A Day With the Branch Members

Sunday, 3/9/03

What a day, what a day! First I must finish about yesterday. My presentation went very well, but I still have a lot of work to do. I wouldn't mind, except we're going to Venice tomorrow and straight to Spring Break at the end of the week, so I can either pull an all nighter tonight, or take it with me and pray I don't need a computer. I planned on taking a nap this afternoon (but that didn't happen) then getting up and working into the morning.

So, today. All went well getting to church (for the first time in 3 weeks). Church was wonderful, no matter how dull-witted I was due to fatigue. I'm starting to really love the Branch, though I don't even know half the members' names. President Cascone taught the Relief Society lesson and I was the only one on time! So he started in English with Elder Lee to help him out. Then, when some Italian sisters got there he switched to Italiano and Elder Lee translated for me. Elder Bond translated Sacrament meeting. He is great. I like the others too, but he's the friendliest and most enthusiastic about everything. He's cute too, but he's shorter than me, which is probably a good thing because the last thing I want is to get a crush on a missionary!

So after church I went with Stephano and Paola to their house for lunch. They have a nice little apartment in Capolona. Their 3 year old daughter, Chiara, is adorable, but very shy. Not that I could really say anything to her anyway. We had bread, cheese and salami; then spinach and cheese lasagna, then sausages and tomato salad (I've never had a salad with just tomatoes. It was wonderful), then fruit cocktail and this little whipped cream-like pudding. It was all delicious (except I don't really like the taste of the meat). It was sort of a thrown together meal, but it's so surprising how it can still be made into four courses and over an hour long. After dinner we even had some mint tea. Oh, we drank mixed berry juice with the meal. The members of the church just substitute for wine. We had bits of conversation, as much as we could with Paola's English.

After lunch Paola and Stephano took me to a castle up the mountain outside the town. The Arno also runs through Capolona. The driver's seat of their car is broken and doesn't open from the outside. Stephano had to climb in through the passenger seat, and from the inside he had to pull the handle about 50 times before it would open!

I though I would be home by mid-afternoon, but after the castle we went to another member family's house. They have 7 children [VERY unusual for Italians], 2 of whom are 11 year old twin girls. They sang "Sweet Hour of Prayer" as a special musical number in Sacrament meeting today. And their other daughter (probably 3 or 4) is the cutest child I've seen in my life. There was an investigating family, and she just latched onto their little girl, leading her around by the hand. This afternoon they were singing into an unplugged microphone.

At this family's house was us, the 4 elders, and the investigating family. The boys and missionaries were playing soccer on the front porch when we got there, which was entertaining. Then we all took a walk around their land. They own a nice piece of land, very unusual for Italian people. And the pond there, most of their children were baptized in. There were so many frogs in that pond, it wasn't even funny. But wait, it was funny. Elder Bond pulled up one of his sleeves and started catching them. But he would always drop them! Then he picked one up that looked disgusting, its belly was so large, until I realized that it was two, and they were mating! He dropped them back in the water pretty quick. Elder Lee caught one by getting it to climb on a stick. Then I even reached in and caught one.

When we went back to the house we had cake refreshments and fruity tea. Then we watched the video about the man finding The Book of Mormon with the cover and title page blacked out. He spent years preaching about it, not even knowing what church it belonged to. I had heard the story, but never seen the video. Elder Christianson filled me in on what was going on. The investigating family gave me a ride back to Arezzo and I took the train home.

Everyone else went to Foiano today for the oldest Carnivale in Italy.