Palio Fever, But We Are Hastening the Work Nonetheless

There are two great events that occur annually in Siena, and they both involve the famous horse races, or the Palio.  On July 2 of each year the contrade (or neighborhoods) run the Palio di Provenzano in the Piazza del Campo in honor of the Madonna of Provenzano, who has a church built in the city in her name.  Then, again on August 16 of each year, the race is run once more, and is called the Palio dell'Assunta, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  In fact, the Senese people say that as soon as the August 16 race is completed, winter is here.  They mean that there is nothing to look forward to until Christmas, and the Palio races of the next year.

We soaked in the full experience of the Palio in July, attending some of the trial runs the days before the big race.  And then we experienced everything on race day.  In August, we had some important appointments with members outside the city, so we decided to take in the blessing of the horses at one of the churches, and the march of all the contrade into the Duomo square where each contrada's flag bearers perform for the bishop of Siena.

The Drago (Dragon) contrada won the race in July.  Here are a few shots of the blessing of the horse on the day of the race.  This particular contrada's church is San Domenico, and the blessing takes place right outside the church.  In ancient days (and even in some contrade today), they actually take the horse into their parish church to be blessed.

The horse arrives for the blessing by the priest

The Dragon contrada encircles the horse

After taking in the blessing, we hiked up to the Duomo with a few of our members to watch the flag bearers do their thing.  All seventeen contrade (even though only ten get to run in the actual race) march into the square and perform for the bishop.  It is amazing to watch them throw their flags high into the air and catch them, with hundreds of people crowded around.

Here are a few shots of the flags of the various contrade.

One of the BYU students came back to town with her mother and her sister just to see the Palio.  However, they brought their backpacks to the square, and they were told that they would not be able to take them into the Piazza del Campo for the actual running of the Palio.  Since we had to leave anyway, we did our big act of service in taking three very large backpacks down from the city center to our church so that they could enjoy this "once in a lifetime" experience.  Our backs and hips felt the effects of this act of service for a few days thereafter.

Our district saw quite a few changes this last transfer.  We received two new missionaries here in Siena, and one of our Zone Leaders left and needed to be replaced.  So we snapped a shot of our new district just outside our Firenze chapel after a recent district meeting.

Sisters Remund, Hamblin, Jarvis and Andromidas
Bonnie
Elders Taylor, Kekoolani, Reese and Garner

The district enjoying Bonnie's peach pie

This past Monday for Family Home Evening Bonnie taught about the importance of performing acts of service.  At the conclusion of a short lesson, we all walked into town to one of the rest homes where one of our members has been confined for a few years now.  Our wonderful sister missionaries visit Francesca often, but this time we took all our missionaries, a few members and one investigator with us to visit Francesca and to sing a few hymns with her.  She doesn't always remember everything these days, but when she was younger she came to church and FHE often, and she loved music.  So whenever we sing the songs of Zion, her face lights up and she remembers. 

Our RS President, Sister Feri, loving Francesca
with our Sisters and an investigator looking on

Yesterday after doing some home teaching in the morning, we went with two of our member families on a picnic out in the country.  We enjoyed a nice day together, and we did more home teaching out in the fresh air.  After lunch, a few of us played on the little kids' toys, and then we went into town for some gelato.  There isn't anything better than Italian gelato!

Santina, Lucy, Simone, Davide, Guerrino, Darryl and Bonnie

Mother and Daughter on the Teeter-Totter

Santina slides down the slide

Santina and Bonnie

Davide and his nutella crepe

In fact, the evening before we took our Sister missionaries with us to Castellina in Chianti to teach a few lessons to some members who are trying to become more active.  We had a great lesson, and a great spirit.  This mother and daughter then offered us some cake and drinks.  You can't refuse, so we partook.  But as we left, Darryl, who had talked about buying some gelato after the lessons, turned to the sisters and asked if they had any room for gelato after just having some great refreshments at the lesson.  Both sisters, almost in unison, said that there is always room for gelato, and they were afraid that the offer might be off the table since we just ate some goodies.  Darryl smiled, and we all ate gelato!

August is coming to a close, and with that, we hope to see many of our members return from their vacations and join us for worship services on Sunday.  We continue to address the needs of our members, our missionaries and our investigators, as well as work on some special assignments from the mission.

Speaking of special assignments, we received a call from the Mission Office asking us to go to Firenze and report on a flood that occurred when a hose to a missionary's washing machine broke and flooded the business that was below them on the ground floor.  Because everyone closes down in the middle of August, the business was closed and probably didn't discover the damage for days.  It was not a pretty sight.  But, thankfully we have had some experience with water damage, apartments, contracts, and the like in our past life, so we were able to help out and hopefully mitigate some of the loss.