Week 46 - Bari , Italy

Amici e Famiglia,

This week in Bari on Monday we decided to check out Ikea, a furniture store, for our P Day.  We took a bus way outside the city and then walked through deserted countryside on back roads for near an hour before finding it.  Luckily it was raining too.  When we arrived, I was surprised to see a fountain drink machine in the food court area that you could use to refill your drink for free.  After taking advantage of that, we walked through the store following the arrows to look at all the model bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens.  It was pretty neat.

from Mission Blog

Then we took a train back to the central station in Bari and went to the Iper Coop instead of Simply to get some groceries.  The prices were real nice.  After that we did a lesson with a young guy and taught the Restoration.  He listened to the message but then asked us what we thought about ISIS.  The next day we had district meeting and played some ping pong.  I am terrible at ping pong.  Anziano Toronto then went with Anz. Borough to Bitonto and Anz. Bee came with me to do an exchange.  Later we had a few lessons and English Course.  We taught a new member about temples and he seemed really excited to go do some temple work for his deceased ancestors.  We used the special temple edition of the Liahona (magazine) to show all the pictures of the different rooms of the temple.  Then we ate these amazing panzerotti that were about a foot long or more.  We ate them right before bed and mi hanno fatto male.

The next day Anz. Toronto returned and we taught a few lessons and did some finding. Thursday, we did a few lessons and English course.  I called a guy for another lesson right before we headed out to meet him and he never showed up.  I tried calling him and it went straight to messaging.  That happens quite a bit actually.  The next day we planned and then had a few lessons while doing an exchange (me with the elder's quorum president and Toronto with the bishop.)  We then showed up for the last bit of a young single adult Mexican food party.  It was amazing and hilarious to hear all the Italians complain of the spiciness of the food.  It was probably a mild on the Taco Bell scale of mild, hot, and fire so not very spicy at all.  Then we crashed at the Anziani's house in PoggioFranco (a section of Bari like Libertà).  We had more Mexican food in the morning before heading home.  Then we took a bus to Bitritto to do a lesson.
That night we did a lot of finding with some success.  On Sunday, we headed to church and I almost had to do translation but was lucky to have a recently returned missionary from England take it over.  Then we ate at a member's nonmember mother's home.  She is a retired school teacher and was very nice.  We had broccoli mussel pasta, sausage, mushrooms, potatoes, strawberry angel food cake, cheese with a marmalade, and chocolate gelato.  It was amazing.  Then we had a few more lessons that day. That's all  for now.

Anziano Blazzard