San Gregorio by Tivoli

This weekend’s giro took Will and I to the little hilltop town of San Gregorio. The sun was shining on the flocks of sheep in the valley, with the town high in the background.

Of course, the town had a church,


a castle, and narrow cobblestone streets


with interesting doorways

and lots of steep steps. One man was renovating an apartment that would cost 95,000 euro. It was probably about 350 square feet: a kitchen/ living room, one bedroom, and a tiny bathroom.

By many of the houses, we saw the wood supply growing for the winter months. Here is a man delivering wood.

The olives are ripening on the trees. Fall has arrived.

In the evening, the missionaries in Rome 2 hosted a Halloween party for the Rome 2 Ward. The balloon game included stomping on another couple’s balloon when the music stopped playing.

Everyone loved it. They bobbed for apples,

and played Musical Chairs and the Wink Game. Of course, we ate at the end of the games. Some came in costumes.

Halloween seems to be a fairly new idea for the Italians. But, just like us, they love a party.

Famous Basilicas in Rome

This past Saturday we were back in church once again. There are churches in just about every Piazza, which is the same as saying there is a church on every corner in Utah. The difference is that these are Catholic churches: very elaborate and ornate and usually dedicated to one particular person.

San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John) has been named by the Catholic church “The Mother of All Churches.” The cathedral is dedicated to the Savior, and to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. This church was built in 312 AD. The Popes lived in the Lateran palace until 1377, when the Vatican palace was chosen for their residence.


Every apostle of the original apostles is represented here.
This one represents Matthew:

This one is Thomas:


The name of the basilica: Santa Maria Maggiore is basically saying that the major basilica and largest major church in Rome is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This is not totally true, as St. Peter’s is by far the largest basilica in Rome.
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There always seem to be pillars, arches, copulas, and angels.


It will be very interesting to see the final design work for the LDS Temple that has been announced in Rome. It would seem that pillars or arches would be part of the design to fit the area. Today as we drove by the temple site, some equipment was on the site and some very preliminary work was being done. No word yet as to a ground breaking.

Building Buildings

Winter has arrived in Italy! I am freezing once again. It certainly makes one count their blessings at home, with central heating, attached garage, fireplace, and jetted tub. I guess that is part of the flavor of living in another country – to find out how people there really live.

Across the lane from us a new building is rising. To get the heavy equipment onto the land, they razed the fun entry way and driveway to the property.

The palm tree was the next to go – not destroyed, just moved to a different location. Now we are watching the building process in earnest.


Will often takes pictures, and as the workers see him in his white shirt and tie with a camera, they don’t like it much. They must feel someone is checking up on them.
The funniest part of the construction so far was when they poured high footings and then filled the spaces between the footings with plastic tables.

A layer of cement was poured over the plastic.

They have used so much rebar we think they must be building an apartment complex. We had hopes of it being a single dwelling so it wouldn’t block the sunrise, but that is probably not the case.

Anyway it provides us with considerable entertainment as we wake up to the pounding in the morning, and check up on the progress after work.

Pompeii

After an extremely busy week of work for transfer week, we played with the Burt’s by driving to Napoli and on to Pompeii.
The city of Pompeii was originally built about 600 BC and was located near modern Naples. Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in AD 79. Pompeii was buried under 60 feet of ash and it was lost for nearly 1,700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748.
Interestingly: It seems to be well known fact that Pompeii was a very wicked city.

The sights we saw and the facts we enjoyed the most were:
When people were living in Pompeii, the streets had water running down them with raw sewage in the water. Large stepping stones were placed across the street so the people didn’t have to step in the water. (Here's the Burt's crossing the street on the stepping-stones.)

Original lead pipes exposed.

2-3 inch deep ruts made from chariot wheels in the stones of the streets.

30 brothels in a town of 20,000 people

Eating establishments which offered pots filled with hot soup to purchase. The holes where the pots were placed in kind of a hot table.

The remains of some of the people who were covered with molten volcanic ash. Some of the bones are still visible.



Mosaic and original painted murals and walls still visible.

Nice homes.


Egyptian Temple of Isis

Will felt bad he was one of over 2,000,000 people a year who paid an admission to see Pompeii. He did love seeing the Amalfi coastline afterwards though.


A funny aside that happened during transfer week:
During the week, President and Sister Acerson were hosting a large group of youth at the Villa. Sister Mandala was returning home after completing a successful mission and her mother was here in Rome to meet her. We were asked if they could stay at our apartment overnight and then if we would take them to the airport in the morning. Of course we said yes even though Sister Mandala speaks very little English and her mother speaks none at all. It actually turned out to be a delightful evening. I cooked dinner for all of us and then we played Rummy Cube and with poor English on their part and horrible Italian on our part, we seemed to communicate and even enjoy one another.
Two of the elders who were being transferred out of our district stopped by briefly and we dropped water over the balcony in front of them (this is almost a tradition in the Sommerfeldt apartment), with Sister Mandala and her mom watching and enjoying every minute of it.
Then the sisters who were being transferred stopped by so I could repair Sister Tramacchi’s skirt. (She had one whole side seam safety pinned shut and the hem was coming out.) When they rang the buzzer to come into our gate, Mandala’s wanted us to go throw water over the balcony at them. We brushed that off, saying we didn’t do that to the sisters. Unbeknown to us, they had a scheme hatched up to come into the apartment while Will was out on the balcony and throw water on him. It didn’t play out exactly as they planned, but Sister Skabelund did douse him with water,

so the sisters felt the evening had been a success. I guess that is what happens when you always play jokes on others. Sister Marangoni had even brought her umbrella so that they could safely walk under our balcony.

Veni - Vidi - Vici

Check out our fancy new mission T's. As you can see, on the front it says: we came, we saw, we conquered. On the back is a representation of the coliseum with the angel Moroni on top.

On General Conference weekend, we had an 8-hour delay to hear conference, since our time is 8 hours ahead of Salt Lake time. So, Saturday morning, we went downtown with Burt’s and visited the “Bone Church.” The elders have been telling us about it for some time.
The bones in this crypt were nailed to the wall and arranged in patterns: cross, floral, arch, triangle and circle, as well as forming objects. A large clock is composed of vertebrae, foot bones and finger bones. The single hour hand represents the idea that time has no beginning or end.

The bones in the six-room crypt represent over 4,000 individual monks. It is said monks fled the French Revolution (1793-94) and took refuge at the Church in Roma.

A plaque in one of the chapels reads, in three languages,
"What you are now, we once were;
what we are now, you shall be."

Just before this transfer week, we had the several of the elders over for a birthday dinner. Two of the elders are going home during this transfer. They invited Jonathan over and he showed up with fixings for Italian food and Filipino food.

I think our roast, mashed potatoes and gravy were upstaged by the delicious pasta and rice dishes Jonathan prepared. We did have the final delicacy though - banana cream pie. As we move into Transfer Week, a very busy time in the mission, we realize once again that we give up our favorites and welcome new faces into our district to feed, mentor, and love for a space of time.

On Monday night we met some Cardston people at their hotel as they were visiting Rome. It was fun to give hugs and see familiar, much-loved faces again.

We just want to say how much we enjoyed General Conference once again. It seemed to us the over-riding message of conference was love. Love of the Lord, love of family, love of one another. We pray that we can live those important messages in all that we do and say.