Treasure Hunt

Today was the day of the treasure hunt which the kids earned with five smiley faces.  It was a nice change for once, no more struggling in the morning with screaming kids.  Although every once in a while they lapse back into screaming because everyone has those days.  I hand painted a treasure map for which I'm super proud of my artistic skills.  Then I painted three clues and hid them around the house matching the map.  I ran into town for an hour this afternoon to buy some candy for the treasure.  The kids had so much fun finding the treasure, that they took turns hiding it and finding it again. Needless to say that the hunt was a big success! Then we played a board game with Carlos. Carlos is an exceptional dad, he's very involved with the children and very funny. 
My back has been killing me today, I don't know why.  Hopefully the package that my mom sent will come soon, it will be nice to get the pictures of the family to hang on my walls.  I'm collecting train tickets, and odds and ends from the activities that I do with the children to make a scrap book of memories. 

Verona City of love

I had this weekend off, the family left to go skiing Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon.  I spent Friday morning helping Ilaria get ready and took care of Bea.  Friday was a good day with her.  After several movies I decided to go to the young single activity they were having at the church.  I called the lady that lives close to me to see if she was riding the bus to the activity.  She's absolutely crazy.  After hanging up the phone with her I was more confused then ever and my attempts to ask her to go together were ultimately denied.  I waited till six thirty.  Really nervous about walking in the dark through the city but decided to leave anyways.  I made the bus and guess who got on further down?  Yeah the crazy ward member.  She wanted me to go sit by her on the bus when she came on.  So I obliged and sat next to her.  She talked up a storm about this, that or the other but in the end nothing really that made sense.  I felt like I was in some twilight zone where nothing made sense.  Worst of all though she talked her way through, and wouldn't stop talking so I missed my bus stop because she went on and on about going together.  In the end though she started mentioning that she had to check prices of resturants even though we were getting pizza.  I just nodded my head.  Told her I would get off at the train station and I let her get off.  Because I missed my stop I now had to walk a long way to get to the church and through some dark alleyways.  Great.  I set off at a fast clip of a walk making sure I stared at people in the eyes directly, and walked very forceful.   I made it to the church and had a wonderful time at the activity.  Unfortunately there isn't very many young adults, and even fewer guys.  One guy named Peter, I couldn't look in the eyes because he looked like a complete perv.  and I was embarrassed to look at him straight on even more embarrassed to talk to him.  The other guy mentioned he had a hard time staying away from temptations whatever that means... An absolute no on any account.  I'm glad that I went though because I became friends with Leticia who is from Portugal going to the University here. 
Now my other part of the story.  Leticia and I went to Verona on Saturday.  Oh the city of William Shakespear's "Romeo and Juliet".  The city was beautiful!  Leticia was the baptism I saw two weeks ago or something.  She's African, and about maybe five foot.  So super short, really funny, and especially likes to travel and explore.  I feel like we have become friends.  We met at the train Station Saturday morning and rode on the train packed with people for an hour until we came to Verona.  When we got off at the city center we were astounded at how beautiful it was.  They had there a memorial to the Italians that were imported during World War II under Mussolini.  It was set in an actual cattle car that they transported to the people into concentration camps.  The feeling inside the train car was indescribable.  I could literally feel the fear of the Jews that had been in there.  I felt sick inside.  It was said about the Jews that were deported from Italy that 44,000 Jews, gypsies, prostitutes, mentally disabled, and those that disagreed with Hitler.  Out of all those people only 3,000 ever made it back.  We then went to the arena there.  The arena was where they had gladiator fights, or olympics, or huge presentations to lots of people.  Anyways after that we walked in to this street lined with lots of people.  Verona has some incredible shopping.  You would not believe how expensive everything is over here though.  First shop we saw was Louis Vuitton.  Gucci, Dolce and Gabana, so many crazy expensive stores.  Leticia and I had to go inside and just look at all the expensive clothing.  We stopped by Juliet's house.  If you've ever seen Letters To Juliet the movie, it's nothing like the real thing.  The movie made up all this stuff to make it more romantic.  Thousands of people have written all over the stone walls everywhere.  After the archway they have these phones on the wall with different language abilities, you pay to call "Juliet" to ask a love question.  Then your in the court yard under Juliet's balcony there is a statue of Juliet.  Your suppose to touch the statue of Juliet's breast to gain good luck in love.  I have a picture of that as well.  We then walked to a cafe and had delicious pasta.  Oh by the way, if your a fan of hot chocolate you haven't tried Italian hot chocolate.  American hot chocolate is a joke really.  Here it's literally melted chocolate thick and rich similar to hot pudding or take a candy bar melt it and drink just like that.  It's absolutely delicious.  I love it.  After lunch we walked around saw some more stores which I found cute tights at.  Then headed toward the castle in Verona.  We saw the castle which was pretty cool, and then walked over to the bridge that's attached to the castle over the huge river.  I have a picture of that which as really pretty.  We headed back and I found finally a jacket with fur that was really cheap, but really good quality that's warm.  Leticia found an adorable skirt which she wore today at church.  We headed back to the train station.  I didn't know that you had to pay in public places to use the restroom.  I need to go to the bathroom so bad, so I gave in and paid 80 euros to use the nasty public bathroom.  I fell asleep on the train ride back. Leticia and I caught a bus and headed home.  I had such a fun time with Leticia, we've decided once a month to travel somewhere new.  In March we are hopefully going with the branch to Switzerland to the temple there. 

 These are the locks that people write there name and their lover then lock on the gates all around Juliet's courtyard.

Last night though I watched Brothers Grimm which isn't a scary movies except that I was home alone so it freaked me out.  I locked myself into my room and was terrified that I could hear someone walking around inside the house.  haha

Exploration

I forgot to mention that yesterday on Wednesday the 25th of January.  I went with the missionaries to the pantheon and then the city on the cliff.  It was very beautiful.  I will try to post some pictures later.  We hiked up lots of stairs.  Which side note by the way Italians are famous for three things.  1. Scary fast driving on narrow one way streets.  2. Beautiful cities.  3. stairs, stairs, and more stairs.  To say that we hiked was a lie.  How can you hike in a city/mountain that has been there for hundreds of years?  Take the well paved path of stairs to the top.  Not so well paved because it's cobble stones fashioned together for a bumpy walk up.  But altogether beautiful scenery once you've stepped the ten stories worth of stairs.  Century old decrepit buildings half there was our scenery on the way up.  Then low and behold the pantheon looming in it's glory of a less old building.  We walked inside it all the way around snapping pictures.  Then we found stairs cut off by a red rope teasing us with a view of the columns on top.  We stepped over the rope and up more stairs till we were on the top of the monument looking off.  Breathtakingly beautiful.  I forgot to mention that this whole time Elder Gummel was filling me in on his potential love waiting for him back in Washington.  To say that I'm not a romantic is false.  I'm a true romantic which made the story wonderful, but disappointing because I kind of liked Elder Gummel in the maybe wait after your mission see where the Lord puts us sort of way.  I told him my tragic story of almost alter, then it was Elder Rockwoods turn to tell his tale.  While he started in on his story we walked more until we found the museum.   Pausing his story we explored the war museum then left back down the mountain.  Rockwood told a tale that seemed extremely fanciful, but who am I to judge right?  Turns out it was a false story with only the beginning of it true.  We unanimously decided to take the funvale (cable thing that is suspended on a wire that only holds like five people.) and go up to the city on the cliff.  Once at the top we talked, and laughed but mainly took photos of the view.  All of Trento was spread out before us.  We headed back down on the funvale with still an hour remaining until Elder Rockwood was being transferred so we went into a pizzeria had some cheap pizzas Italian style.  Walked around a little more and sat down on a bench so I could sign Elder Rockwoods book.  I signed it also putting in two attributes his future wife should have.  (Curves, and love of explorations).  My favorite quote came from Elder Gummel as we were sitting writing notes to each other he said, "Do you realize that we are sitting on a bench looking at a corner when behind us is a big beautiful Italian Church building (cathedral)..." I guess you would have to be there, but it was hilarious.  All three of us crowded on this bench facing away from the normal view with our backs to everyone staring at a corner.  Behind us was Trento's famous Duomo Cathedral.