On the day after Easter, Darryl attended a mass with two of our members, Lucy
and Francesca. The mass was for their
husband/father who died unexpectedly about a month ago. It was held in a small, beautiful Catholic
Church nestled in their neighborhood, just outside the old city walls. Not too many attended, mostly family. It was important to be there to support the
family.
Catholic funerals, burials and masses are quite different
from those LDS folks are used to, but they are similar in some ways as
well. They celebrate the life of the
deceased, and express hope for the future based on the great gifts we have all received as a result of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Catholic ceremonies are much more structured and
ritualistic, but they help the family with the transition.
Bonnie has really taken the bull by the horns as she leads
our small branch in its weekly Family Home Evenings. She gets everyone involved, and plans
wonderful thoughts, games and refreshments.
Last evening, Darryl was so very proud of her as she confidently
stood before the group and taught a 15-minute lesson based on Bishop
Stevenson's recent General Conference talk entitled "Your Four
Minutes". Sure, she made some
mistakes with the language, but she taught it all in Italian, needing help only
occasionally. The members, missionaries
and investigators understood her well and appreciated her efforts. She then had everyone laughing and working
together as she split us up into two teams, the guys against the gals, for some
"Olympic Games" of our own. It
was close, but the gals prevailed, 3-2.
We did a lot of home teaching this week, visiting members
far and wide. We took the sisters with
us on one of these trips, and tried to find some "long lost"
members. We found some relatives of one
member, but we are still trying to drop by when this sister is at home. We will return!
We celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary this past
Sunday. We had a nice late dinner together,
after three hours of church, and after Darryl returned from a 5-hour trip to Florence for a 3-hour bishops'
meeting and a quick home teaching visit to a family that lives an hour or so
out of Siena. No rest for the wicked! We are postponing a big
celebration of this historic event until next week, when Kara and Chris come to
visit us. We are very excited about
their visit!!
Our missionaries were quite sweet about our anniversary,
making us a homemade card with some very nice sentiments.
Sister Roth is the artist for the front of the card,
depicting the four missionaries who are currently serving in Siena.
 |
| Elders Axson and Robb, Sisters Boscia and Roth. Pretty realistic! |
Sister Boscia, our Italian sister from Sicily, is the artist
for the inside of the card, where she put together pretty good caricatures of
both of us. But Darryl really doesn't
have pants that are that blue!
 |
| Maybe we still look that young, but probably not! |
We are busily planning for May 11 when we will have a number
of General Authorities here with us to create a new stake! This will be a very large stake, geographically;
going from the west coast city of Livorno to the east coast city of
Ancona, and taking in about 12 other cities in between. We believe that they will make
at least five wards, and the rest of the units will remain branches. Our little branch of Siena will surely remain
a branch. But, our missionaries and
members are working hard, and we hope to grow this little branch in the months
to come.
It is a privilege and an honor to represent the Lord here in
this part of his vineyard. In the past
40 years since Darryl started his first mission in the nearby city of Pisa, the
Church has grown tremendously in this country.
And, when the temple in Rome is completed some time next year, we are
convinced that the work of salvation will skyrocket in this beautiful country.
We see small miracles and tender mercies all around us, and
we are blessed to have this wonderful opportunity.
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