Mamma mia, I've been so busy the last three days that I got behind on this.
Here are the pictures from day 8 at Romentino and Vercelli. On Friday we went to Romentino, the city of Giuseppe Cattaneo. It's a super nice little town, a ton nicer than Mosezzo. We went to town hall and got the birth certificate of Giuseppe Cattaneo. We have his parents, but we doubt we'll be able to go back farther than that. The Italian government started keeping records in 1830, so anything before that is totally lost unless your ancestors were nobility.
Then we went to Vercelli, a city near Novara, because that's where the LDS church is. We went for a ward activity. Vercelli is smaller than Novara, but ten times more beautiful. It was full of enormous old churches that are among the most beautiful churches I've seen in Italy. It also is home to a gigantic Jewish synagogue that's as big and ornate as a cathedral.
We had a lot of fun at the ward activity, and got to know the members really well. One of the girls from the YSA (Young Single Adults) let me know that the next day in Milan there was going to be a YSA conference for the whole north of Italy. I was really excited to see some of my friends from the mission that live up here in the north, and to get to know some of the other YSA here. So, Saturday morning, I walked to the Novara train station and met up with Giulia, Melissa, and Eliza, three girls from the Vercelli ward. We had a lot of fun talking and joking around on the train ride to Milano, which was about forty minutes. I had never been to Milan, so they showed me around a bit when we got there. They took me to the cell phone store and helped me get my own Italian SIM card so that I can use my phone here. Then we hopped on the metro and took it down a few stops, where we switched to a different metro. We took that one a few more stops, got off, and walked a few blocks to the church where the YSA conference was. It was so awesome seeing some of my old friends for the first time since the mission. They were so surprised to see me in Italy. I also got to know a ton of other people there. The theme of the conference was a Hawaiian luau. There was all sorts of fruit and other food, and hawaiian decorations. They taught us a Hawaiian dance, and we played some other games. We had a fireside on the importance of self sufficiency and preparing for the future, including getting an education. Then we had dinner, and a dance afterwards. I had so much fun at the dance, going crazy just like I do at the dances at BYUI. It was great to see that all over the world, LDS youth have fun in the same ways. Everyone else was spending the night at Milan and going to church all together in the morning, but I had to return to Novara that night so that I could teach a lesson in church the following day in the Vercelli ward. So I left the party a bit early, took two metros to the train station, then took the train back to Novara. It was kind of funny to see the stark contrast between a bunch of twenty something LDS kids having clean fun at a YSA conference, and then seeing the twenty somethings I saw on the streets of Milan and on the metros having fun in not so clean ways. Wickedness never was happiness, people.
Today, we went to church at Vercelli. We taught a lesson on the various functions of FamilySearch and on the future of the system. After church we were invited to lunch at Sister Trapani's house. She's a Sicilian, and I was excited because I absolutely love Sicilians. She was cracking up as I busted out all the Sicilian jokes that I know from the mission. After dinner, we helped them resolve all their questions about genealogy. They were super grateful for the help, and are now very excited to keep extending their lines. The Spirit of Elijah is very contagious, and it's easy to get people excited about the work if you show them how rewarding it can me.
Overall, this weekend was just another confirmation to me of how at home I feel here in Italy. On the metro and the train, walking on the street, in church, everywhere I went, I just felt at home and like I belong here. I missed it so much, and I'm so glad to be back. It's like reuniting with an old friend.
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