Tis the Season

English Course/Ward Party

Elders Barone, Rigby, Peterson, Waters &
 Sisters Patterson, Pancheri, Furlanich, Pace

It is hard to believe that Christmas is only 3 days away! We celebrated Christmas with the English Course and Roma Third Ward on Thursday evening. It is always fun to gather together and sing Christmas songs and read Christmas stories. The missionaries add lots of fun to the mix as well!

Christmas Carol by English course members

Sister Pace Violin, Martina Amin, Sisters Furlanich,
Pancheri & Patterson

Sara & Debora "The Value of Seminary"

Seminary

We had our last meeting with our Seminary students until after the New Year! We will miss them.

Italian White Elephant & Baby Shower

White Elephant Festa

White Elephant

Ugo Perego

Gustavo choosing gift

We found a couple of White Elephant gifts for our gift exchange for the YSA Festa. Greg taught the lesson that evening and then we ate and opened the gifts. It is always fun when people start taking gifts from each other.

Ugo Perego was there as well. The students always enjoy it when he can come!

The Conforte family with Claudia Pagnoni

Baby Shower

Julie attended a ward Baby Shower at the church for Claudia Pagnoni, the wife of the Elder’s quorum president.

1 Couns Sis Magnanti, RS Pres Sis Frulla, & Roberta (friend)

Baby Diaper Cake

2 Couns RS Valentina, YW Pres Maria Teresa, Debora and Sara

Baptism in December--White Christmas

Baptism

Sister Furlanich, Roberto, Sister Pace

We were excited to see the baptism of Roberto La Bella. Sister Pace and Sister Furlanich have been teaching Roberto for a couple of months, so we were excited that he was ready for baptism. Roberto has attended several of our Young Single Adult activities, so it was fun to see some of the YSA members show up as well as the Kimballs, the other senior couple we work with. Roberto will be a great addition to our Ward. We have had some amazing people get baptized the past few months!

Stefano Pace & Roberto La Bella

Roma 3 Missionaries with Roberto La Bella

Zone Special Training

Roma East & West Zone--Nativity 2013

We attended special training at the mission office. We alternate every six weeks by having either zone conference or special training. This training was done completely by the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders, who did a great job! At the end Sister Waddoups had the missionaries re-enact the Nativity with simple costumes—it was fun and a good reminder for the upcoming Christmas Season. 

Giving Thanks in Italy

Thanksgiving Meal

Serving Turkey to the Pilgrims and Indians

Missionaries loving the Turkey

Amazingly, we turned the page on our calendar to December today! We can’t believe another month has passed! We are enjoying the time here and also enjoyed talking to many of our family members this week for Thanksgiving. We have so many wonderful people to be grateful for. Monday, Julie prepared stuffing for the Thanksgiving dinner to be held on Tuesday evening with the English class and Missionaries. The turkey turned out great! Everyone had a great time because the missionaries helped them make pilgrim hats, and they loved the turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy.

Farewell to Sister Piccirillo

Transfers

Andrews, Elder Bennett, Amins

We met the missionaries at Termini that were being transferred. Julie made some chocolate chip cookies, and Greg wrote notes for Elder Bennett and Sister Piccirillo. Elder Bennett was transferred to Naples, and Sister Piccirillo was headed home to San Remo, Italy. Gamal and Martina Amin were there to see Elder Bennett who had baptized them. When missionaries are transferred, it is hard on the members who have grown to love them, but there are always great missionaries to replace them.

Karaoke YSA

YSA Karaoke night

Friday evening we had a fun Karaoke party. Greg taught the Institute lesson, and then we went to the multipurpose room for Karaoke! Janus, from the Philippines, had the karaoke machine, so the songs were in English, which the students loved because they listen to lots of American music. One of the fun songs was by the Backstreet Boys. We had the YSA members from Ladispoli (45 minutes from Rome), so it was a good-sized group. All in all we had a great turnout!

Service

Elder Andrew, Gamal, and Billy

We went to the open market to buy a coat and boots for Julie and gloves and scarves for both of us. We volunteered to help with collecting donations for the food bank at a local grocery store, and we were going to be outside in the cold most of the day. We have had freezing weather here several times this week, which is unusual for this time of year—usually it gets colder in January and February. We worked with some great people and made some new friendships.