Settling down in Genova

March was a crazy month, trying to move all our belongings in our little Toyota Yaris from Savona to Genova, about a one hour drive (we made 5 trips in all). 
I had to practice what I preached, so I cleaned our Savona apartment from top to bottom. I’m not sure it had ever been so clean before. Fortunately our Genova apartment was all cleaned and ready for us to move in. Miles couldn’t figure out how we could have five carloads of “stuff” to move when we only arrived in Italy with 2 suitcases each! I admit I had accumulated quite a bit, but it was all “necessary senior missionary couple stuff.” I have the Church’s Keyboard class curriculum, including a keyboard, all of our English class curriculum and notebooks, all of my “learning Italian” books, and lots of kitchen supplies. I have even acquired some house plants!

I have three words to describe how we feel about moving to Genova and our new apartment. WE LOVE IT!!! The apartment is lovely, with very beautiful antique furniture. We have beautiful big windows in every room. I love sitting in the kitchen and looking out the window at the cars and people passing by. 

 The best part of all is we have parking! 

I won’t repeat the details, but here in Italy, that is more precious than gold. 

The worst part, if there is one, is the wild and crazy tile in the bathroom. Not sure what they were thinking when they picked this!

We live in the hills above Genova in an area called Castelleto. During the 14^th century, Genova was fortified and protected with a wall and fortresses built high above the city.

Christopher Columbus's house

Porta Soprana, ancient city gate 

Castelleto lies right below these walls and forts.





To reach our apartment from “downtown” or centro, as it is called, we take a little red train or “funicolare” up the hill. Our apartment is right at the top of the hill. Or if you still need to get your 10,000 steps in, you can always take the stairs! But you will be sore the next day!

I thought I would hate this big, crazy, conglomeration of a city, but now that we know our way around, we love it. There is so much history, so many beautiful buildings (palaces and castles), and ornate apartment buildings everywhere you look.

We are supporting the two Genova wards, working mostly with the Young Single Adults (people between the ages of 18 and 31). Each group meets twice a week for Institute (religion classes) and also a Family Night. I’ve been making brownies and lemon bars for these events and they LOVE the brownies! There are 83 names on the rolls, but only a handful of people actually show up. We’re hoping to change that. We are also in charge of having a big activity every two months. Our first one is going to be a talent night on May 13^th. This has caused quite a bit of excitement with everyone, so we are hoping for a good turn-out.

Our first Sunday at church Miles met an elderly couple who were new converts when he was here 43 years ago. He loved seeing them and the brother has been a stake president and president of the Swiss temple.

We invited our Savona missionaries to come to Genova so our Italian chef could teach me how to make REAL lasagna. It was quite a process taking over four hours, but the results were amazing!

We had our Senior Missionary Couples Conference in Ravenna, Italy. We had all of the senior couples serving in the Italy Milan Mission meet together for 3 days. It was amazing! 

Ravenna is famous for its churches and basilicas built 1400 years ago that are decorated in mosaics that will take your breath away. You just need to see it to believe it. There is a lot of early Christian history and symbolism. 

We loved spending time with the other senior missionaries and getting to know them. Since we are all spread out across northern Italy, we don’t see each other very often and it was so helpful to hear about what they are doing.
As we walked through a piazza in the middle of town, who should we meet but the local elders, with their pass along cards. Way to go, Elders!

President & Sister Allen with Elders

We had a fabulous dinner at a trattoria, which was the best Italian food we’ve eaten since being here.

On our last day, we went to San Marino, which is that small, independent country in the middle of Italy. I had no idea it was a cliff-side castle, reminding me a where Beauty and the Beast might live! It was breathtakingly beautiful, not only the castle and fortresses, but looking down it was surrounded by green rolling hills, clay-tiled roofs, dotted with wineries.

On our last evening, I was feeing a little adventurous at dinner and wanted to order something other than pasta. The waitress described something that she said was delicious. I heard “potatoes and stew” and thought I was safe. I guess I need to learn the Italian word for “baby octopus”! I didn’t eat one bite.

On the last day, before we left for home, Miles and I wanted to say we had been to the Adriatic Sea. It was only a few minutes drive from Ravenna. It was beautiful, flat, somewhat desolate, but we loved it. Just to say we had been to the Adriatic Sea was enough for me!

A wonderful gift for my birthday was attending the baptism of a sweet young girl. The ward was extremely supportive. There was enough food to feed an army.

One of the hardest things we’ve found on the mission is transfer time. Just when you have truly come to love these hard-working missionaries, they get transferred. The upside is that they are always replaced with another group.

Savona to Florence to Genova

Things have been moving swiftly along for us. We find ourselves busier than we were the previous month. We had the opportunity to go to Florence to meet another Senior Missionary Couple, the Ferrara’s, as we delivered a church keyboard to them. It was so great to finally meet another couple who had more time and experience in the mission field. They shared good advice and suggestions on how to become an amazing missionary couple. We rode the train from Savona to Florence, through the beautiful Tuscany countryside. I took way too many pictures, but I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the train window as we traveled. We passed nearby Carrara, known for its marble quarries. The white markings on the mountains look like there is snow, but it is where they have quarried the marble. We rode near Pisa and I saw a brief glimpse of the “Leaning Tower.” We had a whirlwind one-day visit through the city of Florence, as we joined a walking tour, hitting on the highlights of this incredible city.  

Yes, we carried this keyboard on the train with us!  We got some funny looks, but we always get that so we're getting used to it! 

In front of Ponte Vecchio with our friends, the Ferrara's.  They took us all over the city. We walked almost 7 miles that day! 

 For those of you who LOVE gelato, this is the place!  Oh my goodness!  Such in incredible choice of flavor combinations!  It was divine!

In front of the Duomo at the Piazza della Signoria

 We saw this car parked on a beautiful little terrace off one of the side streets.  Its called a Twizy!  I thought it was hysterical!  Basically a motorscooter with doors and a roof.  But they could park anywhere they wanted to!  Here in Italy, that is a big plus!

 We came across a fabulous little shop filled with "homemade books, stationary, and cards."  It looked like Geppetto's workshop.  Tara, you would LOVE it!

Teeny tiny stairway leading to the 2nd floor.

Italy makes all of it’s foreigners apply for a “Permesso”, which is essentially a card saying that you have permission to stay in the country for a certain period of time. All of the missionaries need to apply for one. This entails filing out paperwork, paying fees (of course), taking your fingerprints, and on occasion, you are randomly chosen to take a “culture class.” I was excited about this, as I pictured learning all about cool things in Italy, such as food, holidays, native dress and dances, tourist sites, etc. Boy, were we ever disappointed! Five hours of watching a video where two people sat at a desk and discussed the Italian constitution! Not once did they deviate to show any pictures or cute videos. Just five hours of this:

This is not staged. I looked over and there he was! The lady instructor actually falls alseep on the video! That's when you know it's really boring! The perfect remedy for insomnia!

The most interesting part of the culture class was the diversity of people taking the class! The majority were from Albania, with the remainder including Africa, France, Egypt, South America, Saudi Arabia, India, and us! The only Americans! We’ve been surprised at the number of foreigners from other countries living here in Italy. 

  It can take months to finally receive your permesso, but both Miles and I got ours within a week of finishing our culture class!  YAY!

One of Italy’s many holidays they celebrate is “Festa della Donna” or “Women’s Day.” Not to be confused with Mother’s Day, which is another holiday. But the tradition here is to give yellow flowers to all the women. This is the time of year that the mimosa trees are in bloom. 

They have a very subtle sweet clean fragrance that I just love. I remember it from when I lived here as a young girl. On every street corner there was a man selling small bouquets of mimosas. 

The tradition is to give the women a bouquet of yellow flowers.  I think I really love this holiday!

 The other tradition is for women to all go out and celebrate together or some other event. Our Relief Society joined together at a pizza place. I never knew how many things you can include on pizza! The strangest to me was the tuna pizza. (They put tuna on everything) But I had to admit it was pretty tasty! 

To top it off, they brought us Nutella pizza! Hey, why not!?!

We stayed busy having various members and missionaries to our house for lunch and dinner. It’s been fun to try out certain American recipes to see what goes over best. By far, the favorites have been the Ham and Cheese sliders, my Orzo Pasta Salad, and my homemade brownies (which I have perfected after several tries). 

Our sweet sister missionaries, on the outside, with our wild and crazy friend Maria!

Lunch with the African refugees, Victory and Joseph (who loved the Sloppy Joes) and the elder missionaries.

One of our duties as a senior missionary couple is to help and support the young missionaries. Twice a year we are asked to go and inspect each of their apartments to make sure things are kept clean and tidy. This was to be a “white glove” inspection. We were assigned 12 apartments to inspect around our zone of Genova. It was so much fun to go to each apartment and get to know the missionaries better. Some apartments were better than others, naturally. I brought plates of brownies to each of the missionaries as a peace offering, and then proceeded to tell them how to really clean!

  And the best news of the blog is that after waiting for four months to move to Genova, our apartment finally was ready for us to move in! 

  I couldn’t really believe it until we had the keys in hand and we turned to lock 
on the door! Stay tuned for more pictures and adventures from Genova!