The Mediterranean!

A typical week at the office: compiling the “Roman Forum” – a monthly newsletter for all the missionaries, submitting a monthly supply order to Germany, putting together supplies to be taken to the missionaries in each district in the mission, purchasing boat tickets for the missionaries to come to Rome from the Island of Sardegna, and making preparation for the Rome Zone conference to take place on Tuesday. Every week is busy, different and full of challenges.

I purchased a large plastic container for a cookie jar. It sits in the office for when the different missionaries come in. There is a note on the top. It says:
Cookies for missionaries
What a treat!

2 is the limit
For each one to eat!

Otherwise the cookie jar
Will register defeat!

I may or may not be able to keep it stocked, but I will try.

Saturday, on Preparation day, after cutting Will’s hair, we headed out in the car to see the Mediterranean Sea. We had not seen it yet. The colors in the water are so beautiful. The day was cool, but we walked along the sand that stretches for miles down the west coast of Italy and ate our lunch of meat, fabulous cheese, and green peppers on hard, flat bread by the sea. The drive to the seashore is about one hour from Rome. We enjoyed seeing the more rural countryside. Everywhere we saw rows of covered tomato plants and large greenhouses. I commented to Will that I was surprised that we hadn’t seen any vineyards. We literally rounded the next corner and there they were, rows upon rows of them. They have not leafed out yet. We look forward to seeing them when they are full of grapes. We are hoping we can participate in a grape harvest and an olive harvest while we are here. Our drive took us across this beautiful land, over the mountain and back to Rome.

By the way, some people do live in houses here – in rural Italy: individual farm houses and large well groomed villas. It is just in the cities that it seems every person is an apartment dweller. Even that is not true, but it seems that way.