Monday, January 30, 2012

A step outside the city:

Saturday... David and I went for a drive on the outskirts of Rome. It was good to get out of the busy city. And Ramon let us borrow his car.

                                          
                                                     We found this street on our walk :)
                                                   And just around the corner we found ...

 
                                                             THIS LITTLE BABY!!
                                              Way too old to live in, but Sooo Romantic

                                                 Our First Dinner With Members in Rome

Daniele and Norma Salerno had us over for dinner the other night. She made pasta with tuna, tomatoes, and green olives. A typical meal. It was very good too.
While we were eating Daniele started to tell us about his experience while singing in the choir for the Temple Ground Breaking. I grabbed my notebook and pen and started taking notes. He said that it was such a good experience for the choir members that they were talking amongst themselves afterwards and said it was as if "Heaven and Earth had joined together" I felt so good hearing him tell this story and what a great experience he had had. Then he said that in April conference when the prophet was speaking he mentioned his experience at the Ground Breaking and how much he had enjoyed the choir. He used the words that it was as if Heaven and Earth had joined together.  Daniele said ... " It brought me to tears"
I was glad that I jotted it down while he was telling me... I'll use it in the history!!


Norma also had a story:
As you can imagine there are Ruins everywhere in Rome. Whenever someone builds here the law is that an archeologist has to be on site . If ruins are found the building is either stopped or delayed. When it came time to start the temple no ruins were found so they were able to go forward with no delays. The members in the area had fasted and prayed together on several occasions that all would go well. AND it did!!

BUT here are pictures of a mosaic found in the ground  a few hundred meters away. It is preserved in the bottom of the mall next door.  You can see it's quite big.   I still need to get the exact facts on this story but I'm excited to add it to the history..... a good start.
We decided that the Prophet would be sad if a temple were built in Rome and no one wrote down these stories... so we are going to dig to find all of the stories we can. These people are so excited about their temple. It's going to be so nice for them to have it here.

                                               Hey Dres!!  Here I am in my Italian scarf!!


Other than the sink and a refrigerator, this is the whole kitchen. Just fine for a couple of missionaries.. don't you think!?

  
    
 We are still smiling despite all of the adjustments we are experiencing......
 Haha... they don't call it a foreign country for nothing!! The traffic is CRAZY. I don't think I'll be driving anytime soon. No thanks!! And thankfully David's Italian is coming back rather quickly,  I understand a lot of what is being said and have a few phrases I use to get around. :) 
We still don't have gas in our apartment so it's cold showers and blankets!! Maybe next week.
 But we're still smiling :) 

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Trevi Fountain



 The project manager here took us on a nice little outing our second evening here.
I can now actually say I've been to the Trevi Fountian. Even made a wish and threw a coin over my shoulder :)




Monday, January 9, 2012

Arrivederci

We're ready to go!! We leave SLC International at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. :) We will miss our family and have had a great week together. Thanks to all who came to our open house. It was so fun to see all of you. We will miss you all, but are looking forward to serving at the temple site in Italy.


 Our good friends Russ and Dee Lawler

Steve and Marlene Fenn

Arrivederci