Free Museum Entrance, Free Lunch

VISITING A NEW TOWN.  Well, today we went to Pistoia.  Quite frankly, it made me count my blessings of being in Firenze and having Anziano Liu as my companion.  Pistoia reminded me of Ferrara in size and level of being interesting.  They had standard small town sites -- a duomo, a market, some parks, a castle, and some small museums.  Maybe I've just gotten picky after 5 months in Florence, with 2 companions for 2 transfers each.  I'm so lucky to be here!

We went to a museum that gave us free entry as students.  But it was disappointing -- the subjects were poorly done sculptures and sketches of horses and female nudes.  Very glad I didn't pay money for it.  At least it gets us a discount on other museums, some of which are in Florence.

PRACTICE WRITING ITALIAN. Padre mi ha chiesto di scrivere un po' in Italiano, quindi faccio quello adesso.  A un po' dificile perche l'Autocorrect non vuole ch'io scrivo in un'altra lingua, ma se vado pia lentamente, posso evitare quelle correzioni.  Ho sentito di un museo di Galileo, quindi penso di andarci la settimana prossima o quella dopo.  Oppure potremmo andare a Vinci, la citt dov nato Leonardo.  Si trova abbastanza vicino a Firenze.

(Translation for the above paragraph: Dad asked me to write a little in Italian, so I'll do that now.  It's kind of hard because the "autocorrect" doesn't want me to write in another language.  But if I go more slowly, I can avoid those corrections.  I heard about a museum of Galileo, so I think we'll go there next week or the week after.  Or we could go to Vinci, the city where Leonardo was born.  It is close enough to Florence.)

We met with Henry as usual last week, but today we're having a Family Home Evening (FHE) with another family and his family. That's when members of the family get together weekly for a spiritual thought or gospel lesson, or just having fun together building relationships together.  We're trying to get Henry better-integrated into the congregation ("ward").  Because as much as we love him, he has to be a part of the ward group, not just the missionaries'.

VARIED RESPONSIBILITIES. Yes, being a district leader is fun -- I feel connected to my district, especially since we 6 are all in Firenze.  Earlier in my mission I wanted to be a District Leader (DL) and also train somebody new.  And now, here I am doing both!  The way things flow in this particular mission, I might become a Zone Leader eventually, but I could also go to the office instead. That would be an interesting change in the type of work I'd be doing.  I'll know if I'm going to the office by next week.  Any other changes I'll know by November 7th.

FREE LUNCH. Here is a nice thing that happened to us: We had a baptism planned at exactly the same time as a stake youth activity.  We still had a good showing of support, thankfully.  It was the other Elders' baptism; the people getting baptized were Austin and Ike, who are Nigerians.  Some of the church leaders said, "Hey missionaries, we have these frozen pizzas left over.  You can take them!"  So we had pizza for a district meeting lunch on Monday.

(Side note from Mom: David asked for the music from the CD "From Cumorah's Hill" for his birthday, so I uploaded that whole CD's music to an internet site: box.com.  He can go to that site and retrieve the music.  That's the same site where he usually uploads his PHOTOS, for ME to retrieve them.)

Ah, I see you want to trade: "From Cumorah's Hill" music, for pictures! Clever :D ha.  I'll get over to the church and upload those.  It'll be next week, since I'm on a train right now.

Vi voglio bene!
Anziano Whitesell