Here are the elders who are in our district.  Elder Bryant from Las Vegas is on the left.  He serves in Casttledemmare with Elder Bailey on the far right.  Our Battipalgia elders are in the middle.  Elder  Carr is second from the left and he is our district leader.  He does such a good job organizing and leading our district meetings each Monday.  He has been out about six months.  You can tell that he comes from a great family.  He has many other brothers wh have served missions.  He follows the spirit and testifys of the truth often.  Elder Taylor is short in height but is a giant in enthusiasm and spirit.  Elder Taylor is from Idaho Falls. He goes home in two months. We really like both of our elders and hope they both get to stay after this next week's transfer.  Elder Taylor has a younger brother who has just left on a mission to Washington state.  That reminded me of a couple of our boys who didnt see each other for almost four years. Roland and Mike, and Dan and Tommy.  Elder Taylor said he has been to Afton's Fourth of July parade many times.  We showed him the YouTube of the Star Valley welcome home to our girls and boys basketball teams who both won the state championship last week.  The fire engines going down main street with all the cheer leaders and team players riding on top, was fun for us to watch.
Congratulations to all the kids from Star Valley.  We are very proud of you!
On the way back from Casttledemmare we stopped for a picture of the Amalfi coast.  It was kind of rainy and so these pictures are a little dark.  I will try to take some more another day.  A man came up to me as I was taking pictures.  Paul spoke with him for quite a bit.  I ran back to the car and got a Book of Mormon out, to give to him.  When I offered it to him, he quickly said no that he didn't want it.  I felt bad that he didnt want it, but Paul talked with him another ten minutes or so and they had a good exchange.  So here is a picture of the person who I tried to give my first Book of Mormon to.  I am sorry it didn't work out, but  I did try.

Here are a few more pictures of the pretty town right on the coast below us.

Alfred's party continued

One other unusual ingredient on my favorite pizza pictured in the previous post was finely grated potatoes that tasted like they had been cooked and mashed and put through a sieve or something.  Anyway they were deliciously.
Here is a picture of Stefania showcasing the pizzas.  There were two others behind her.  Even though I couldnt understand most of what was being said, it was a very fun evening.  These are such good people who are our brothers and sisters in the gospel.  They enjoy being together and laughing and telling stories and eating good food, just like we do.

The Organist's Birthday Party

We were invited to come for pizza on Wednesday night at Alfredo's house.  He is the non member who comes every Sunday to play the organ for sacrament meeting.  We didnt know it was for his birthday party.  He invited a couple other families to come as well.  The past branch President, Marco D'Andolfo and his cute wife Stefania + their three kids came.  Here is a picture of them.

Stefania said that she is 10th generation Napalotano.  But unlike most people from Naples, she speaks very clearly and does not drop all the endings on her words.  She is our gospel doctrine teacher and is such a fantastic teacher.  She uses lots of hand motions when she talks and if I can't understand the words, I can often understand her gestures.
The Mondelli's came too.  Brother Mondelli is from Naples and I can not understand anything he says.  Everybody laughs while in conversation with him, because apparently he is very funny.  He is at the head of the table.  Alfredo is standing up on the right.

Here is a picture of the cute pizza boxes.  They are about half again as long as a large pizza from Pizza Hut. They are called "pizza al metro" because the pizzas are about a meter long.  We had five of these for the party.  My favorite one was the one with bitter broccoli and sausage on it.  The bitter broccoli is real stringy and has very few flowerets on it.  It tastes more like a bitter spinach I would say.  I have had it one other time and didn't love it cooked and put on my plate so I had to eat it, but on the pizza with whatever magic they put on it, it was yummy.

The lawnmower miracle

Today, we had several meetings scheduled for tonight, but our main goal was to check out the church's lawnmower and figure out where to take it to get repaired.  We also needed to get the trash at the church divided up properly to get it recycled and cleaned out of the kitchen at the church.  At the beginning of our walk, we let the repair guys into the church.  They have a punch list of about 70 items, and so they came all last week and will be there all this week too doing little repairs and getting the church in better shape.We have to open up the church and let them in each morning.  The lawn mower looked in bad shape and so we left it and continued on our walk.  We stopped at the gas station, to ask the guy who owns it, if he knew where to get lawnmowers fixed.  He showed us a possible place on google maps and we were happy to have an address.  As we were looking on his computer at the google map, a customer comes in the station and says, "I understand you are Americans.  I speak English and I know where you can get your lawn mower fixed. " His son also came in with him.  They both spoke very good English.  We talked for a while about who would take the lawnmower where.  Then he asked why we were in Battipalgia.  I said that we were missionaries, and he quickly said, "not for the Mormon church are you"?  I said yes we were and his son said they knew all about the Mormon church.  They had been there many times.  Then the father said, "haven't you heard of me? ".  We said no we hadn't.  And we asked him his name.  He told us and we laughed and said that we had heard about him, just last night.  The missionaries said that he use to always help them get the lawnmower fixed, but they hadn't seen him come to church lately.
What are the chances that when we are looking for a place to take the lawnmower that the very man who knows, comes into the gas station, at the very minute we are there asking for help.  We all knew it was a tender mercy from God, even though it was just about a lawnmower.
We got directions to his house and we took th lawnmower over there this afternoon.  We had a pleasant visit with his wife and son.  His wife is from Wales and that's why they all speak English so well.  The man would like to get baptized but does not want to give up smoking and drinking.  He knows the church is true and so does his son.  They really  like the church.  They have entertained missionaries at their house for years and years.
Paul is at the church now, meeting with the past branch president about his new calling.  I will head over there by 7 for English class tonight.  The day has gone fast today.  I did get one large bag of trash all separated from th church and I guess I will put it up with my trash tomorrow.  We have to put it a different kind of recycle trash each night.  It's really a pain, but not too bad.
Our hot water heater keeps needing to be reset.  It is one that is a on demand type.  It's fuse keeps switching off so we have to go outside and hit the switch by sticking a matchstick in the hole and it finally hits the switch that needs to be pressed in.  I am thinking that we need a new switch.  We will see.
I am happy that it has been sunny and a little warmer.  My living room is bright and light now that I moved out all the huge plants that filled up the glass doorways out to the porch.  Here is a picture of our living room now.

Continuation of long day

After  we got home from district meeting,  I got some personal study time in while Paul continued to talk on the phone and try to finish our pass along cards.  At 7 we had an appointment to meet with a less active man and his girlfriend.  They live in northern Italy but were down here visiting family for a couple of weeks.  He has a cd of him playing his guitar and singing songs he has written.  He gave us one of his CDs last week and told us to listen to it and if we liked it we could pay him 10 Euros.  Paul listened to it and said he wanted to come over and get a personal concert tonight.  When we first got there, Paul pulls it a 10 Euro note and asks for a pair of scissors.  He cuts it in half and writes Marco's name on one half and Marie Angela on the other half.  He then told them that when they get married they can tape it together and spend it however they want.  She said that she will never spend it but wanted to frame it.  Paul told them the story of pampa meeting Connie at the restaurant in Afton and thought she was so cute, so he cut a $20 bill in half and gave her half and wrote Scott's name on her half and then he gave Scott the other half with her name and phone number on it.  If they ever got together they could spend the 20 on a date.  That never worked out, but how amazing was it that she ended up marrying his youngest son Marlowe.
After that, Marco gave us a two hour concert.  He was really good and I loved all the songs he sang.  He sang many in English for me, some Bob Dillan, some Beatles, and many I have heard but didn't know well.  Toward the end, his mom joined him and th both sang some famous italian songs that they had probably sung before a hundred times.  Pretty soon, his dad and a friend and his girlfriend joined in with his mom and with him ; all singing loud and really well together.  It was a delightful night.  We hope and pray that he and his darling sweet girlfriend will get married and that she will join the church.  e walked the mile to their apartment and back home again.  I got enough walking in for one day, since we walked a couple of miles this morning together too.
I will sleep well tonight.

Ciao ciao :)

A Long Day

It was a really good day and we got so many things done.  With Paul being called as branch president to our small branch here in Battipalgia yesterday, he had a lot of phone calls with details he needs to know and learn.  I got 4 loads of laundry done and all of it hung out to dry.

 

I try to hang up all of the dark things on the outside lines.  I hang up garments and whites inside on the drying rack.  

I got the car washed because it was such a nice sunny day.  Our landlord brought me a pot of soil and I got some of my basil planted.  He saw my little basil plant that I bought a few weeks ago and told me that I can just break off the top leaves and stick them in soil and they will root themselves and make a healthy new plant.  I told him I didn't have any soil and so he brought me a pot of dirt and left it outside my apartment door this morning while Paul and I were on our walk.

We had our weekly district meeting at 11:00 in Casttlemmari with the elders in our district.  We made it back by 3.  Paul worked on getting some cards made that look like business cards with our name and the churches name on it and info about meeting schedules and such.  

Beginning 2nd Month in Italy

It has been a wonderful week.  Yesterday was Flavia's baptism.  There were about 14 non members there from her family and friends.  They came from the minimum of one and a half hours away, to 5 hours away.  All of them are so supportive of her.  There were about five non members from our town who have come to support her as well.  So we had about 40 people there, which is about twice as many that come on Sundays.  Today they all returned for sacrament meeting to see her confirmed. We had testimonies afterwards which were very inspiring.  One  12 year old boy who is a non member but is the grandson of a new member, wrote his testimony out and  asked the branch president to read it today because he was too nervous to give it out loud himself.  But you could tell that he had thought about it all week and had planned it a head of time.  I couldn't believe how wonderful that was.
Just before sacrament meeting a councilor in the area presidency drops by our brand, and asked if he could talk to Paul and I upstairs.  He then calls Paul to be the new branch president.  We were both so sad to not have our current branch president continue in his calling.  He is so wonderful and is so dedicated.  He and his wife have the only children in The branch.  They adopted them 2 years ago from Mexico.  He became the branch president right after that and he has done such a great job.  He doesn't have any councilors  and so I am sure he is overwhelmed with his responsibilities and his ready made new family. He lives about a half an hour away from the church.  We are just right across the street but we were hoping to be a councilor and support him.  This is pretty overwhelming.  There are only about four priesthood men in our branch + the two young elders and Paul, making 7.  I guess that is better than one branch here in Italy that had just two males in the ward and one was only  two years old!
Paul is now reading the branch president handbook which is all in italian.  Even though his italian is ally good there are so many words he doesn't know so he h his dictionary right next to him and he is learning lots of new words as well as his new duties.
I got called as a visiting teacher today and i get to go with a darling lady that I love already.  No one has ever done visiting teaching here before, so this will be a good chance to help.
We had all of Flavia's family here yesterday before the baptism for lunch.  I cooked all day Friday and I think that all of it turned out pretty good.  They liked the orange jello the best.  Italians don't have jello.  They were amazed that it had bananas in it.  One person was brave and tried it first.  Everyone asked his opinion.  When it was positive, a few others tried it and then a few more until everyone had some.  They all liked it, I think.