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!

A couple of weeks ago, we needed to find a lady in our branch and make a visit to her. We had her address, but we weren’t sure exactly where her town was located. So we decided to make a “practice run” to find her address before we actually had our appointment. It just so happened that her town is located about 30 miles to the west of Savona, where we are living. This means we HAD to drive along the Riviera coast road until we got to her town of Loano. It was one of the most incredible drives we have ever taken. The scenery was breathtaking. I remembered driving along this very same road when I lived here as a 10 year-old with my mom, dad and sisters. How strange to be here 50 years later on the same road, experiencing the same gorgeous scenery.

Earlier in the month I started seeing flashes of light in my left eye when I was in the dark. At first I thought it was from the fireworks that were going off on New Year’s Eve. But when Miles said he didn’t see anything, and the flashes continued later in the week, I started to get worried. Of course, the first thing I did was Google it and my suspicions were correct. I had a retinal tear, which if I didn’t see a doctor right away, I could lose my eyesight in that eye. I was so scared that #1. I would have to go back to the States. We worked too hard to get here. I was NOT going home. #2. That I would lose my eyesight in that eye. I was ready to do that if needed, but I really didn’t want that to happen. To make a long story short, through the help of a wonderful friend, we were able to find a top-notch eye specialist in Genova, who performed a laser procedure on my eye to “seal” the retinal tear. It wasn’t a fun procedure, but it fixed the problem, thank goodness. He did a great job! AND, we got to make several train rides into Genova. We are getting very good at riding the train and getting around that big crazy city. Here are a couple of pictures of landmarks in Genova that are right outside the eye doctors office.

Monument to Fallen Soldiers 

Train station in Genova that is becoming like our second home

Commemorative garden honoring local boy
Christopher Columbus and his three ships,
the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria

We are still waiting for our apartment in Genova to be ready for us to move in. It looks like it will happen in February, if all goes well. Here is a picture of the building from the outside, if all goes according to our plan!

It is still very, very cold here. In the 30s and 40s. But what makes it unbearable is this wind that blows down from the Alps. It is so freezing cold. The other thing is that I haven’t been used to being outside and walking when it is this cold. But now we walk a few miles every day. Here is a picture of me after we walked to the church.

I might look a little scary if you saw me
late at night in a dark ally

And last of all, for those who really know me well, you will appreciate this picture from today. I finally found a place to get my hair colored and cut! At half the cost of what I pay in the States! All is right with the world again!

Happy at last thanks to Alessia!

Historical Savona and Genova

There is a huge fortress here in Savona, called Priamar that we pass by when we walk to the church. On New Years Day, we had some extra time in the afternoon, so we decided to go check it out. This was a fortress built in 1542 that has been used as a castle, used by the military, and was also used as a prison until 1903, There was also a cathedral built in the 7^th century but that was demolished to make room for other edifices. This place was huge! I can see where it would have lasted for 470 years.

Priamar Fortress

We had a fun Family Home Evening with a couple of our African Refugees. My heart really goes out to these young men who are searching for a better life. Many of them have left their families in Africa and are hoping to find a job and earn enough money to reunite in Italy. I hope we can bring a little light of joy into their lives as we meet together.

Miles and I once again made the trip into Genova to look for an apartment. They want us to move there to work with the Young Single Adults in the church. We found the perfect place, but I don’t want to post pictures until it is done deal. Genova has a long history as a seaport, dating back as far as Christopher Columbus (who was born here). It is now a highly industrial seaport and also services many cruise ships that dock here. But as you move inland a bit, the city suddenly turns into hills that would rival anything we saw in San Francisco. But this hasn’t discouraged the building of huge apartments right on the hill. The cute thing is that you can take the funiculare up and down the hill, saving your legs for walking on the level ground.

Most nights when we walk home it is dark (and very cold). Yes, we have a car, but if we are lucky enough to find a parking spot in front of our apartment, we don’t want to move the car. So we walk. Its been really good for us. We figure we are walking about two to four miles each day, some days a lot more. Here are a couple of pictures of our usual walk home in the dark. I have gotten so brave! But we do walk very fast.  

Life in Savona
We have had an eventful first two weeks here in Savona.  Most of our time has been spent moving into our apartment, getting it cleaned up, (that took several days), getting to know our way round Savona like where we can walk and where we should drive, learning about where we can park and where we shouldn't (we already got a parking ticket!), finding out the best places to buy food and getting to know the people in the branch.  

We did find out that we will not be staying here in Savona.  The stake president in Genova wants us to move there and work with the Young Adults.   They are in the process of finding an apartment for us.  I am somewhat sad to leave Savona.  It is a smaller city and of course we are right on the Riviera.  Genova is a crazy city.  The streets are like a big bowl of spaghetti, with nothing straight or perpendicular. But we will see what happens. 

Someone suggested I just do a picture blog, since there is way too much to write.


So here are a few pictures to show just a little bit of our life here in Savona.

 This is the view from our apartment balcony. Yes, that is the ocean, or rather Ligurian Sea.  Yes, it is the Italian Riviera.

 This is what our apartment looks like from the outside.  Very typical Italian.

 Learning how to make REAL focaccia from Omar.  I haven't tried it yet.

 This is what our street looks like--Apartments on the right, the ocean on the left.

 Our branch Christmas party--before the food was served. This is also the chapel.

They asked Miles and me to "judge" the desserts at the Christmas party.  Tough job!  The "apple pie" won first place.

This is our little car we get to drive. Toyota Yaris. I'm so happy it is small!

Beautiful sunset across the street from our apartment!

We're Here!

 It seems to impossible to be true, but we are finally here in Italy.  We had a very stressful, crowded, hot, noisy flight from Dallas to London. The TSA there had a heyday with all my cosmetics I had packed in my carry-on bag. The lady dumped EVERYTHING out and asked me what every bottle and jar contained.  Beauty cream!  Hair cream! Body cream! It's all creams, lady!  It was quite embarrassing, but I had to let it go and move on.  The Milan flight was much better.  It was so amazing to open the window in the morning and see we were flying over the Alps!  We were met at the airport by President Allen and his wife and the two office elders.  We had four huge suitcases, two smaller suitcases, and our carry ons, so it was great to have help.  After a wonderful lunch and some preliminary business stuff, they took us to a really nice hotel to sleep. It was so good to get into a nice soft bed! We helped the following day with a missionary conference, serving lunch to a huge bunch of missionaries.  When I went to the market, I was greeted by these fine octopuses.  And the wonderful foccacia bread.  Guess which one I chose to eat!?  The next day we drove to Savona, where our apartment was waiting for us. There's a ton of work to be done there, but it has been slightly fun to clean and fix it up.

Missionary Training Center

After spending one week at the Missionary Training Center we leave for Italy in the morning!  We are excited and nervous.  It's hard to believe that after all the waiting, planning, anticipation, and delays, we are finally going!
It was fun to have our son, Brian, drop us off as we had done with him 20 years earlier!
We had an incredible time at the MTC and learned to much.  We don't know where we will be living in Italy, but we should find out when we get there on Tuesday, so stay tuned...

Wow...time flies!

We are going here...

Our Amazing Teacher!

                                       

With Christ, all things are possible!

We were sad to leave at the end of the week.

Dinner with our Italian Tutors.
(Missed you, Autumn!)