Ciao! Da ltalia!

 It has been an eventful 6 months!  We arrived in Italy on February 29th, exactly 6 months later we arrived again. In Between has been quarantine and new normal while we lived with Richard's mother.  My mother-in-law is wonderful! I can't say enough about her. We do appreciate her allowing us to stay at her home for over 5 months when  we all  thought it would be a month or two, at the most. We worked on things, like sewing masks (Debra), replacing kitchen facet (Richard), planting and harvesting tomatoes.  We also worked for a couple of weeks in the Portland Mission, visiting the missionaries and inspecting their apartments. It was great. We both love working with the missionaries and serving the Lord. One of the projects that we worked on. I couldn't have done it without Loradona. We are glad to be back in Rome. We already miss a lot of you. Ciao!

I wrote the following before I knew when we were leaving. The next morning we found out we were leaving the next day. So, in the rush to inform the other senior missionaries that they had just a few hours to pack up and clean their apartments and pack up ourselves, I didn't update or publish this. But here it is. I am sad. We are going back to Oregon. We haven't even had a chance to really get to know Rome. We hope to be back a a couple of months, but nothing is certain at this time. The one thing that is certain is that we are leaving on              and we will be self quarantined for 2 weeks. We'll be staying at a Extended Stay and then we don't know where. I keep thinking of this scripture: "If thou art called to pass through  tribulation... And if thou shouldst be cast into the  pit , or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast  into the  deep ; if the billowing surge conspir...

You might have heard that the Rome Temple has been closed due to The Virus. Truth is, the government has banned all meetings where people can not be more than a meter apart. It came out with a statement that said people should not greet each other with a kiss or even a hand shake. The decision to close the temple I'm sure was a hard one.The temple was scheduled to close for it's annual maintenance in a week, so it just gave the workers in the temple a little extra time to do some travel.  We live 5 minutes or less away from the temple. It is a really beautiful building. We have not had the opportunity to go inside, but I did take some beautiful pictures. Enjoy! The Beautiful Rome Temple! I'm not sure if you can tell. This water feature symbolizes The Living Water. It flows from the Temple to the statue of Christ at the visitors center.  You can see the beautiful stained glass.  Close up of the stained glass. Pictures don't do it justice. T...

We have survived our first week! Some of the things we have done:      * Moved into our apartment.(See pictures below).      * We went to church, which is right next to the temple.      * We went to the post office to get an appointment, to get permission to stay in the country. We didn't have all of our paperwork, so ...      * Went to the post office again the next day. We got our appointment, the appointment isn't until June.       * Went to the Agenzia Entrate so we could get our tax number. We waited for an hour, outside in the chilly weather. But a very nice young lady helped me because I don't speak Italian.       * Did three baptism certificates. In spite of the one missionary that put the date of 30 February.       * Trying to get used to an Italian keyboard. Who knew that it would be so different? But they have different letters with different accents and stuff...

We all know about The virus. They are finding it all over the world, including Italy.  We got a call from our mission yesterday before lunch. They have been trying to buy hand sanitizer. They had looked all over Europe and it was all backordered. So they asked us to see if we could bring some with us. They wanted 200 personal size bottles. We couldn't find enough of the small bottles at one location. We did find large bottles and we told them to find some small bottles to put it in.  Truth is carona virus is no more or less deadly than influenza. If you wash your hands properly, and generally take care of yourself, the threat is not that bad.  PLEASE DON'T PANIC!  Having said that, please keep us and all missionaries in your prayers.  I love you all! Ciao! 

My carry-ons  And so it begins! After getting rid of a bunch of cra...I mean stuff, we are on our way. First stop is Salt Lake City, where bought a new suitcase. The drama that is luggage: When you travel international you can check two suitcases for free. Richard packed a regular size suitcase and one carry-on size to check. I, of course packed two regular size suitcases. The night before we left we weighed mine. One over, one slightly under. Shuffle weigh, shuffle weigh, shuffle weigh, at least three times, probably more like four or five. We finally got the weight right. Or so we thought. Then getting my stuff to the car,  it became obvious that my roller carry-on didn't roll very well. At the airport they weighed them. One of my suitcases was 52 pounds the other 51. Both got to have a tag "HEAVY", should I be offended? We made a decision in the airport that when we get to Utah we are buying a full size bag, I will use Richard's carry-on and he will have ...