It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Invited to the Valentini's for Sunday pronzo and they had a 6 foot tall coke tree!

  Huge tree decoration in centro Bari.  

Have to show you the normal foot attire for most Italians.  This is even a bit conservative.  They like to be tall while they shop.  My feet hurt just watching women shop in high heels!!

Picture of all the missionaries after the Liberta ward Christmas party.  In the middle is Giuliana who has only been a member for a few months but a real firecracker! and Conni who has only been a member a few months also--I showed a picture of her earlier in the blog getting baptized in the sea.

My buddy, Gabriella and her husband Vescovo(bishop) Valentini and son Marco.  Love them all!

After the party, the Relief Society sisters gave Chris and I a Christmas basket of goodies.  YUM!

Had a fun get together with these great people--the YSA's put on a dinner for the senior sisters.  They did a great job.  Just noticed that the seniors don't look too happy while everyone else has huge smiles---I think they had a good time!!??

Front row from left: Sorella Magno, Sorella Avantario, me, Sorella Spangnoletti, Sorella Palmisano, Fratello Palmisano, Sorella Valenti,  Mariateresa Santoro, Gabriella Azzaretti

Back row: Chris, Angela Cafagno, Giuseppe DePalma, Rosa Gadaleta, Ruben Mongelli

YSA's entertaining us

Carolling at the senior's home where Fratello Pirisi lives.  We had a great group of people from Poggiofranco ward come with us along with the missionaries and we sang Christmas carols to the residents.  They loved it! 

Our missionary zone did Secret Santa gifts to each other and this is what Chris got from Sorella Romero--So sweet!!  She even put missionary tags on them!

Found this olive wood nativity this week at a market place in Old Bari.  The people that make them are from Bethlehem and their children live in Bari and sell what their parents carve.

Sorella Sargeant on left and Sorella Dustin teaching classe d'Inglese.  We have grown to really love these girls a lot (we have been transporting them more often than usual to appointments as Sorella Dustin broke her toe and is using crutches)  Even though they haven't been able to work as hard as they usually do they have bright spirits--always happy and positive!

This is just a random picture of an aloe vera plant (I think--looks like the same family) growing outside of one of the missionaries apartments--it is HUGE and looked very healthy even though it was in a place that looked like no one was looking after it.

Another Italian missionary leaves us from Liberta ward to serve in Leeds, England.  This is number 5 from that ward and one from the Poggiofranco ward.  So proud of Ivan Vianni and the work he's done to prepare to go.  

Happy American Thanksgiving!.

On November 24 it was not only my birthday and Anziano Jacob's birthday but it was also American Thanksgiving!  We had a great celebration.  It isn't easy to find a whole turkey in Italy.  They just don't eat them here. (whole, that is)  One of our wonderful friends from the English class we help with said she would order one through her meat market on her street.  We told her to go ahead and get one that is about 7 kilos.  We went to pick it up and it looked very lonely in the display cooler with only beef and horse meat.  It still had lots of feathers on it and it looked a bit skinny but it was delicious and fed us all.  Thanks, Giulia!  Of course we had potatoes, gravy, and all the fixings to go along with it.  The missionaries brought lots of dessert to celebrate our birthdays.  (From left:  Sorella Sargeant, Sorella Romero, Sorella Holmes, Sorella Dustin, Anziano Brown, Anziano Jacob, Anziano Anderson, Anziano Alexander, Anziano Perfili)

I decided I needed chocolate trifle!  Yum!

Later that night we went to English class and everybody brought treats to celebrate American Thanksgiving and (my birthday)  They sang "Tanti Auguri" to me.(Happy Birthday or Many best wishes)

Pronzo with the Santoro family

One of the most fun things to do here in Bari is get invited to someone's house for lunch(pronzo).  This is when they do their big meal of the day.  The Santoro family invited us for pronzo on Dec 8th which is the "Feast of the Immaculate Conception" holiday.  This celebrates the conception of Mary in her mother's womb--not the conception of Jesus.  On the night before this holiday, Catholics attend evening mass. Anyway, it was nice for them to have a holiday and wonderful for us to share it with them.

Here is Chris already to eat!  Anna asked if he would like something to cover his white shirt as there is always pasta as the first dish.  He  said--"no, no I won't get anything on it."  I said "Yes. Please..he needs a bib--the funnest one you have!"   So he got this one--It says: dopo controlla il tuo peso  which means check your weight after...            

For the first course we had some delicious fettuccini in marinara sauce with squid ink then....

This was the secondo--stuffed squid.

Here's the close-up--head and all.  It actually tasted OK.  Before we ate, Fratello Santoro showed me the plate of squid and I asked him if he was trying to scare me.  I didn't know what it was...

Third course is always fruit and I tried lychee for the first time.  Finally they had a delicious torta for dessert.  YUM!

Here's the amazing Santoro family minus their son Luca who is on a mission in Milan and will return in March.  Their daughter is Mariateresa and is a very special girl.  She has also served a mission in Milan and has been back for a couple years.   She speaks great English and has been so kind to me. Love her a lot! 

Liberta ward activity--MOVIE NIGHT

The missionaries planned a ward movie night and invited everyone in PoggioFranco ward too.  It was a great success.  The ward mission leader's wife is the Relief Society President and she designed the cute concession stand.  

The bishop's son-Marco was the in the ticket  box office to give out tickets for popcorn and drinks..

The movie was "War Room"--translated into Italian.  It was a great movie--very moving and uplifting--Chris and I watched it in English in another room with a few other English speaking people

Here are the planners--Sorella Sargeant, Sorella Dustin, Anziano Perfili, Anziano Anderson with Sorella Pappagallo (RS Pres) and John Felix(Nigerian member)

Anz Alexander/ Gospel principles class/inspections

Another Goodbye and ci vediamo to Anziano Alexander. (far right) The district will be much quieter now--so sad to see him leave just when we were getting to know him--he's off to Sicily.  We'll miss you!  (with Anziano Perfili and Anziano Anderson)

This is our English speaking Gospel principles class.  We usually have about 6-8 in the class along with the missionaries (and my baby, Honesty).  They are all from Nigeria and faithful people!  Can you tell who the father of Honesty is--(hint--he's not the one holding him)Not hard to know that the mom is the one in orange....

We do missionary apartment inspections every transfer  in Bari and have to travel to get to some other apartments in Brindisi, Lecce and Foggia.   We check to see if everything is in working order, if they need to get new things for the apartment and Chris also does minor repairs.   I do the cleaning inspection...they have come to know that Sorella Fitzner doesn't like dirty...Some missionaries have heard me (quiet, reserved me) yell "That's disgusting!!"  Then they know that I'm not happy!  (I still love them all even if the toilet and tub needed dynamite to clean) The Brindisi missionaries had lunch for us when we came...they probably thought they could bribe us for a better inspection report....(their apartment was spotless so that wasn't necessary!) this is Anziano Hansen and Anziano Young from Utah!  Great missionaries!!