The days are flying by. We have done much to get ready, but there is still much to do. I have installed a countdown application to my iPhone. As of this moment we have 21 1/2 weeks; 150 days; 3,603 hours, and 216,210 minutes until we depart. The day may change slightly as we get closer to leaving, but the scheduled departure date is June 14th.
Did I say Katie and Junae are BOTH going with us? Katie is our twenty year-old daughter, Junae is ten. Katie hopes to take some classes and learn the language. Junae will be attending Italian public school.
Christmas was great this year. We had Jessica, Jared, and Zoe with us and Jordan came up from St. George. We also had our foreign exchange students Vittorio (from Italy) and Murillo (from Brasil). A friend of mine from my mission is staying with us, too, and it was nice to have her here. The area presidency gave the missionaries permission this year to call us on Christmas Day, using Skype. What a treat that was to hear AND SEE Daniel, our missionary son serving in Italy. He is doing well. We were also able to meet the young man he recently baptized.
A few days before Christmas we went Christmas caroling with the sister missionaries. On Christmas Eve the Sisters and Spanish speaking Elders joined us for dinner. Later that night, Michael shared the story of Luke 2 and shared some extra insights about the story which he had acquired from a good brother in our ward. It made the evening very sweet.
A few days later we traveled to St. George to see Bryan, Toni, Jordan and Katie. Toni is growing so big and learning to read.
On New Year's Eve, we decided to trek up to Ikea, a home furnishings store in Salt Lake. The store has locations all over the world, including Italy, so we plan to buy much of our furniture there. We invited our good friends, the Claysons, to join us. Pauline is Italian and Justin served in the Great Italy Catania Mission. Here is a photo journal of our fun day choosing our mission furnishings at Ikea:
I'm not sure what he's measuring here...
Mike's new favorite chair... a "must have"
Table for ten! It will be so fun to share our table with friends in Italy.
Even Zoe seemed to have a good time.
Did you know you can save on square footage by stacking your sofas on the wall? What a concept! :)
Junae likes this one!!
Justin Clayson taking a rest. This was HARD WORK!
They had everything... including my new kitchen sink :)
looks like fun! will you be renting a home there or buying something? what a wonderful adventure! that is so neat that your other daughter will be going with you as well...will she stay the whole time, or just part of it? and daniel? usa or italy???
ReplyDeleteJudi, We will be renting a home. I spoke to the coordinator for mission homes for the Rome Mission yesterday and he will be helping us find a place. Junae IS going with us and will be staying the whole time. Our daughter Katie is coming as well. She is twenty. We are not sure about Daniel. He arrives home April 15 and plans to go to school, but he says he will surely come and visit before the summer is over. It will be so fun to communicate with him in the beautiful Italian language. I'm sure you can relate :)
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