I can feel the Thanksgiving spirit all the way over here!

wonderful thing for Sunday and Monday:  I love our GANS (if you're just tuning in, that's Italian for YSA, Young Single Adults).  Okay, this actually hearkens back to Saturday, when we had a great Institute class discussion with Nertil, Jonathan, and Xiomara (can you guess which one is actually Italian?  one other is Albanian, and the other is Peruvian) about D&C 29.  Great participation, great spirit.  Sunday, Jared, Jonathan's brother gave an excellent discourse on Lehi's dream in Sacrament Meeting; he has just been called as the Young Men president.  After church we had a short discussion with "Angelo", who's from China and whose real name is Ai Chen, about the Melchizedek Priesthood; don't ask me how he got the other moniker, I have no idea.  Yesterday evening, Kenneth was our one participant at English Institute class.  He's a new member from Nigeria who hopes to get a job teaching English in Norway...We had another good discussion.  Afterward, nine GANS and two sister missionaries attended our first ever serata familiare - home evening - at our new house, where we discussed the "Seek Ye First" theme.  These are fine, fine young men and women.  I pray for them.  It's a jungle out there.  We ate pasta and dessert and then played some games prepared by Andrea,  who is preparing for a mission and whose mom is also from Peru.  Back to being soooo grateful to be here.  Blaine even mentioned that he likes our house yesterday (big improvement! - he really liked our other place - me, too - but this one is growing on us).

fun thing:  I'm in charge of the Mission conference luncheon tomorrow - Elder Fingerle of the Seventy is touring the mission; he and his wife and the Dibbs, our mission president and wife, are coming to Florence on the first of three stops.  I was asked to also make a carry-with-them lunch, since they're taking the train to the other two areas.  We had recently eaten pizza at the DiBlasios', during which meal we were offered homemade grape juice from their vines, which they bottle themselves.  I had the bright idea to ask Sorella DiBlasio if we could have a bottle for the leaders' lunch, which request was met with much enthusiasm!  I'll be sure to write a little note with the lunch so they'll know where the juice comes from - she sent two bottles.  Wish us luck in feeding 60 tomorrow!  All systems are go.