This is our 44 year anniversary, and is also Easter Sunday. Daylight Savings Time also started today in Italy, so we set our clocks back and our trip into Milano for church this morning was interesting because there was hardly anyone on the road and we easily found a parking place. At church we saw two couples visiting from US, both had served missions to Italy One (Garbett) recognized my name and said he served with an Anziano Hoopes in Genova. I got his business card (he is a contractor in Salt Lake) and gave him Fred's numbers. The other is from Denver and didn't stay much after church. They asked Myrna to say the closing prayer in Sacrament meeting today, which is the first time she has done that. She prayed in English, which is fine in our ward, because we have a mix of people, some of whom speak English. During Sunday School I read quite a bit from the Book of Mormon in Italian, the first time I have read that much in church, and that went fine too. Then during priesthood meeting, after I accompanied the opening hymn, a counselor in the bishopric asked me to go play the piano for Primary. That was interesting too. The Primary president, Sorella Cano, is from Peru and cleans the mission office, so we see her often. Her husband was recently hurt in an accident and is spending a month in a hospital and will be in rehab for a year, he was crushed from his waist down and they weren't sure, at first, that he would live. In fact, they prayed for him in Stake Conference. They don't have a piano in the primary room, just a Yamaha keyboard, which I am fine with, but they gave three kids signs to hold up, saying (in Italian) start, slow and stop, and as they held them up at their pleasure, we stopped, started or went slow in the signing. After church the bishop invited us (people without families) to stay for Easter Dinner, which we and about 30 other people did. I took a few pics, and we sang songs after dinner, which was held in the Relief Society room.
Taken from across the table at Easter dinner at the church. We had a pasta dish, some meat, a salad and peanuts (not traditionally Italian, but they have them) for the main course.
Then, after dinner, they opened a large fancily wrapped Easter Egg. which was hollow chocolate with a gift inside (which the little girl took) and we passed it around and broke off chunks. We have seen these in the stores, they are about 5-10 euros each. They also sell large fruit cakes, called pannetone, which they also eat for Christmas, which are very popular. We had some for dessert, along with tiramisù, which is a classic Italian dessert. Traditionally, tiramisù has coffee and some kind of liquor, but this must have been Mormonized, because it didn't taste like coffee or liquor, but it was good.
The missionary sitting directly across from me, Anziano Mocelin, is one of the APs, and is from France. His English is okay and he is a really sweet guy, who is also sort of the life of the party. The bishop asked him to sing a solo in French, so he made the bishop get up and sing with him, although the bishop said all he knew in French is "oo la la." Our bishop is from South America and then he and his wife and some others sang a hymn in Spanish. Then, the mission president volunteered me, him and the other senior missionary in attendance, to sing Gente Guardate, so we also had a trio sing. Our mission president is a good singer, and said that he was the choir leader in his ward in Bountiful,Utah for several years. He was an attorney who is going home at the end of June after his 3 years are up. Our new mission president, Allen, is a dentist from Boise, Idaho.
Our bishop, Villanova, is on the left end, singing in Spanish with some other members of the ward from South America, I think Peru. One sister gave a talk today all in Spanish and everyone seemed to understand what she was saying, even me. The girl in the blue dress in the pix is a returned missionary (Italian, from Sicily, who served in the Rome Mission) who is considered "less active" because she works on Sundays, and was sitting with the two sister missionaries, both from Salt Lake, in our ward. She was also the life of the party and was pretty funny. Unfortunately, she didn't learn very good English on her mission.
This guy, on the right, was sitting next to me and is from the Philippines, but does not speak Taglog, he speaks some other island language, but he also speaks Spanish and Italian. Today was the first day for him to wear a white shirt to church; he has a baptism date on the 16th of April, which we want to attend. He has been very friendly to us and he is being taught by the APs. He will make a good member. He lives with his mother, who, unfortunately, has no interest in the church. He is actually 37 years old, but doesn't look that old.
Yesterday, P day Saturday, after doing our laundry and cleaning our apartment, we drove down to Pavia, which is about a half hour south of us. We have never driven that far south, we usually go north to Milan. There is an old church about every quarter mile on the country road (we didn't take the freeway), and we stopped at some of them to check out their organs. This was the day before Easter and they were having confessions to prepare for Easter, so I did not ask to play any of the organs. This is looking toward the back door in the first one we saw. There were people cleaning the church to prepare for Easter and I asked them about the organ. They laughed said it is roto (broken), but that I could go up and see it, so I did.
This is about the most "broken" organ I have seen yet in Italy, even the keyboard has been removed and you can see the trackers (the wires that pull down the keys). It would a pretty good organ, if it worked. I suspect it was built in the late 1700s and don't know why it has been damaged so much. Even the pipes were in pretty poor shape (we saw one like that last Saturday but didn't go up to the organ loft). Unfortunately, this is the condition of many antique Italian instruments. In France there aren't any organs of this vintage in any of the old churches, because during the French Revolution they melted down the pipes, which contain lead, to make bullets.
That church had this painting over the baptismal area and I didn't think much about it (I wasn't even very impressed), until I saw the identical painting on the walls of the next three churches down the road. I suspect that sometime there must have been a a painter (certainly not a world master) who just went down the road painting the same pix in all the churches. This was probably in the 1800s, as they do not appear to be very old,
This was the next church down the road and there was no one in it, but I went up to see the organ and was amazed that it was in great shape.
This organ was in great shape, even with a cloth over the keys to keep them clean.
Above this organ was this sign, saying that it was made in Pavia (big city down the road, which was our destination that day) in 1818-19, a fairly new organ, but restored in 1983 by a well-known Italian organ builder. I will go back to this church and ask to play this organ. Again, these are in towns with about 500 inhabitants and farm land around them. They were out plowing the fields yesterday, getting ready for spring planting. The weather was beautiful.
The sign (all old Italian churches have signs, put up, I suppose, by the government) says that it is from the 12th century, in other words built in the 1100s. It's organ was also in sad shape, but it had a John the Baptist and Jesus painting in the corner of the church where the baptismal place is, exact same pix as all the others.
We went into Pavia, at least the north part, and went to a large, new shopping mall, but there were a lot of people there. We drove into town and had a kabap and pizza at a little shop, where we parked our car on the sidewalk in front of it (with the Italians, who park on sidewalks when there isn't better parking). A kabap is like a gyro, made by people from the middle east, and they also make pizza. The kabap is on a large heated bun, with tomatoes, lettuce, other veggies and some white sauce with yoghurt, really very good. We had one of each( kbap and pizza) which were 4 euros each, and each had half, which was a very filling lunch. Then we drove around the main part of the ancient city, and I didn't want to pay to park because of the time of day (the churches were closed in the afternoon) and decided we must go back sometime during the morning or late afternoon to see those ancient sights. There is a very large monastery down there too which we want to see. It is called he Certosa di Pavia, and can be seen on the internet, just Google it.
This week I received in the mail a MIDI music keyboard (120 from Amazon UK) on which I can play organ music in our apartment on the laptop, like I did at home. I first learned our mission hymn on my Italian organ, and recorded it. As far as I know it has never been recorded, but we sing it all the time here.
This week we had 8 new missionaries come from the MTC. Myrna made lunch for them, as well as muffins, and we both did training for them, about an hour each, I on their money cards, etc., and Myrna on the importance of doing their permessi so they don't get kicked out of the country. At the end of their second day (they are dead from the long plane ride on the first day), after they were matched with their first companion, we go into the president's office, stand in a circle, with the president and his wife together (sisters next to the president's wife) elders on the president's, and then Myrna and I are the bridge for the other side of the circle, all with our arms around each other's shoulders and sing the mission hymn, and then kneel in prayer. It is quite impressive and the spirit is very strong as we send them on their way to the train station to begin their missions.
Myrna has just finished watching the women's conference on her computer in the mission office, while I have been typing this. It is time to go up stairs for a while, and then we come back down to talk with kids, etc.
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