13 March 2016.

Last week we took the 14 departing missionaries to a restaurant near the mission office that we had never been to.  I could see a church tower not far, and decided I would check out the church on Saturday our P day  It is in a small town called Pieve Emanuele, which was founded in the second century.  This is the church, St Alessandro, a very typical looking old church. (our car is the silver one to the left.)



Entering the front door, going into the church, turning around to look back at the door and then up you can see the balcony in the back of the church on which the ancient pipe organ sits.  There are many thousands of these organs in Italy that look just like this. (We are finding that most of them are not being used.)  I entered the church and immediately found a small electronic organ on the floor that looked like it was being used on a regular basis, and assumed the old one did not work.  I tried to open the little one, which caused the priest to appear, but he was very friendly.  I explained to him that I am an amateur organist and am interested in finding an organ to practice on.  He explained that the old organ is going to be restored within the next year or two.  He said the regular organist is an Irish woman who would be here at the organ tomorrow, Sunday, at 10:30, getting ready for the 11 am mass and that I could come to meet her.  Usually we go to church on Sunday morning and could not come, but this Sunday we could come because we had stake conference starting at 3 pm, and were available in the morning.  So we were at the church at 10:30 and she was there to meet us.  She was a kindly old lady who said she really wasn't an organist, just someone who could play the piano and she is all they have and was happy to know me.  She said I could come any time to play the organ, and then she got her husband, who is Italian, but speaks English, to get the key to take me up to the old organ, that the priest said does not work.  We climbed the old dusty staircase, and used a skeleton key about a foot long, to get into the balcony and there was the organ, covered in dust.



He turned on the electric switch and the bellows groaned as they filled with air and I sat down, took the cloth cover off the keys of the manual and pulled (they pull from right to left on the far side) some stops and sounded some pipes, beginning with the principal, the ones you can see, which are usually the most unaffected by problems (the reeds are the worst).  They sounded beautiful and I played a few sounds with both hands and pedals.  It was amazingly beautiful, although I could tell it needed restoration, but I was amazed that it played so well un-restored.  Anyway, by then the mass was to start in about 5 minutes (the organist said she did not play any prelude, she just accompanied the hymns), so I stopped playing and we descended.  He gave me his name and phone number and said to call and he would meet me and let me play when the church is not being used.  I am very excited about this.  This is the first old organ I have been able to play so far.  This one is within walking distance of where we live, and it is exciting to think there are thousands of these to discover.

So on Sunday afternoon we took the metro (underground train) into Milano, got off at the duomo to switch trains--it took an hour from the closest to Opera train station in San Donato--to the station at Lampaguno and a short walk through a skate park and there we could see the stake center.  We actually went there on Saturday evening to the adult session and went back on Sunday afternoon for Stake Conference.   I sang in the choir, and we had a practice after the evening session and two hours before the Sunday session.  It was interesting singing in an Italian choir.  There were about 26 women and 9 men.  I sang bass because they needed another bass, normally I sing tenor.  We sang an arrangement of "Lead Kindly Light", which Myrna used my cell phone to record during the practice. I thought they choir sounded so good because the accoustics in the church are wonderful (the floors are hard marble and the walls are hard and there aren't any drapes or carpet). The conference was also good, and I was amazed at how many people there were.  I didn't take any pix during the conference, but as we were leaving took a shot to show you how many chairs there are in the stake center.




They were filled and people were standing.  When I was here 50 years ago our biggest branch had about 10 people max. The program today said this was the 32nd stake conference for the Milano West stake, so with two a year, it is about 16 years old.  The Milano East Stake also had conference this morning and had two general authorities (area 70s) because they got a new stake presidency.  Since that is not our stake, we didn't attend, but now wish we would.  We will have a meeting with Elder Christofferson from the Council of the 12 in this building on Wednesday for all members at 7 pm, and the next day in another church in Milano for just the missionaries.  Myrna is in charge of feeding them, there will be a little more than half of the missionaries (some live too far to come) at this conference, so this will be a busy week.  I am in charge of entertaining the senior couples, so I am taking them to the old abbey and to dinner at the restaurant on the way to the church we went to this morning, then one we took the department missionaries to.