What is it we do every day?

When our daughter Lucia was little, I remember a morning prayer that went like, "Dear Heavenly Father. Please bless my mom while we are at school and dad goes to work...to do whatever it is that she does all day." Some of you may wonder whatever it is that we do all day, so in this series of posts, we will let you know! Our official mission assignment is "Stake Called Young Single Adult Specialists." In addition, we have many other assignments, and today, we will give you a sneak peak into the days of Anziano e Sorella Montagnoli.

We will start with Christmas. When missionaries aren't invited somewhere for Christmas Eve or Christmas, they can go to a senior couple's apartment. We had so much fun sharing a meal, playing Tombola Napoletana and making gingerbread houses with Anziano Zepeda and Meldrum and Sorella Austin and Demmerly!

Sorella Demmerly and Austin live closest to us, in Castellamare, so we see them most frequently. We LOVE these missionaries!

They are capable, diligent, loving and successful - and every so often they need a ride or some help.

A couple of weeks ago, they came over to make cookies.

They packaged them up to deliver to friends who needed some extra love.

We drove them around to places they couldn't reach on foot or by bus. We waited in the car while they did their visits, then we would take them to the next place, and repeat. You can see by the view that the drive to the last stop was pretty spectacular! No complaints from us!

And what kind of senior couple would we be if we didn't spoil them a little? They introduced us to "Graffe" - which are freshly made doughnuts filled with whatever you choose!

Once every 6 weeks (or transfer cycle), we have an in person district council at the Church in Napoli. The other weeks, the district council is over Zoom. The meeting is instructional, spiritual, interactive, and unifying. Afterward, they stack chairs for how many transfers you have served, then we share a meal together.

Pretty soon we will have finished 1/3 of our mission; it is going by so fast!

Serving our missionaries is not too different than serving our own kids; they respond very well to bribery! We are trying to raise the bar on p-day cleaning. What better reward than gelato?

We all work so hard and so well together, and it's hard to say goodbye when missionaries leave! Picture taking is a must, especially with our GANS.

We are SO THRILLED and SO BLESSED to have another senior couple, Anziano Michael and Sorella Beth Castellano live near us. They have become our very treasured friends! They are Family Search missionaries and experts in Italian records. We just know we had to hurry and get here fast, so we could serve at the same time as the Castellanos. They are miracle workers and have put so much time into finding Cliff's Italian side of his family tree! Sorella Castellano likes to work on Cliff's tree in her "spare time" and loves the "beautiful records."

She gives Cliff homework and is teaching him how to find and read the records. I think so far he has 7 years of homework!

We recently had our most favorite p-day together, exploring a town past Sorrento where one of Anziano Castellano's great-great grandfather's was born.

We loved imagining what life was like in the mid 1800's.

We happened upon the most historic, unique and stately restaurant we had ever seen, and it was open for lunch! We went inside...The decor was incredible! The floors!!!!

P-day stands for preparation day. We set our own schedule and can have a "day off" when we choose. (We have taken days off when our family came.) The Castellanos are very good examples for us and are helping us find better balance, by taking a day off each week.

We truly enjoyed some much needed relaxation, and I savored the best pasta I have ever tasted!

I literally still think about this pasta!

We loved the charm and the history of this restaurant and could clearly see why it had so many Michelin Stars!

We ended our day by going up to this monastery on a hill, which we had driven by almost daily for months - and we had always wondered about it. What a great discovery!

We have decided to take the time to explore all the beautiful things around us!

I will say that it is often overwhelming, because there is so much good we can do, but it can't be done all at once. And, in a country that doesn't operate as fast paced as America, I am learning to slow down - which is a good thing that I am not very good at. I am learning. Cliff is naturally very well balanced. As always, he is a great blessing to me!

It's hard to choose which photo to post, of the many beautiful sunsets we have enjoyed. It's a constant reminder that the Lord created this beautiful earth for our joy and benefit.

We love literally watching the sun go down, and we can't wait for the views in Spring!

Back to our missionaries and what we do... We are assigned 7 missionary apartments in Campania to inspect every 6 week transfer; 2 in Pozzuoli, 2 in Caserta, 1 in Napoli, 1 in Salerno, and 1 in Castellamare. We have put 16,000 kilometers on a brand new car since we arrived. Our apartment duties keep us hopping!

We go to Ikea and Leroy Merlin (like Home Depot in the US) - and Cliff does it all! From broken toilets to clogged drains and bad lights; he is the fix it man. He scrapes out moldy caulk and replaces it, builds new furniture, and is impressively quick and efficient. We buy and deliver cleaning products and we are teaching the missionaries how to use them. I've done lots of cleaning, and way to much time eliminating mold from bathrooms and kitchens.

Let's just say, the state of our missionary apartments has NOT been up to standards. Sparing you all the photos, we will just say that by the time we are gone, every missionary serving with us will have learned why you clean and how it's done! #MarthaClean!

Mold here is a real problem because of the humidity. We have spent WAY too many hours cleaning mold. This ceiling in a sisters' apartment in Caserta had styrofoam panels, coated in mold. Cliff took those right out, while the sisters and I tackled the wall tiles.

It was faster and cheaper to replace the ceiling tiles himself than to hire it out.

The ceiling now looks fantastic! The new tiles are plastic, and this bathroom is mold free!

We move missionaries, like Sister Di Manzano and Gillins, who were a bit rattled by the repetitive 3.9ish earthquakes over the weekend in Pozzoli a weekish ago.

After going back and forth checking on them (and the elders) and evaluating the state of their apartments, the Mission President felt it would be best to move the sisters and combine them with Sorella Sloëf and Petty in Caserta. The move was definitely the right choice. The elders decided to stick it out, and luckily the seismic activity has settled down.

We literally took everything out of that apartment, including the contents of the "death closet" - which is the "leave it behind" place, for clothes that don't fit in the suitcase, or they just don't want the items anymore.

Luckily, we were helping with a clothing drive this last week, so we carefully sorted and transferred everything to another city - which is another blog post!

We were happy to run down when the sisters got locked out of their apartment, and buy them a few things they needed, like a hand mixer, and a specialty light bulb (which Cliff brought a ladder to install.)

We attend zone conferences every six weeks, which are very enlightening, edifying, and informational - prepared and given by President and Sorella Morris (the Rome Mission Leaders), the Assistants to the President, and the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders.

The energy is high and the love is present! Everyone feels the power of their missionary purpose, and we conclude singing the Rome Mission song and watch the Hype Video. We love these dignified young adults who give either a year and a half (sisters) or two years (elders) to share the beautiful message of the restored Church of Jesus Christ

The senior couples are in charge of the Zone Conference food. It takes some careful time and planning to pull this off.

A few of our wonderful GANS (young single adult members) and the sister missionaries helped us get things ready ahead of time for the Christmas Zone Conference.

We have fallen in love with the art of Paige Payne; our GANS and missionaries really relate to her religious art. She is Lucia's favorite artist! I contacted her, and she let me pay to download her prints, which we all gave the missionaries as gifts.

For Christmas, we had two zones (Campania and Puglia), and it was super tricky to cook most all the food in our tiny apartment, then transport it in crock pots and monitor it all, so we had hot food to serve after the conference. (The Castellanos were in Prague for Christmas, where their son and his family live.) We missed them! Thank goodness the Jepsons from Bari came and spent the night; they were a HUGE help! It was a hysterical site the night before, but we got the job done, and are now the owners of a big InstaPot.

The missionaries were so happy, and they ate hot food! (We can't cook at the church.)

Most everyone had Christmas sweaters. Ours were awesome; they even had a battery inside that lit them up!

For our last Zone Conference, it was a breath of fresh air, because it was just our zone, and we split up all the cooking with the Castellanos. They are now the owners of a George Forman grill, which became a make shift griddle, to warm our soft taco shells.

We went Mexican, and boy was that a big hit!

We have never been thanked so much for making food!

Sorella Castellano and I had lots of fun planning, shopping and preparing!

Meet the Campania Zone.

When missionary transfer calls come, we help them move! Many things are tricky here, like fitting all of their luggage, and themselves, and us, in our little Hundai car. Our funniest cram was when we needed to pick up a bed frame (and a sister missionary) then move the frame from one apartment to another, in our car already loaded with boxes of Ikea furniture. We also give rides when trains go on strike, or in one case, when they were shut down from the earthquakes, to inspect the lines.

In addition to the time we spend serving our missionaries and their apartments, we teach Institute (a class on the Gospel of Jesus Christ) every Saturday and spend time preparing each week. We also cook dinner for our GANS who come, and transport it to the Church in Napoli. That is also always tricky, to serve hot food, and to lug so much stuff back and forth from our home in Pompei (about 35 min away). Basically, we have decided our life really hasn't changed much; just the country. We used to do this for BYU, and we were always teaching, preparing, and speaking at the MTC, so we were already in the groove. We just changed languages and places. We also speak often in Church, as we rotate Sundays between our 5 units in Campania.

With each rotation and class, we get to know our wonderful GANS better. We love them and love sharing this sacred season together!

We are regularly trained - by the Europe Central Area's amazing YSA Couple, the Petersens. They have opened doors and processes to make our work possible. (more to come)

We are also trained to be better Institute instructors.

This training we attended in Rome (at the Visitor's Center) was for all Seminary/Institute teachers, supervisors, coordinators, and some of the leaders in the Rome East & West Stakes. It was FANTASTIC! We loved learning, and it was so fun to see many of our friends! In fact, we have been to Rome the last 3 Saturdays (another post), and we will never complain about that great blessing!

We really love these good missionaries who enhance our lives and warm our hearts!

Together we see miracles in the lives of others, as our friends desire to grow closer to God our Heavenly Father and learn more about Jesus Christ and his great atoning sacrifice.

We believe in the power of prayer and know that each of God's children can feel His love and personally receive revelation to discern divine truths. We are so blessed and feel so grateful to have this opportunity to participate in the work of salvation.

Tonight was especially tender, because Sorella Demmerly (pictured here) and many others from our zone are getting transferred on Thursday. Our interaction reminds me of a quote I once heard on my birthday. "Our church service brings us joy, builds friendships, blesses us with knowledge, fills us with gratitude, and helps us understand revelation and inspiration." We couldn't agree more.

Today while I was working on our blog, Cliff and Brother Castellano were fixing a missionary sink. It was a simple act of service that made a big difference. Elder M. Russell Ballard once said, "May we show our love and appreciation for the Savior's atoning sacrifice through our simple, compassionate acts of service." We can't think of a better way to show Him our love.

We send our love to each of you - our dearest family and friends. We miss you, think of you often, and appreciate all of your love, support, and prayers on our behalf.

Love,

La Coppia Montagnoli

Martha & Cliff