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. 

Siena's Main Religion - The Palio!

This blog post will be a bit different; but we will tie it into the missionary work that we are doing here in Siena.

But first, a bit of history.  Siena has existed for centuries and centuries.  In medieval times, Siena was a powerful city state in its own right, rivaling those city states of Florence, Pisa, Venice, etc.  During the 1400 and 1500's, the various city states aligned themselves with either the powers of the Catholic church of Rome, or with the secular kings and rulers of the region.  Florence aligned itself with the church, while Siena threw its might behind the secular leaders.  (As an aside, when the papists in Florence gained power, Dante Alighieri, the author of The Divine Comedy and a Florentine who belonged to the party supporting the secular leaders, was exiled from his beloved Florence.  He spent his last years roaming the Tuscany, and spent some time in Siena.)

During these medieval times, Siena organized itself in various neighborhoods of the city, called "contrade", and each contrada had its own organization, its own elected officials, and its own unique character.  This organization was required for many things, one of which being to organize the people of each contrada into militia or armies that, upon a call from the leaders of the city, would rally together to fight off the invading armies from Florence or Pisa, or to quell some rebellion or uprising in the smaller cities that Siena kept under its control.

Throughout Siena's history there have been any number of contrada.  But over the past hundred years or so, the contrade have melded into seventeen in number, well-organized and clearly in control of the operations within the confines of its own neighborhood.  Each contrada has its own church, its own social clubs, and its own patron saint.  It also has its own museum dedicated to displaying the silk banners (palio) that the contrada has won over the last 600 years.

The entrance of the "Palio" carried by four BIG white oxen

A new silk masterpiece is painted by a lucky artist for each Palio

A symbol and flag represent each contrada.  The seventeen contrade of Siena are as follows: Goose (Oca); She-wolf (Lupa); Dragon (Drago); Snail (Chiocciola); Porcupine (Istrice); Panther (Pantera); Unicorn (Leocorno); Seashell (Nicchio); Eagle (Aquila); Little Owl (Civetta); Wave (Onda); Tower (Torre); Tortoise (Tartuca); Caterpillar (Bruco); Giraffe (Giraffa); Forest (Selva); and Ram (Montone).

The flag of Drago (Dragon), the winner of this year's race

Selva (Forest) on the left and Oca (Goose) on the right

Civetta (Little Owl)

Onda (Wave)

While there are 17 contrade, only 10 can participate in the horserace of the Palio.  (Although they used to let all 17 run horses in the race, that was just too many, and there were too many accidents and injuries.) There are two races each year, one on July 2, and one on August 16.  Both are centered loosely on religious themes, each claiming to be run in honor of the Madonna, the mother of Christ.  Each horse is actually taken into the contrada's church before the race to receive a blessing from the parish priest.

Needless to say, this grand cultural event attracts all the inhabitants of Siena, plus thousands of tourists from all of Italy and throughout the world.  The celebrations last for weeks, with trials run the days preceding the actual race.  The famous shell-shaped Campo is transformed into a racetrack, where the city hauls in massive amounts of dirt and sand to create the setting for this spectacular.

This is what the Campo looked like on a rainy day in May.  This was taken
when we climbed the tower with Kara and Chris.

But before the actual race (which involves only three trips around the track and consumes less that 2 minutes), there is much pomp and circumstance, and months of preparation by all 17 contrade.  Costumes and gallantry reign, and there are drummers and buglers, men in armor, and flag carriers and throwers that make any Super Bowl half time show look lame in comparison.

The flag bearers all march with their contrada to the Duomo,
where they perform their flag-twirling and throwing skills

High in the air they go!  And they catch them!

Drago entering the Piazza del Duomo

They perform for the Bishop of Siena, who waves from his window

Then they all march through the medieval streets of the city towards the Campo

Flags from everywhere!

And armored men

Everyone heading down the narrow streets to enter the Campo for the big event

So enjoy a few of the hundreds of photos we shot during these days of celebration in our lovely town of Siena.

The crowds gather, and the children from each contrada in the stands
wearing their colors with pride!

Sisters Andromidas and Roth enjoying the festivities!

Elders Axson and Reese watching the parade.
Elder Axson always has a great view from up there!

A packed piazza

Our missionaries and members gather for a family home evening
event on Monday to attend the preliminary trials

Italy's Carabinari (special police) perform on their horses

The jockeys and horses entering the Campo

They ride bareback; only a bridle and a whip

Getting ready

Running the race, which lasts about 90 seconds
Three laps around the Campo

The flags of all the Contrade

And the race is over, and everyone pours out onto the city streets
to celebrate or commiserate 

While the three days of trials and the final race are a fun and unique experience that we wouldn't miss, the reality is that the Palio, including the workings of each contrada, sadly represent the true religion of many of the Senese people.  They live and die for their contrada and the two annual Palio races.  Everything else, including their religious beliefs, become subservient to their fanaticism for this tradition.  This makes missionary work even harder here in Siena.

But we had some missionary experiences while we were taking in the events.  As you can see, we try to dress as missionaries whenever we can, and we wear our badges at all times.  So when we are in crowds as large as the ones for the Palio, we had many, many people sneak sideways glances at our tags and then whispering among themselves about who we might be.  We hear many interesting comments.

Darryl had one lady stare so intently at his badge that he used his patented move; he just took off his badge and held it out to her to read.  She came forward, read it, and then came over to talk with us.  She wanted to know where we were from, what we do, what we believe, etc.  She was a nice lady.  Unfortunately, she wasn't from Siena, but from Parma, a town about 100 miles from Siena.  Notwithstanding, we gave her a Pass Along Card and told her where the closest branch was to where she lives.  She thanked us, and melted back into the crowd.

We also had hours to spend with some of our BYU students and their Italian friends, which allowed us to make new friends and, hopefully, to spark some interest in these young people in the gospel of Christ.

While we wouldn't say that this was the best event for finding new investigators, it did allow us to soak in an event that is so important to the local people, and to learn more about their traditions and celebrations.  Our Relief Society President, Sister Feri, is a lifelong Senese, and an avid member of the Oca (Goose) contrada.  She loves the celebrations, and is a font of great knowledge about every aspect of the celebration.  She is proud that Oca has won 66 times in the event's history, the most of all the contrade.

We had a great time, and are grateful to be able to share this unique experience with you through this blog and our pictures.

Change is the only constant!

It has been wonderful returning to Siena among our members and missionaries in this fine, medieval city.  We really missed our small branch and the good people who strive each day to follow the Savior's example and to share their testimonies of the restored gospel with others.

Soon after our return Sister Boscia, a fine sister missionary from Palermo who has been with us since she started her mission in January, received notice that she was being transferred to Lugano.  Lugano is the one city in our mission that is not in Italy!  It is in Switzerland; right on the Italian/Swiss border, and most of its residents speak Italian.  It is a beautiful city!  How fortunate she has been so far, being able to serve in two of the most picturesque cities in our mission.

We took Sister Boscia and her companion, Sister Roth, out to Montepulchiano to visit one of the families in our branch.  We sat down with them and taught them about the restoration of the sealing authority through the prophet Elijah, as restored to the world again in 1836 in a miraculous vision in the Kirtland temple.  We talked about family history work and what we can do to bring the saving ordinances to our kindred dead.  They were excited about continuing this work.

Bonnie, Sister Gori and Sister Boscia

Darryl, Sister Gori, Sisters Boscia and Roth, Chiara

Saying Goodbye to Sister Boscia

Our branch will be taking a trip to the temple in Bern, Switzerland in September, and all our members are working hard to find names that we can take with us to the temple.  It is always more meaningful to do saving ordinances for those in our personal lines.

With Sister Boscia's departure, we received a new sister missionary, at least new to our little city.  Sister Andromidas joined Sister Roth to continue the great work that the sisters do here.  Sister Andromidas has served in three other cities in the mission, her mother is first generation Italian, and Italian was the first language she learned.  So she is going to help us greatly here in Siena.

Sister Andromadis joins forces with Sister Roth!

Our American family in our branch, the Nelsons, left for the States this week.  Spencer Nelson is a professional basketball player and played this season for the Siena team.  They made it to the Italian championship series and pushed Milano to Game 7, before dropping a heartbreaker to come just inches short of their goal.  We had to support him in his efforts, so we sat at a little outdoor pizzeria in Siena's famous campo and ate a late dinner while we watched Game 7 in its entirety.  Even though they lost, we enjoyed a gorgeous evening, as the sun set over the Torre della Mangia, the tallest civic tower in all of Italy!

 

A beautiful evening at Siena's campo

We visited the Nelsons for the last time before they flew home to the States.  We will miss their example and the wonderful times we had with their three kids.  Bonnie won't know what to do with herself on Sundays, as she won't have any American kids to teach in Primary.  But we are reactivating some of our Italian members with small kids and grandkids, so she will just have to continue her good work in Italian.

Bonnie, Tommy, Hannah, Julie, Spencer, Logan and Darryl

Logan and Hannah taking one more jump over the sprinklers

We had three young missionaries from our district get transferred last week, so we had new faces at our district meeting today.  It is always wonderful to meet new missionaries and learn from them as they carry the work forward here.

Elders Reese, Kekoolani, Giles, Axson and Lee
with
Sisters Lee, Andromidas, Hamblin, Roth and Jarvis

Time is flying by as we reach the halfway mark of our service here in Italy.  We are enjoying this time we have to work together and to serve the great people in this city.  We feel your prayers, and receive strength from your support.  Thank you for all you do!