More of Sicily

This is a picture of the Mission Home. It has four levels and a spiral staircase that goes from the top to the bottom (53 steps to be exact). The bottom level is the mission office, the next houses the kitchen, living room and dining room, next a small office 3 bedrooms and two baths, and the last is one large room that our daughter refers to as "the room for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". It has 13 beds!
As you can see by the palm trees and the GREEN it is warmer than Utah here!


The next photo it entitled "Let sleeping dogs lie". We were walking along a street next to the open market when we happened upon this scene. There were four dogs all in a line against the store all napping. I decided to let them lie!


The last photo shows where the the lava meets the sea. In 1692 Etna erupted and covered most of Catania. We live in the foothills of Etna and see signs of lava
and eruptions everywhere.

Connections

We discovered a significant Italian connection a few days ago in the mission home. As many of you know Jim is a descendant of Giuseppe Taranto, the first Italian member of the church. (Giuseppe is Jim's great grandfather). Giuseppe Taranto and Lorenzo Snow were missionary companions in the 1850s in Italy. And now we have President Toronto and Anziano Doxey (Assistant) serving together in Italy. Anziano Doxey's great, great, great grandfather was Lorenzo Snow!! It is a small world!

Here is Sister Toronto standing in the doorway of one of the missionary apts. It is affectionately called the Hobbit Hole because the doorways are short and the walls curve into the ceiling. Now Sister T. is all of 5'4" tall. We have missionaries living there who are 6'5" and some in the past have been even taller. We moved the missionaries out this week--not because of the size of the doorways but because the environment is conducive to mold--it is growing very well!!

The last picture is a picture of the daffodils that are growing in our yard. They are beautiful .