MTC

Our friends who visited us at the villa few weeks ago visited our missionaries in the MTC. We can't wait to meet them!

Two Zones

We finished our zone conferences this week with trips to Taranto and Bari. The drive to and from these cities is beautiful, with little villages on the tops of remote hills. But the most beautiful part of the trip is seeing our wonderful missionaries in each city. We had stake conference for the Puglia Stake in Bari on Saturday and Sunday. We had a few earthquakes in the middle of these events, and we are grateful for the safety of our missionaries. We continue to pray for the safety of all in Italy.

Taranto Zone

Bari Zone

Blessings

This was a week of blessings! As I mentioned in the last post, we had some wonderful visitors from Salt Lake. Our missionaries will always treasure their visit.

Because of our visitors, we had many missionaries in the Villa this week. I have to add a few photos.

After the excitement in Rome, we got in our car and drove to Cosenza, Italy for the last district conference to be held in Italy. The branches in the district were made part of the Palermo Stake and the Puglia Stake. Here we have our area seventy, the stake presidents, district president, President, and some of the stake counselors.

We left Cosenza and drove to Napoli for zone conference. I wish you could all see the beautiful countryside of Italy. There are many little villages on the tops of mountains. I took this picture, but felt inadequate to capture the beauty of these hills.

Finally, we had zone conference with the great missionaries of the Napoli Zone. I think they are truly blessed to serve in this wonderful area where I served so long ago. They are outstanding missionaries!

Visitors

Today, our mission was blessed to be visited by 4 general authorities: the president of the quorum of the twelve, a president of the seventy, the presiding bishop (who was in Rome but not at our missionary meeting), our area president and their wives. All of our missionaries came to Rome. As our missionaries arrived, I took as many pictures as I could, but then left picture taking behind to enjoy the spirit of this wonderful meeting. We are grateful for those who came, both the speakers and our missionaries. I am sure the missionaries will send many photos home to family of this great event, and so I only include the few photos I took of our enthusiastic missionaries arriving.

Zone Conf.

On Sunday evening, October 9, we had a visit from a wonderful couple from Provo before Brother H did a fireside here in Rome. We were so happy to spend some time with them and to take a photo on the famous villa stairs!

One of the tender mercies of our mission has been meeting people from our first missions. On Sunday evening, we enjoyed meeting with this sweet sister President baptized so long ago in the font behind us. We love her and her family!

On Monday, we started zone conferences for this transfer. We started out in Palermo and loved every minute with our missionaries there. At the end, as we headed for Elder G's car we found it was blocked on all sides. But with only honking the horn, 3 men miraculously appeared and moved all the cars. You have to love Italy! Here are some of our great missionaries.

 From Palermo, we chose to take the train to Catania. I love looking at the sea!

We are blessed with so many wonderful missionaries on the island of Sicily! We were sorry to have to leave quickly after zone conference.

We flew to Cagliari on the beautiful island of Sardegna. We love these missionaries!

 After zone conference was over, a great friend brought us and the elders some Sardegnian flan! We had a wonderful visit!

We returned to Rome for Zone Conferences on Monday and met with all of these wonderful missionaries in one day!

We took a quick photo of those who are serving in Malta or who have served in Malta who were at the Rome East Zone Conference. These are great young men!