June 17: Today was supposed to be a day of rest since it is Sunday; at least that is what we had planned. We just planned to attend Sacrament Meeting since all of us, but Todd would understand nothing else. Sacrament meeting started at 11:20 a.m. so we left at 10:00 a.m. to make sure we arrived on time. It was good for the kids to see what others have to do to get to church. A couple bus rides and a couple of miles and you are at church. The bus system is a little confusing, even if you speak Italian. Some buses run only at night, on weekdays, or weekends or at specific times. Once your pass is stamped, you have 100 minutes to ride the bus like mad until your pass expires, then you have to buy another pass, or be like a lot of Italians, don’t follow the rules and just hop on the bus and hope the inspector isn’t going your way too. We were ten minutes early for church, which is better than home. Sacrament started ten minutes late even though it was the last meeting. Time is not an element over here. It is what it is. We were not the only foreigners at church today. Because of all the foreign traffic, the Elders translated the meeting. The ward was the biggest Todd had ever attended in Italy. Most of what he served in was branches. Twenty-five years ago, Italy only had two stakes and both were in the north, Venice and Milan. Now, southern Italy has three stakes alone, with one in Rome.

It is a small world. At the Rome ward, one of the Elders was from Tucson, and one was from Torino – a city Todd served in twice while he was on a mission. We talked to a family that was visiting that Sunday too and they happen to be what is now my old home ward growing up in Pasadena California. Their Bishop is one of my childhood best friends.

Since we were already on that side of town, we decided to take the extra bus trip and walk to the Rome Temple site in 90 degree plus weather with humidity. Yes, we were crazy. But being from Arizona, we are used to death marches in the heat; we call those a walk in the park. The kids were troopers and we finally arrived. We had been following a twenty foot impenetrable fence for about half a mile and realized once we got to the front of the temple site that this was the gate surrounding the temple. Of course it had a lock on the gate. We were out of luck and out of water. Luckily, a gentleman who had seen us at church pulled into the driveway of the temple site. He had seen us walking on the road and stopped to tell us that we would not be able to enter the temple site or see much of the construction. He was the chief architect for the Rome Temple. He just finished the Kiev Temple and he and his wife are stationed in Rome now so he can finish this one. What a treat. His name is Brother Hanno Luschin originally from Austria. He is the brother that President Ucktdorf referred to in his October 2008 talk titled “Lift Where You Stand.”  Br. Luschin suggested to the brethren that they “stand close together and lift where they stand.”  Todd remembered the talk from general priesthood meeting several years ago.

He and his wife spent fifteen min with us showing us pictures of the site in their iPad and discussing the progress of the temple.  In addition to the temple, there will be a visitors center and an on-site dormitory for patrons of the temple who need a place to stay while traveling.  They told us that they would give us a ride but there were too many of us to fit in their car so it was a short walk to the mall and we could catch us bus back if we wanted to. We could also get some lunch in the mall they thought, but had never been in there since it was fairly new. That was our mistake. Todd tried to get us to just go back to the bus and head back to our apartment, but the walk back seemed so grueling, we were out of water and the Holy Grail of the mall lay right within our reach. Yeah, that was a mirage. We fell for the forbidden fruit, what looked like the easy path and got snookered. When we finally crossed the freeway, yes freeway because that was the only access road to the mall, we ended up on the loading docks. I even tried to see if we could sneak in through there, but no one was loading anything. We made what seemed like another mile trek around to the front of the mall. This is like an ant hill. The mall only had one entrance. I would hate to see what fire drills in this place looked like. There was only one in and one out and after we had walked without water a distance four times what it would have taken us to just go back to the original bus stop we would have eaten a horse, one we found in a museum would be just fine right about now. I found us a seat while Tanner passed out in my lap. People were looking at him like he was dead and I could have cared less. His teachers always ask me every year if it is O.K. if he goes to recess because he comes back looking like he needs an I.V. he is so red. The Hanes tomato may be related to him. Anyway, Todd is giving the kids the low down that we didn’t plan on coming so far so long. Now, our original bus passes have expired, well the ones we used to get to the temple so we need to buy more bus passes and he doesn’t have enough money on him to buy bus passes and a big lunch. What? He didn’t expect to need so much money on Sunday so he didn’t bring a lot. We let him pick out the food and it was by far out cheapest meal yet. The kids were shocked when the lady wrung it up. Luckily, only we weren’t all with him because it was not enough for all of us at once. Tanner’s stomach has been bothering him so I always carry a banana to feed him if he needs it. This one was the consistency of baby food just heated in the microwave. He ate some of it anyway, but felt like he was going to through up. I tried to explain to him that that was the beginning signs of dehydration, after your eyes start looking dark and sunken in which was why people thought he was dead and not just resting on my lap. Then Todd arrives with the meager meal and we all start grabbing it with our hands. On a normal day, this freaks Todd out. He doesn’t like any touching his food or picking from his plate. Little does he know that I have taught the children communal living in order to cut down on the dishes I have to do. I stop the sharing at underwear, but the girls still fight over it anyway.

Todd starts to lose it. Now, if you know Todd well this is like an oxymoron. No one ever sees Todd loose it because he really doesn’t; he just whisper hollers at you. He gets up real close, and his face looks like he wants to yell but he whispers it instead. It is very confusing, but effective. Anyway, he does this whisper holler as we are all grabbing for food like cannibals; but we don’t see or even hear his whisper scream because we are too focused on the food and eating in a food court of a mall. It wasn’t the best food, Italy’s pasta version of McDonalds, but we didn’t care. We finished it all; Todd gave up on trying to make us appear civilized. We were sweating like pigs, smelled like pigs, and ate like pigs, but we were in air conditioning so we didn’t care. Well, all of us except Todd.

Todd can’t find a ticket place for the bus, but we found a bus stop. We passed us bus as we were headed to our stop and the kids asked if that was our bus, Todd said so no so we kept on walking up the street. We find a sign that is clearly a bus sign, but nobody else is there. We thought maybe we had just missed the bus, Todd thought this because he is Mr. Eternal Sunshine; I, on the other hand, knew we would be buried there so was scoping out a good spot for all of us on the little hill behind us. Now remember, the buses don’t always run the same during the week as the weekends or the suburbs as downtown. We were in the middle of the burbs on a weekend. Two strikes against us. No one was coming our way. Brittany asked where this road led and Tyler pulled a classic one out, “Duh , Brittany, all roads lead to Rome.” The irony of this statement is true. During the building of the Roman Empire, the Romans built roads to all the lands they conquered so they could get back and forth so all roads did lead to Rome. However, on this occasion the truth of that statement fell on deaf ears.

Enough of history and back to our story, Todd started to get a little nervous when a big group of people started gathering about a quarter mile away from us on the street. There was no bus sign, but this was Italy. You wait at a bus stop, you miss your bus. You congregate in the street somewhere, the bus stops there. I know, but it is Italy. No one follows the rules, even the bus drivers. Anyway, it is now over 95 degrees with humidity and we have waited and hour and half at this sign. We rotate from sitting on the ground till your buns are burnt and you can’t stand it anymore to standing while your feet roast and legs hurt. Finally, some Italian lady on the third floor of the apartment starts yelling at us. I don’t know what she was saying she was yelling. Even if she wasn’t yelling, it was Italian, but I could tell by the hand gestures she was taking pity on us and telling us we were in the wrong place. All I got I Italian gesturing was that we needed to move. So we started moving one way and she got even livelier, then we moved another way, of course in a close group of five because the kids and I always do everything together and Todd just stands there looking at us. Must come with all the travel he does, we are one and he is there. Anyway, we finally get the right direction between north south east and west and she stops watering and waving her hands and goes inside. I guess this is where we are to walk, kind of like the North Star in Italy for us. I told Tanner, “And you thought the laundry lady looked crazy.” We head down to the corner to wait for a bus where there is no bus stop but a lot of Italians and wait another thirty minutes in the blistering heat. There are about thirty people waiting across the street in the shade that we thought for sure would be catching a bus on the other side. Nope. Once they saw that bus peek over the top of the hill, they made a mad dash for the other side of the street. My Mama bear came out and there was no way we were going to wait another two hours for a bus to show. I told Todd, “You want to bring out the Ugly American in me because she will show up with a vengeance if these people think we are not going to get on this bus!”

I pushed and shoved and had my face, hands, and feet in body parts I can’t even mention; but we all got on. Some Italian lady plastered against the door for the ride was screaming something to the general group in Italian but nobody cared. Even those who understood her didn’t care. I guess you are supposed to get up and give older women your bus seat if they get one. Be my guest, she could have it, if she could find her way there. She had a better chance in finding an ice cube in Hell that day than making her way to a seat. And we didn't have tickets cause our bus passes expired the first hour we were waiting at the stop or maybe more like the first hour we walked around the mall. We were going Italian style and I could have cared less if the Inspector got on the bus. In fact, good luck getting on the bus. I don't think he would have fit.
Ooh it gets better, the very next stop we make because the buses stop quite often, the very next stop, the driver opens the doors and we are expecting exits and entries. We can’t see because there are so many people but we hope more get off than get one and we get a little hot breeze in between so we don’t pass out or throw up before we have to get. The driver opens the doors, turns the bus off, and gets off. I can’t see that he did this. I just thought that the bus had engine problems and was about to cry. Tanner was already and I told him to stop. He had to conserve his water. I asked Todd what was going on, was the bus broken. No, it was the driver’s scheduled stop. What? Yes, a scheduled stop for a bus that was running at least a half an hour to an hour behind. These people never work here. Don’t you understand you don’t get a fifteen minute break if your bus is late? I guess not. Todd wanted to know if we wanted to get off and I said, “Absolutely not.” I am not leaving this bus until I see our apartment in sight.

Forty-five minutes later, we were walking home. We felt so hot, tired, and sick that I don’t know if we even had dinner. Pioneer heritage? We have our own stories of coming to Zion now. If these are rest days, we’ll pass.

 A church we just popped into on the way to the bus stop.

 At the temple site with a picture of the finished temple above.

 With Brother Luschin, the head architect of the Rome Temple.

Todd and Tammy with the temple in the background.