First Sunday in Siena

We enjoyed our first Sunday with the Siena branch.  The District President came and installed Darryl as the Branch President of the small branch here.  It was Fast and Testimony Meeting today, since there was General Conference and then District Conference the past two Sundays.  Bonnie stood and bore strong testimony in Italian, and Darryl shared his as well.

We have about 25 young BYU students, all women, here in Siena for a study abroad semester.  They are studying art history, as well as Italian and cooking.  They travel quite a bit, but when they are with us on Sundays, as they were today, they triple our numbers.

Here is where our church meets, in the ground floor of this apartment building (above) and the entrance to the church (below).

Below are two views of our chapel.  We can seat about 40 or so, including those seated on the stage.

Here is our genealogy center, with some really outdated equipment.  Note the microfilm readers.

And here is Darryl in the branch president's office.  We won't be holding branch council in this space!

Here is our portable baptismal font in the back of the church.  When we have baptisms, we fill it up with cold water, baptize the person, and then empty it with buckets.

Our hallway which doubles as the branch library.

Another view of the entrance hall of the church.

Here is the piano area in the chapel.  Bonnie will probably see a lot of this view.

We had the two elders over for dinner after church today.  That is Elder Gneiting from Las Vegas, Nevada on the left, who has been in Italy just five months.  He was made a senior companion this week when he transferred into our fair city.  In the middle is Elder Young from Sandy, Utah who has been in Italy only three months.  He has been in Siena only 2 weeks or so.  We had two sister missionaries here until two weeks ago when they were pulled from the city because their apartment was contaminated with mold.  And the elders came in and moved into the same apartment.  Are elders less susceptible to mold issues??  We aren't sure, but we do know that the mission is working on getting two  new apartments in Siena, and we hope to move these elders into one and get a pair of sisters back as well.  The sooner the better, because the sister missionaries have been able to build a great rapport with the members of this branch.

But for now, Siena has to put up with four new missionaries; us and these two elders.  We will work hard to get to know the members and to move the work forward, but we seem to be simply trying to find our way right now and not mess up too much.  We hope we are succeeding with at least the latter.

But the church is true, so the work will move forward, despite the green missionaries who are now serving in this fine city.