. Hopefully this will be mild and over soon.

This morning I finished putting together my extended desktop. I have an inexpensive Ikea Micke desk (about 41" wide and 20" deep) with a matching set of rolling drawers. I also have my wife's Micke desk used as a return of sorts.  My problem was that 20" just isn't deep enough for someone of my height. So we bought some angle brackets and cut a piece of matching melamine at Leroy Merlin to extend the back by about 10". It goes across the desk and the drawers and locks them together. I now have enough leg room, as well as some extra depth which is much nicer for holding my stuff. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Front views

View from above, extension on the left

Support brackets underneath the back

We made a big Lidl shopping trip after lunch, getting food for us and the Institute, stocking up on some stuff. It took two trips from the car to get it all upstairs.

Our stake priesthood meeting was from 4-6pm, so the senior couple Anziani drove over early, and the sisters came together later for the evening session from 6-8pm. I saw Marco DiCaro there. He lived in the Monza branch in 1976 as (roughly) a ten-year-old kid when I was there, and we have run into him several times over the years on our trips. Marco and his family just moved to Rome from Pavia, one of our usual haunts when we visit Italy. Our paths seem to cross a lot. His parents were amazing, and his dad in particular is one of the finest men I have ever known. Unfortunately, his dad passed away a few years ago, but his mom is still doing well.

There were some really good talks and a great spirit there. For example, Brother Cosimo told a story about when he had just returned from serving in combat and was pretty messed up. His bishop took him to visit a struggling family and told Brother Cosimo to take care of this family, to which he replied, "but I'm the one who needs help here!" His wise bishop said to just help them, and it turned out that serving that family helped him get over his challenges. 

President Melone talked about some timely service given to him. He was heavily involved in coordinating church relief efforts after the Aquila earthquake. One of the members in the stake quietly added 50 euros to President Melone's cell phone account so he could make all the calls/texts needed during that trying time.

Brother Fenn, who served in the Milan mission from 1976-1978 (we never crossed paths) and is now here working on the temple construction, gave a great talk. He mentioned that the other day they were putting in trees of all different kinds at the temple lot. A crane would lift up a big tree off the truck and plop it into a big hole in the ground -- instant tree! He contrasted this with Alma's teaching about growing faith starting with a seed and observed that, in our lives, we prefer to start with trees and not seeds, but there is value in growing faith by ourselves -- there is no shortcut. He quoted Alma 5:45-46, where Alma explained that he received his testimony after long prayer and fasting, not from having seen an angel!

Great stuff. We're looking forward to the morning session tomorrow.

Sciopero

I woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold: coughing, aching joints, slightly chilled, wiped out. Because of the transit strike (sciopero), we weren't sure how many kids would be able to make it to the Book of Mormon Institute class tonight, so my wife didn't know how much food to prepare. With me not feeling well and the sciopero, I cancelled my afternoon Seminary class. My wife was going to take the subway to the Institute and leave me at home to rest all day, but then (duh!) we figured out that the subway wasn't running, due to the strike. So I got dressed and went into town with her. I brought a blanket and pillow and took a nap on the couch in one of the classrooms, which helped a lot, but I still don't feel great.

The internet was working at the Institute again. I spent some time in the afternoon mapping out the ethernet connections in classroom #1, where I hadn't been able to find a connection before. I ended up mapping all six ethernet outlets in there, which were it turns out were consecutively numbered in the wiring rack -- very nice. Fortunately, given how I was feeling, I could do most of that work sitting down.  Now all the rooms have live ethernet jacks, plus WiFi.

Only seven kids made it to the class, which is more than we expected due to the strike. Ugo gave a wonderful lesson on the atonement of Christ, mostly from 2 Nephi 9, really giving the kids things they could do to have it affect their daily lives.

My wife got the food portions about right. It was all gone at the end, but everyone had their fill.

We drove the young sisters home with us, which happens occasionally. They left a bit early to go home on their own, only to realize that the strike was still in place, so they came back to drive with us.

I am looking forward to a good night's rest. Hopefully I can be on the mend tomorrow.