Valentine's Day is For Lovers and Missionaries!

This week started with the Zone Conference that we outlined in the last blog post.  We followed that meeting up with a couple of mundane things, like taking our trusty steed (our little Opel Meriva) into the Opel dealer for some regular service and maintenance.  Bonnie went to her favorite hairdresser in Siena for a wash, cut and style, and we did a few other things that were needed for the branch building and our little apartment.

We also helped plan for our branch's St. Valentine's Day party!!  We invited all our friends who come to the church building two nights a week for English classes to come, and some of them did!

We spent most of Thursday cooking and baking for the big party.  We made some killer meatballs to go with some spicy homemade pomodoro sauce that we put together.  (No, no one died from the meatballs, but they were the hit of the party!)  Bonnie also made some great lemon bars and dipped ruby red strawberries in chocolate to bring that extra touch of class to the evening.

We did most of our party preparations on Thursday because on Friday, Valentine's Day, we needed to take our elders to Firenze for a baptism.  Our great sisters serving in Montevarcchi (a small town close to Arezzo) had another baptism!  That branch is really growing!  We went to the baptism (which started over an hour late) and quickly returned to Siena for our big festa.

Sister Yost, Alice and Sister Lopez 

The elders and sisters from Montevarcchi, and most of the branch.

Our Activities Committee arrived early and decorated our Relief Society Room for the big event.  They also coordinated all the other treats and food for the party.  Our elders made a Nutella crostata, and our sisters made a "Mormon-style" Tiramisu.  Some of our members made some gnocchi and some risotto, and we had a great time.

Angela, the lady that Bonnie has been teaching and fellowshipping (see last blog post) came to the party and she had a great time.  Some of our English students also came.  It is a great way to have our investigators meet and interact with our members in something other than the "Sunday" environment.

Bonnie and Angela talking at the same time.  That's what we do in Italy!

Enrique, one of our great branch missionaries, and two of our English students.

Laura, an English class participant, and her camera-crazy daughter.

A great couple, Lorena and Redi

After we served everyone a yummy dinner, we put all the desserts out on a table in foyer, and it was open season on some scrumptious treats!

Notice how fast the strawberries were gobbled up!

Our sister missionaries didn't make it to the party because one of them was not feeling very well at all.  On Saturday morning, after consulting with Sister Dibb, our Mission President's wife, we took this sister to the doctor's office, which in Italy means a quick trip to the Emergency Room of our local hospital.  They saw her and prescribed some antibiotics for what they diagnosed as a bad sinus infection, gave her some over-the-counter pain relievers for a bad headache and sent her on her way.  She has been resting, and seems to be on the mend.

On Sunday we decided to do an "Ode to the Hymns" sacrament meeting.  Our Music Director kicked it off with a short talk about the importance of music in our worship, and then we sang her favorite hymn.  Then, whoever wanted to share their favorite hymn and explain why it was special to them had the chance to do so.  We probably sang 10-12 hymns during our meeting, and it was wonderful how the music and the short testimonies really brought the Spirit.  We had some members visiting from one of the Rome wards on Sunday, and the sister said she had a wonderful experience and she was going right back home to tell her Rome bishop about this new idea for a powerful sacrament meeting.  We actually had 36 people in our sacrament meeting this week!

 

Logan and Hannah chillin' in the new comfy chairs in our Primary.

Oh, and remember Doris and her little son Daniele who live in a small village more than an hour from Siena; they took the bus on Sunday and came to our meetings!!  They had a wonderful time, and we hope to see them more often.  It would be great if her husband would come with her and bring them to church; but as we say in Italy, "piano, piano".

Transfers are every six weeks, and the next transfer happens tomorrow.  We don't know if any of our four Siena missionaries might be leaving us, so we have started a new tradition to have all our missionaries over for dinner the Sunday before transfers.  Thus, all four missionaries came over to our apartment after church yesterday and we fed them some great Chicken cordon bleu, pasta with mushroom and onion cream sauce, fruit salad, fresh baked bread, and some yummy banana pudding.  We really appreciate all the hard work that these young missionaries do here in our fair city, and we love them all.

Elders Robb and Gneiting, Bonnie, and Sisters Boscia and Hunter

We are busy planning our monthly visits with all our members, both those who are active and those we don't see very often.  We are planning a Festival for Carnivale this Saturday at the church, and one of our members who has been a professional pizza chef in the past is coming to make the pizzas for us.  He and his wife haven't been to church for many years, so this is the first step to bring them back into activity.  They will probably bring their two grandchildren who live with them, and that would be wonderful.  Those young children could really learn in Primary.  When we visited their home a couple of weeks ago so Bonnie could visit teach, she brought some pictures of Christ as the good shepherd for these kids to color, and they really enjoyed that.  The older girl turned around and gave the picture she had colored back to Bonnie, so now we have that hanging in our study.

The work moves slowly, but when we step back we do see that it is moving, and it seems to be moving in the right direction.  We are trying our best not to get in the way, but to put our shoulders to the wheel and keep the momentum going!