12 June 2016

This week we worked in the office doing our normal duties.  On Thursday we went to Pavia to inspect two apartments, one with missionaries and one that we had inspected a week or so ago, where the missionaries had left it vacant following our going to help them clean (mold on ceiling in bathroom.) We gave them specific instructions about how they were to leave it (clean and ready for the next set or to turn back over to the landlord.)  The new mission president will have to decide whether to put missionaries back in it or have us close it. Anyway, the first (with missionaries) was okay but certainly not very clean.  We worked with them for an hour, on the bathroom and kitchen.  The pair included a big guy from the US and a small Italian from Rome.  Myrna helped the big guy with the bathroom, including cleaning the bathtub and ceiling. We bought some muriatic acid, which did wonders on the toilet and bathtub. As I was standing by the bathtub the elder accidentally sprayed me with water, in the crotch, but it was fairly warm and dried in about an hour. I  I helped the Italian in the kitchen. The tiled walls had not been cleaned for a long time and were pretty greasy, etc.Then we went to the other apartment, the one that had been closed, and saw that the missionary had finished the bathroom ceiling but had not done much else.  You may have seen the defrosting chicken in a previous post.  I had to clean the chicken bones they left in the sink, along with cleaning the stove, etc. They left food in the refrigerator, including milk, and had washed towels, but left them wet in the washing machine (missionaries in our mission don't get dryers, they use drying racks).   Myrna worked on the toilet and shower. We worked for about two hours.

Bathroom sink, they left a lot of stuff, which we threw out.  If this apartment is closed, we will have to go back and do a thorough cleaning. All of the senior couples in our mission are assigned about six or so apartments to inspect.  How much they actually clean is up to them. In fact, our mission president's wife thinks we should hire the work done and have the missionaries pay for it.








As we were walking down the street we saw a museum owned and operated by the City of Como. We went in and the young man who sold us our ticket noticed our name tags and told us he is a member, who served his mission in Sicily a few years ago.  The museum is in an old home of a very wealthy family, who probably owned it for centuries.  All of the rooms were well decorated and now have interesting displays.  This is a very old pipe organ, which has been restored and is played for concerts, etc.  Notice how beautiful the walls in this room are.  The entire museum is like this.  It would be wonderful to tour even without the displays, which were unique and very interesting. This part of Italy has been inhabited by people since at least the ice, stone and iron ages, many centuries before Christ.  You may remember, from National Geographic a few years ago, they found an ice age guy who had been preserved in a glacier, and they were doing tests of his body.  That is not too far from Como and the museum has lots of stuff from those very ancient times.





In the following pictures pay attention also to the walls, ceilings and floors of the museum itself, they were spectacular.













These are artifacts from the 9th century before Christ dug up in the 1970s near Como.













Beautiful marble floors.
















Roman lamps from the time of Christ.  When Christ talked about having oil in your lamp, this was the kind he was referring to.









These little gods were worshiped.  These things were probably brought to Italy during the mid 1800s, when rich people were in awe of Egyptian artifacts, and everyone had to have a mummy in their house. In fact, the mummy that Joseph Smith bought which contained the Pearl of Great Price had been in Trieste, Italy before coming to the US and making its way to Nauvoo.












Another nearby room where there were large wall paintings from the 1600s.

12 June 2016





Our cleaning lady, Sorella Cano, has worked for years to become an Italian citizen and finally made it.  Myrna made her a cake and the mission bought pizza for everyone in the office.  This is President and Sister Dibb with Sorella Cano and cake baker Myrna.












These are the missionaries in the office that day.






On Saturday (yesterday) we went to Como, a city about an hour north of here.  It is on a lake, which is shaped sort of like a V, with Como at the bottom.  The lake starts in Switzerland, and a few weeks ago we went with the president and the office elders to Bellagio, a little town at the top of one of the fingers.

We easily found a parking garage downtown and parked on the 6th floor for almost 7 hours and paid 9.50 euoro, which was a good deal. We went to check out this town to see if Amy and family want to go there.  They should, it  is cool. We walked toward the duomo, always in the center of any Italian city.  We went in the duomo and saw they were having a service, which the usher said was an ordination of new priests and would last another two hours. I did get to hear the organ and choir, which were very beautiful.  When we got home I googled and found a Youtube of a similar ordination that day in the duomo of Milano, which you can find by going to Youtube and putting in ordination of new priests milano italy 12 june 2016, so yesterday must have been the ordination of new priests day.




We went to the lake, only a couple of blocks away from the duomo.  The history book says that Julius Caesar found the area around the lake swampy and ordered it drained, so the city was built up next to the lake, so this must be the equivalent of Nauvoo in Italy.  This was a father swan carefully guarding his wife who was sitting on four eggs.









We walked a few blocks to the funiculare, or tram which runs up the hill.  It took about 6 minutes to get to the top and cost 10 euros.













Where we could see the city of Como.













After about an hour on top we came back down on the funiculare, which goes and comes every 15 minutes.










We went into the duomo and found they were having a very well attended and impressive service.  I got to hear the organ and choir and learned it was the ordination of new priests, which lasted almost 3 hours. When I got back home I googled to see what I could learn about it, and learned that at the same time and day in the duomo of Milano they were ordaining 24 new priests, which was all on Youtube (already), so yesterday must have been the graduation of seminary and ordination of new Catholic priests day in Italy, maybe in the world. (We had seminary graduation in our stake this week too, but the priests were already ordained, and we graduated girls too.)

5 June 2016

Today was a televised conference instead of regular church. The meeting was held in two of the three chapels in Milano, with two stakes represented.  We went with the office elders to the Cimiano building, which isn't the building we usually attend.  They drove us to the Rogerado station and we took the metro, having to change trains at Centrale, and then we walked the block to the chapel, getting there about 10 minutes early. We left 90 minutes early to get there on time. The meeting began with a half hour of stake business, a hymn, prayer, sustaining of three new high counselors and other stake business. The stake president of the east stake (we are in the west stake) gave a 20 minute talk and it was excellent. I had never heard him before.  He talked about getting things for "free" which are worth about what you pay, He spoke of being in a business meeting where his associates wanted to change their way of doing business to make more money, except it was dishonest, which he helped them realize and not do. Then the meeting from Salt Lake City began.  Elder Christofferson, an apostle, who came here in March was the presiding authority, along with the presiding bishop and young women president, who all spoke.  They all spoke in English and there was Italian translation, from Salt Lake, so you could barely hear the English. Sister Bonnie Oscarson speaks relatively fast and her female translator had to speak quite fast to keep up with her. Bishop Caussé, who is French, spoke in English and spoke about temples, and how Europe is getting more, including the one in Rome. He did not specifically say when it would be completed (no one is speculating), only that it would be a great blessing to the people here and they should be preparing to use it, including doing family history.  Elder Christofferson spoke last about coming to Europe in March, including his seeing DaVinci's last supper in Milano and his meetings with us (in the same chapel where we went today). Then he transitioned into the atonement and how we need to make it a more significant part of our lives. It was an inspired talk specifically for the saints in Europe, which he obviously understands very well now.  All in all, it was a very inspiring conference, and was very specific to the needs of the saints in Italy, much more so than general conference. The chapel was full, as I suspect the other one was.  It is so inspiring to see Italian families with their little children, the men with white shirts and garments underneath (it was warm today, they didn't turn on the air conditioning, but opened the windows--the chapel is on the second floor--and a pleasant breeze was blowing, so there weren't many coats).  While waiting for the missionaries to finish chatting (for 45 minutes) before we could leave, I watched a young Italian family get ready to walk home.  Their little boy, about 3 or 4 years old, had a scooter he was going to ride home, and his parents helped each other put his helmet on, he was really cute, as well as was his sister, in a stroller. I thought that the Church should have videoed this family, it was so inspiring to see the future of the Church in Italy.

We came home with the elders and had the last of the lasagna I made the other day. Then, I had an appointment to play an organ at 3 pm at an old church, about 9 minutes south of here.  We were there at 3 and the door opened, we were cordially greeted and we climbed up the creaky wooden stairs to the organ, which was behind the high altar.  The organ was from the 1800s, and has not been restored.  It is a little off in some of the less-used stops, but I enjoyed playing it.  Myrna recorded me.


This old organ had something (to the left in the pix) I have not seen many times.  A gauge which shows how many stops are pulled.

The pedal board was short (no heel-toe playing needed) and had fewer notes than modern pedal boards, and only one manual, which can be divided between upper and lower voices. It is very traditional Italian, and I played some Italian organ music I have downloaded, by Frescobaldi and Vivaldi, who both inspired Bach. Their music plays beautifully on this kind of pipe organ.

Anyway, it was an inspiring and fun Sunday. We came back home, read from the scriptures together, and then came back down to the office, where I am typing this.  Myrna is now in with the president and Sister Dibb, and one of the office elders, trying to figure out how to do the baptism reports in a more timely manner, which Myrna is just beginning to be responsible for.  She will have it whipped into shape in no time, I am sure. She is very diligent in her callings and I enjoy working next to her every day.




  

4 June 2016

We got up this morning and it was raining and fairly cool, for June. About 9:30 we headed south and stopped at an old church whose organ I had seen but never played.  Myrna waited in the car for me to see if I could play it.  There was no one there, but the church was open, as they usually are in the mornings (they close from about noon until 3 pm.)  I walked up the wooden staircase behind the altar and saw the organ and since no one was there, I flipped the switch and the blower came on, so, without sitting at the bench, I pulled the principale 8 stops to see if they would play (there was an electronic organ on the floor in front of the altar, which is usually a good sign that the antique organ does not work.)  Anyway, it played beautifully.  So I tested a few more stops and they all played, although the trumpet was quite flat, as they usually are.  I really wanted to sit down and play it, in fact, have Myrna come in and video me, but Myrna tells me I need permission. So I went outside and found the phone number of the paracco, the priest in charge, and called, but no one was there.  So we left to go further south, with an idea of going to Piacenza, which was 45 minutes south.

After walking around for over an hour, we were tired so we came back home and had lunch.  Then we waited until 3 pm, when the church with the organ would open back up and headed back down.  It is 6 KM and takes about 11 minutes to drive from our home to that church.  The church was again open but the priest did not answer his cell phone again.  I was able to get through to the assistant, who said he was out of town and I would need to speak with the priest.  Anyway, we headed back down south to the Certosa di Pavia to better prepare for where we will go when Amy's family comes.  We got all the way down to Pavia and then headed back home. On the way back the priest called saying he received a call from my number.  He told me I could come back tomorrow at 3 pm to play it, which I hope we can do. He said at 4 pm he has 15 baptisms to perform, which sounds like a lot. Maybe they are having a sale or something.  I didn't take many pix, but here are a few.


Outside of church with organ I want to play.  The church was actually built in the 1100s but it was re-built in the 1600s and again in the 1800s.

On Tuesday morning, Myrna and I drove down to Piacenza to check out a missionary apartment where the sister missionaries are moving out.  One went home on Thursday, with 17 others (only 2 came in this week), and the other was transferred, so no one is now living in this apartment.  During July we get about 20 new missionaries and the new president will need to decide what to do with this apartment; either put more missionaries in it or close it, which is a lot of work (for me because I have to close the utilities, etc.),  Anyway, we wanted to see what shape it was in and encourage the sisters to clean it well before leaving.  In fact, we stayed about an hour and helped them clean. Then we drove north to Pavia and checked out another apartment, this one occupied by elders, who are also moving out.  We also and helped them clean. These are typical missionary apartments in our mission.




The street where the Pavia apartment is located. It is on the 5th floor of the apartment building. Parking is always at a premium, but neither set of missionaries have cars.  They walk or ride the bus.











Living room, where the sisters study.  They said the pix on the wall were they when they came, and when they come off the walls need repainting because the sticky pulled off the paint. We didn't take them off, because if missionaries move back in, they can keep the pix.










Kitchen was also okay. This is a typical Italian kitchen, pretty little.










But the elder's apartment was a different story.
Myrna began working on the bathroom, and one of the elders got on a ladder and started using a washcloth with a bleach mixture to clean the mold off the ceiling, as we instructed him. I took the cloth into the kitchen and kept wringing it out with new bleach solution.  My hands smelled strongly of bleach all the rest of the day. The mold was pretty gross, but it came off with a lot of scrubbing, and bleach solution.

Italy is so humid that mold grows easily and it must be cleaned continually or it gets pretty gross. You probably don't want to see the rest of the pix that I took for comparison purposes. I hope that when we go back in a few weeks both apartments are clean and ready for the next set of missionaries, or to be closed.

One of my ideas for today was to go to back to Piacenza, where I served 50 years ago, where we went this week to check out an apartment, but it didn't work out.  However, as I requested, Kevin sent me a scan of a slide that I took 49 years ago of a boy in a red t-shirt and I wrote a little "tender mercy" story about it.  Maybe you have heard me tell this story when I have shown this pix over the past five decades.

In 1967, I was called to be a senior companion and to open a new city, which never had missionaries.  It is Piacenza, about 45 minutes south of where we now live in Opera. (We went there on Tuesday, 31 May 2016, to inspect an apartment.)  I was sent from Torino, which is about a couple of hours away by train. I arrived about 11 am and my companion, a greenie, coming from the US, was to arrive during early evening.  My most pressing job for the day was to find us an apartment, because I did not have enough money for a hotel. In those days we paid for all of our expenses and found our own apartments; we weren't reimbursed for anything.  Anyway, I arrived at the train station in Piacenza and thought that because a lot of people were coming and going, and they sold newspapers there, it would be good place to try to ask someone if they knew of an apartment we could afford. (We didn't have cell phones then.) Of course, I prayed continually to find someone who could tell me about an apartment.  I bought newspapers and looked and asked people, but didn't find anything that seemed promising.  So after eating lunch at the train station, I thought I would walk towards the duomo (cathedral), which is always the center place in an Italian city. However, very close to the train station is a city park, and I had a strong feeling to walk through the park, which was beautiful that spring day. I had my camera and I was even taking pictures of flowers, etc. There weren't many people in the park, and those I asked seemed annoyed, let alone knew of apartments.  I found a secluded place and prayed more intently than I had ever prayed before. Shortly thereafter, I saw a boy playing in the water. He was all alone, school was in session and I wondered why he was even there.  Since I was taking pix of flowers, etc., I took one of him before he saw me.  When he realized I was there, he responded in a friendly manner.  I told him I was looking for an apartment and he immediately said that his grandfather had apartments for rent and he would take me to him, which he did.  We walked together quite a while and found his nonno, and within a short time I had rented an apartment we could afford in a decent part of Piacenza. One of my current assignments in this mission is to pay the rent and utilities for our 100 or so missionary apartments, so this now seems more amazing. Anyway, by the time I walked back to the train station to pick up my companion, we had a roof over our heads and I had gone to some little shops (they didn't have supermarkets then like they do now) and bought some food. Finding that boy was a tender mercy if there ever was one, and, even more important, I knew that the Lord had heard me and answered my prayers.

29 May 2016

This is Sunday afternoon. After we returned from church, ate lunch, and I had an hour nap with our air conditioner on (I did, Myrna came down and talked with the young missionaries).  That is a big deal, because we have an air conditioner in our bedroom and living room, but have not been able to get them to work, until today.  I guess I just wasn't pushing the right buttons, kind of like a fancy TV remote, which I have never been very good at.  It brought the temperature right down and I used the bedspread because it was a little cold.  The weather has warmed up quite a bit, although today it was raining.  Church was good, we had the Relief Society program.  Myrna even wore a black skirt and white top, as instructed, and sang with the RS choir.  Yes, Myrna sang, there were about 30 of them. They sang "as sisters in Zion," in Italian, of course. For third hour on this 5th Sunday, the bishop gave the lesson for the combined adult priesthood and women.  He started with the story of the 3 little pigs, which apparently Italians have heard.  He told two versions, the first, Disney-like version and the second, he called it the "true" version where the first two little pigs get eaten by the wolf because they weren't obedient.  Then he had a woman, who actually lives in Opera and draws really well on the white board, draw a tongue and some knives coming out of it, which he used with scriptures to tell about the bad, cutting things, we say about each other. He spoke the rest of the time about speaking nice and being nice to each other in our ward family.  It was a great lesson.

On Tuesday we had new missionary training in Milano, at a church building.


The assistants to the president talking to the new missionaries, who were all sisters this time, with President and Sister Dibb looking on.  I also presented about 45 minutes to them on how to use their mission funding (debit) cards, take care of their bikes and what to do it they lost their wallet or purse, etc.  Fairly mundane things, but it all happens, and, as a scripture says, all things are spiritual unto the Lord..  





Yesterday, Saturday P-Day, President and Sister Dibb invited us to ride in their car along with the two office missionaries, to a famous little touristy town two hours north of here called Bellagio, which is on Lake Como.  We have been planing for weeks to go there with the office missionaries, but we were going to take the bus (a three hour ride) because driving is pretty difficult.  The first hour is on freeway and is fine, but then you get to the lake and have to drive around it on a very small windy road only wide enough for one vehicle, but there is traffic going both ways and bikes and motorcycles, etc.  I rode in the seat behind the President, who drove, and has been driving here for 3 years and isn't scared to drive anywhere.
    
I was sitting behind him and this is a pix with his ear in the upper right and the car in front of us and a bus coming toward us.  We were so close to the other side, where Myrna sat, that she could have rolled down her window and touched the side of the mountain, and I could certainly have touched the side of the bus as we passed it, all the way following this Mercedes, of which there were many.






All of the streets, other than the main street, go up or down the mountain, which can get quite steep.  Here is Myrna, from behind.  I didn't notice, until I got home and saw the pix, that the Italian lady to the left of her was wearing about the same outfit she was wearing, although missionary dresses are longer than Italians wear.  Most Italian women still wear dresses, at least the older ones. The young ones do not generally wear dresses.






The church was open after lunch time, which isn't all that common.  (Most close from about noon to 3 pm.  Duomos are generally open, but not parish churches, like this one.)  Of course, we went inside for me to check out the organ.
















Right across the street from the church was a little shop that sold scarfs and men's ties.among other things tourists would like.  The silk is actually woven in Bellagio and is very famous (they even sell these ties in Nordstroms), and it wasn't all that expensive either.  Only 12 euro for a tie, and 5 or 16 for a woman't scarf.  I didn't buy a tie, but I am cheap, but I bought Myrna a necklace.  Sister Dibb had bought a glass nativity set there some time ago and broke one of the wise men, so she wanted to replace it, which she was able to do.  They also bought a hand painted oil painting of Bellagio, which President is going to have to hand carry home.







This street leads down to the lake.  We had lunch at a little restaurant. Myrna and I split a salad and lasagna.  The lasagna I made this week was better, I thought.  The APs brought us down a piece of one they made today, for us to taste, which was really good.



In this pix you can see the bell tower of the church and some of the hotels and larger buildings in this fairly small town.





We walked out on the lake on one of many piers.














Anziano and Sorella Hoopes, Sorella and President Dibb.  They are finishing their 3 year mission at the end of June, so this may be their last visit to this beautiful area of northern Italy.












No visit like this should be done without having gelato, ice cream, and, of course, we did.  We even found a place to sit out in front of the shop. We generally buy it in cups, because cones drip on our clothes.











From the car window headed south, with lots of towns on both sides of the lake, with mountains in the background. The lake runs north to south,  but there are two fingers, with Switzerland to the north, where the water starts from Alps.






It was a very nice day.  We left at 10:30 am and were back home by 5 pm, which is the young missionary P-day (seniors don't have designated hours like they do).  We came back to the office and checked our emails, etc., and then went with the APs to a baptism in Milano. Yesterday they were having the world soccer play off, two Spanish teams playing each other, in Milano, so the President had warned missionaries not to go out in Milano yesterday for safety reasons, but he gave us all, including the APs, permission to go to the baptism, which happened during the time of the soccer game, which didn't start until about 8:35 pm.  They had perhaps the world's largest TV monitor set up in the piazza in front of the duomo, and it would have been fun to go, but that would be too dangerous.

I will tell about our experience last evening because I didn't take any pix.  We have been assigned to home teach 4 families, including the bishop.  We had our appointment at his home last evening.  Myrna made bar cookies and I talked about Pres. Monson's talk about Alice in Wonderland, which Italians have all heard of (at least our families knew about it.).  We had never been to their home before, which is in a relatively poor neighborhood, where we had a hard time finding a place to park, but we did. Their living room, furnished with fine couches and a large TV, also has the kitchen in the other side, with a dining table, etc, all in the same room.  I suspect they have one bathroom and two bedrooms, maybe 500 square feet.  They have 3 children, one daughter in her 20s working somewhere, a son 20, on a mission in Chile, and a girl, 15 at home.  The bishop is a caregiver at a 71 bed nursing home and his wife is a caregiver at another nursing home, 55 beds. (These are, by American standards, small nursing homes.)  They are both from Peru, but have been in Italy for over 20 years and speak good Italian. They do not speak English, although the wife's sister was there when we first came (she left with the daughter, who she was taking to the church for a seminary test), and she is learning English. He said it normally takes the daughter a half hour on the bus, with a 1.50 ticket, to get to the church for Seminary, but this time the aunt took her.  So the four of of us talked for about an hour, then we had dinner.  She served us a plate with boiled potatoes with a Peruvian white sauce on it (I discussed the concept of gravy, which this was sort of), and a large pile of flavored rice with a chicken leg (with skin, which we all ate) in it, and a fairly large salad, which we ate on our plate after we had eaten the potatoes, rice and chicken.  For dessert they first offered fresh fruit, but we all opted for the cookies Myrna made.  We drank water, and had a wonderful meal. They were very hospitable, and we didn't have a hard time communicating with them in Italian for 2 hours. We will enjoy going there home teaching.

22 May 2016





This is our smaller balcony, right off our bedroom.  The plant on this side of the middle geranium is basil. We bought a small basil plant at the grocery store and we pick leaves for making things.











I took this pix from our balcony about 8:30 pm last evening and it shows the same place I took from the ground, with the caffeteria on the corner.  Across the street, on the same side as the caffeteria, is the city well where I get water in my bottle.







I emptied the mission mail box and took out these natural gas bills, which I will pay tomorrow.  We have about 100 active missionary apartments, and the bills come on different days for the electricity, gas, water, trash, etc. That is my main work, although every day I also get letters and emails from missionaries who send me receipts for transportation (bus, metro, train), medical and other reimbursable expenses that I reimburse by putting money on their debit cards.  All of this work is done on-line, we do not write checks.