This was another pretty normal week, but with rain. On Tuesday we went to Myrna's dentist in Milano, where she had the permanent crown installed on her molar, hopefully, our last visit. He gave her the temporary crown, in a cute little yellow box: probably the most expensive jewel she owns, at €2,200 euros or $2,373 US dollars
On Wed. we went to the church at Cimiano where I did my financial training for the new missionaries who arrived from the MTC six weeks ago.
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We did it downstairs, instead of in the chapel, because there were fewer missionaries. I use a PowerPoint and give them the same presentation on the first day they are in Italy as I do six weeks later, and hope they will remember some of it. (Next week 9 new ones are coming from the MTCs.)
Myrna in the kitchen finishing lunch. We fed them chicken (with some turkey, frozen from Christmas) in barbecue sauce on large hamburger buns, with home made potato salad, chips, raw veggies, including carrot and celery sticks, zucchini, yellow and bell peppers (Italy has beautiful ones), and cherry tomatoes. Myrna also made wonderful apple cakes with fresh, unpeeled, Granny Smith apples (they actually call them that, and I chopped them up very fine), which we served with whipped cream. (It was raining and cold and I didn't want to walk over to the supermarket near the church to buy ice cream.)That evening we served dinner to a family, Christian Narea, we home teach, at our apartment. We had Sloppy Joes, potato salad, and apple cake. Italians always bring something when they come for dinner. They brought a nice live plant and two pies, which they bought at Esselunga. I don't think their teen age son liked the Sloppy Joes too much. They speak Spanish at home, eat Ecuadorian food, but speak Italian well. He works at a car parts place and she cleans a large apartment building. The boy is taking English at school.
On Thursday evening I taught piano lessons to the four students I have taught the last few weeks, and a new one, who came an hour early. He is Cristiano, the young man who was baptized a few months ago. I taught him in English, although he is Italian, and the others in Italian. He stayed for their lesson, so he endured 2.5 hours. He is studying to be a professional actor and singer, and wants to learn to play keyboard.
On Friday we went to dinner with President and Sister Allen and the Rusts, who have been a senior couple in Pordenone, and finished their mission. They are from Oregon. He was in the Air Force, worked at the Pentagon and before their mission they taught English in China. He said he is going home to write a book about Joseph Smith, which I hope he does.
This is the week of transfers. We got a new office elder, Anziano William Hogan, and will be losing Anziano Anderson, who will be a trainer in Pessaro. Also, Anziano Santoro, our Italian Assistant from Bari, will be going to Pordemone, with Anziano Dalton from Southern Utah. We hope they do a bang-up job there in the city in which I began my mission (birthplace in mission language), Anziano Santoro goes home in two transfers.
We decided to have one last P-day together before the changes. Sorella Allen made lunch for us at the mission home: ravioli with pesto sauce, chicken and sun dried tomatoes. It was good. I also made two kilos of less exotic penne pasta with my home made cream of mushroom soup and tuna (think tuna and whirligigs), which they seemed to enjoy. Then we did something we had not done before...
We went to Monza to a bowling alley and all bowled two games.
Even la Sorella Hoopes bowled well, as you can see. The alley was pretty much like they are in the US, even had Brunswick equipment. It cost €1 to rent shoes and €3.50 per game, which lasted about an hour each. It was fun, and different.
Most of the other bowlers were kids, having birthday parties.
Then we went over to the Savoy Royal Palace, the one to which we have been twice, although no one else in the group had seen it. We took pictures, before it became dark, about 5:30 pm.
Anziani Pyper and Santoro, the assistants.
Anziani Anderson, Simmons and Anziano Anderson's replacement, Anziano Hogan.
And us. We also took one of President and Sorella Allen, but, unfortunately, I didn't get one of them with my camera.
The inner fountain at the palace had ice, but the big one out front was fountaining.
We saw the photographic exhibit in the old rooms on the second floor of the palace. (First floor is a guided tour, for which we didn't have time to wait.)
And then put on the special spectacles and headphones to see the other side of the second floor, where in the high-tech glasses you can, for example, see a Baroque oil painting and hear music of Mozart, and others, played at a royal ball, which was taking place in the same room in which you are standing, along with a room-by-room narration of what you are seeing.
Right down to who made the inlaid floor and of what species of wood. You go from room to room (there are a total of 700, but not all are visitable), while the video in the glasses and narration, in English, keeps up with you. Anziano Santoro's glasses were set to Italian, which took longer because it takes longer to say the same thing in Italian as it does in English.
The restored wood floors were amazing. The palace was vacant after the king was assassinated during July 1900, and deteriorating, for almost 100 years. His wife was Margherita, for whom the margherita pizza (just tomatoes, olive oil, mozaarella cheese and fresh basil leaves) was named, and is still the first pizza listed on any menu in Italy.
Margherita, the wife of Umberto I, became the first queen of a united Italy on November 17, 1878. She was crowned queen in Naples and the Neapolitans welcomed her with the excitement and celebration she deserved. Margherita married her cousin Umberto at a young age in a civil marriage, typical in the ruling families at the time. She was not a very happy bride, nor was Umberto a happy groom. Umberto was actually in love with countess Litta and with whom, it is rumored, he fathered a child.
The young couple lived primarily in the royal palace of Monza, where Margherita won the favor of the people, much more so than Umberto. Some believe that her cultural awareness and wisdom did more for the unification of Italy than the politics of the men. She was an emblem for “Made in Italy,” thanks to her clothes, jewelry, food habits and ways of keeping-house based on national traditions. After the death of her husband, she continued to be adored by the Italians. Her dignity, balance and wisdom made her the most loved and admired queen of Italy. In exchange for her affection, her name came to symbolize quality and was given to a number of products and special recipes.
The ceilings have also been painstakingly restored. Most of the walls have been covered in Italian silk
There is room after room. Then you go to the third floor and see the displays of modern furniture, including a leather sofa, which looks like a huge baseball glove.
I was another wonderful week in not so sunny Italy, put everyone has sunny hearts.
Ciao for now.
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