Expensive...But Worth It

Last night I got my best Christmas present - I got to talk to Jeffrey on his mission in Mexico. It was wonderful to talk to him, but also extremely expensive. For various reasons, we haven’t been able to get a landline here in Italy. We only have cell phones. We have a Magic Jack, which is a phone system we use with our computer which lets us call the United States for free. I know there’s a way to make international calls with the Magic Jack, but whenever I clicked on their link to set it up, it said their server was down. Whether their server was really down, or whether our internet was too slow and crappy to handle their server is unknown. Skype was out of the question because Jeffrey didn’t have access to a computer yesterday. So we decided to use our cell phones. We knew it would be expensive, but it was our only option.

Cell phones in Italy are different. You don’t sign up for a plan. You put a certain amount of money on your phone and replenish it as needed. We all had money on our phones, but we decided to add more. Robert put an additional 50 euros on his phone (so he probably had over 75 euros on it) and 25 euros on my phone (so I probably had 50 euros).

Christmas night we called Jeffrey. We tried to put the cell phone on speaker, but we could barely hear him, so we gave up on that idea. I talked to him for a little while, then passed the phone to Brian, who passed the phone to Scott when he was done. About 20 minutes into the phone call, Scott said there was a beep and then the phone went dead. We then got a message saying we had less than 1 euro left on the phone! We went through over 75 euros in 20 minutes! We next called him on my phone. Scott finished up his call, and handed the phone to Kimberly. She talked to him a while then gave the phone to Robert. After about 15 minutes, my phone went dead too. It was out of money. We couldn’t even get Scott’s phone to work - he may have been too low on money. Robert quickly raced over to the bank and put 50 more euros on his phone (you do that at the ATM). I called and talked to him another 15 minutes and then the phone went dead. Our Christmas conversation with Jeffrey was over.

We did get to talk to him for about 50 minutes, but we spent at least 175 euros to do it! With the exchange rate, that’s almost $230.00!

But you know what? It was worth it. Every cent of it. It was money well spent to talk to Jeffrey and hear that he is doing well and loving his mission.

My Christmas was complete.

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh

As I've mentioned before, Relief Society is in Italian in our ward. Occasionally we have a sister who will translate for us, but yesterday was not one of those days. So we, two of the American sisters, were excited when the teacher started playing a video of one of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talks, delivered in his very American voice.

And then the teacher, who had apparently printed out a copy of the talk in Italian, started reading the talk in Italian. Reading right along with Elder Holland. Reading louder than Elder Holland. Making it very hard for us to hear Elder Holland giving his talk in the original English.

All we could do was look at each other and just laugh. That's church in Italy for you.

A Serious Question

Scott has a week off school in February. Someone told me it's so people can go skiing. That's not what we're doing, though. Back in early September I found tickets to Houston for a really good price, so he and I are going home for a week.

I would really like to stay longer - maybe three weeks total. Having been home a few weeks ago, I know a week is not going to be long enough to do anything. Scott can't stay longer, since he needs to be in school.

Here's my question. Should I send Scott home by himself and stay in Houston longer? Sending him home alone means he would fly from Houston to Frankfurt, Germany alone. There he would spend four hours negotiating his way through the large Frankfurt airport, going through Security again, getting his passport stamped, and waiting for his connecting flight to Milan. Milan would be easy because it's a small airport and is easily negotiable.

Scott has flown from Frankfurt to Houston alone and gone through Customs there. But he's never negotiated the Frankfurt airport alone. He's fine with it. He's confident he can maneuver his way through the airport just fine. Robert also thinks he will be fine.

Part of me says, he's 17, he's a smart kid, he'll be fine with this. But the mom part of me says, he may be 17, but he's my baby. I can't send him around the world alone.

That's my dilemma. Please tell me what you think.

Cross Stitching

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had picked up some cross stitch patterns to work on here in Italy. I thought I would post a picture of one of my completed projects. This is actually the second project I completed, the first being a very cute Thanksgiving bird. Sadly, he's back home in Richmond, so I can't post a picture of him.

But here's my second project, Merry Christmas:

I think it turned out pretty cute. The garland on the tree and in the corner are thicker, so they stand out from the picture. I didn't do a great job with the framing. I will redo it before I put it out next year. But I wanted to get it out as soon as possible since our apartment here in Milan is lacking in Christmas decorations.

I will probably post pictures of all my completed projects, although the rest of the ones I complete here in Milan will not be framed.

Scott

I'm so impressed with Scott's willingness to try things while we are here in Milan.

On Sunday, he blessed the Sacrament in Italian. He worked very hard with the Young Men President to learn how to pronounce all of the words correctly. He has really wanted to participate in blessing the Sacrament, and he persevered until he could.

Today he left to go on a three day stake youth temple trip to the Bern Switzerland Temple. He may very well be the only English speaker on the trip. The two girls from our ward who speak English are out of town (these three days are a holiday). There is another English speaking family who lives in our stake, but we're not sure if they were going. We told him he didn't have to go, but he wanted to. He really wants to be involved, even if it's difficult.

And yesterday I found out that while I was gone, he bore his testimony in Fast and Testimony Meeting - in Italian! Basic Italian, but I'm so impressed that he wanted to share his testimony and had the courage to do so.

He is much more willing to try new experiences than I would have been at his age. I'm proud of him.

Heat

We live in an older apartment in San Donato (outside of Milan). It has radiators. I've never lived in a place with radiators before.

But the radiators aren't the problem. The problem is that in older apartments, the temperature of the whole building is determined by the apartment complex. We don't have a thermostat in our apartment. The heat is turned on on October 15th, and since we didn't need it then, we turned off the radiators. When we did need heat (which happened while I was gone), Robert turned the radiators back on. That's when we discovered that it's much more reliable to have your own thermostat in your own apartment. Here, I'm either cold and wrapped up in a blanket, or hot and throwing blankets off of me!

I do not like being at the mercy of an apartment building!