Rome to Bari

We made it to Rome!

       We are finally in Italy! After years of dreaming of serving a mission, 9 months waiting after our call arrived, 2 weeks in the MTC and almost 18 hours of travel time we are finally here! We had a wonderful (and exhausting day) on Wednesday. We met Presidente and Sorella Morris at the mission home (The Villa). The three arriving couples were met at the airport by Anziani Bates and Stolt as well as Sorella Stolt. They took us to drop of our luggage and then straight to the Villa. We had a delicious lunch with the Browns, Denisons and Morris'. After that we ran off to get our Permesso (residency permission?) and then Italian cellphones. They intentionally kept us awake all day to help us get adjusted to local time more quickly. It was a very long day and we were exhausted.  The Weeds hosted us in their home overnight and we enjoyed getting to know another mission couple. 

         On Thursday we were able to do a temple session in the Rome Temple! We have visited the temple under construction twice and were so excited to finally be able to do a session in the beautiful temple. What a blessing to the Italian saints as well as to visitors from all over the world. The temple itself is stunning and perfectly reflects the heritage of this area. Luke was brave and did all his ordinance work in the temple in Italian. After the temple we toured the Visitor Center which is also amazing. After that it was off to Bari.

        The drive to Bari was itself quite the adventure. It is about a four and a half hour drive from Rome to Bari. Much of the drive is on the autostrada (highway) but there were sections that were two lane roads. One of the features of the mission car (Toyota Yarus) is that there is a recording that warns you when you are exceeding the speed limit. Every time the speed limit changed the new speed was updated on the dashboard of the car (no excuses for speeding here). Anyway, the mission has some sort of software program that warns when you are going too fast. Our observation about drivers here is that the speed limits are merely a suggestion. There was one section of the road that the speed limit was 60 Km, cars were zipping past us whenever they could. Finally a big truck came up behind us and he couldn't pass us because of traffic coming at us in the other direction. Anziano Ellsworth is going 70 in a 60 zone and the truck starts blasting his horn. When he speeds up a little the car starts reminding him "check your speed", finally he looks at me and says, what a choice, get yelled at by the car or squashed by the truck! Through it all Luke was unflappable. I on the other hand, have a few new gray hairs! After all the excitement of the drive we arrived safe and sound to Bari and moved into our cute little apartment. 

     We are thrilled to be here and are very excited to get to work! We have our first GANS (Giovane Adulti Non Sposati/ YSA) activity on Saturday. We can't wait to meet the missionaries and our GANS. We hope to be of some service in this part of the Lord's vineyard. More than anything we are looking forward to getting to work!