With the Paris Temple closing for 5 weeks for some minor interior work, we had an open week which we spent mostly getting ready to go to help with the Rome Temple open house. Janet bought me an early birthday present to keep me from getting my head sunburned, and to help me look more French and debonair! Here I am with my Christmas coat and birthday hat. I suppose I look more French, but I don't think I look debonair!After shopping for my birthday hat, we went for a walk in Le Chesnay to explore parts of the town we hadn't seen before. We came across a little church which had some wonderful stained glass and a Creche.
My last project in our apartment before leaving for Rome was installing the bidet on our toilet. I had to order some brass barbed tubing connectors to join the two different hoses. One hose came with the bidet, but had US threads. I bought another hose with French metric threads, then cut and spliced both hoses together with hose clamps to be able to connect to the French water fitting. Ta-dah! Or, as they say in France, "Voila"
During this open week, we were finally able to take a nice long walk in the Versailles gardens which are just down the street from us. This fountain wasn't operating at the time, but was beautiful nonetheless. After our walk, we joined the other missionary couples to celebrate Elder Kirkham's birthday. You can see the wonderful display of food we were served.
On Thursday, January 10th, we flew to Rome. As we came around the final street, I took two pictures of the temple from the moving van. They came out very nice.
We took some pictures at dusk which we thought also showed the beauty of the temple. I took the picture of the Christus in the visitor center by turning around 180 degrees from the picture of the temple. Notice that the Christus is surrounded by statues of the 12 apostles. We noticed that Judas Iscariot had been replaced by Paul.
The first week of the temple open house was for specially invited guests: mostly local dignitaries from the government, along with people involved in construction, architecture, art, local media, and representatives of other religions. We also had guests from the church in Denmark where the original Christus statue is located, who wanted to see how this copy was displayed. We heard they were very impressed. Janet mostly served by helping guests put on shoe coverings before taking the tour through the temple. The first picture shows three local people she served with: Brother and Sister Parisi, and Stella Amadio. Wayne mostly helped welcome incoming car traffic, but he also got to play the organ in the temple while visitors were going through the temple. The second picture shows Wayne working hard in the parking area (ha ha).
Since we are staying at an Airbnb about 2 miles south of the temple, we bought a month bus pass and walk and ride the bus each day to go to the temple. We have found the area to be very pedestrian unfriendly. The temple is right across a highway from a major shopping mall called "Porta di Roma", and the only way to get to the temple from the most frequent bus stop is to go through the mall. After going through the mall, we still have to walk another 8 minutes to the temple. Sometimes we are lucky, and are able to catch the bus that goes directly to the temple, but not often. The first picture shows Wayne walking around the mall with the temple in the background, and the second picture shows Wayne eating some wonderful BBQ ribs in the mall at the "Old Wild West" restaurant. During this first week, we've eaten out quite a bit, but have now started cooking our own meals more. We discovered an underground supermarket just around the corner from where we live. By buying just a few groceries at a time, we manage to carry things home in bags, just like the local people.
We were able to spend an afternoon in downtown Rome this past week, and after visiting the Colosseum, we ate at a very nice restaurant not far from the train station called Termini. The last picture is of a church we walked past on the way to the Colosseum.
Today is Sunday, January 20th, and we had a most memorable Sacrament Meeting this morning. We got there early, and after setting up chairs, Wayne was asked to play the piano prelude and accompany the hymns. About 5 minutes before the meeting was to start, in walked Elder Stevenson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles with his wife, two sons, and their families. Needless to say, I played the rest of the prelude in absolute quiet. During his remarks, he mentioned how reverent everyone was listening to the nice, soft prelude music. He must surely have known he was the reason for the reverence, not my prelude. He talked about his Italy connections. He has Italian ancestors, and an Italian daughter-in-law. He also talked about adversity in our lives, and quoted Lehi's counsel to his son, Jacob: "...thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain." (2 Nephi 2:2). We, of course, thought of the difficulties we experienced when we weren't able to serve our last mission, and in preparing to serve this mission. As Janet listened to Elder Stevenson's words, she felt, as he said, that the greatest thing we do in this life is to prepare to return to live with our Heavenly Father. This is possible only because of the atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We were thrilled to hear Elder Stevenson's solemn witness of the living Christ. Janet had met Elder Stevenson at the door of the temple yesterday, and as she shook his hand again today, he remembered her, and said, "We meet again, Sister Sumner". Janet felt impressed to remember that the Lord knows each of us by name.
