Happy birthday to Paul

Tuesday, was Anziano Scherbel's birthday.  We found out that in Italy, instead of spankings for each year old you are, they pull your ear that many times.  So he is getting 66 ear tugs!  One of the sisters from Napoli, surprised him with a cake and we shared it with everyone in the dining room after singing Happy Birthday to him.  It was a birthday with a sweet memory attached.

New friends

This darling couple was from Bari, not from our district, but they were there for two weeks with their two children.  He is the bishop there and they come to work in the temple.  It's as long of a distance as it was for us.  We liked them so much and talked to them many times, both in the temple, at at meal time.  We hope to go visit them in Bari soon.  We think he looks like a young Omar Sherif!

We got to know the youth from our district.  Here are a few pictures of the kids we got to know.

He made a difference

There were a couple of Americans from the military base who went with us.  One was a young mom, who was pregnant, and not feeling great, but wanted to go to the temple so much that she put aside her own discomfort, and came anyway.  The other American, was Kevin Bonner, who has four kids and a darling wife, who stayed home, so that he could come and take care of three African converts, ere were refugees who had joined the church this past year.  They have no money, no jobs and are so humble and grateful for the gospel.  He kept them right next to him the whole time.  He cooked all their meals for them, he took them to do baptisms and and he talked and talked and explained the gospel to them so wonderfully. I kept watching him all week and thought that he was the one person there at the temple who was truly doing the Lord's work.  He is pictured below in the previous posting, in our group picture in front of the temple, on the left with the three African young men.
On the last day, as I went down to clean out what was left of our food in the frig. And the food in the cubbies, I saw him sitting talking with the young adults from our branch.  He was answering their questions about how to receive personal revelation, how to pray, how to get answers from the scriptures.  I admire him and appreciate his time and love for other.

The spirit of the temple

I love to see the temple and I am so thankful that we got to go and work there for four days in a row.

We have never done that before.  We had many family names from sisters in our branch, that we got to help have all their ordinances done throughout the week.  Several of them were so anxious to have their work done.  The veil was very thin and I could feel them right there beside me. 

 All the sessions were in Italian and after the first session, I didn't even use the headphones to hear it in English.  I could understand it very well in Italian.  This helped my Italian and I learned a bunch of new words.

The three sister young adults, pictured below in the middle , in front of us,  were all first timers to the temple.  Several went with important life questions, that they had answered.  They had many spiritual experiences and testimony strengthening moments.

The temple grounds

The setting for the Swiss temple is so beautiful.  There is a wooded area to the left of the temple that has miles and miles of trails and serenity.  There is a big fire pit back in there where they hold firesides and cook s'mores.  The hostel, where we stayed is just across the street and about a hundred yards from the front doors of the temple.  Families come and spend the whole week, with one parent working in the temple and the other watching the kids.  We met so many darling families from all over Europe that are dedicated to The Lord.  This young family was from France.  We talked with them in English and luckily they could speak English.  We would see them downstairs in the eating area, where we all cooked our meals and ate together .

Temple trip to Switzerland

The Napoli District, which our branch is a part of, rented two busses and we had about 100 Italian Saints and 2 Senior couples go to the temple in Swizerland for a whole week!  We left 

Battipaglia on Sunday afternoon.  We pushed our way onto a very very crowded train that had every door jammed with hundreds of people standing.  We had four of us with our suitcases and coolers and food for a week, all trying to get on the train.  It was very very hot and we didn't think we could push hard enough to get on.  It was a miracle that we got on.  I was ready to pass out any moment because of the heat and the smells and the crowd....but I didn't.  After an hour and a half, we made it to Naples, where we were meeting the saints there and we waited about an hour for the buses which were to take us to Switzerland.  Families with all the teenagers rode on one bus, and the rest of us rode on the 2nd bus.  We left Naples about 7 pm.  We arrived at the temple about noon the next day.  It was a very uncomfortable ride with no leg room and no sleep all night.  The temple was closed on Monday, so we used the day to get settled, walk to the grocery store, and cook and rest.  We had four young adults from our branch go.  One is a returned missionary and the others are new or recently reactivated girls.  They did baptisms every morning.  There were firesides, devotionals, and testimony meetings everyday.  Paul and Ivan helped with the baptisms each morning.  Many family names were done.  Our branch is very active with genealogy and indexing.  Several hundred names were done in baptisms.  

ASK...SEEK....KNOCK

Today is a national holiday in Italy and so everything is closed. Our mission president's wife asked us to all stay home and deep clean our apartments.  Because she asked us to do this, of course we all did!
One thing that really needed cleaning in our apartment were the faucets in our bathrooms.  They are really old and really yucky looking.  I had tried to clean them with different cleaners before, but they were anything but shiny.  Here is what the bathtub faucet looked like.

So I decided to seek for some help from the Internet.  I saw one post that looked very interesting.  It said to take a three inch square piece of aluminum foil and get it wet.  Then rub it on the chrome faucet and voila, it will shine.  It said that this was good for chrome bumpers on cars as well.  I tried it on the tub faucet and I was so excited to get such quick great results.  I immediately knocked on the sister missionary's door across the hall and gave them some foil and told them how they too could have the shiniest faucets ever.

Zone conference

We went to Pozzuoli today for zone conference.  It is always good to get together with the other senior couples for a few hours.  The young missionaries love to get together also. We were instructed and edified.  Sister Wagoner gave her departing testimony.  She quoted our dear Sister Rossell, as saying, "It is all about what is in your heart."  She said that when she first came out on her mission, she had only been a member of the church for over a year.  She had only read the Book of Mormon one time and really didn't remember too much about what was in it.  But now the Book of Mormon has sunk deep into her heart, as the message has, which she has carried to the people here in Italy.  She gave a beautiful quote from CS Lewis and she left a powerful witness of our Savior and e love he has for each of us.  I was so proud of her.  I wanted to claim her as my own.  She has been such a wonderful example of love, hard work, enthusiasm, and testimony.

Sister Wagner is on the right.

We are here with elder and sister Willy who serve in Casserta as military relation missionaries.  They are both converts of the church from back east.  They don't speak Italian, but they do a wonderful job serving however they can.

Elder Scherbel has a birthday this month so everyone sang to him and one other of our elders in the zone.

3/4 of our missionaries are injured

This week was the week of injuries for our elders and one sister.  Elder Ostler started off the week with a bad ingrown toenail that got infected and nasty looking.  Note the sandals.  His toe is starting to get better after a lot of foot soaks and not wearing socks or shoes that rub against his toe.  Elder Phillips is not complaining, but an old ankle injury to the tendons on both side of one foot is complaining as he walks and goes up all the stairs to their apartment.  He is a power gymnast and does way cool flips a hundred at a time (slight exaggeration) anyway, he is not yet on crutches.  Sister Mathews got tendinitis in one ankle and couldn't put any weight on it, and while maneuvering the stairs on crutches slipped down a step and sprained her good ankle.  Sister Wagoner is healthy and going strong.
This past week has been a week of a lot of hospital visits for our members as well.  One had heart trouble, one had a bad ulcer attack, one sisters husband was in the hospital and not expected to live, but he is still hanging on, and one sister had some exploratory surgery .  We are getting to know the hospital system quite well.
I hope all of our family stays healthy and out of the hospital.  Our good health is such a blessing that we don't appreciate until we have something go wrong.

A million tomatoes

I hope this little video will run properly.  Last week Paul was invited to watch the process of canning tomato sauce, at one of our Italian friend's home.  Actually they did it in their garage.  They bottled 154 bottles of tomato sauce that night.  They used old beer bottles which they have saved up through the years and they reuse them every year for making tomato sauce.  It was quite a production.  Aunts and uncles, kids and parents were all in on the event.  Some were washing the tomatoes, others were putting them through some sort of slicer that sliced them up a bit, then they put them through a juicer, which removed the skins, and then they filled the bottles, and then they capped them, and then they put them in an 80 gallon barrel and covered them in water,  and then they heated it with a gas burner for several days to get all the barrel full of water and 154 bottles to boil.

Jon got engaged

Our youngest and only single child, Jonathan, asked McKenzie Atkin to marry him last Monday night.  They were at family home evening with all of his siblings that live in the area, and they posed for this picture which she thought was a happy birthday photo for Paul, who's birthday is later this month.  She is the ! point on the far right.  But it really was a message for her.  I am not sure how she finally saw it, but I think she said yes! Save  December 5th for the last Scherbel child's wedding. We haven't met her yet but everyone thinks she is wonderful, especially Jon, and we are happy if they are happy.

Incredible Sacrament Meeting

The two young men in the middle of the above photo were baptized two weeks ago.  Last Sunday they received the priesthood, and today they were able to use their priesthood for the first time.  The  young man on the far right is a returned missionary and is Paul's councilor in the the Branch Presidency.  Luciano is the second from the right and he is very crippled.  He walks with so much difficulty.  His legs are bent in at odd angles and he can not walk on the soles of his feet because of a birth defect, but instead he walks on the top side of his little toe on one foot and on the other foot he walks on the side of his heel.  So today, he passed the sacrament for the first time.  One of our wonderful elders walked right next to him and had his arm around him the whole time, to help steady him, and together they went very slowly from row to row, passing the sacrament.  It was a very sweet experience for our whole branch.  After the bread was all passed, Luciano thought he was all through and he needed  to sit down, but then was told he needed to pass the water too.  You could tell he was really tired.  But he did his very best.  The whole audience was as quiet as could be and we all felt so much love for him and also for the gift of the sacrament .  The young man next to Paul was also baptized two weeks ago and just received the priesthood.  He got to bless the water and as he did so, tears were flowing down his face.  He was so thankful to have the priesthood.  Since it was fast Sunday we had testimonies given and everyone mentioned how special it was to receive the sacrament today. One sister mentioned how wonderful the resurrection will be for Luciano when he can walk without difficulty.  

When you look at our little branch, we really have so many unique situations.  Out of 6 men, two are very crippled, and one has MS and has some limitations as well.  The gospel blesses all of our lives, whether we are strong or weak.  I think of the scripture when Christ says in Matthew 9:12  "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."  This applies literally to these members as well as to the rest of us that need our sins healed through the atonement.

I wish you could have seen the look of pure joy on Luciano's face as he passed the sacrament.  It was one of the best sacrament meetings I have ever had the privilege to be at.