Wednesday, February 15, 2017

February 14th-People and Things We LOVE!



Happy Valentine’s Day to all our dear family and friends! I love my family and friends all year long, every single day. But having one day dedicated to LOVE does make us think about how blessed we are to have the wonderful people in our lives that we LOVE! We have to come to LOVE so many people and things here in Italy. We wanted share some of them with you!

This elderly couple really touched my heart. It isn’t something you see everyday, older couples showing their real affection for one another. 

 These are all the missionaries in the Genova Zone. There are about ten zones in the Italy Milan Mission, each zone taking in four or five cities. There are about 200 missionaries in our mission. Mostly from the United States, but there are about 20 native Italians, a few from France, Spain, and one from Hungary.

These are our two missionaries that we have been working with in Savona. We sure LOVE them! They are very hard workers. Elder Jones (second from right) was recently transferred up to Milano. We miss him already!
With the transfer of Elder Jones, another missionary arrives to take his place. This is Elder Petruzziello (far left) who is an Italian from Rome. He has only been a missionary for one week and he is unusually tall for an Italian. He is a professional chef! He said he would teach me how to make some wonderful Italian dishes! We LOVE him already!

We had a luncheon with our wonderful sister missionaries (left) and a mom and her daughter from the Savona Branch. It was great to get to know them better and they did LOVE my food! (Whew! I’m nervous to cook for Italians!)

This is the Robiola family. They struggle to make ends meet, yet were so generous towards us. The son is amazing. He is smart, articulate and has great potential. 
We LOVE this sweet family!
 This is the De Milato family. He was a policeman in Milano for 30 years, but has now retired to this incredible mountainside farm north of Savona. He has about 10 acres of fruit trees and gardens.


They made us a most incredible meal, typical of most Italian homes. They have raised eight children and been members of the church all their lives. Stalwart and faithful! We LOVE them!

Antipasti

Caprese salad, with eggplant, mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil.               

Fruit, nuts, and cheese pizza.

I didn’t get pictures of the fourth course pasta and the last course, chicken cutlets. I was so full my brain was going fuzzy!


10 acres of fruit trees and gardens

Our Wednesday and Thursday night English class students. We have so much fun with them. Each one is amazing in their own way, from a 
professional bicyclist, an artist, a gymnast who can do the splits, a comedian, two policemen, and a former train engineer! Lots of LOVE with this group!



We woke up to find we had been “heart-attacked” by our sweet, adorable sister missionaries last night. We felt the LOVE from them. It was beautiful!