Our new Battipaglia District

We have two new wonderful missionaries.  We got a brand new missionary from the MTC.  He is Elder Rasband from the Washington DC area.  He did a year at BYU and then a year in the navy before coming on his mission.  He has a 2 year deferment from the military and then he will return to active duty when he finishes up his mission.  His first year at BYU, he majored in Arabic.  He is already speaking Italian and says it is far easier than Arabic which I can believe.  He is really a good missionary.  His companion is  our district leader, who is Elder Sorrenson.  Elder Sorrenson's first name is Jerrick which is a pretty uncommon name.  But not as uncommon as Sister Williams first name which is Jerrica!  It was pretty funny when they discovered each other's first names!  Sister Williams is from Canada.  She has been out more than a year and her Italian is very good.  She has long reddish brown hair, just like sister Knudsen.  They are both pretty short, but very feisty and courageous sister missionaries.  They are not afraid of anything.  They declare the gospel boldly and with many invites.

This is their picture today after our good district meeting.  Sister Williams gave a very good lesson on preparing to teach the gospel.  They have many people that they are teaching.  We pray so hard that these good people will have their hearts and spirits touched enough to make the huge jump from their Catholic traditions, and be baptized.  

Record # at church today

Our primary president is back in the USA for the whole month, so I have been alone in Primary.  There has been an American family with 4 kids coming for the past couple of weeks and we have a new member from Brazil, plus our four Italian kids.  So I have been trying to teach all 9 kids in three different languages.  I print out the lesson in Portugese to have Gabriella read as I try to speak Italian and English for the other 8 students. 

Well, for today, I talked our chorister into teaching the lesson.  I practiced with her during the week.  She was very apprehensive about doing it.  I told her I would translate into English for the American kids and I would copy the lesson for the Brazilian girl to read along with us.
When she arrived this morning she was a little nervous about teaching for the first time.  She is only 22 and just recently active. I assured her it would be just fine.  Little did I know what we had in store for us today!
The first primary kids to arrive were 3 kids from Germany. Then our four kids from Italy came, and the girl from Brazil arrives, and then four kids from Norway, then 1 inactive Italian girl arrived late and after her came 7 kids from the USA.  So we had 20 kids who spoke 5 different languages.  We had 9 different countries represented by the time I got translators in the room.  South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, USA, Italy, Germany, and Norwegian and Mexico. What a day in Primary!  Poor Greta!  For her very first day, it couldn't have been more hectic!  The airconditioner didn't work, so it was so hot up on the third floor, in a little class room with so many people in it!  We ended up having three groups of kids being taught in 3 different languages for the lesson.  We didn't have any Norwegian translators.  The American kids came after the lesson was over.  They arrived in time for  a match game I had prepared for sharing time....that was a good choice....so all the kids could participate  even though they didn't speak the same language.  Then we played upset the fruit basket, but instead of saying fruit names, we used the kids real names.  They all had fun and we felt all unified in the gospel.

We had about 48 visitors for sacrament meeting!  We usually have about 35 total at sacrament meeting but  today we had a total of 81 people.  More visitors than branch members!  It was a remarkable day.
Out of the 6 cars of visitors, four of their cars were broken into this past week as they traveled in Italy.  All of their luggage and computers and backpacks with passports were stolen.  Two of the cars were in Napoli and two cars were in Rome.  So they just had the clothes on their backs.  So a word to the wise, when traveling in Italy, do not leave anything in your car.  Put it all in a hotel, or hire a guard for your car.
We had a good week.  We had a fireside at our home Friday night and had a good group of our favorite English class students come for a religious discussion,  then we had pancakes and eggs and fruit and whipped cream.  They love that.
We got lots of visits in.  We had dinner at an English student's family's house.  We met his mom and dad and sister for the first time.  His dad is an international volleyball referee.  His mom is a district sales manager for something equivalent to Avon.  His sister was visiting from England.  We had a very nice evening getting to know them.  Paul took the elders and sisters to Sorrento on pday to get music boxes. I stayed home and got laundry and shopping done.
The weather sure is hot and humid.  I am so thankful for the air conditioner in my bedroom.  That is where I am writing this entry from.

A week at the temple in Switzerland

We were so blessed to be able to go to the Swiss temple for the whole week.  On Sunday afternoon, we took the 3:30 train from Battipaglia.

And we travelled about an hour to Napoli, where we met other members from Pozzuoili and Napoli, and Castle di Mare.  We all climbed on a charter bus and left Napoli around 7:00 pm.  We made a couple of other stops to pick up more members from our stake.  Our final pickup was in Rome and we left Rome about 11:00 pm and traveled all night to Switzerland.

One of our young adults, Greta, traveled with us on the bus.  We enjoyed talking with her, and sharing the bus space with her.  

From Rome it was 15 more hours until we reached The Temple in Zollikofen, Switzerland at 2 pm Monday. That is a long bus ride.  I don't sleep sitting up on a bus at all, but at least the temperature in the bus was comfortable. I survived.  We got checked into the patron housing, which is right across the street from the temple. It was raining when we arrived.  The first thing we did after arriving was to walk to the grocery store to get food for the week.  Here is Greta, me and a good friend from Napoli, Lucy. 

The D'Andolfo family came to the temple also, from our branch.  They drove their van though, so they missed the bus ride. (Lucky ducks!)  Their oldest daughter got to do baptisms for the dead for the first time.  We were all there to support her.  It was a wonderful experience.

  Flavia was going to come too, along with her boyfriend, and her non member sister and non member mother.  But she got pneumonia and her doctor said that she shouldn't travel and be around so many people.  Due to her Leukemia, she does not have the immune system to fight disease.  So at the last moment she couldn't come. And then that made it so her family didn't come either of course.  We were looking for some good missionary teaching times with her mother and sister.

We met several new friends, most of them from our Stake.  There was a new member sister who I saw doing Babtisms the first morning.  I found out that she was a new convert.  She and her husband joined the church in January.  We loved hearing their conversion story and also the story of how they met.  She was from the Dominican Republic, and he is from Italy.  He went to the DR on holiday and met her and fell in love.  He returned soon after and they got married and he brought her to Italy. 

Their names are Lucy and Vincinzo.

I love her natural curly hair!

I wish we would be here next January when they hope to go through the temple to be sealed.

We met a young man named Simone whose grandfather is in our branch.

I got to be friends with a sister named Sister Barbara.  It rained all week and she forgot to bring an umbrella.  I walked with her over to the temple one morning, sharing my umbrella with her, and we were friends ever after.  Here is her picture below!

Eating all together as a stake for every meal is quite an experience.  There is a large dining hall in the basement of the housing. Two walls are lined with refrigerators.  There is also a big kitchen with 10 sinks and ten double stove top burners.  In the middle of the kitchen there is a huge island for food prep and the kitchen is all outfitted with pots and pans and dishes and utensils. Thirty different Italian families all cooking their regular family pasta together is such an awesome experience.  One I will always remember.  The first picture below is Stephania and Jocelin, from our branch.

We did a couple of endowment sessions each day, and Paul helped do confirmations for the youth in the mornings.  The Swiss temple has four main languages that it works with: French, German, Italian, and English.  At youth meetings and firesides, there would usually be three people up front; one giving the talk or directions in French or German, and then someone else translating that into English and then another person translating that into Italian.  It was so amazing how smoothly everything worked.  Last night, we had a fireside at the stake center next door to the temple.  The Temple President and his wife spoke.  President and Sister Spirling.  Before they spoke, the youth from our stake sang a song that Mary Lisota would have been proud of.  It's the song that Mary Lisota taught the YW/YM in the Afton 1st ward. It was the medley of Sisters in Zion, and armies of Helaman.  They sang so beautifully.

After they sang, we heard two wonderful talks by the Spirlings.  Sister Spirling talked about an incident about six months ago.  She looked out front of the temple and saw two young men dressed in work clothes, and she thought they were there to help the gardener.  They had big boots on.  A few minutes later, she noticed the same two young men, inside the temple at the clothing desk to check out temple clothes.  She thought she should say something to them about their manner of dress.  She said she told them that they were so welcome to come to the temple, but she wondered about their choice of clothing.  They immediately apologized, but said that it was the only clothes they owned.  They were US soldiers and were on leave from Afganastan.  The only place they wanted to come to was the temple, and Switzerland was the closest temple.  They only had this one morning before they had to head back.

She said her heart melted and she hugged them and welcomed them and honored them !  It was a good lesson to her not to judge anyone, and also a good lesson for me.  We never know what people have to go through to get to where they are. 

Here is Lucy from Napoli.  Last year she was at the temple too and it was the week of Paul's birthday, She walked to town to buy him a birthday cake.  We have been friends ever since.

Here is a picture of Paul and I after we did our last temple session on Friday.  I am not sure if we will get another chance to be here again.  

We loaded up the bus 

and I was able to get a picture of this cute couple.  He is the bishop down in Dispoli.  He speaks English beautifully.  He is currently out of work  (as most all of southern Italians are) and yet they somehow saved enough to make this trip for a week at the temple.   What a great sacrifice the saints here make. I wish I had taken a video of him singing cute nursery songs to his 18 month old daughter, in English.  We asked him where he learned them so well.  He said from YouTube!

On the long ride home, I saw everyone talking and sharing testimonies and sharing friendship.  Brother Granduli from Pozzuoili is the stake young men's leader.  He is so energic and fun to be with.  He was sitting close to us on the bus.  I saw him talking with a few of the young women from our stake.  He had out his Book of Mormon and was showing them different scriptures to answer their questions.  They were in deep conversation for over an hour.

  I am so thankful that we could visit this beautiful temple again.   We tried to enjoy every minute.