What an interesting and different week! On Thursday and Friday we enjoyed a first ever Couple’s Conference at the Mission Villa. President and Sister Acerson preempted a 3-month Conference with the other missionaries to have the couples in our mission meet together. At that conference, President Acerson challenged us to pray in Italian and to bear testimony as often as possible in Italian.

The second day we visited Paul outside the Wall, which contains the tomb of Paul of Tarsus. It is a giant church and a very beautiful one. We didn’t have a camera with us so we will include pictures of the inside another week. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the other mission couples better and the training we received.

Saturday included a day of watching sail surfers on the Mediterranean. They were very good and put on quite a show. I’m sure there were 50 or 60 guys taking up with their sails. They would lie back in a harness attached to the sail, while standing on a board, kind of like a wake board, and then the wind would pull them upright so they were standing on the board. It was amazing how much height they were able to get and how many tricks they could perform. One hot-dogger was turning 360’s and put on quite a show. When he came up on shore we clapped for him and then he was really out to entertain us. Will said it was ballet on the sea. With so many in the area, it was surprising they never got tangled up, but it didn’t happen.


A good friend of Paula’s from Logan, Utah, arrived in Rome on Saturday. We picked Debbie and her daughter Abby up for church. Francesco surprised us by showing up at church so we invited all three of them to lunch. Abby speaks Spanish and because it is similar to Italian, she and Francesco quite enjoyed speaking to each other. Afterwards, the Davis’ and us went downtown to sightsee. Deb spoke very highly of Paula. We love opportunities to show off Rome and Deb and Abby were real fun people to be around.
Debbie and Abby Davis

Abby and Francesco on the bus!


Yes, we do have another dinner appointment, with Francesco cooking Italian on Wednesday. This time I am taking charge of my own house. We will have only one pasta and one main dish, not a 6-course meal. We will provide a salad and gelato for dessert.

The heat wave has truly hit Rome. The hotter it gets, the busier the downtown area is, and the emptier the outlying areas are. The Italians move to the beaches and resorts, leaving the tourists to swelter in the sun. We enjoy our air-conditioning at the office, and our well-used fan at home.

Greetings from Italy

What to choose to show you? . . . . .

So many pictures . . . . .


This past weekend, when transfer week was finished, Elder Sommerfeldt and I headed up to Pisa and Florence (Firenze) for the weekend. Elder and Sister Olsen were very hospitable and showed us around their area. Quindi (so) . . . .

Firenze is probably best known for the David by Michelangelo which stands 17 feet high in all his nude glory. He sculpted David when he was only 26 years old and finished him in 1504.You can clearly see the muscles and veins (as well as other things), the work is done so well. There are several other works of art in the museum where he stands, but David is the highlight.


The other well-known landmark in Firenze is the Old Bridge. During WWII all the bridges were bombed except this one bridge. The apartments up over the top of the bridge on both sides are now jewelry and gold stores. In this picture you can see the other bridges which were rebuilt further down the river to be able to move around the city.

Pisa has the leaning tower, of course. It truly is leaning. Construction on the tower was begun in 1173 and was doomed to failure from the beginning as the foundation was poorly laid. As the builders were involved in several wars, the tower took many years to complete and in the interim, the ground settled enough so that the tower did not topple over. Our pictures where we are propping it up – yet another time - didn’t turn out all that great.


The other man-made feature we enjoyed seeing in Pisa were the aqua-ducts. These picturesque arches go on for miles. There is a large pipe in the top of the aqua-duct which carried the water to the city and the arches were so that you could still easily travel through them rather than have a solid wall.


On Saturday we decided to visit the Carrara marble mine. This was incredible. Once again the works of God surpass the works of man. When you first see the mountain from a distance, it looks like it is covered with snow, but actually it is white marble.

The marble mined on the outside of the mountain is a softer marble and what the great sculptures like Michelangelo chose for their work.

We took a tour of the inside of the mountain where the marble is much more dense. This marble would be used for buildings. After driving in vans about 400 meters into the mountain, we were in a huge cavern where the marble had already been mined. The ceiling of this part was 18 meters high. Over the last 12 to 15 years, the marble has been removed from the inside of the mountain. It is cut by a diamond chain saw and cables with diamond bits about every 2 inches along the cable. In this cave, rooms of marble are removed from the ground up, but columns or supports must be left intact so that the mountain will not collapse. They are only allowed to mine the marble to a certain height inside, with considerable space left untouched and then from the top down on the outside to within safe limits. We were literally standing in giant natural marble rooms. One other interesting fact that I enjoyed was that in different parts of Italy and the world, different colors of marble are mined. I purchased a black marble egg with gold veins in it that was mined close to LaSpezia. Since we have been to LaSpezia, that was very interesting to me. The base to hold my egg upright is white with grey veins in it and was taken from the mine in Carrara, where we were.


Then on the way home from Pisa, as we passed by Livorno, we saw an incredible view of the rocks and Mediterranean Sea. What a beautiful world we live in. Firenze, Pisa, LaSpezia, and Livorno are all cities in our mission where our elders and sisters are living and working.

The fields of sunflowers have replaced the fields of red poppies.


The week has been an eating week. The Italian way is to have about 5 or 6 courses at any meal.
Our courses this week included:

1st and 2nd course: Scone Night for missionaries and investigators. A fun casual get-together at our apartment! All the scones and honey-butter you can eat. Of course, that means that the next day will be cinnamon bun day as I always make up too much scone dough and it also makes great cinnamon buns.

3nd course: Our favorite Italian investigator cooked for us again and we all rolled out of the apartment afterward. This time the meal included 2 pasta dishes, pheasant – you had to watch out for the buckshot it was killed with - when you ate it, an egg and cheese dish with grated truffle in it, a stew made with beef, potatoes, red onion, and red pepper, and stuffed eggplant.



This black "thing" is called a truffle. Francesco said it cost $150. It was given to him by someone he had worked for. It is a kind of spice and he grated it into the egg dish he made. Once before he brought truffles too and then he grated it onto cooked spaghetti which was delicious.


4th course: A surprise birthday party for Sister Acerson, the President’s wife – featuring pulled barbeque pork, salads, a birthday cake, and a very surprised Sister Acerson. This was complete with balloons, and candles. 1 candle for each 10 years.



5th course: Fried chicken dinner for the assistants. Elder Rogers is going home this transfer and we will be sorry to have him go, he is so fun. He's the one in the front.


6th course: UVSO – Utah Valley Symphony Orchestra playing beautiful classical music as well as several LDS hymns with special arrangements by the conductor’s wife. That was a treat of a different kind, but definitely dessert.

On Saturday we played at Marina di Alabrese.


By the way, this is a picture of the apartment we will be moving into in September.


That puts us into transfer week this coming week, which is our biggest assignment in any 6 week period of time. We have played, and eaten, and taught, and listened. Now we work!

ITALY IS GREAT!


CINQUE TERRE


THE PIETA IN ST. PETERS AN ANCIENT TEMPLE

This morning at church, Bishop Edgley, of the Presiding Bishopric, and his wife were in attendance. Next weekend, he will meet with all the stake presidents in Italy, the area presidency and the mission presidents. His mandate is the temple here in Rome. At the end of our fast and testimony meeting today, he spoke to us briefly. He said they had seen the coliseum yesterday, and today he was thinking of this area as it began as the fountain of Christianity. Then His precious gospel was lost from the earth. He said with the announcement of the temple in Italy, it was clear that the gospel of Jesus Christ is back, and it is here to stay. He said he wanted to thank those early Christians who believed in Jesus Christ and his gospel. Many of them were martyred.
HOW THE COLISEUM LOOKED ORIGINALLY

HOW THE COLISEUM LOOKS TODAY

He spoke of Joseph Smith and how his name would be known for good and evil throughout the world. He said we will continue to grow and be active in the church because the church is true. He also commented that there were two important witnesses to the first vision: God, the father, and his son, Jesus Christ. I had not really ever thought of it that way before. He reminded us that if we wanted to know if it was true, to ask the witnesses if it happened.

Just prior to his remarks, an investigator stood and bore testimony of the reality of miracles in his life and his belief in Jesus Christ.

The weather is warm – very warm in Italy right now. Just about every morning, it starts out a little hazy and then the haze burns off to a bright, glorious day. You can feel the humidity hanging in the air. By about 6:00 p.m. – sometimes earlier – a large thundercloud rolls in and we have a giant electric storm, which lasts about an hour. Then the air is clear and fresh once again. When it rains, it seems that the heavens open up and lets out the bathwater. Even an umbrella is useless in this torrent.

THE METRO - we travel on these trains a lot!

Last night we attended a Nordic concert in a church downtown next to the Marcellus Theatre that we attended last weekend. This was probably a 100-piece orchestra, much of that, stringed instruments, directed by a famous Norwegian conductor. Some of the songs were loud and strong, but the last two were our favorite numbers and were softer and easier to listen to. The orchestra was made up of talented cream-of-the-crop youth from several Scandinavian countries, who had met and practiced once together and then they go on tour throughout Europe.

Saturday morning we were invited over to Pearson’s for a 4th of July breakfast with the missionaries from our district. We didn’t sing, “God Bless America,” but the meal was tasty.

We haven’t been very good about carrying the camera this week, so I am adding a few pictures that have been taken before for you to enjoy. Stay wonderful and keep the faith!
This is Nettuno. A favorite place on the Mediterranean.

Rows and rows of grapevines. We are hoping to get in on a grape harvest this year.

Mediterranean coastline

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ME!

Between the Assistants to the President and our district leaders making me a very fun homemade birthday card, to getting phone calls from several missionaries throughout the mission, to receiving bear hugs from many of the sister missionaries, to going to a concert in an ancient Roman theatre, to seeing the Mediterranean, to seeing a rainbow in Rome (the world must not be coming to an end yet), to cooking dinner for an investigator and several missionaries, to attending Zone Singing in downtown Rome, to being fingerprinted (it’s for my Questora – permission to live in Italy), to receiving emails and care cards from all the kids: Life is good, and I feel spoiled rotten and much loved.

This morning at DDM, the missionaries from our district served birthday cake and ice-cream and sang happy birthday once again. I've decided that this birthday has been so much fun that I think I will have one birthday a week for the next several weeks, and get this getting old stuff over with so I can just enjoy life.

The Mouth of Truth is an ancient stone mask that was moved to Rome in 1632. At one time the mouth moved and the legend was that if a liar put his hand inside the mouth, he would lose his hand.

The Theatre Marcellus, completed in 13 BC, now features outdoor summer concerts every day of the summer June through September. We enjoyed a concert there on Friday evening. We have tickets to go to four more concerts during the summer.



The missionaries from Rome 1 and Rome 2 meet together in downtown Rome and sing hymns as people walk by. After a bit, a couple will go out and talk to whoever has stopped and wants to talk, and then in a while, they go back to singing and others break away from the choir and visit with people. They look pretty sharp dressed in white shirts and ties, and skirts.

A busy, exciting, sad, thoughtful, beautiful, spirit-filled week!
On June 16th my oldest brother, Kenny Teeples, passed away. What a difficult piece of news to receive when you are so far away from home and so unavailable to go be with family at a tender time like this. Kenny’s wife, Audrey passed away in November of this past year. Between missing her and being in very poor health, I’m certain that Kenny was ready to go “home.” There is a saying: “to take mourning out of death, is to take love out of life.” Ken and Audrey were such good people and I will miss our visits tremendously. Ken and I were 17 years apart in age and yet, we were really quite close. I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the knowledge that we can see loved ones again. Thank goodness for a husband who understands my need to reminisce about my brother and who gives me comfort in my temporary loss.

Five new missionaries from the MTC arrived at the mission home on Wednesday. They were two weeks late getting to Rome as they were all detained for a time in Provo due to a swine flu scare at the MTC. They look like fine young men and women and we are excited to have them serve in our mission.

Our mission president has given us an additional assignment and the week has been a busy one. So, by Saturday we were looking forward to our first train ride to Anzio. It is a fishing village on the shores of the Mediterranean. On our way there, President Acerson called and invited us to travel with him and his wife to LaSpezia in the northern most corner of the mission the next day. We were delighted.

Sister and President Acerson - Sister Pearson - Will - Elder Pearson
At 4:00 a.m. we were ready to be picked up for the 4-hour drive to LaSpezia. An overcast day was perfect for driving, and we attended our 3-hour meeting block there at an active branch of the church. After the meetings, the President encouraged us to take a train to Cinque Terre, a beautiful rugged coastline area of Italy. Pearson’s, the other office couple and ourselves, enjoyed three hours of incredible beauty. The overcast burned off and the day turned out to be warm and sunny.


At the end of that time, we met back up with the President and Sister Acerson to travel to Prato for two baptisms. That part ended up being the highlight of the day as we witnessed the baptisms and listened to the testimonies of these two converts. The spirit of the Lord was so incredibly strong. (We JUST NOW felt about 10 seconds of another earthquake move our building gently back and forth!) Then toward the end of the meeting, Sister Leckie and Sister Stephensen sang the hymn, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” in Italian. During the singing, as their voices blended with amazing skill and thrilled all of us, we looked at one another and mouthed the word: WOW! The perfect ending to a beautiful Father’s Day! We are being so very blessed. What an awesome experience a mission is for a couple. We highly encourage it.





Looks like snow? Actually, it is marble in the mountain where it is being mined.