One month in Rome

All friends!  Tom is LDS, Prof Nasso is Presbyterian,  Claudio Paravati is Methodist.  All working together for Mediterranean Hope and Humanitarian Corridors.  We had a great meeting with this group and hope to partner with them.  They will host us in Sicily to view their camps, one which is in Lampedusa which has the largest influx of migrants.  After our tour we will  then discuss the needs that we perceived and go from there.  Our trip will be in April.  

This is Barbara Ventura, who facilitated the meeting with Mediterranean Hope.  She is a gold mine of information and help.  We are as connected as we are because of her.  She is intelligent, hard working, bi-lingual, very connected, and very humble.  She is the Stake Public Affairs Director for Rome West.  She may have already been introduced but I can't give her enough credit.  Sadly, she is unemployed and is 'wasting' all of her money in a lawsuit against her former employer.  Today she had a court appearance and it all went haywire.  My heart goes out to her.

Hot chocolate you eat with a spoon.  It doesn't even drip off.  It's like eating pudding.  Doesn't really count as a drink. While on this senior day trip, one of the seniors said that their kids think they are on one big vacation because they always post their p-day photos.  So he started posting dirty missionary apartments they inspected, etc.  So if you think we are on one big vacation I'll start posting all the forms and emails and paperwork we fill out for our projects, and all the bus rides and metro rides we take to get to our meetings, and most impressive will be posting the frustrations of what we see and what we do that we can't fix!!!  I loved what the CES couple said:  "CES doesn't mean church education system, it means Cook Every Second"...luckily I am spared that!!!

P-day we went with the other Senior Couples to the Pope's Summer Palace.  Pope Francis (current Pope) opened this up to the public because he prefers to live more simply.  When the director of the church of Sant Egidio heard where we are living he said, "The Pope would be happy that you are living among the poor!"

The church presented the "Values of the Family Award" to Gianluigi De Palo (President of the organization of families), the meeting was hosted in the House of Representatives on Wednesday April 5th.  The presentation was given by Raimondo Castelllani (Public Affairs Director for Italy) and Alessandro DiniCiacci (our area 70)

After the meeting was over, I took this photo because the room really was cool.  It was on Via Seminario 76, just next to the Pantheon.  The bookshelves are full of real books!

After the presentation, we had two hours to fill because we were invited to a dinner downtown with Raimondo Castellani and the leaders of Sant Egidio.  Just walking from one appointment to another is sheer pleasure b/c Rome never ceases to supply gorgeous scenes.

Like this scene too.  I love that there is a peaceful walkway along the Tiber.

Before dinner we attended a Catholic mass:  Santa Maria in Trastavere.  Pictured is Raimondo and his wife Anita.  On the right is a lovely lady who hosted us at Sant Egidio.  We attended the full mass and sang the songs!

Dinner Italian style:  start at 9:30pm and finish at 11:30pm. (we stayed so late the metro closed and we had to take a taxi home!) This restaurant is just behind the Santa Maria Cathedral.  The Catholic church owns the restaurant and hires people that would otherwise be unemployable:  some with disabilities, another was a gypsy girl who wanted to escape her surroundings and change her life.  Claudio (seated far left) is the assistant to the President.  This was just an initial meeting and further partnering will happen after Easter!  They are much too busy with the upcoming Easter season.  Claudio is the one who thinks Pope Francis would be happy to hear we live in Montespaccato.

I am certain that you don't read most of this, but at least if you are wondering what we are doing and why we are so busy, this gives you an idea.  And it's my photo journal for the mission.  Thus the lengthy captions!  It's therapeutic for me to record where/how/what we spend our time doing.  I wouldn't trade this mission for any other mission in the world.  Tailor made for us.  We both love it.