District Council and Luncheon

We enjoy having our entire district in person for district council.  The two elders who serve in Foggia take an hour and a half train ride to join us.  The numbers in these photos represent the number of 6 week transfer periods we each have served.  

Having 10 for lunch is a pretty serious undertaking for Sister Cannariato, but she does such a great job with the meal.  The missionaries rave about her cooking.  This week she served tossed salad, white chicken chili and lemon bars for dessert.  

Spring is here, finally!

We are hoping the warmer weather will bring people out for activities.  Friday's sports night featured basketball, volleyball, soccer, ping pong, and wait for it...hula hoops!  

For Saturday's p-day activity, we drove out to BariBlu, a beautiful enclosed shopping mall about 15 minutes outside of Bari near Triggiano.  We enjoyed browsing the shops in this architecturally beautiful shopping center.  Dawn found some new pants and a top for spring. We had a great lunch at a restaurant inside the mall. 

Sunday we attended Poggiofranco ward where one of our favorite young adults, Ludovica gave her mission farewell talk.  She flies to the Preston, England MTC on Tuesday, and will be serving in the Italy Milan mission for 18 months.  In bocca al lupo, Ludo!  

Zone Conference - Always a Hit!

 We love zone conference.  President and Sister Smith and the assistants and zone leaders do a great job inspiring and teaching us.  This time, Dawn played and the Bari missionaries sang There is Peace in Christ, in Italian.  

Afterwards, it was Santa Rita focaccia, orange slices, drinks and of course, gelato for dessert.  

Later that evening, we enjoyed going to dinner with the Smiths at Braceria Signorile. Only one street over from our apartment, you walk into the butcher shop first, select your cut of meat, and then proceed next door to the restaurant to sit down and enjoy your meal.  One of the best we've had in Bari.  

Friday Night Activities Return

Before the holidays, we had a great pattern of weekly young adult activities.  We've had a bit of a struggle getting back to the regular part of the pattern.  So here we are, with a fun Friday evening young adult activity at the church.  A good time had by all!  

Stake Conference with our Young Adults

For stake conference, the YSAs were invited to the afternoon session Saturday.  A number came from out of town.  It was gratifying to see so many of them.  Anziano e Sorella Petrollini spoke to the youth and YSAs about service missions.  Afterwards, the YSAs went out for a "passeggiata" an evening stroll about downtown.  

This is the Petrollini family.  Elder and Sister Petrollini and their 4 children.  What a beautiful Italian family. 

Here are some of our GANs from Taranto and Lecce.

We hosted two of our great out of town YSAs, Tim & Deborah from Lecce.  Then after Sunday's session, we had two more YSAs, Lele and Nicola join us for lunch.  

Miracles All Around

A few months ago, the Sisters were contacting people who hadn't been taught for a long time.  The evening they reached out, they got a message back that a less active sister's daughter needed a blessing.  They called us and the four of us went to an ER and met Eliana and her mom.  Eliana is from the US and while visiting her mom here, she fell and broke her ankle.  The sisters were inspired and they were grateful for the blessing.  Fast forward a couple of months and we've taken the sisters out to visit and now both mom and daughter want to come to church.  

This plant is a gift from our friend Nicola.  We were fellowshipping him last fall and he brought us this plant when we had him over for lunch.  Subsequently, he was diagnosed with cancer and then got covid during his chemo.  We stay in touch and I sent him this photo, letting him know that this plant is still growing.  He seemed touched to know this. 

Happy Anniversary...to us!

We celebrated our anniversary on March 10.  Lovely flowers for my lovely bride of 27 years.  

So, to commemorate the event, we opted for the opera, Verdi's Aida actually.  It was spectacular!  Teatro Petruzzelli is just gorgeous and the sets, costumes and music were amazing.  

 

Young Adult FHE in person and on Zoom

Since the first of the year, we have been doubling down on our weekly young adult family home evening.  We've always met at our apartment, but now we also broadcast the meeting via zoom for other YSAs in the stake.  We taught the same Come Follow Me lesson that we'd shared earlier in the day with the youth in the Taranto 2nd ward.  Seemed to work okay with the YSAs too.  

Fast Sunday in Taranto

We try to visit units in the Puglia stake outside Bari once a month.  This month, we attended the Taranto 2nd ward.  We both shared our testimonies in testimony meeting. Earlier in the week, Bishop DeGiorgio invited us to teach the youth/young adult Sunday School class.  So we had fun with these great youth and the missionaries teaching about the covenant Jacob made and his four wives and 13 children.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the lesson.  

Fratello e Sorella Curci, temple workers at the Rome temple, invited us to their home for lunch after church.  They share a similar story to Dawn's and mine.  They were both married before and their first spouses passed away.  We first met them in the Rome Temple back in November for the senior couples' retreat.  What a kind thing to invite us to lunch with them and another member, Rosa.    

Taco Tuesday and Transfers

We knew transfers would impact our Bari district so we had a special Taco Tuesday meal after district council.  The Tacos were a big hit.  

And these numbers in our district council photo represent the number of 6-week transfer periods we've marked since beginning our missions.  

We will greatly miss Anziano Lott who is off to Rome.

We also send home 3 sisters from our zone.  

We love our missionaries!

SNOW in Bari?

This scene greeted us the morning of March 1.  SNOW in Bari!  It wasn't a lot and it didn't last long, but definitely we received some snow.  I would have never thought this possible.  This darn global warming!

Happy Birthday Ludo!

We love our young adults.  This one, Ludovica, shares a birthday with our daughter Alexis. Ludovica will serve in the Italy Milan mission starting in April.  We will miss her at our YSA activities but how happy we are for her decision to serve a full time mission.  She is a third generation member of the church.