24 June 2017, Como, Santoro & Garcia, Priesthood Meeting

On Friday afternoon we were planning on going to the Ruffatti organ factory near Padova, and then driving on to Pordenone, staying in the vacant apartment and going to church there in the new church, for old times (mine--this was the first city in which I served 51 years ago) sake.  However, we learned that Luca Santoro and his fiancè, Eliana Garcia, are coming on Saturday and wanted to see us, and have a Cafè Rio lunch, for old times sake. So, we didn't go to Pordenone, but at the last minute, on Friday afternoon, we needed to drive to Como to take the anziani there replacement mattresses, which we did. It was a fast trip, and it was really hot and humid.  After parking near the anziani's apartment, which is close to the duomo, and buying 2 hours of parking (€2), we delivered the mattresses and then walked down to the duomo, walking past the opera theater.

As we turned the corner to the front of the duomo, there was a man out playing the violin. He was really pretty good playing classical pieces, as many of them are, and people were putting coins in his open case on the ground.  Myrna wanted to find a square where, when we have been there in the past, they were selling cute things she wanted to get for the grandchildren, but, unfortunately, the little (portable) shops weren't there.

So we went in the church in that piazza, where, one time, when Amy was there, we saw a wedding.  We went in the church because we knew it would be cooler inside than out, which it was.  This is an old fresco on one of the walls.

Even though the phone shook when I took this pix, there is a fairly large, new organ, and we heard it before, for the wedding.  There was no one to ask if I could play it, and I was hot and tired, so I didn't try.

The inside of the dome above the cross (where the arms come together) of the building is well decorated, but like a lot of them, it is only painted, actually fresco, to look like it is real architectural work, when it isn't.

I zoomed in on this to show the one real window, the rest are just painted on the ceiling, as is the rest of what you can see.

Around the corner from the main nave is a separate altar, with a very interesting display, of 3-D images, of people in the flames of hell.

Back to the main altar area of this church, which is not the duomo, but only one block away.

Leaving that area of Como, we walked back over to the duomo.  From this street you can see how close it is to the hills, which, a little further north of, are the Swiss alps.

On the main street in Como there are several gelaterie, and I snapped this one of people eating gelato, with my sister Jan's request in mind, that I send her pix of people eating ice cream, showing how large (or small) the servings are.  Unfortunately, I took this so fast, as to not be obnoxious, that it does not really show what I wanted it to show (the cups of gelato), but, Jan, at least I tried.  I looked up, on-line (NationMaster) that the obesity rate in Italy is 8.5% and in the US it is 30.6%.  I am sure there are many reasons, including genetics, but Italians don't drink much soda pop, and certainly not in large amounts, and it is relatively expensive. In fact, wine (depends on the quality) is less expensive than CocaCola.  Least you think Italians are drunks, the alcohol death rate per 100,000 in Italy is only 0.37, compared with 2.91 in the US, almost 8 times as much, according to Worldlifeexpectancy,com. It is true that the 3-Ps of Italian food, pasta, pane and pizza (plus gelato) are pretty fattening, and I have succumbed to them, but Italians seems to be fine with them.

We went in the duomo, to find they were closing it to tourists, as they were getting ready for the 6:30 pm mass.  (I would have liked to stay, but didn't want to wait a half hour.)  I snapped this pix of two of the four large tapestries hanging on the sides of  the church. They are from the 1400s, and are Italian. I am sure I have taken pix of them before and described them, hoping I said the same thing about them this time.

On the way back to the car, we went into the opera house, to see what was happening.  I snapped this pix of an old opera poster, from the 1903-04 season.  This was a fairly small room, had no air conditioning (I wondered about the theater itself, which was closed--well actually the door was open and I could have gone in, but Myrna was already waiting for me outside) and smelled of BO from the people in there buying tickets.  Quite the cultural experience!. I remember that 50 years ago people didn't use deodorant, and there was quite the BO smell in confined spaces, especially elevators, but today it isn't so bad and they sell lots of brands and kinds of deodorant, so maybe the people buying tickets weren't Italian. (There is an English speaking family living above the mission office, they lived in South Africa until both the parents retired from being university professors, and their 20 something daughter, who is usually half clad, apparently does not seem to use deodorant, at least from what I experience when I am in the elevator with her.)

So we found our favorite gelataria in Como, La Bottega del Gelato, on XXIII September Street, and had gelato for old times sake.

This is a pix of some of the flavors at that gelataria.  I had a €2 cup of marascino cherry (on top with the red cherries) and pistacchio on the bottom.  The pistacchios are from Sicily and the owner, when we spoke with him one night with the Salatini, said that pistacchio is his most expensive flavor to make, because of the cost of the nuts.  It is really good, both Myrna and I had some. Her other flavor was crema, or the closest thing they have to vanilla.  Actually, I have never seen vanilla as a flavor for gelato in Italy.

This is a better pix of my gelato, taken outside in the sun. We sat on the wall on the side of the building to eat ours because it was cooler there than on the bench inside the gelatria.  Most of these little shops do not have any kind of cooling.  We also went into a large OVS store, sort of like Italy's equivalent of J C Penneys, in Como and it wasn't air conditioned very well either.

I snapped this pix as I drove past a hospital, Santa Anna, in Como, which is one of my landmarks for when I leave the city.  It is a fairly old hospital, not very large, by Italian standards, and I think it would be interesting to go inside.  The door was open but we were in a hurry, as usual, and it was hot.

This morning (Saturday) I had to go shopping for lunch today, for our Cafè Rio pork dinner, for Luca Santoro and Eliana Garcia.  We went to find fresh, ripe peaches, which we found at this shop at the outdoor market. There are about 6 of these open shops, all very competitive (they guys really try hard to sell), and very busy on a Saturday morning.  We were waiting in line to have the guy weigh our bag of 10 large peaches (€3.50).  I had to go to his competitor to buy 3 limes, as they didn't have any limes, and no one had any coriadolo to make Mexican salsa.  The kid in the tank top was unwrapping plastic wrap to wrap up a quarter of a watermelon, which they sell by weight.  We bought a small watermelon the other day at the supermarket, and it was pretty good.

From where I was standing I pointed my phone camera down and took a pix of the fruit below, including the small zucchini with flowers--Italians eat the flowers, and they are fairly expensive, but regular zucchini, when it gets larger, is cheap and Italians eat a lot of them.

There was this box of large fresh figs.  A lady watched me take this picture and then remarked to her friend that the American took a pix of the figs.  I turned to her and said that I like them and we don't have them were were live in America,  She then turned to her friend and in a surprised manner, said that the American just said to me, in perfect Italian, that they don't have figs in America. I should have bought some, just for old times sake (in Globe we had them, and there is a tree next to the spring here in Opera where we get water, but we were in a hurry.)

So I still had to buy some corn tortillas and chips for our dinner, so I went by myself to Coop, and had to stand in line a long time because it was Saturday morning, when everyone does their grocery shopping.  Corn tortilla, Old El Paso brand, cost €3.75 for 8, but the corn chips, which are really pretty good, are only €1.19 for a fairly large bag.  Myrna made her own flour tortillas for lunch, and she is getting pretty good at it.  She used Tipo O, bread flour, instead of Tipo OO, cake flour, and they turned out better than the biscuits she made me for Father's day, so flour does make a difference.  I also bought a spray bottle of whipped cream, which is really good, for the fresh peach pie.  In this pix you can see a lady's red basket overflowing with stuff, and she had pulled it all around and it didn't fall off (amazing), and a little boy getting out of one of the little cars the store has to entertain the children, a cute little blonde Italian boy.  Then I had to go to another store, Eurospin, to buy cheese and on the way back the office anziani called and asked me to go to the train station for Luca and Eliana. So I got them back and helped Myrna finish the dinner, which we took down to the office and enjoyed it together, except, sadly, without the APs.

The office anziani and Luca, looking at his finance, Eliana

When I tried to take her pix, they both posed.  Italians seem to like to have their pix taken, at least most of them don't mind.

We enjoyed Sorella Hoopes' fresh peach pie, which turned out very well. This is the first one she has made in Italy, and had to find a recipe on line.

After lunch, and cleaning up the dishes, we went in the APs office, and Luca sat in his old chair and we talked for a while, which was fun.  The APs had planned on being with us, but were called to drive down to San Remo to pick up a missionary, who had been in a fight with his companion, and had broken a piece of glass.  It will be an interesting story, for later.

This is Sunday afternoon.  This morning we went to church in Lodi, which is about as far south as the ward we attend in Milano.  When we first arrived, the office elders, who attend the Lodi ward, asked us to go with them, saying we could really help the ward, and they kept bugging us, for weeks, so we asked President Dibb, who said we should go to Navigli, which we have always done.  Today, because President Allen and the missionaries were all giving talks in Lodi, we decided to go, which was a good experience.  It is a very different ward than Navigli.  It is much less mature of a ward and, indeed, they do need help, but we won't be here long enough to do much.  Maybe our successors can go there, I will suggest it to President Allen, who will have to speak with the stake president.

The chapel of the Lodi ward.  When sacrament meeting started at 9:30, there were only 12 people in the room, but it was fairly full by about 9:45. (Navigli starts at 9, and few people come late, and the other meetings start on time, unlike in Lodi.)  The bishop of Lodi is ill and we learned there are other organizational issues.  There is a young man, named Waters, from Rexburg, Idaho, who met an Albanian woman on line and moved here and married her.  They have two little kids.  He works with computers online and she works at a bank. He went on his mission to Mesa, AZ, and did not speak Italian when he moved here (she speaks good English), but, from his comments in priesthood meeting, he speaks good Italian now.  His parents have been here visiting them, the first time they have come, and it was fun visiting with them.  The son plans on staying here forever, according to the parents, who will be here for a few more weeks, they are going to Venice, Rome and Naples before they leave.

Hall from the chapel to the various rooms of the Lodi ward, which is located on the second floor in an industrial complex. Leica (German optics) is the next door neighbor with a big sign. There is good parking for this ward, which isn't the case at Navigli.

Bulletin board in the Lodi ward. The 3 pix of baptisms include our office anziani.  None of the new members came today, for various reasons.

Kid from the Lodi ward trying to escape after church today.

I am riding with President Allen today to stake priesthood meeting this evening, so I will speak to him about the Lodi ward. Luca Santoro will be at the priesthood meeting, after which he is ordaining Davide Buttoni, whom Luca baptized, to the Melchizedek Priesthood.  It is his niece that I teach piano, so I know him fairly well, because he brings her, and treats her as his daughter. I wish Myrna could attend the ordination, but that's apparently not the way they do it here.  This afternoon we are going home teaching to Giovanna Lafranceschina. This is being written several hours later, after we visited Sorella Giovanna and her daughter Aurora, whose 15th birthday was today. We sang "Happy Birthday" and took brownies with pecans, from home. They are going to Idaho and Utah from Oct 23 to Nov 3, to visit their sons and for one's wedding in the Rexburg temple. We hope to be able to see them there.  Then, I left with Pres. Allen at 5 pm to go to the Lampugnano building for the priesthood meeting.  Instead of starting at 6 pm, it started at 6:35. They sustained Davide and several other men, including others from the Navigli ward, to be ordained. One of the stake president's counselors gave a good 20 minute talk, then President Allen gave a very good 12 minute talk, then the other counselor had a white board brought in and talked for well over an hour using one of Pres. Uchtdorf's talks, for which he asked for quite a bit of participation, but never really used the white board.  Apparently the air conditioning didn't work, they opened a window, but only mosquitoes came in.  It was miserably hot. President Allen had to leave about 8 pm to make it to an interview, and told me that I could ride home with the APs. So after the meeting I found the APs and asked for a ride, because they had to go back to Opera before going to a party at the Navigli church for Davide's ordination.  It took a while for them to say goodbye to their friends, and gather the Navigli anziani, who were riding with them. I saw Davide and Luca walking down the hall to the classroom for his ordination and asked if we could stay but the APs were very anxious to leave, so I had little choice but to leave with them (I later thought that I could have asked Myrna to come to get me, although she has never driven that far.)  As we were getting into the van we could see Luca's hands on Davide's head though the window, and I remarked how disappointed I was and that is what I went for. One of the APs remarked that I saw the ordination. They apparently forgot the frozen pizza at the mission home and needed to take it back to the Navigli church for Davide's party, so, sadly for them, the party after was more important than the ordination.  I hope it all went well, and when I see Davide on Thursday evening I will congratulate him.    

Ciao for now.

17 June 2017,  Crema, baptism, dumb things & testimony

Crema is a relatively small town that is about a half hour south of us.  We have wanted to go there, but just recently actually tried, got lost (the GPS took us back to Milano) the first time, but we finally made it.

We put the address, we found on line, of this church in Crema in the TomTom.  Parking was relatively easy, for Italy.  This church was about a kilometer out of town.

According to this sign, at the back of the church, where we parked, this is the basilica of Santa Maria della Croce, from the 1400s.

It was sort of a church in the round, with the (new) altar in the center and the pews all around.

We were the only ones there, except for a little old lady, who said she lives there but was from Veneto (Venice area), who was very interested in learning all about us and telling us all about the church. She was a little strange. I asked her how I could play the organ.

The old pipe organ was above a side door. The iron spiral staircase leading up to the organ loft was locked with an ancient iron padlock. She said I could go to the priest's house, which she pointed out to me, but it was hot outside and I didn't want to make the effort.

Especially after I saw the electronic organ on the other side of the church near what used to be the high altar.  I asked her if the old organ worked, and she said they use it on Sundays, but I suspect it is in poor shape--most of them are.

There was a Casio keyboard opposite the electronic, so I suspect they do have music in this church, maybe even rock music.

But under the high altar was another altar, below ground level,

And in it was an interesting display of the Madonna appearing to some poor soul whose right hand had been cut off...

apparently by a sword.  We didn't learn the story, even the little old lady wasn't sure of it (maybe she told us in her Ventian dialect), but I am sure it was important, because a pope had been in this very church and prayed to this Madonna, as can be seen from the photograph to the left of the display above.  I suppose many people come to this church to pray to her.

There was this pix of the nativity, with a fairly muscular baby. Probably the artist never saw a newborn up close and personal, or maybe they look like this in the 1500s, when this was painted.

On one end of the church were the confessionals. I expected the sign to start flashing.

And this almost life size Jesus down from the cross in all his gory. Then we drove into town, about a kilometer away (The church was out in the farm area.)

where we parked at this monastery, where they were having a Rotary Club convention, so it wasn't open for visiting.

This sign shows the size of a room compared with the rest of the friary, as the English part of the sign calls it.

We walked over to the duomo, to the right, in the main piazza.  The city hall is at the end.

In the duomo, near the high altar, was this large painting of Jesus on the cross, with a naked angel flying through the air. It is possible that the dark colored modesty cover was added later.

These young men were being talked to around the main altar by a priest.  They didn't appear to be tourists and I didn't try to overhear the discussion. Maybe he was trying to convince them to start seminary to become priests.  There aren't many boys who are interested these days, many of the priests come from Africa and other impoverished places.

Crema has narrow streets in the area around the duomo, as most old Italian cities do.

We didn't see any foreign tourists, that we could identify.  This city is off the beaten path. These people were just locals out for a Saturday afternoon shopping trip.

One lady had her cane (dogs) out, who were interested in something in the shop. I asked her what kind of dogs they were.  She said they are Italian greyhounds, probably a miniature breed.

Along the way back to the car there were many old buildings with high walls, probably palaces or homes for wealthy people (some even had signs saying who lived there in the 1600s, etc.), with lovely, but crumbling decorations.

We came quickly back to our apartment, made in the 1970s, to change clothes to go to a baptism.  I watered our flowers, on the balcony, from which you can see the street below.  The red Toyota Yaris is that of the APs.  All of the other mission cars are white, grey or silver.  I don't know why they got a red one.  When the Shumakers were leaving, I suggested, in front of the APs, that they take the red car, so the APs could have a humbler color car, but I could quickly tell that wouldn't go over--they really like their red car. After all, they are still competitive boys at heart.

At the beginning of summer I bought a little basil plant for 99 cents, had it in my office window for many weeks and then transplanted it outside on the balcony, where it has flourished.  I pick leaves quite often to cook with or garnish dishes, as do Italians.  Yesterday I made pesto sauce in a little ceramic mortar and pestle I bought for €3 at a second hand store, for pasta, which turned out too strong.  (Grind fresh basil leaves, toasted pine nuts, olive oil, garlic.)  In fact, I put an entire clove of garlic in it, so when I hugged the Thompsons goodbye they certainly got the garlic treatment. Not that I have learned to like garlic, but it is okay in some things, like pesto.

The office anziani had taught the husband of a member, and they baptized him on Saturday.  She has been in Italy for a long time and speaks good Italian.  He came from the Philippines 3 years ago and still does not speak Italian, although he speaks okay English, in which they taught him.  They asked me to play the piano, which I did.  The family lives in Lodi, where the anziani have been asked to go, but the church there does not have a baptismal font, so they had the baptism in the Navagli (our) ward building, but no one from their branch came because it is too far, especially if you don't have a car.

Italians like to use "skeleton" keys to lock things, and even new buildings have them.

This is one of our internal doors. Today we had two sorelle go into their bathroom together (why?), lock the door, and not know how to get out.  So, in desperation, one of them wrapped her foot in a towel (to protect it, I suppose) and kicked the glass out of the door.  The glass broke and cut her leg so that it was bleeding a lot. They called the ambulance and went to the hospital, and she got 70 stitches. How's that for wounds for a battle with a door that you would be embarrassed to report.

Speaking of sorelle, we currently have an epidemic of head lice amongst the sister missionaries.  They have recently been forbidden to hug each other, or others, especially children.  They must comb each other's hair, and all must treat their hair with expensive medicine, for which I reimburse them. They aren't supposed to inform the anziani, and if any of them get it, that should be punishment enough. The Lodi sorelle have them too.  Lodi is where our two office anziani go after 5 pm, and they are in touch (hopefully not literally) with the sorelle, so one of them flipped out on hearing the news (office anziani know everything), and had Sorella Hoopes go through his hair today. She didn't find anything, yet. She had me go through her hair, and I didn't find any either.

We were asked to wax our mission car, so yesterday morning we did, after washing it.  I was down on my haunches applying wax (Myrna was wiping it off) and I toppled over, badly skinning my elbow, which bled on my clothes, but I needed no stitches (just bandaids).  Sorella Hoopes has been going to physical therapy every week and doing exercises twice a day for her tendinitis.  Wiping wax from the car was, of course, anti-therapeutic. She is using the jug of ibuprofin that Mark brought us, which is expensive to buy (like 70 cents a tablet) in Italy.  Last evening we went to Decathalon and bought her a large stretchy rubber band, prescribed by the therapist, which she hangs on a door knob and pulls.  

Speaking of therapy, a senior couple from Germany, who took the Hawkins' place (although both are counselors, whereas Elder Hawkins was an accountant and helped me) visited on Wed, and we went to dinner with them and the Allens.
 
Elder and Sister Peery, counseled at BYU and now counsel missionaries in about 14 missions, including ours. They said our mission has fewer crazies than many, but we have our share. They don't believe in essential oils, in fact, she said they can be dangerous.  She said if one has problems taking psychotrophic drugs, one could take 6 capsules of fish oil, divided morning and night, which seemed reasonable to help with the drugs. They also agree that missionaries with mental health problems should not be sent to foreign countries--there are too many problems and many of them go home and feel more depressed because they couldn't be successful missionaries. The Perrys were very nice and seemed like we had known them from before. When we asked if hearing these problems all day does not make them depressed, and he said he has had counseling for that.

He had a Milanese, which, after it went to Austria, became weinersnitzel, or how ever you spell it. It is veal and they like to leave the bone handle in it, but it is just breaded and fried in butter.

Myrna had the famous saffron risotto, although this had a cuore (heart) of gorgonzola cheese, which she didn't particularly like.

I had a pasta with cheese sauce, to which I added more grated Parmesian, and some kind of meat, it was pretty good.

Sorella Allen mistakenly ordered this, but she ate the pasta and he ate the sea creatures.

We didn't actually go out for gelato, because they served us some at the restaurant, but my sister Jan asked me to take a pix of a gelato bar.  What you see is just half the flavors they were offering that day.

We have a newsletter, called "Milano Moments."  Missionaries are encouraged to email in submissions.  As I was finishing this post, an email came in and this was a submission from a dear sorella, Raquel Marie Stevens.

Like probably most of you, one of the greatest lessons I have learned on the mission has been about Christ, especially as The Light of the World. The more I have studied this and testified of him the more I have realized that not only is He the light of the world but He is the light of OUR, individual worlds.

There have been moments on the mission when I have felt and seen in others the dark days that life can bring. This darkness can be disorienting, frustrating and discouraging, but if there is even a bit of light, hope can always be found. This light is Jesus Christ and the more I have understood how much of a light He is in my life, the more I have been able to share this with others. That is our mission. To bring the light that is Christ to other people and help them use this light to get out of their darkness. I have been blessed to see Christ be the light and joy in my life and so many others lives.  I am so grateful for my light,my redeemer, my friend, Jesus Christ. 

It was a lovely Saturday, P-day, to end another week in hot (think quasi hades--what will July and August be like?) paradise.

Ciao for now.