A Moment to Remember Our Fallen Heroes, and a Bit More

We truly love being in Italy and doing what we can to move the Lord's work forward in this part of His vineyard.  But we have to admit that we love the United States, it is our homeland, and we do have a few opportunities now and then to think about our beloved country.  There is a beautiful American Cemetery near Florence where about 5,000 of our brave WWII soldiers are buried.  We had planned to visit this sacred ground on Memorial Day, but we were called to Milano to stand in for President Dibb during his absence just a few days before.  So we took an hour or so out of our day on July 4th to visit this memorial to those brave souls who sacrificed all for the freedoms that we, as Americans, still enjoy today.

It was a very warm and humid day, and there were very few people there.  That allowed us to slowly walk through the cemetery and silently thank our soldiers for their service.  We did meet a few Americans who were on a bike trek through the Toscana, and they too were paying their respects to our fallen heroes.

As we drove back to Siena, we took a little detour to see how the grapes were growing.  They are on the vines big time!  We even captured a little fellow who was meandering through the vineyard, probably looking for his Mom.

We had a chance to help one of our members who is about to give her Masters' Thesis and graduate from the University.  She hasn't been feeling well, so we helped her get things done in the City center and provided moral support.  We also cooked a number of different foods for her and her husband to give them something to pull out of the fridge when they don't feel like cooking.  It is a great feeling to help!

Bonnie and Lorena in downtown Siena

As we walked through the center of medieval Siena with her, Darryl shot a few candid shots of everyday people and scenes in our little city.

A local fountain

The flag of the Turtle contrada

A small store owner opening her shop

A local leaving her home with some colorful protection from the sun

Even the lights in each neighborhood bear the colors of the contrada

Bonnie taught a great Family Home Evening last week, all in Italian.  She is getting so good!  She taught about how our tongue, meaning the words that we use, can either be a blessing to others or a very hurtful hammer.  It was a good message that we all need to hear.  Darryl then did the activity.  He played "hangman" with the group, emphasizing the good words that we should use as we interact with others.

Our son-in-law, Adam, was in Italy again on business, so we met up with him in Bologna and spent an evening and part of the next day with him.  We walked through Bologna, ate dinner at a good trattoria, and found some great gelato.

Two medieval families in Bologna kept adding to their towers to show how rich they were.
The family building the one on the left ran out of money.

Bologna is a flat city, so everyone rides bikes.

Lots and lots of bikes

The next day we drove up to Modena and toured a traditional balsamic vinegar house where the good stuff is made.  It was an eye-opening and very interesting experience.  We now know how to tell the really good stuff from the mass-produced imitations. 

The wooden casks that they store the balsamic in for years and years

For the truly authentic and traditional stuff, it only comes in this shape bottle,
and only in 100 ml size.  Anything else is not the good stuff.

We walked around the old city center of Modena where we had lunch, and then we drove back to Firenze where we had a Stake Music Festival to attend.  We dropped Adam off at the train station and he had a few hours to explore Firenze on his own before boarding a train back to Milano so he could catch his flight home the next day.

By the duomo in Modena

Modena's town hall

Bonnie and Adam outside Modena's duomo

Two of our Siena youth shared their musical talents on the piano at the Festival, as did one of our investigators.  It was a good time had by all!

Paolo, an investigator

Davide, President (and only member) of our teachers' quorum

Francesca, our 13-year old phenom

Today is Sunday, and we are "resting from our labors" for a bit.  Bonnie gave the concluding talk in Sacrament Meeting today.  She delivered a good 12-minute discourse, all in Italian, which carried a great spirit!

The work is moving forward, but a little slower than we would like in our little city. The mission is seeing some great progress in other areas, and we rejoice in their success.  We are trying to prepare the Saints for the opening of the Rome temple, which we hope will happen sometime in 2015.  We are taking a number of our members to the Swiss temple in September as a precursor to the time when we can jump in our cars and be to the Rome temple in less than two hours, rather than the 8-10 hours needed to drive to Switzerland.

All in all we are happy with the work we are able to do here, and we thank all of you on the home front for your prayers on behalf of all the missionaries throughout the world.  The work marches forward, and as President Uchtdorf stated recently, let's all join in and not be caught sleeping through the Restoration.