Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone.  Here, everyone you meet says Buona Pasqua.  I think it means happy Easter.  Everyone gives this greeting to us all week long.  Just like we would wish everyone a merry christmas or have a merry christmas, that is the focus of everyone's thoughts here this past week.  The Italians are thrilled with the new pope and he has made a great impact on  the  people here.
For church today, Paul gave a 5th Sunday combined lesson in priesthood and relief society, on the atonement.  He brought over our 32 inch flat screen tv that belongs with our apartment.  The branch does not have a tv that works with Paul's HMI hook ups from his computer.  So he carried it downstairs and put it in the car.  I was hoping our landlord wouldn't be looking out the window and see us.  He showed pictures of wheat and then of their special grain cake they make here for Easter and talked about the symbolism of the wheat in regards to the savior.  He told his survival story of being on solo in the Henry Mountains of southern Utah, where they were each given just a handful of wheat for each day.  He found a soda pop can which he removed the top with his pocket knife and then filled it with some water from the river and added his wheat and cooked it over the coals of his fire all night long.  In the morning he was looking forward to a can full of cooked good wheat.  As he picked up the can of wheat in the morning, it was still so hot, and he dropped it, and all the wheat fell out into the black ashes of the fire.  That was all he had to eat, and now it was all mixed into the ashes.  So for the next two hours he picked up each kernel of wheat from the ashes, one by one, and then went down to the river and washed off each and every kernel and then put them back in his can and ate them.  Each kernel was precious and was important to him.  Just as each of us are important to the Savior.  He died and atoned for each one of us individually.  Each one of us are precious to him.  His lesson was very good.
Sacrament meeting was so very good too.  Carrie, who we visited last week, spoke and her non member Italian husband and her non member son both came to hear her talk.  She gave it in English and then had it all written in Italian which Ivan read as she gave her talk.  She speaks italian very well, but I think that she gave it in English so I could understand all of it.  She started off by saying that she comes from a family of diverse religions, nationalities, and languages.  She said that in our church, we call everyone brother or sister because we all are brothers and sisters in the gospel.  But even our friends of other faiths are our brothers and sisters because we all have our father in heaven who gave us all our life.  She talked about the common thread of the Easter egg as a symbol of Easter among all faiths.  She described how American kids color eggs and hide them in the garden.  Her aunt lives in Greece where they dye their eggs all red.  Everyone's hands then are red from this process and that symbolizes the blood of Christ dying for us.  In Italy, the kids get giant chocolate eggs with a hollow center and a surprise inside, symbolizing the tomb that it was empty because Christ was resurrected.  She the bore her testimony of the atonement and the wonderful blessing  it is for each of us.
She ended her talk with a story she found from the Friend.  There was an Easter egg hunt and one little boy only fund two eggs.  He then noticed that there was a little boy close to him that had no eggs in his basket and he was so sad.  Then the boy noticed that the other boy was blind.  He quickly took out both of his eggs and put them very near to the little blind boy, who found them and was so happy.  Jesus Christ did something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves.  He atoned for our sins.
She gave us such a simple yet loving sermon, that her husband could understand, and she spoke with the Holy Ghost.  We all felt her love for her husband and son, and her love for the gospel and for the savior.
I love coming to church every week here and being among the saints in our little branch.  Whenever anyone comes into the meeting, they give the abbraccio (the italian  hug with a kiss on both cheeks)
to everyone in the  room. Even if they come in late they go up and down the rows greeting everyone. How can you not love everyone at church when you have received so much love from everyone.