Letters Home - July 14, 2013

July 14, 2013

I'm happy to report everything went well yesterday.  The assistants took us shopping Saturday afternoon and showed us where a grocery store was.  We have several little tiny shops near us, but this one is larger and has more items in it.  We walked to the street market near the villa and purchased fruit and Buffalo di Mozarella cheese.  That's the cheese made from water buffalos.  It is a favorite here and I must say it certainly has been my favorite thing to eat so far.   For an appetizer we had Buf Moz (that's the nickname of the cheese), proscuitto (thinly sliced ham) and melone (cantaloupe)  Sounds weird, but it was very good.  I bought Italian bread at the market (it's the kind that comes in a big round loaf and is very crusty)--one regular loaf and one with sliced olives in it.  I made a traditional pasta salad with tomatoes, ham, onions, peas and pineapple.  Dad was concerned when I put pineapple in it, but I thought it tasted good.  It would have been better with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on top, but I didn't have any at the villa.  For dessert we walked to the end of the street to a gelataria and got gelato (after all "gelato is our motto").  The clerk spoke pretty good English (yeah!) and wouldn't let me have any pistacio gelato until I pronounced it properly--pis-tak-io.

I found plates and glasses and silverware to put on the large table in the dining room.  Sis. Steurer, from the mission office, called to see if she should make some minestrone soup to eat.  I told her no, because there were no spoons--lots of knives, dinner forks and salad forks, but no spoons.  I guess even General Authorities have to be exposed to the reality of living in a Mission Home.

We picked up Elder David Evans and his wife at the Trevi Hotel, in downtown Rome and took them to church with us.  (The hotel was right next to Trevi Fountain.)  Sis. Oaks (wife of Elder Oaks) had asked me to throw a coin in Trevi Fountain and make a wish that she could come back to Rome with Elder Oaks.  I tossed a coin in the fountain and asked Elder Evans to report I'd completed my assignment.

We had a pretty powerful Sacrament Meeting.  It was ward conference so the Stake President was there.  Elder De Feo, Quorum of Seventy, (Wendi and Brian know who the Seventies are)  lives in our ward so he was there.  On the stand we had the Bishop, Stake President, two General Authorities, and the Mission President.  It will be a long time before we see something like that again.  Our bishop is wonderful.  He has a powerful testimony of member missionaries and is giving his ward powerful guidance.  ( I wish every bishop and branch president had the same vision.)

After church we had the assistants drive us to the temple site where arrangements had been made for Elder Evans to do a tour of the new visitor's center that is under construction.  We had been told we would probably never be allowed to go there because it is kept very secure and only those with special permission from the First Presidency were allowed to go there--not even the Apostles.  We figured we would just have to sit in the car and wait.  Image our delight when we  were invited to tour the site,  We got to go inside the gates and have our picture taken in front of the temple.  (No pictures inside any of the buildings.)  We were then taken on a tour of every building there.  We saw the new Stake Center and the new building to house temple patrons.  And then we went inside the visitor's center.  We stood right in the spot where the Christus will be.  We toured the entire temple.  We saw the baptistry, endowment rooms, sealing rooms and stood in the Celestial Room.  It was an awesome experience.  We are so blessed.  (The assistants had to sit in a conference room at the construction sight, but at least they were inside the project.  They now have dust on their feet from the tempe site.)

After lunch we took Elder Evans back to his hotel, but we made it a point to drive past the collosseum.  We stopped and walked around for a few minutes.  We now have a picture of us with Elder Evans in front of the collosseum.  Last July it was Elder Holland.  This July it was Elder Evans.  I can hardly wait til next July.

It was a wonderful opportunity to spend an entire day with a General Authority.  Even more than ever, we are convinced this is where we are meant to be.

More and more we are feeling the vision of why we are here.  We love our missionaries.  We have had lots of challenges with health, car accidents and companionships that don't like each other, but those things are all temporary and life goes on.  I keep telling them that they need to buck up and learn to get along.  They are all here for the same reason and they are doing the Lord's work.  It's important for them to learn to compromise and work it out.  It will always be that way whether it's at work or in their family.

July 15, 2013

We are in Bari now for a Zone Conference.

Our first missionary has decided he doesn't want to be in Italy on a mission and is leaving today to return home.  It's the saddest thing.  My heart is breaking.  We have done everything possible to try to convince him that this is where he should be.  We traveled to the area where he is serving just to meet with him.  We met with him again at Zone Conference and went out of our way for him to have some wonderful experiences there.  We brought him to Rome and arranged for him to meet with a General Authority.  He refuses to let the spirit touch his heart.  We have prayed for a miracle that his heart might be touched, but it just isn't meant to be.  This is one of the hardest things I have ever experienced.   

July 17, 2013

We are back at the villa in Rome.  Finally!  It's been a hectic 2 1/2 weeks.  Now it's time to start preparing for transfers next week.  We have 22 new missionaries that will need to be assigned--20 elders and 2 sisters.  Only 4 missionaries will be returning home so it will take some major adjustments and inspiration on your father's part.  I'm confident he will be able to do it because Pres. Eyring told him he would be able to and he was given the keys when he was set apart.

We're having lots of medical issues with missionaries right now.  Today we are having problems with eye infections.  I've been on the phone with the doctor from Germany many times today.  The big problem seems to be eye infections.  He told me it's because of the heat.  When it's hot, bacteria grows rapidly and whenever the missionaries touch an infected doorknob or anything the bacteria really spreads.  It's the same with mosquito bites.  You should see my legs.  They look awful.  I have gotten several bites and they immediately swell up really big.  They itch and seem to last forever.  My arms and legs look like they have chicken pox.  I've been told the mosquitoes are called tiger mosquitoes.  I wish somebody would put them in a cage and keep them away from me.  The elders in the more southern area of the mission actually sleep with mosquito nets.  (And this isn't a third world country.)

* * * * *

Hopefully I'll have more time later to write again.  I never realized how valuable time is before I found I never have any free time.  Having said that, I love being here and being part of this great missionary effort.  Never in my wildest dreams did I foresee myself in this position at this time.  It's awesome!

Luv ya - Mom

Letters Home - July 8, 2013

It's quicker just to post a copy of the e-mail to my children than it is to try and e-mail a recap of what's going on with us.  


Monday, July 8, 2019

Time flies by so incredibly fast here.  We will have been here 10 days tomorrow.  It seems like we just arrived yesterday.  I knew we would be busy, but never imagined we would be this busy.  Right now we are trying to fit a six week schedule into four weeks because we missed the first two weeks of the transfer cycle.  We have eight zones and we have covered three of those zones already.  We flew to Sicily this morning.  Dad is doing interviews this afternoon and we have a Mission Leadership Council tonight.  (That's the new council that includes the sisters.  My limited experience is that they are very effective.)

We feel like we are being baptized by fire.  A few days before we got here, we had one of our missionaries return home because he was in deep depression.  We never even had an opportunity to work with him.  We now have another missionary who is threatening to leave.  He has only been here three weeks.  He's having a terrible time adjusting, but it appears the real problem is that he doesn't want to adjust.  He has everything planned out and what he wants, but he's left The Lord out of the equation.  We really are doing the Lord's work, and he will direct us if we let him.  The medical doctors in Frankfurt call this condition the Three's.  It usually occurs between three weeks and three months.  If we can just keep this young elder here, he has the potential to be a great missionary.  Right now he has everything going for him except faith.

We have another missionary who is having problems with his knees.  They are so painful he can't even walk up steps and in Italy there are lots of steps.  He and his companion are staying with a senior couple who have an extra bedroom and an elevator in their apartment.

Every little while someone calls me about something.  Two elders are suffering with ingrown toenails which seems to be a common malady in the mission field.

Two nights ago some of the sisters in Rome got broadsided, the senior couple in Battipaglia had their car backed into, and in the middle of writing this letter, the sisters here in Catania just got rear ended when they stopped suddenly to avoid hitting a woman who stepped out into the street. 

Tuesday, July 9

I spent all afternoon at the hospital with the 3 sisters in the car wreck.  Remind me to never go to an Italian hospital.  It was a nightmare.  I was grateful one of the elders that went with us was native Italian and understood the system and spoke the language.  Two of the sisters were pretty shaken up.  The other one was stiff but doing better than the others.  At the hospital they put the two worst sisters in wheel chairs and left them sitting in a dirty hall for a long time.  One of the wheelchairs only had one foot rest and the other one didn't have any.  If we trust the xrays, nothing was broken and they put neck braces on them and told them to come back for a checkup. I think not.  No way are they going in there again.  We are arranging for an orthopedic doctor in one of the neighboring wards to do the follow up with them.  In spite of it all, some good came out of the situation.  First, the car didn't even have a dent.  It should have been smashed.  Second, the one sister who was the least injured managed to pass out 4 pass-a-long cards and give out a video on the restoration and a Book of Mormon.  Standing for long periods of time paid off spiritually.  One of the gentlemen in the hallway kept watching us and then finally walked down and started listening to our conversation.  Finally we figured out he had been an investigator 3 years ago and still keeps in touch with the sisters who were teaching him then.  We were quite excited when he walked out the door with a new Book of Mormon and an appointment to meet with the missionaries again.  As we were waiting to get the sisters in the car to go, they were giving the hospital attendant a pass-a-long card.  Today the sisters are stiff, but they wore their neck braces and attended all of zone conference.  I am grateful to the elders who were here and immediately gave them priesthood blessings.

Now that everything is fine and we're back to normal, there is one funny thing that happened.  The elders were doing a baptism in the sea.  One of the elder's who was also in the sea acting as a witness, stepped on an anemone.  I guess that's pretty painful.  He was laid up for a few days.  We were told a blast of calcium immediately goes into your foot and there's no way to get rid of it. You can't pull it out like you can a stinger or something.  It just has to work it's way out.

I walked down the street to the market to buy some milk the other day.  It's only about a 5 minute walk.  People in Italy don't stock up on food like we do.  They go to the market everyday.  It's certainly a different way of life.  It was a strange sensation to walk down the street in Rome and know that this is the place I now call home.

The villa is huge.  It has it's pluses and minuses.  It's a big empty building because we aren't there very often.  (There's a little lizzard that sometimes lives under the planter on the front step.  I've named him Speedy because he's so fast I can never get his picture.) On July 24 we get 22 new missionaries from the MTC in Provo.  They all spend the night at the villa before leaving for their assigned destinations the next day.  We will have to rearrange sleeping conditions because so many are coming.  Since we only have two sisters in that group, we will put them downstairs and take the extra mattresses upstairs and put them on the floor in the laundry room so I can keep the boys and girls separated.  Having never been through this before, I can only imagine the chaos.  We have two dining rooms and it will take every chair in the villa to accommodate them for dinner.

Sunday We went to Battipaglia to church.  It's nearly a four hour drive.  The senior couple who call Afton, Wyoming home, invited us to dinner after church.  We have heard so much about the buffalo mozzarella cheese that is made there.  Everyone raves about how good it is.  It is made from the milk of water buffalo.  We bought some at the market in Rome and it was good, but it was no comparison to the fresh cheese that comes right from the source.  They served the cheese as an appetizer.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  If I never eat anything again, it's okay because I had some of that cheese.

Speaking of food, we have hardly eaten while we've been here.  We don't have time.  One day we grabbedd a slice of pizza on the way to the mission office.  We always walk there because there's no place to park.  It's a 15-20 minute walk.  There a lots of small little shops along the way.  You'll love it when you come.  There is a street market about a 5 minute walk from the villa.  It's filled with fresh fruits and vegetables and weird little odds and ends.

We have removed the word sleep from our vocabulary.  It doesn't play a part in our current existence.  We're considering doing away with the word eat, too.  We are so busy this week.  Last time I looked at the calendar we were going to spend 2 hours at the villa this week.  That time will be spent taking a shower and repacking our suitcase before leaving again.  

We had someone come for a recommend interview at 5:30 am because that's the only time dad could see him.  We left at 6:00 am for Battipaglia and got home that night about 10:00 pm.  Monday morning we flew to Sicily where we are now.  We will fly back to Rome in the morning and arrive just in time to shower and pack.  Then we are off to Naples for the next zone conference.  I'm not complaining.  It's the most remarkable experience I've ever had and we've been here less than two weeks.

We met 40 new missionaries here in Sicily.  You have no idea how wonderful it is to meet them and feel their testimonies.  Zone conference went very well.  I made a bingo game with questions from Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon.  As we watched which missionaries knew the answers to the questions and which ones didn't, it was pretty enlightening.  It gave us a good idea what areas we need to teach them about.  

I wish you could see your dad.  The mantle of a mission president has truly settled down on him.  He was concerned because his patriarchal blessing told him that the Lord would answer his prayers in his own due time.  He has always been slow to get answers, but he is also slow to judge because he is still waiting for answers.  Once he has gotten his answer, he has made the quick decision to do what is right and then never looked back.  That's how he ran his business and presided over the senate.  President Eyring told him that The Lord would change the timetable and he would get inspiration and answers when he needed them.  Daily I see inspiration flowing.   One day he told me he is constantly amazed as things he needs to do and say just flow into his mind.  

Wednesday, July 10

I'm currently on a plane headed back to Rome, but only for two hours before we leave again.  Let me tell you about one of our missionaries.  He is originally from Italy but lived in the northern part.  He is serving his mission in the Rome mission which is in the south.  He's a little older--23.  He is the most remarkable cook I've ever seen.  I walked into the kitchen of the church in Catania to get a drink and he was in there slicing ham for a pasta dish he was making for all the missionaries.  After introducing myself, I asked him if he was a chef.  He isn't yet, but his dream is to open his own restaurant some day.  When it comes to food, he is super knowledgable.  The best part is that it tastes really good.  I realize dad is my companion for this entire mission, but I keep asking him if it would be possible for me to have an assistant at the villa.  I would definitely choose that elder.  Maybe I could just do scambi (or exchanges) with him occasionally.  I'm dying to have a minute at the villa to try his recipe.  Not only is he a good cook, but he is a dedicated, excellent missionary.  He joined the church just a couple of years ago.  His girlfriend who was instrumental in his conversion is serving a mission in Australia.

Last night I went with the sister missionaries.  It was a night when they teach English classes at the church.  English classes are an excellent way to find investigators.  They are free classes which is a plus.  The classes are held at the church so people become acquainted with the church by attending.  Each class starts and ends with a prayer.  At the end of the class, one of the teachers reads a scripture and gives a spiritual thought.  In my former life, I might have been offended by it, but not anymore.  The one nonmember lady who was in the class volunteered to say the closing prayer.  It's just things like that all the time.  I love it.

* * * * *

We just got aback to the villa and I just have a few minutes before we have to leave again.  Here's my final bit of information:

When it comes to driving in Italy, rules are only suggestions that nobody listens to!!!

Ciao!  Ti amo!  (Goodbye!  I love you!)

--Mom