missionary life

We love the work we do here in Bari.  The young missionaries are amazing and set a good example for us.  Teaching about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is what we love to do and what our mission is all about--along with a fair bit of service too!   We have a district meeting with all 10 of us missionaries every Tuesday morning and after the meeting we all usually head over to a close Panificio for panini.  They love us there because we come so often--anyway, they gave us a whole bunch of apples that they were going to throw out--perfectly good but a bit bruised so I told all the missionaries I would bake them some apple crisp.   I went home and Chris got busy peeling and we whipped up 6 batches of apple crisp.  We delivered them to each household and to the panaficio shop as they provided the apples.  I told one set of missionaries to be on the street and we would be by in 10 minutes to drop off apple crisp to them. I shot the next two pictures of them teaching someone on the street while they waited for us to pull up.  Anziano Cannon and Anziano Haws.  No time wasted for them! So proud of them.

One of my many favorite Sorelli is Sorella Torres.  She was born in Venesuela and moved to Milan when she was young and she speaks very little English.  The other Sorelli are teaching her.  This is a picture of her teaching the English class to Italians.  I thought it was pretty funny that she was doing that when she speaks so little English.  She did amazingly well!  Always adapting to any situation...

Once a week we go to Molfetta to teach Samuel--always along the Lungomare (long sea--coast).   We always bring a picnic lunch and feed everyone.  He writes songs and this time he brought along his guitar and sang a few for us.  All his songs are Christian based and beautiful.

New (Nigerian) Grandson!

I am patiently awaiting #16 grandchild but meanwhile I might have to adopt this little guy.  He is the son of one of our Institute students and he was born 2 days ago.  His name is Honesty.  His dad's name is Endurance and his mom's name is Treasure.  Love Nigerian names!! He got so excited to see me for the first time that I ended up having to change his diaper....love being a Gramma...

PDay in Galipoli

This isn't a a great picture but I took it to show the blossoms along the Italian freeways here in Puglia.  These beautiful shrubs are everywhere along the roads and are in bloom from May to end of July.

It was a beautiful hot day to travel when we headed for Galipoli a couple weeks ago. We had been told that Galipoli was one of the most beautiful places to see here in the Puglia area.  Below is  a view of the sea from a seaside restaurant we went to.

Rosa Marina with Giulia and Piero

We got an invitation to visit with our new friends that we teach at English class at their villa at Rosa Marina.  They are in their late 70's and are so much fun to be with. They live in Bari for most of the year and then go to their villa in the summer. We have visited them in their home in Bari a few times and now to their summer home.  They were so kind and hospitable.  It was extremely hot--about 35 Celcius so we were able to really enjoy the sea.  

My Italian Adoption

OK, if I can't be with my grandkids I'll have to adopt and I've found the cutest little guy to be my Italian grandson.  His name is Giulio and he comes to me becomes he likes my magnetic name tag. Molto dolce!

IT"S HOT!!!!

Oh my goodness it is hot in Bari right now.  We are learning how to cope with it but the young missionaries have it much harder than we do.  At least we have air conditioning in our apartment--they just have fans...They walk around most of the day getting to appointments or trying to make appointments and we travel in our air conditioned car.  When we came out of church today at 12:00 this is what our car showed us.........Once the car got going it went down to 36 so --no problem!

When you have temperatures like that you get to see things growing like this:

Olives and grapes EVERYWHERE!  And these pictures were taken just off the side of the road we were driving on yesterday..  beautiful!!

Primary activity/GANS Barbeque

The Primary asked the GANS (Young Single Adults) to assist with their summer primary activity so Claudio, Valerio, Giuseppe, Gabriella and Gionni  stepped right up and took care of things. Here Claudio is teaching how to do a relay-- hoola hoop pass down the line without using your hands.

Next is wet sponge dodge ball--they loved it--it was so hot outside!

A few of the older Primary kids (and some no longer Primary) 

Then...water balloon catch

The GANS had a barbeque and we were in charge of doing the hanburgers.  Chris tried to clean up a couple of really rusty barbeques to use but ended up just buying one.  How do we get THAT on the plane home??  These aren't the best pictures of a barbeque but they just finished playing basketball outside and were trying to cool off in the air conditioned church.  Didn't take a picture of the  great food we had (my mother would be ashamed) but it was a great time.  The missionaries also came and it was PDay so they are all on their tablets writing home. 

 This is wonderful Mima who has a daughter on a mission and next to her is a missionary that served in Bari a couple years ago and now teaches Italian at the MTC--Sorella Preston.

 Below is Claudio, Valerio and Giuseppe.  Claudio is leaving in September for the Milan mission and Valerio just got his call to England.  We sure love these ragazzi!