20 Weeks RTW: Sunday, Apr. 16 (week 12 / day 84) Sanremo, Italy & Monaco

Sanremo Branch, Buona Pascua!

We rallied to get to Sanremo by 9:00 when the meetings were supposed to start at the small branch there. After a 40 minute drive from Dolceacqua, we circled the pinpoint on Google Maps, somewhere near the pier, trying to find parking. Still not knowing where the church building was, Stacia got out with Avery, Kyra & Cannon while I kept looking with Sydney & Carley for somewhere to park the beast. We finally found an underground parking garage & headed down toward the pier.

As we got close to the pier, Stacia texted me that they found it & a minute later Avery yelled at us from across the street. The building was an old ship-repair workshop now with some business "Conrad City" sign that overshadowed the small church plaque. It was 9:05 but only the young missionaries ("anzianos" = elders") & a couple members were setting up. It turns out they just recently changed their time to 9:30 so less members would be late as many lived far from San Remo. This gave us time to visit with the cheerful & energetic Anziano Dohms from Florida.

The sister missionaries came in, one from Colorado & the other from BC, Canada although she had lived in Raymond, Alberta for 2 years working & preparing for her mission. The meeting started & Anziono Dohms translated via headsets for us. His commentary was quite entertaining as sometimes he would summarize "...ah, she's talking about Jesus..." or simply admit he had no idea what he was saying, "...just look at the Branch President's face..." who looked like he didn't understand either!

When lost interpreting he also filled us in on a little Italian history of the multiple dialects & told us about an interesting concept about the commandments that he & his companion had been studying. The last speaker was talking something about possibly the blessing of getting a new basement & storing her milk there?? The cute elder finally said he obviously missed a key word in that story somewhere. All in all we missed a little of the actual talk content but it was so great to hear even some of it & understand something from church!!!

The Branch President, Steve, sat next to me in the priesthood class & helped with translation of main concepts which was nice. Many Italian words are similar to Spanish, but enough are different that it's hard to get anything out of it. Steve served a mission in Rome & looks like he's in his early 30's. His wife is from the Dominican Republic & just had a baby a few weeks ago. They're both in the picture below sitting across from Stacia at the table.

As we sat down to eat, there were 2 men & a woman who were not members & who Anziano Dohms said were Russians & just walked in from the street for lunch! The Russian lady (dead center of the picture below, between Cannon & Kyra) acted like she was a regular at the party, the 1st one to run over & check to see how the picture turned out. The 2 Russian men are standing behind Paul. As Anziano Dohms took the picture & said, "formaggio," an old Italian man suddenly popped out & said "cheese" in perfect English!

members & missionaries of the Sanremo Branch

Sydney & the sister missionary from Colorado

the kids with Anziano (Elder) Dohms from Florida

our Easter feast after church in Sanremo

the kids sat with the sister missionaries

pasta with olive oil & pesto, hot dog rice, sausage & chicken, yum!

a close up with the Russian walk-ins

more pics tomorrow, or the next day...

Monaco Gardens

Monaco is about 20 minutes from the France/Italy border...

The city-state of Monaco

Easter Evening

When we got home from Monaco, Stacia noticed a Lindt chocolate bar (one of her favorites) on her bed & alerted the kids that the Easter Bunny must have come by. As tradition goes in our house, the kids began their search for their hidden Easter baskets which, this year, cleverly consisted of disposable aluminum bread pans!