"Leave the ninety and nine, and go after that which is lost . . ."

Christ taught his disciples to leave the 99 and search after the one that is lost.  In our case, we often find ourselves leaving the 10 or so active members of our branch, to meet and pray with the 20 or so members who come to church once in a while, as well as to search out the other 35 or so members of our little flock who haven't darkened the doors of the church for many years.

During these past two weeks we have actually found a few long, lost members whose records are probably in some "Can't Locate" file at Church Headquarters.   While it may be that these members would prefer to keep it that way, we now know where they live, or we at least have a working phone number, so we can now reach out and invite them to rekindle the fire of a testimony that once burned within them.

Our sister missionaries, Sisters Roth and Andromidas, had an interesting experience in this regard.  They found a 22 year old single mother and they began teaching her the lessons.  One day this investigator's mother walked in, and lo and behold, the mother said that many years ago, when she lived in her home country in South America, she was baptized a Mormon.  Her daughter had no clue.  Now we have the opportunity not only to teach the 22-year-old daughter (and her 6 year old son), but also find the records for the Mom and see if we can help her become active again.  Tender mercies.

We also had a similar experience with a 76-year-old sister who lives in a small hill town about 15 miles outside of Siena. The daughter talked to our Elders Axson and Reese on the street one day.  She said that she and her mom would like to have a visit.  We finally were able to set an appointment with her, and because there are just females in the household, we took the sisters with us.  This member, as well as her daughter who talked to the Elders, another long lost member who isn't on our roles, sat with us and reminisced about the good feelings they once felt when they were active members of the Church.  We now have more people to add to our rounds as we leave the 10 to find the 60 plus.

It was good for us to take a few days to rejuvenate our energy and resolve as we traveled to Verona for the semi-annual conference of the Senior Missionary Couples serving in the Italy Milan Mission.  On our way to the conference, we decided to accept the invitation of some dear friends who live up in Laveno Mombello, a small town on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.  The wife, Teresa, was an 18-year-old member of the Cagliari branch when Darryl was a young missionary.  Cagliari was Darryl's second city, and he had some great experiences teaching Teresa's best friends, a family of five girls.  While the parents were friendly and even participated in many branch parties and activities, they never joined the Church.  But, Darryl believes, because of the many lessons and contact he was able to have in their home, the parents finally did allow their two oldest daughters to get baptized a couple of months after Darryl was transferred, and then later, the three younger daughters joined the Church.

Teresa was 18 and Darryl was 20 once upon a time, way back when!

We spent a day and a half with Teresa and her family, and we visited some beautiful sites and ate some wonderful meals.

Campo dei Fiori, high above Varese

Domiano, Teresa and Bonnie

Bonnie, Teresa and Domiano in front.
Elders Atwood and Simcox, with Gabriele, behind.

Then, on the way to Verona for the Seniors Conference, we stopped at the small town of Sirmione that sits right on Lake Garda.  There is a castle there that has been preserved quite well.  We climbed a few of its towers and snapped the following pictures of the castle and the "tourist-trap" town where it sits.

We filled our lamps with spiritual oil as we rubbed shoulders with President and Sister Dibb, and the other eleven senior couples serving in our mission.  Three of the elders are serving as branch presidents in various towns throughout the mission (including Darryl); two couples are serving as Military Relations missionaries at two U.S. military bases in Northern Italy, three couples are serving in Verona in a Records Preservation program, working closely with the Italian government in taking digital images of important civil records that will eventually be indexed and uploaded to FamilySearch, three couples are working to strengthen wards and branches and helping with the young single adults, and one couple is working in the office.

The thirteen "old" couples serving in the Italy Milan Mission

On Thursday after our meetings, President Dibb treated us to a good, old American style dinner at a place called Road House Grill.  He must think that we were getting sick of the great Italian food we are so blessed to enjoy (NOT), and were hankerin' for a big cheeseburger and fries.  It was a good break and quite a bit of fun!

Pres. Dibb making sure we didn't order the prime rib

It was good, but we wonder what our three Italian couples and one French couple thought of the fare

On Friday, after the business of the conference was over, we had the chance to walk around Verona with a few of these senior couples.  We shot a few pictures of the sites we visited.

Walking the streets of Verona

Sisters Harmer, Keefer and Lee at Juliet's house

The Guisti Gardens

Bonnie and few others at the top of the gardens

Bonnie waxing eloquent with Sisters Harmer and Dibb

One of our great senior couples, Anziano and Sorella Tonon, will be finishing their service in about another month.  They are Italians who are currently working with the young single adults in a town near Florence.  Whenever we go to a Senior Couples Conference, they ride with us, because Elder Tonon, at age 75 or so, doesn't like to drive long distances anymore.  They hadn't seen Siena yet, so they came down this week on our P-Day.  Sister Tonon makes a great lasagna and pesto, so as part of our P-Day fun she taught us and the sister missionaries how to make lasagna.  She also taught us how to make pasta from scratch!

The Sisters and Bonnie showing off their hand-made pasta, before turning it into tagliatelle

Sister Andromidas intently watching Sister Tonon use the pasta machine (notice the tongue)

Sister Roth making tagliatelle

Sister Andromidas showing off her stuff

And Bonnie makes great pasta!

Even the lefty figures out how to use the machine.

We had a wonderful lunch together.

Sisters Andromidas and Roth, Bonnie, Elder and Sister Tonon

After lunch, we showed Elder and Sister Tonon around Siena before they drove back to Prato.  They had an enjoyable time.

The beautiful, inlaid mosaics on the floor of the Siena duomo

And the stained glass window high overhead

Sister Tonon, Darryl and Elder Tonon with San Domenico in the distance

At the end of P-Day, we took the sisters to Monteriggioni, a small, medieval castle town just outside of Siena.  It took just a few minutes to walk around the small town.  It took longer for Bonnie and the Sisters to eat the gelato that we got there.

The ancient church in the small town square

Enjoying the gelato on a bench in the town square of Monteriggioni

We then went on our finding expedition that we described at the beginning of this blog entry, where we had some success in finding long lost members and setting up appointments to come back and teach them the eternal truths that will bring happiness back into their lives.

We are now right in the middle of the "dog days" of summer here in Italy.  The temperatures are high and the humidity index is even higher.  Many of the Italians are escaping the cities and heading to the beach towns.  Many stores actually close for what is called "Ferragosto", which means anywhere from two weeks to four weeks of closed stores and empty streets, with all but the most unfortunate (and the Mormon missionaries) at the sea or in the mountains, away from the worst of the heat and humidity.  Notwithstanding, we move forward with as much faith as we can muster, praying that the Lord will provide the means for us to help wayward members or teach new investigators about His ways and His church.

We love our members, we love our missionaries, and we love all our Italian friends and neighbors who take time to listen to our message.  (We also love the ones who have no time or patience for us.)  We know we were called here to fulfill a purpose and a plan, and we hope we can get a better picture with each passing day of what that is, and move ahead and act.  That is our desire.