It tends to rain a bit during the  winter here in Bari and the Elders didn't have an umbrella for walking home after English class so I lent them mine.  They thought it was so pretty that they wanted a picture taken...here you go...Elder Whitaker and Elder Anderson!

Elder Whitaker and Anderson had a baptism also-- Collins.  He is from Nigeria.   

We said goodbye to Sorella Romero.  We will miss her so much.  She was a dynamic missionary for the Bari zone!  Her favorite expression, "Oh, my dear!!! She has gone to serve in Battipaglia.  Her companion (Sorella Holmes) and her are both from Texas and they were always saying "y'all" to the point that I said it once...such a bad influence on me!

Below is our crazy, wonderful friend, Angela Cafagno.  She is preparing to serve a mission right now--we have helped her get her paperwork done and hopefully she will be leaving by summertime.  We took her to an appointment and we had to take a picture of her as she came out of the building.  She was wearing every color of the rainbow!  💓

The wards we attend in Bari are wonderful.  We alternate weeks going to one or the other.  The YW in both wards meet together for activities twice a month and then have New Beginnings and YW in Excellence together also.  This is the YW after New Beginnings with their leaders on the left end Angela de Santis, Raffaela Papapicco, Fabricia Laterza) and one on the right. (Ilaria Bellomo)

We love Bari!  There are so many wonderful places to see here and the people are so kind and helpful.  It's funny that we saw this graffitti and actually liked it and took a picture, as that is one thing in Italy we hate!  Graffitti is everywhere!  If there's a surface you can spray paint a message, then it will be spray painted..

There are many villas in Bari that are very old and this is an example of their gates leading in to the property.  Usually they are heavily covered with graffitti also.  This was an exception.  I just love the fact that there are always ancient structures to see as we drive around doing our work here.

Palm trees are a part of Bari too.  We're in a park close to our home and palm trees are everywhere.

The weeds here are cactus.  They grow along the roads and are a dumping ground for garbage.  It is very sad that people here don't take pride in their country.  I think mostly though it is about government not having the garbage disposal systems in place like they should.  We have mentioned to Italians that it would be a great idea to put a bottle recovery system in place for plastic water bottles and  glass bottles here.  It would not only clean up the place but would give a lot of people a few dollars in their pocket by turning the bottles in for recycling.

Here's another cactus plant that is a huge tree!  I used to have one of these in a pot at home--never seen one this big before..

After English class one night we had a Cake contest.  It was originally planned to be a ward activity but a ward member died the day before so they cancelled it.  Here in Italy they have the funeral the day after a person dies as they don't embalm them. They also feel that they shouldn't have a church activity on the same day as the funeral. So all us missionaries went to the funeral, then went to the cake making contest as we had already advertised it for the English class people and we couldn't cancel for them.  We had about a dozen cakes and a great little turnout from our English class.

Here is Anziano Brown talking about his chocolate cake that is supposed to be the Rome temple under construction...The little 9X12 cake next to it with the nuts on the edges was my carrot cake and it won .....Yea!

Had to take a picture of this handyman...He spends a lot of his time fixing washing machines, caldaia's (water heaters) and anything else that needs fixing in missionaries' apartments!  It's a big headache for him but he's pretty good at it!