Greetings from Roma

On March 23rd, Will and Karen celebrated their 2nd Wedding Anniversary by Karen receiving a gorgeous bouquet of lilies and red roses from Will at the office. We spent the evening picking up the Mission President’s daughter from a play practice. Will is certainly learning his way around Rome with the car. There is not a straight street in all of Rome, so this is a challenge, but one he is handling well. We have been lost a few times, but have always found our way home.

The week’s work continues to be busy at the office. We receive many referrals every week that we must forward on to missionaries all around the mission. Some of them are from our missionaries and have to be sent to other missions. I am learning how to go on google maps and determine where a particular city is and who is serving there so that the referral is forwarded to the correct zone and district. We received one this past week that was Golden, Golden. The man had received all the missionary discussions, had attended church 4 weeks in a row, and wanted to be baptized. Then he and his family were transferred to another area to live. He was wanting the missionaries to contact him so that he could be interviewed for baptism and so his wife could continue to be taught. I hope we can find them again. Sometimes all you have is a cell phone number that you hope is correct. In this case we also have the name of a town – or street – we aren’t sure which, and so the plot thickens in the looking process. You feel a great deal of pressure to do your part in finding the family once again.

The weekend took us to Caserta, just outside of Napoli, where we stayed overnight with the Warner’s, another missionary couple in our mission. WOW! Do they have a castle compared to us: 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a kitchen three times the size of ours, a patio that is half the size of our house in Draper, and real furniture. They were having DDM on Saturday morning and we attended that and got to know the four elders in their area. Such great guys! The Warner’s are retired military and so they could get us on the navy base in Caserta to grocery shop at the commissary. That was an experience in and of itself. So fun to shop in a grocery store where you can read what is on the label and know what you are getting. It resembles and carries many of the items that you would find in a super Walmart in the US.

The drive home took us up the coast line of the Mediterranean. Hope you enjoy the pictures. The day was overcast but it was still very beautiful. This is our last weekend with the car for a month. We will riding the bus again during April.

Don’t be afraid to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone you see. It’s true!