phone calls and mission calls and everything in between

Wonderful thing for Fathers Day, Sunday, 21 June:

Even though Fathers Day is in March in Italy, it is a wonderful thing to celebrate fathers and families.  My father (and mother), my husband, and our family engender ever greater love, joy and glory in my heart as time progresses.

On another front:  I've found that posting photos on facebook is much less taxing and time-consuming than writing a daily blog!  However, the concern I have is that this will be the impression people have of our mission:  touristy photos.

Instead, the stuff of which our mission is made consists of hours at our desks writing emails about Pathway, Institute, YSA in general, or other duty-related topics; studying lessons for Institute, Pathway, and (beginning again soon) Missionary Preparation; hours on the phone trying to connect with young adults in four cities to find someone who has the time to see us, so that we can offer encouragement and testimony; hours in meetings, in person or on Skype, with church leaders, the Institute director, the Institute presidency, two ward councils; hours on the road; hours visiting members or investigators together with missionaries; and the occasional hours doing p-day touristy stuff.

 The sweet sister missionaries from Prato and Florence joined us on a hike last Wednesday...

...to this place.

What I have just described is for the most part a grand feast.  We love it.  We are served.  We find successes - a young woman comes to us to talk out a great disappointment; another, with whom we intended to discuss Pathway, unburdens her concerns and fears; another asks if she can use our house for a gathering when she opens her mission call (to the Italy Rome mission).  A sweet sister comes to that gathering bearing a gift for our 40th wedding anniversary because she heard it mentioned.   The stake presidency expresses such openness and confidence that it crumbles us to dust.

Have I said this lately?  I LOVE BEING HERE and doing this!

Fun thing:

Today we spoke in Sacrament meeting at Pisa Ward; afterward we were invited to lunch.  They told us about the upcoming "Il Gioco del Ponte di Pisa" and showed us a video.  You should check it out.  It seems that every major - or minor - city with a medieval past has some sort of annual competition based on the different sectors of the city - see also Siena's Pallio and Florence's horrendous Calcio Storico Fiornetino.
http://www.giocodelpontedipisa.it/