Random Italy shots

I had to have a picture of this fellow.  He was having the best snooze in the middle of a busy piazza.

A lady that the sorelle found that was a less-active member and was thrilled they found her.  She is from Malta and will be seeing us Sunday at church.  We have found many people that are from outside of Bari that can't come to church on Sunday because they don't have a car and the trains and buses sometimes don't run on Sundays.  It's a big problem.

Proper driving in Bari is "on the line" and make 2 lanes when there is only room for one lane.  Chris has started to adopt this Italian way of driving...so watch out for Chris on the roads in July!! Also, you can go through red lights as long as no one is coming in the other direction and butt-in anyway you can...Oh, and lots of drivers are undecided as to whether they want to go in the right or left lane so they'll just drive in the  middle--like I said--On the line..BTW..Texting is mandatory while you drive.  Yikes!

Just another boring day by the sea....

One of the most beautiful places in the Puglia area is Matera.  I have blogged about it before but we just accompanied 2 sorelle who hadn't seen it before so we got a few more pictures.  It's a remarkable place.  Details of Matera are given in my blog from Jan 19, 2016.

Amazing, isn't it?

Moving day!

We have a family that we are teaching right now that had to move out of their rental and so we all donned our "moving" clothes and helped.  It was great fun.  Why is it always more fun when it's not you that's moving?  Took about 5 hours because we had to go up 4 flights of stairs (long flights) to get to their top floor. The Elders worked so hard--I was really proud of them.  The sisters and I did a lot of packing of dishes and we had a ball.

This beautiful cathedral was right across the street. As we were doing the move, a bunch of men just stood watching the whole time.  This is a common past time of Italian men--just standing on the street and talking and watching people go by.

Chris was the "Tetris" guy and loaded everything beautifully

This is just one set of stairs (of 4) that had to be climbed!! 

The grocery store came to us.  This truck parked right next to the apartment so the fresh produce was a great snack.  These trucks go all over Italy communities everyday.  Fresh produce is standard fare for Italians and it's so inexpensive.  They import very little fruit and vegetables.

Here's a produce market in Bari--I will miss this when I go home!

The Sorelle had a game of Frisbee with their kids--Tony (11) and Kimberly (17) to entertain them during the move ...

Pranzo and Pirisi

I have to say that we have the best district of missionaries in the Rome Italy Mission.  We just love all these wonderful people.  They keep us young and are a great example to us.  We just finished our weekly district meeting and decided to go for pizza.  YUM!  

From left: Anziano Whitaker, Anz. Brown, Anz. Bowers, Anz. Lancaster(just visiting from Lecce), Anz. Mariucci, Anz. Carroll, Anz. Hinckley, Sor. Sargeant, Sor. Hess, Sor. Holmes, Sor. Coz-Baccera.

Normally we head over to a Panaficio close to the church for lunch and we have become quite good friends with the 3 brothers and mother who run the store.

Momma, and 2 of her 3 sons

Love those yummy panini!

A year ago I posted that we went to the San Francisco casa di cura (senior's home) and celebrated Fratello Pirisi's birthday--well--here we are again--he's a year older and still as sweet as can be.  We did a little singing before we visited in the cafeteria with all the residents and Sorella Holmes accompanied us.  from left: Sorella Coz-Baccera, Sorella Holmes, Anziano Whitaker, Vito Caricolla, Anziano Hinckley, Chris and I.

To celebrate his birthday (and another resident) , the residents and the staff all danced--they had a DJ entertain us.  The music was so loud I can't believe the seniors liked it so much--We did a conga line -(-couldn't get Chris to join in for some reason)and  Fratello Pirisi looked really happy.  

Carnivale Italy!

Carnivale is like New Orleans' Mardi Gras.  It lasts 4 days and is just prior to lent.  There are lots of parties going on and everyone likes to dress up. Both wards here in Bari celebrated with a party.  Chris and I were asked by the Poggio Franco ward to do the games for their Primary Carnivale so we got busy and started by making a pinata.  Here's the beginning....

Then after all the work...it gets destroyed....They all had a blast!

 Our vote for the Cutest kids: at Liberta ward party--Giulio Pappagallo

Aurora  Petroni

 Best hair:  Sorella Fitzner

Biggest muscles!:  Anziano Fitzner

Lots of princesses, robots and clowns

 And a whole lot of games--"Simone dice"(Simon says)

 And dancing....thankfully the giovanne anziani and sorelle took care of that for us...

 end of party picture...exhausted from all the fun!

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!