Halfway Through! (Plus Italian Language breakthroughs!)

This picture shows my horror of our one and only (we hope) snow day this winter in Genova, however my face also reflects the horror I've sometimes felt at trying to learn Italian. However, we are now at the halfway point of this mission and I can honestly say I'm making some breakthroughs at last. Several months ago I switched from using Duolingo to Babbel which has done a much better job at explaining the often complicated Italian grammar.

And speaking of grammar, I'm reminded of something I heard many years ago: that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Ha! I now chalk that statement up to an urban legend that proliferated in the days before social media. English grammar is actually quite simple and the lack of declaring an object male or female in English also makes it easier. I'm not saying Italian is the most difficult language to learn (Mandarin Chinese is probably more difficult), but for someone as untalented at languages as I am, it has been a struggle. But this week I feel I'm finally breaking through. Today, for instance, I went by myself down to the seaside level shops because Hermes has a cold and wasn't up to the walk. I happened to encounter someone from church at the fruit stand and we had a conversation in Italian and we understood each other! Okay, it wasn't a complicated conversation but I felt like it was an accomplishment. My goal before the end of the mission is to understand what they're saying at church meetings. Usually people speak at a pace that my brain can't keep up with.

Besides Babbel, I have been using YouTube to slow down the pace of speech of Italian on church conference talk videos and other things. YouTube is handy that way in that you can slow it down to as much as 25% of the regular speed. I usually find slowing it down to 75% of the regular speed works reasonably well for me. I'm hoping this will also improve my listening comprehension. And while I've always resisted conversing in Italian with Hermes and others because of lack of self-confidence, this week Hermes and I have started doing just that. So maybe, just maybe I may come home, not necessarily fluent, but able to manage in Italian. We will see.

Our work lately has focused a lot on contacting people who have not been to church for a long time to see if they want contact with us or help them in any way we can. We have had some rewarding experiences with that. We visit a lot of towns around the city of Savona which is southwest of Genova and meet good people everywhere. It's always nice when we can lift the spirits of others; you really don't have to go far to find people with difficult lives and sad stories to tell. When the Savior said ",,,how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not..." (3 Ne 10: 5) I understand that statement and that feeling at a much deeper level than I used to. 

Here's some pictures from some of our recent trips visiting different people:

I like to call this photo "Nobody here but us chickens" because we came out of a rural apartment building after a visit and there were these chickens just wandering around. That's Anziano McInstry, one of the ZLs in that picture.

This cat belongs to one of the members in Millessimo, a neat little town north of Savona in the mountains. Hermes often claims he doesn't like cats that much but I know better.

Then we were in a town south east of Genova called Rapallo and were surprised to see the wreckages of boats along the shore-line, a remnant of a terrible storm last October. Yachts worth millions had big holes in the hull. Fishing boats were just in pieces. Very sad.

But Rapallo also had some nice things to see like this:

So in other news: Hermes is now a full-fledged Italian again, passport and all! He became a Canadian at a time when Italy and Canada didn't have a dual-citizenship agreement which they have now. He started the process at the Italian consulate in Canada before we came on this mission and then after some months got his Italian identity card and now his EU passport. It was rather anti-climatic when he got his Identity Card. He thought they might have him swear allegiance to the Republic or something but they just handed him the card and that was it. No fanfare, no ceremony. 

So the young missionaries are always a joy to be around. Two of our missionaries (both with the surname of Christensen, ironically) went home a few weeks ago. We usually do a transfer week lunch for them and we did this time too but couldn't attend ourselves because we were assisting someone getting to and from the hospital for an appointment. So they took this picture which they shared on What's App and I stole the photo to remember them by:

The numbers mean the number of transfers they are at. 16 is the last one before they go home so you can see that the two Christensens who did go home are on the left of the picture. You know those number cards that are put up at the front of the chapel before church to say which hymns we're singing? That's the number cards they're using. Cute idea.

Okay, last picture. A sunset picture taken at a town called Finale Ligure. It seems appropriate for this blog to have it's big finale from Finale Ligure so here it is. Ta da!