New things to enjoy and ponder: it's a wonderful world we live in.

Wonderful thing for Friday:  A day in Siena.  Elder and Sister Lee, senior missionaries there, invited us for a visit and a tour.  He is the branch president there, in a pretty small branch.  They are most recently from North Salt Lake.  They aren't necessarily retired; they just decided now was a good time to serve a mission, while they're still relatively young and in good health.  He came into our mission back in the day, the same month Blaine left to go home.  We really enjoyed getting to know them, and they were great tour guides; I am inspired to get to know Prato as well as they know Siena.  Wow.  I think I like it better than Florence.  It's a very medieval town; it's amazing walking along a street, realizing that all the buildings are hundreds of years old, AND still housing people and business, still providing worship and government spaces.  Of course the outskirts are more modern; the area where the Lees live is quite modern.  Anyway, we got to see the Campo, where the famous Palio is run every summer (google it, including the story of the contrade - absolutely fascinating!), and the Siena cathedral, which is a masterpiece inside and out.  Along the streets are fascinating shops of porcelain and other wares - if I were by myself, or maybe even just with Sister Lee, I'd have ducked in to a few of them.  We did duck in to a sort of music conservatory, which has a beautiful ingresso and courtyard.  The Lees treated us to a fabulous dinner at their home before we left to return.  What a great day!

Fun thing for Friday:  GANS Halloween party at the Florence building, with GANS from Florence, Prato and Pisa.  What a great bunch of kids.  Of course Elder Hyde had to dress up, as he has for decades, as a nerd (he improvised, having left the actual costume, very ceremoniously, with Jesse), and of course everyone got a hoot out of it.  Me?  I dressed like a sr. missionary sister on P Day.