This was a pretty "normal" week in the mission office and we didn't do much unusual until Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday we went to Pavia to clean up a missionary apartment, where we have previously cleaned before, but there are no missionaries in it now and we have given notice that we are closing it the end of March. President and Sister Allen drove the mission's largest van and we drove our car there, and the missionaries (elders with strong backs) from Pavia met us at 1:30, where we cleaned and moved out furniture until 5:30. It wasn't any worse than any other missionary apartment, it is just that we want to get our €1,100 deposit back, so it needs to be in good shape. We have rented it for 4 years and my records do not say what belongs to the mission and what stays with the apartment, but we can guess, because the furnishings the mission buys are not always typical for Italian apartments.
This is the refrigerator, so after cleaning it out (the former missionaries even left milk in it) I took a picture so I could email it to the landlord to make sure it is not his. It is larger than most Italians have, and I will offer to sell it to the landlord so we won't have to haul it down the five flights of stairs (It is too large to fit in the elevator.) Myrna spent quite a bit of time thoroughly cleaning the oven and greasy stove, Sister Allen worked on the bathroom.
I am sure these large clothes closets came from IKEA, as did the beds, etc. We will have to make a lot of trips down to Pavia to get all of the stuff we own. We all wore our work clothes, worked hard, and had a fun time. Sister Allen brought pasta for lunch. We even brought home the curtains so Myrna could wash and iron them to take back to re-install.
Missionary desks, also from IKEA, which came in pieces but would be too hard to take apart. But we have until the end of March to finish this project, and we will have more of these projects, because President Allen wants to close more apartments and open new ones in various cities.
Friday, January 6, was a national holiday in Italy. It is Epiphany, celebrated as the day the wise men came. Traditionally, and before Santa Claus and mass marketing came from the US, the good old witch, Befana, arrived, putting gifts into stockings, and coal for the bad kids on Epiphany. We were invited to lunch at the home of former Bishop Dalfino and his wife. He is from Bari (in the south) and came to Milano in the 1970s to work as an accountant, and she is from Mantova, so they are traditional Italians, but with different traditions. They both joined the church in the 1970s. For Christmas they went to the home of one of their two daughters, and for New Year’s eve they spent it alone (she said she cleaned house), so this was the biggest meal Sorella Dalfino has made during this entire holiday season They did not tell us this, only to come for pranzo (lunch) as we were driving them home from church last Sunday. We arrived at 1 pm and everything was ready to eat. They have a fairly large dog, who enjoyed barking at us, but in a friendly way, and accompanied us at the table, although she usually sat at the bishop’s feet while Sister Dalfino secretly slipped her little pieces of bread, which she loves more than meat, they said. On the table when we got there was the antipasto, which consisted of bread, salami slices, prosciutto (ham), insalata russa (Italian potato salad), pickled artichoke hearts, a dish of shrimp in large white beans, an assortment of olives, little pickled fish, and more antipasti items I can’t remember. They also had natural and frizzante water, orange soda and ginger soda (for which you have to acquire a taste), on the table. After that she brought out soup bowls and a large tegame of homemade stuffed pasta (like ravioli or tortellini) in home made broth, all of which she made herself. She said she never buys it. The pasta was made with nothing but flour, eggs, oil and salt, she said. The stuffing was beef and pork, with spices, cooked for 3 hours. Then, after clearing the plates, she brought out a green lettuce salad, already dressed with oil and vinegar, and a large plate of turkey breast meat, which was cooked with many spices, but predominately sage. She ladled a bit of juice on it as she served us. After we finished that she brought out another large plate of turkey, cooked in a well spiced tomato sauce, putting a lot on our plates, with sauce. More turkey than I ever ate at Thanksgiving. Then she brought out the fruit bowl with apples, oranges, tangerines. We each took a small tangerines, from Sicily, which are excellent this time of year. Then she brought out dolci (desserts), which included the apple pie and ice cream we brought. Myrna made the pie this morning and it was excellent, but after that much food, it was too much, and she also brought out a large panetone (Italian fruitcake), with candied fruit, which had been artfully sliced and filled with marscapone (a type of cheese), mixed with beaten egg whites, sugar, etc., which is delightful on the fairly dry Christmas cake. We were absolutely stuffed, to say the least. At about this time I got a call from the Salitini, asking if we could come to the mission office to reimburse them, which was a good excuse to leave.She sent us home with a container of our pie and her panetone. Fratello Dalfino went down with us to take his dog for a walk, which he does twice a day. They call this "pi pi il cani." Speaking of that, when we got back one of the sister missionaries had emailed us this: Why do Mormon missionaries have to have such large bladders? Because they only get one p-day a week.
The Dalfino's nativity, in the corner of their living room, next to their Christmas tree. Italians have traditionally put these up, long before they had Christmas trees. Like with our Christmas ornaments, they acquire new pieces each year and add them to the display, e.g., the little umbrella in the corner, perhaps from a drink someone once had somewhere.
Dalfino's dog begging for some of what we we getting. We were waiting for the pasta course to come out from the kitchen at this point We changed plates many times during the meal.
On Friday afternoon the Salatini came by the mission office to get their reimbursement, and told us about gong to the town of Magenta to see the nativities. I Googled it and learned that during the middle ages there was a battle there and one of the sides wore uniforms that were a unique color of red, so that color has ever since been called Magenta. We went there, only a half hour away, on Saturday afternoon. It is a relatively small town, of about 25,000 population, off the beaten path.
In the city square they have an ice staking rink set up.
With cute little penguins to help those kids who don't know how to ice skate yet. I could probably even skate with one of them.
Down the street was this unimposing parish church, in which they had removed the benches and set up displays of nativity dioramas, which were, in fact, pretty impressive.
They were in glass cases, and were lit from the inside. They were pretty hard to take pix of because of the low level of light. Some, like this one, were of relatively modern scenes relating to the nativity, but most were of Israel-like scenes. I took quite a few pix, and here are only a few. The guy with the bike is probably on 6 inches high.
Mary and Joseph coming into town. Behind them, which is hard to see in this pix because of the lighting (bright behind dark front), was a quite detailed scene of Israel.
A shepherd bringing his sheep into the village.
Mary and Joseph asking an inn keeper for a room
In the stable, without flash.
The same picture as above, with flash. They were amazingly detailed and quite small.
The same as above, with flash, of the outside of the stable, looking in.
An other with an angel appearing to shepherds. The cloud was cotton, with lights, and was very realistic. There was a little red light under the fire.
The holy family in the stable on the other side of the above.
Detail showing a family of chickens. The little chicks were only about the size of a shelled peanut. I couldn't tell if they were made of wood or ceramic, they used both for the diorammas.
Another display of the holy family, notice the veins in the shepherd's hand.
Another depiction of the stable. There were around 20 different dioramas in the church.
Even the backgrounds were in amazing detail, but didn't photograph very well.
The inn keeper in this one was holding a cat.
The other side of the above, again with chickens, etc.
Another diorama.
In this one, there was snow and cats playing in the foreground, which was pretty realistic.
On the other side of the above there were boys playing in the street with a dog.
In this one Joseph was carrying Mary into the stable. I took several and never could get the picture in focus, it was so dim. but which make it very realistic.
In that old church I took this pix of one of the large stained glass windows, of the annunciation, ei.e., the Gabriel appearing to Mary with the Holy Ghost (dove) hovering above.
Out in the church was this display, not a diorama, made within a piece of burled wood. You could buy tickets to win these, and this was first prize. This church with all of these nativities only had a boring looking electronic organ, but they were playing a recording to Handel's Messiah for background music.
But down the street was a larger church, St, Martino, built to commemorate the war dead from that town, with a lovely looking pipe organ in the back over the front door. This church also had a couple of nice nativity scenes, much bigger than those at the last church, positioned on either side of the front of the church.
One even had a stream flowing down from the manger.
With live goldfish swimming in the pond--now that is paying attention to detail!
On the other side of the church was another nativity, in a different style, somewhat more like those we found in the first church, but much bigger. The figures were about a foot high.
In the high altar area they had another depiction of Mary and Joseph, and the baby. During the midnight mass they had a procession from the back of the church, where they carried the baby up and laid him in the manger, The large loaf of broken bread is also symbolic of what He would later do. The large book being displayed is an ancient hand illustrated hymn book with Christmas songs. I learned these things from the friendly young sacristan.
Myrna is always a little anxious when we go into these churches, because she is afraid of what I might do (play the organ), so she generally just sits at the back while I wander around. When I was upfront, I motioned for her to come up to see the nativities, and while she was doing that I found the sacristan and asked him if I could play the organ. He went to get the key and I followed him back to the other end of the church and we had to go out the big main door to get to the door where you go up to the organ loft. Myrna only caught a glimpse of me going out the door (she didn't see the sacristan), so she thought I was leaving the church and I am sure she was horrified, because she didn't have her purse or a key to the car, which was down the street, and it was cold outside. I get pretty excited when I can play an old organ.
This is the staircase leading to the organ. It is fairly typical of what they all look like.
The on-off switch for the organ is always on the wall, because when these organs were built there was no electricity and they had to put in a special switch for the electric blower, when they took out the boy pumped bellows.
This was a two manual (rare) organ with a full pedalboard, which has been enlarged from the original
one manual organ typical in these Italian churches.
The lower manual is a shorter "swell" keyboard, with lots of interesting sounding reed stops.
The longest non pedal metal pipe, in the middle, is 16 feet long and is playable on the old (upper) manual.
This organ had an amazing number of stops, for an old Italian mechanical organ, including a third hand, Terza Mano, stop, which is an old style of octave coupler. I tried to play all of the stops to see what they sounded like. Unfortunately, most of the pipes were not in tune, especially the many reed pipes, which go out of tune easily. Some also apparently had dust in them, and initially did not play, but after several tries, did sound, when the dust blew out. I turned on my camera and record my playing "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet." and "Praise to the Man." Of course, when Myrna head this music, she knew exactly where I was.
These are some of the reed pipes visible from the front of the organ (I did not go inside the organ).
Taken from the organ loft looking toward the high altar, at the end. Myrna was down there somewhere. The nativities were up front on the sides. For a small town, this was a fairly large church. It is not a cathedral or duomo.
Today, Sunday, we went to church this morning. The radiators that heat the church were off, and it was very cold. Also, they ran out of sacrament cups, so the bishop sent the assistants to the president missionaries, because they have a car (few Italians do), to another ward building to borrow some cups. We were all in the chapel and he sent everyone to priesthood meeting first. We had priesthood meeting in the Relief Society room because it was the coldest room, the women used the warmer chapel. In fact, one of the radiators were leaking and someone had to mop it up We had fast and testimony meeting last, but it was fairly warm in the chapel by then. The missionaries baptized an Italian named Simone during the week, in Muggiò (we didn't go).
And he was confirmed today. The missionary on the left is Anziano Harris, who used to live in Soda Springs when his father practiced dentistry there. I taught Sunday School, the first lesson in the D&C manual, in English, but it was so cold in the classroom I was happy I could stand up and welcomed others to do the same, although no one did. The entire Danzie six member family attended, along with Sister Allen and Myrna. We have had American students, but they went home and new ones haven't yet arrived.
From the monthly magazine published by the City of Opera, we learned about a Christmas Concert that started today at 4:30 in the old church down the street. Myrna and I attended the hour long (with two encores) concert, which was wonderful.
They sang some old Latin, like from the 16th and 17th centuries, Christmas (natalizie) music, beginning with an Ave Maria, and some new pieces, in English, like White Christmas. The choir, from Milano, called the William Byrd Choir, was fairly small, as you can see, but very expert singers, who had an "old world" sound and it was beautiful to hear in that reverberant building. White Christmas was breath-taking. They also sang "I will follow Him" from Sister Act but, unfortunately, the PA system needed by the soloist, did not work, although we were fairly close and could hear her well. I recorded the program, but do not know how to attach video or audio to this blog yet. At the end the parish priest came up and thanked them, remarking that today is the last day of Natale (Christmas), and that we all worship one Jesus Christ (he actually said Jesus Christ in English).
This was the nativity at the old church, and they also had a life-size plaster baby Jesus up on the high altar. He was naked. Myrna said they could have at least put a blanket on him to keep him warm.
This was another marvelous week on our mission. These weeks are going by way too fast. It is hard to believe we only have six months left. I now have 9 rimborsi to do. I do them 7 days a week, but did not do any on Christmas day, because the Church did not process them on the 25th or 26th.
Ciao for now.
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