Ballard, Diaconia Valdese in Torino, Monza Municipality, Oxfam in Florence

Natalie thought we should have 'photo-bombed' this one.  We were lucky to be right behind them as they arrived at the chapel and posed for this photo.  DeFeo, Ballard, Pickerd, Clayton.

There is nothing like sitting in a room full of 100 plus missionaries signing, "Hope of Israel".  The Spirit goes right through you like electricity.  I never appreciated that song until I sang it with a roomful of missionaries! 

Never think your mission is too hard.  Think about what you have to offer these people and who your represent.  Through you they can come to know Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Plan of Salvation, etc.   What a privilege it is to be ordained to teach these things.   

Learn from these experiences.  You will go on after your mission to become leaders in the Church and in your home.  Some of you will get PhDs, but you will never learn more about life than you will learn in these two years.  Take full advantage of this opportunity.  Enjoy it.  You will look back on these days the rest of your life.  

He told of being with the First Presidency in a hotel as a newly called Seventy when they invited him into their room to pray with them before they went to bed.  They kneeled together and President Kimball gave a very simple prayer where he said, "We have done our best today and we hope our efforts of this day were acceptable to thee".   Elder Ballard said, "Don't go ordering the God of the Universe around asking Him to do this and that and bless so and so.  Keep your prayers simple just like President Kimball."

He talked about miracles and how they have not ceased.  Elder Clayton had talked before him about being a missionary in Peru when there was only one Stake.  Now there are 100.   We have no idea of the future implications of what we do.  We are here in Rome at an exciting time with the temple coming.  It is a miracle. 

Elder Clayton - Bring your best to every occasion.

Elder Sabin - You will only be as happy as you are grateful.  I really love that one. It is true!

Elder Da Feo - Being ordained to the Priesthood is the power to teach the everlasting gospel (D&C 79:1).

Love Dad 

We visited with Steffano Bertuzzi of the Diaconia Valdese in Torino.  Our first stop in Torino was at the Social Point called 'Il Passo'.  Here they have Italian classes,  Arabic classes, they offer day care for the working families , they also have a gynecologist come to consult with the women.

This was a cool mural of photos.  Each photo was intended to capture the international gathering on tram #4, which is the tram that runs from the west suburbs through the center of Torino and to the east suburbs.  They were able to capture the depth of variety of people all riding the same tram.  

Here we are with from left:  Yagoub Kibeida, the vice president of Mosaico.  Next is a guest under their protection and currently a 'tae kwon do' champion, and then Steffano Bertuzzi with Diaconia Valdese and Tom.  We are hoping to partner with these groups as we move into Labor Integration for the refugees.  Another resource that we were able to pass onto this group was 1)volunteers from BYU who want to assist in translation for several months and 2) volunteers from BYU who want to have 'phone-friends' much like pen pals in the old days.  It is important for the refugees to have a friend who checks up on them daily or at least weekly, to keep up with how they are feeling and have a place to just chat with a friendly person!

Our next stop was to Spazio 37 in Monza, a suburb of Milano.  This group of people gathered are Tom, the Stake President of Milan East Stake President Paolino, then Marco who is the 'champion' of the Monza Municipality, and then Monia Vismara the Stake Public Affairs director.  For this project we funded computers to be used by the refugees for obtaining documents, etc.  There will be one computer for each facility, this is only one of the facilities.

We toured the facility of Spazio 37.  Here is the medical room.  Everyone that works here is a VOLUNTEER.  Marco is the only paid employee.  They house 25 people each night and provide clothes, food, showers, and medical treatment (3x a week from volunteer doctors)  We have 10 members of the church that volunteer here on a regular basis and that is how we found out about their needs.

Outside of the facility.  It used to be a bus depot.  The building for the housing was at one time used for office space for the bus office.  The actual 'garage' for the buses now houses the donations that come in from the community.

Monia and I were in the back seat of the car.  She is proudly showing the article that she wrote for the Liahona about Spazio 37.  She shares the Liahona with all those people that are part of the projects:  the director of the municipality, the volunteers, the doctors, etc.  Fantastic!

Here at the electronic warehouse we were in the process of purchasing the laptops.  When it came to actually using our credit card to make the purchases, the card was refused.  Hmmm.  We actually left the shop when we got a call from Frankfurt that the purchase exceeded our limit.  All we had to do was to split the purchase into 2 segments.  We go back to the shop, and viola!  It worked.  Hooray.

Our last stop on this trip was to visit with Oxfam in Florence.  I love their motto.  Oxfam is a world-wide and a high profile organization that does a lot of good in all the places that the humanitarian arm of our church is located.  It could be a huge partnership if that was pursued.   We discussed potential projects in which LDS Charities could partner with them.  There is no lack of potential here.  The only question is how much does the church want to become involved.  One statement during our meeting that we both liked from Alessandro Bechini (pictured and with whom our meeting was with) said, "We don't talk about donors, we talk about partners.  We want to work together."