Wednesday 27 July 2016

Yesterday (Wed) was a fairly typical day in the mission office.

I paid utility bills, it was mostly electricity day.

Myrna is working to get fully functional (and meeting church standards) smoke and carbon monixide (CO) detectors in every missionary apartment. It has been a lot of work, because the missionaries aren't all very compliant with testing and reporting, which Myrna must report to the Church. Our desks are right next to each other, and we share a copy machine (which scans and faxes also) between us.
 
There is a binder cabinet behind us.  This is where information for all 120 of the mission apartments are kept, and things have to be filed.  Right now we have a young missionary who is helping me file things like paid utility bills, etc.

However, yesterday we had a few adventures we don't normally have during a week day.  This Saturday, our P-day, is a zone conference we are attending in Milano, so I didn't feel too guilty leaving the office at 5 pm, which is our posted closing time, although we usually stay at least until 6 pm.

On Tuesday evening we went home teaching to the Friolo family, who moved to San Giuliano Milanese, a suburb of Milano not too far from us. It was a good visit and lasted almost two hours.  It took us a half hour to get there, so it took about three hours for this family. They are moving to Los Angeles this fall, when their daughter gets her mission call.  He is an air conditioning man, and actually installed a new air conditioning unit in our apartment a couple of weeks ago.  He is Italian and his parents, who live close by, basically disowned him when he joined the Church. He is a counselor in the bishopric of our ward. His wife is from South America and her parents live with them, and are moving to southern Italy when they move to the US. The First Presidency message was about pioneers, which they certainly are. They have have a ten year old boy who likes spiders, so I took him some pix that Jeff sent of Jacob's butterfly collection and spiders, with which he was fascinated.  He asked his dad if he could have a collection like that in America.

On the way out to their apartment, we passed by another abbey, one we had not yet seen, so I decided we should go see it.  We left the office yesterday to see it before it closes at 6 pm (all the information about these places is on line).  When we got there we learned they have vespers starting at 6 pm.


They have a nice parking lot, which is uncommon, but this old church, first built in the 1100s, is out in rice farming country.  We saw a nun, in a white habit, going into the cloister where the nuns live, and we saw her later, at vespers (the nuns who live here wear black habits), so she must be a visiting nun.

This is the front of the church.  To get in you go through the small door in the middle of the big door, which is only opened for special occasions. You have to humble yourself to get in.

It was not very ornate, because the original monks were Humiliated, or poor.  There was not even a crucifix on the new (old altars were in back, where the priest did not face the congregation) altar, although one from about the 1400s was included on the fresco on the ceiling, so I guess this counts.

Myrna immediately spotted the flying cow in the fresco on the ceiling.  We later learned (from a missionary when we showed this pix at the office today) that it is an ox, symbolizing the apostle Luke, not a flying cow.  The flying lion is St. Mark.  Everything is a symbolic of something.

The Umiliati monks who founded the monastery were not rich enough for a pipe organ, but the nuns must be, and they have a new one installed in 2004.  I asked if I could play it, but the nun said she did not have the key and vespers were starting soon, so I said we would return sometime, which I hope to be able to do.

On the console there were interesting sliders for the mechanical stop action of the organ. I have not seen any horizontal ones like this, most are vertical, but the console is detached from the pipe chamber, so this makes sense.  From the acoustics of the old church, the organ must sound very beautiful.

This is the choir area, and there are chairs like this on both sides, and nuns sit on each side.  We attended vespers, which lasted 35 minutes.  One side sings ancient chant music, in Italian,  and the nuns on the other side answer, by signing the next phrase or verse. They sang from the Psalms, had a nice prayer in the middle (they prayed that the youth of the church would not go astray), and had a blessing at the end. I did not hear the word Mary once.  This was all done by nuns, there is no priest there.  We saw a total of about 16 nuns, about half sat on each side, they were fairly old, one was in a wheel chair.  For accompaniment they had this Casio keyboard, but did not use it. One of the nuns had a pitch pipe she intoned the pitch at the beginning of each Psalm.  There were about 8 people, including us, in the congregation.

This side alter, if it is actually an altar, I didn't see a crucifix, is very old and the frescos are deteriorating, as you can see.

They had a few paintings, oil on wood or canvas, but not many, again because they were poor.

Myrna asked me if this was a spiritual experience for me. It was not.  It was a beautiful cultural experience, to experience nuns chanting the Psalms in the evening, before they retire, as they have done every day, for at least 1,500 years, in historic places like this.

When we left, we went to a nearby Ikea, bought some batteries for the smoke detectors, and had dinner (Swedish meatballs, salad and caneloni) and then to a big box store, Leroy Merlin, like Home Depot, to buy some stick adhesive for the smoke detectors. On the way home, about 9:30, we had the biggest thunder storm we have experienced so far in Italy.  There was a lot of wind, noise and rain.

Another day, another adventure.

Ciao.