Because Aron Asked

Oh, Yes I did spend time in Torino. It was my first city (for two months) and then my second to the last (again for two months) city I lived in during my mission.

Torino is a very nice town. Surprisingly, it is further north than Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Buffalo, New York. I remember walking home at the end of the day 9:30 pm and it would still be very light. Many people would just hang out in Piazza Carducci at that time of night, talking and whatever. It was a very different atmosphere than home. Even though it is so far north, it is not much different weather wise than Salt Lake, except for the humidity. The summers are very hot and humid. There was a period of about two weeks straight where everyday we came in for our mid-day break from noon to 2pm, there would be a big thunderstorm. And then it would stop raining by the time we were going out again. Once at night though one of these storms came through at maybe 2am. Our small apartment had a typical balcony. Very small with an articulated shutter type thing that came down in runners so you could shut up the apartment very securely. They were sort of like the store front pull down doors you see in New York City for locking up establishments. This storm was really wild with pretty large hail stones. Elder Wallace and I opened the storm door thingy and stepped out onto the fourth floor balcony in our skivvies to watch. For a couple of minutes the hailstones came down really hard and there was a sort of fog about 10 feet off the ground from all these hailstones hitting the street and cars and bouncing up in the air. It was loud.

My first stint in Torino was in an apartment in the South of Torino on Via Baiardi near Piazza Carducci and the Po. There were four of us Elders in that apartment. For the first month it was Me and my companion, Elder Smith, and Elders Wallace and Jorgenson. It ended up that Elder Jorgenson was from Lenore's ward. But, of course I didn't know Lenore at the time, and his dad went to UCLA with Uncle Jay. Elder Wallace was from Walnut Creek, CA, I think. Elder Wallace was a very tall man. I think he was taller than me. He also had blonde hair. We tried not to go out too often together because the Italians would think that the GEheime STAats POlizei had come to town. A unique thing happened between me an elder Wallace. When I went to Genova he stayed in Torino and took it upon himself to forward my mail to me. He would sometimes write notes on the back of the envelopes. When I left Genova he came into the same apartment. Same thing when I left Milan. He followed me around the mission, almost immediately taking up residence in the apartment I had left so that 95% of the letters I have that were forwarded, he did the forwarding. The last one I got from him was just a day or two before his mission ended.

That was my first time in Torino. I went back in the spring of 1978. This time I was in the northern part of town near the Dora river. My biggest or most persistent memory of that place was our tracting area included some sort of pastry factory because there was a constant odor like donuts in the air.

Free? Agency

I've been working on an idea recently that I think we may teach or have discussed soon in our Relief Society and Priesthood lessons, and that has to do with Agency.

I think I've finally distilled partially what I've been thinking about. When we talk of taking away someone's agency, what is it we think of? We usually think of making them do something they don't want to do. But, in reality can you really force someone to do something they don't want to do? And when you do, who is accountable for it then? Certainly not the person who was forced.

So in reality I think the only way you can "take away someone's Agency" is by removing from them, or protecting them from, the consequences of their actions. That may be one of the main reasons it is a good thing for society to impose and enforce rules and laws on itself. I am especially talking about abortion and same sex marriage.

And I think this really can only be done on a temporary (or temporal) basis. In the eternal scheme of things you cannot ultimately protect someone from the consequences of their actions, except in the way that Christ did, through an atonement.

Taken in this light it makes it seems much more important or correct to school your children, establish rules and punish for infractions and teach Society to be the same way. Most of Society is completely upside down this idea.

I just discussed this with a co-worker and she brought up the facet of restricting someone's choices. I'm going to have to ponder about that and report back.

I think it is also true that "Satan's Plan" was a great big lie because he couldn't carry it out and save us from eternal consequences, only temporal ones.

Revenge of the Neville Bros.

Holy Smokes! Batman! Was that a horrible rendition of the National Anthem at Super Bowl XL?????? I think even Aretha Franklin was very lackluster. I say sing it straight. If you can't sing a song the way it is supposed to be sung (see Whitney Houston and Super Bowl XXV 1991), maybe you are lacking some talent.

Yay Steelers!!!! And yay Chris Hoke!!!!!!

XXXXXXXLLLLLLLLLL

There is a little more Super Bowl fever around our house this year (about 1000% more.) We usually don't watch it. But we have good reason to watch this year, Yea Chris! We are all expecting sometime in the near future to try on Chris' Championship ring(s) and take pictures and such for bragging rights (and rites.) We are going over to Jay Greenan's house for a Super Bowl Party of sorts. Lenore was trying to think of goodies to bring. She's going to need my help. I told her to back off on the watercress sandwiches and cupcakes. She needs some educatin'.

Thanksgiving

We had a turkey in the freezer that we didn't use at Thanksgiving or Christmas. My parents were in town for the weekend and the Smiths were coming over so we decided to cook it. I often like to do out of the ordinary things with the "wet" stuffing. I used what was on hand. I put in pecans and sausage and calamata olives and dried cranberries. When I was carving the turkey and removing the stuffing Laney was observing closely. She asked, "what are the red things?" I told her cranberries and olives. She said, "He ate them!!!!????"

Working Cover for Ailsa's Book

Is here.

Ailsa's Latest Composition

Is here.

Speaking of Sajid Mughal

(Sometimes we call him and his sibling The Muggles.)
We went to his Baptism Saturday. You should find it interesting that a great great great great grandson of Joseph Smith Sr. is half Pakistani and looks uncannily like a younger version of the boy playing Joseph Smith in "The Restoration" video.

Quality is Job One

The Blue car has to be inspected this month. We are not a very imaginative family. We have two Ford Explorers. (They both sport KungFuUtah.com decals.) So I took it to the inspection place. They told me the "third brake light" was burnt out. That is the one up high in the middle that the scare bears made all the automobile companies include in their design as of 1986. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" No big deal, I thought. I've probably got a light bulb at home in the garage I can just pop in.

So I got home and in the freezing cold I started tearing into the car. It looked like I had to pull off the interior panel, which broke. It was probably extra brittle because of the extreme cold. Then I pulled off some electronic device and then I could see the light fixture was held on by three nuts. Then there were also some rivets that I had to drill out. At this point I was thinking, Holy Moly! What is the deal with this light! The rear side tail lights are extremely easy to replace. It must have been a different part of the design team that did this light. Once I got the whole thing off it was obvious that this was a very different setup.

I called the dealer parts store. Yes, it's a different setup. This is like a flourescent light. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because there is an extremely narrow space where it is installed. The system consists of a ballast which is usually the problem and costs $140 and the light fixture itself is $250!!! I had no way of knowing which was broken. Lenore convinced me I didn't want to bet it was the ballast and then have to spend an additional $250 if it wasn't. So I took it to the dealer and spent $140 for the ballast (that's what was malfunctioning) and $160 for them to figure it out, replace it, and re-attach the light fixture I had removed. Needless to say we didn't dine chez Romano's that evening. I should have come up with a Red Green doityourself repair. But, duct tape doesn't go well with the color of this car.

Little Sisters of No Mercy

We were outside shovelling snow (snovelling show) on Monday. There was about six inches. We sent the kids over to Geri Suzuki's and Norma Noyes' house to do their driveway and walk. (Norma just turned 90 this month.) When they were done they came back over and were helping me and Laney. (No, Laney is not much help at all.) Ailsa worked her way down the walk toward the new neighbors to the west of us. One of their boys was doing their driveway. I could hear them chatting first tentative words of introduction. As soon as Laney noticed she started yelling, "Ailsa has a boyfriend" repeatedly. I couldn't help but think, Great! the first time a boy says anything to Ailsa besides "go up, little girl!"* and Laney is there to make it uncomfortable.

*This refers to an old story from at least 10-12 years ago. We took the kids to Liberty park one Saturday and afterwards we asked Ailsa if she made any friends. She said on the commando netting one boy told her "go up, little girl!" So since then this has been a family joke about the extent of Ailsa's interaction with boys.