Sunday 19 June 2016

This past week was memorable.  We had a zone conference at the Lampagano church building.  We attended because we are in that zone and had to take the day off work at the mission office.  This was President and Sister Dibb's last zone conference, and last time that they would see most of the missionaries who attended.They are going around the mission holding conferences. They taught that missionaries should have their pedigree chart, preferably pictures, on their Ipads, so they could show them to people, even people they just meet, as they discuss the eternal importance of families. At the end of zone conferences those who are going home bear their testimonies, and we heard from the Dibbs, which was wonderful. The office elders made a special slide show for the Dibbs (we were even in it) about their 3 year mission experience. We also went to Milano a couple of more times this week, once to buy a dryer for the Salatini (another senior couple who live in Milano, with whom we do a lot) and to take the office anziani to the Toyoda dealership to pick up a car that had been fixed. We also went home teaching one rainy evening to the sister who, along with her daughter and two dogs, are moving to Utah this fall.

Yesterday, our P-day, we went with the Salatini to Switzerland and then to a baptism in the nearby city of Como.  It takes about two hours in the car from where we live in Opera. Here are a few of the pix I took:















Along the way up the freeway, then smaller roads, the sizes of the hills increase. There are many small villages on the sides of the hills, then mountains.

Then you get to the border, where you just drive through if you have a Swiss pass sticker on your windshield.  If you don't, you pay 40 Swiss Francs (around $40).  It is good for he calendar year, starting in January, but only for the car it is stuck on. (If you go in Dec, you have to buy a new one in Jan.). Coming back there is virtually no hassle.  We immediately found Switzerland much cleaner and the roads were better, even though the people looked and spoke the same (they speak Italian in Ticino, the Swiss cantone, or state, we visited.)


The mountains get larger still and there are also McDonald's and Burger King everywhere.

And we could also see Lake Lugano, on which Lugano is situated.  We have missionaries in Lugano and Anziano Salatino, who we went with, served in Lugano as a young missionary.

They seem to  have better cars (more money) and there are lot of Swiss flags (red with white cross) hanging on houses, and it is more expensive to live there.  I give an extra 60 euros to our missionaries each month because of the cost of living in Switzerland.

We saw a lot of Swiss cows munching grass by the side of the road, and expected to see Heidi bounding down the hillside yodeling. (We did see her grandfather though.)

In this little village, which was one of our destinations, we saw this girl with her dog on a street with a red sign saying watch out for horses, and the bell tower of the little church we went to see.

We walked a ways (finding a place to park was hard) through the town to find the little old church.

We found it on the side of the hill, and went inside to see its famous painting on the side wall.  It was painted by artists from the school of  Leonardo da Vinci, who was in Milano at the time painting the famous Last Supper, etc. Painters had workshops, and had several painters, older artists and young apprentices, who got the jobs of painting the boring stuff, while the masters worked on faces, eyes, etc.  In this small village church on a hillside in Switzerland is a copy of Da Vinci's famous Last Supper, painted by some of the same artists that helped him in Milan.  Remember, they had no photographs to remember what they saw; they believe the artists who did this one worked from Leonardo's drawing papers, which were put on the wall to trace what was to be painted on the wet plaster.  Leonardo tried a new technique in Milano, he painted on dry plaster, which was a disaster; the paint did not stick and cracked.  But here, it was done in the traditional manner of painting on wet plaster, called fresco. Here is the fresco on the side wall, still bright after several hundred years.

There are some differences between this copy and the "original" but it is remarkable and certainly a lot easier to visit.  When we first went in the church was fairly dark, and there was no one there, but there was a sign by a light switch, that said turn it on to see the cenalaco (supper).


The names of the apostles are written at the bottom.  No one really knows what the bottom of the one in Milano was really like, because it was damaged and the paint is very bad, even though it has been somewhat restored.

There are scenes outside the painted on windows, which are not in the one in Milano; these are more interesting.  My pictures do not do it justice.




John, the beloved, sitting to the right of Jesus, is fairly feminine (think DaVinci code).

And between John and Jesus is the famous V space, as in Milano.

And the wall is flat, but there is perspective in the painting, it looks like you can see into it, although  you have to at least enlarge it.

Of course, there was a lot of other art in the church.  Everyone had to paint a Madonna with child, and a few saints, this one has the Father looking down from above.

A few crucifictions; these are statues with paintings on the sides.


And in the back were some pieces of wall that were probably within in the church many centuries before the more modern paintings of the 1500s were painted.

The back of the church. This is a very small village church, not a large cathedral. In fact, it did not even have an organ, unless there was a little one hiding behind the only altar in the front.

The front altar did not have an altar painting at all, which is unusual.  The "choir" is behind the altar and I did not go there because there was a red rope I did not want to cross it.

One last look at the cenacolo (Last Supper) painting, you can see the preaching pulpit in the above two pics, to get a better idea of the perspective and what the church was like.

Outside the door of the church was a trattoria, or little family style restaurant, which did not appear to be open. If you can see the sign, the name of the trattoria is Trattoria del Cenacolo (trattoria of the last supper), and you have to cross over a very narrow passage over another narrow street below to get there.  All the streets in this village were very narrow, people with cars have to park out of town.

Again, they like to show their Swiss flags.

Typical window with flower pot.  By the way, we have red geraniums on our balcony and a basil plant that are doing well, better than these.

Turn around from the last two pics and you can see out of town, another hillside with cows, and an older Swiss gentleman (Heidi's modern shirtless grandpa) tending his garden, which was doing well. They can certainly grow things well here, and they are now getting ripe, even tomatoes are on in some places we saw.

Looking further up the hillside, another little church, probably with another cenacolo painting.

Even the "graffiti" on the Swiss walls is cool, although we have some new and artistic graffiti on walls near where we live in Opera.  Up the hill are grape vines.


To get to the church (LDS) we had to go past the town's soccer stadium, which, fortunately for traffic, there wasn't a game going on.

The fairly new, nice, LDS meetinghouse in Lugano, Switzerland.

Typical chapel, with movable chairs, so they could have other functions in the chapel.

We got to the chapel just as our missionaries were meeting with their ward mission leader (not in a white shirt). The tall missionary, with the sweater, to the right is Anziano Mocellin, who is French and only has one transfer to go before he goes home.  He used to be an assistant to the president, with their office next to ours.  It was good to see him again.  He wants to return to France and become a policeman.


We found a place to park near where this river, which comes from the mountains, goes into Lake Lugano. We walked trough one of the nicest parks I have ever been in.


Some very sweet smelling flowers were in bloom, probably not the red ones, and it was very beautiful and fragrant.

Some napping Greek in statue.

It was about 1 pm and we were hungry, so we went to this restaurant by the side of the road and had a seat outside under an umbrella.  We shared one pizza and a large salad, and each had a bottle of mineral water. The total tab was 34 CHF (about $34), which would have been about half that much in Italy, but it was good, the waiter was interesting, and watching the people walk past was entertaining.
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And the restaurant had a saying on the wall, that "the things most beautiful in life are immoral, illegal or make you fat," by Bernard Shaw (maybe they don't know him as George in Switzerland).

We passed by several very old, as in 1200s churches along the way past very high end shops.

Inside a small, very old church. The monks sat in front and the common people behind, where they could see the murals on the walls.

we saw this guy with a wounded leg last Saturday in Como, but don't know what saint he is.

This before and after pix shows that they took an old monastery and did some remodeling (the frescos were removed), and built some very high end shops in this place.

But apparently put some of the old frescos back up in this church.  Here is its "last supper," perhaps also influenced by Leonardo--every monastery dining hall in the 1500s had to have one.  But this one had John (or Mary Magdalene if you read DaVinci code) leaning on Jesus' shoulder.

The colors were really bright, but you have to enhance the pix to see it well. A least Picasa makes mine pretty bright, try it.

This is the outside of what used to be a monastery, believe it or not.  Now it contains expenisve shops.


These men's jackets were on sale, 50% off, only 140 CHF and the pants, 79 CHF, which is about the same in dollars. These aren't dress suits either.  Notice the color combinations and styles.

Inside the monastery, they were all somewhat the same idea.  Places for the monks to live, a church for them to sing and pray, and a garden where they could walk around for whatever exercise they got.  Usually they also had gardens, where they grew their veggies and herbs.

To prove this was a pretty high end remodeling job, here is the most high tech public bathroom I have ever used.

When you wash your hands the water squirts out the side and into the toilet, which is mechanically and water cleaned, and it even smells good--this is Switzerland, remember. There was no fee to use it.

There is a Leonardo da Vinci Institute nearby in Lugano.

And churches with pipe organs on every corner.  They were having a concert in this one today (Sunday afternoon) I would have attended had I been there .

Pastries in the shops look good, but probably aren't all that wonderful, we have been told. Haven't bought one yet.

And nice salami shops with Italian salami.

These fruits and veggies looked good.  The watermelons come from Sicily this time of year.

This is a street sign by the city police of Lugano telling you not to donate money to strangers, because you risk adding money to the pockets of criminal organizations.  It has a pix of little boy with his hand out, and says if someone asks for money, offer them food or something. Again, this is Swiss, we haven't seen anything like this in Italy.

We went down by the water, where the old houses are right on the lake.

We were sort of in the way in the last pix of the boat docs at the old homes on the lake.

We watched the parent swans with their baby.  He was pretty cute. The water was clean, but there were debris from the trees, etc., perhaps because of the earlier storm.

This sign says if you go straight, you can go to the Saint Gottard or Saint Bernard pass, or to Bellinzona or Milano (Italy), and more high end cars.

There was this Mazzeratti (or how ever you spell it) behind us revving up his engine.

We drove about 20 minutes back to Italy to Como and found the LDS church, where there was a baptism, to which we had been invited, again with missionaries with whom we work. This is the entrance to the LDS chapel in Como, on a hill side.  It used to be the home of a Catholic cardinal, and the pope (don't know which one) actually slept here, which not many LDS churches can boast.

You drive under the the Madonna and child to get to the parking, again this is LDS church property.

There is even a typical LDS meetinghouse sign on the side of the remodeled villa.

The chapel being prepared for the baptism.  The sisters asked me to play the prelude before the baptism, which began 20 minutes late.  Have you ever been to a baptism that started on time???

After the baptism, on the way home, we stopped by the "shop of gelato" or ice cream store.  We were the only customers and talked with the owner while we ate ours.  He gave us samples of kinds we were curious about, like licorice, green apple, black chocolate, etc.  He said he has owned and worked here for 40 years, making all of his own ice cream every day.  He is open from 11 am to 11 pm. At the end of the day, what he does not sell goes into a refrigerator, where it melts.  The next day he makes enough more to fill the container and re-freezes it.  He said he does not like ice cream and has not eaten any for about the past 4 years, although he said he does like pasta and pane (bread).  He is Italian, and this is a typical gelataria, which you find on about every street in Italy, and there were some in Switzerland, but they cost more and probably had the same kind of ice cream. We did go into a supermarket (Migros, which they had 50 years ago when I was there) in Switzerland and bought some wonderful 100 gram chocolate bars for only 50 CFH (Swiss Franks, or about 50 cents) each.

He had about 24 flavors.  You got up to 3 flavors in a cup for 2.5 euros, or a little over $2.50, which is very filling because it has so much cream.  We didn't need dinner after that so late in the evening.

It was a nice week and I hope you enjoy this. Write me a note if you read this blog.