Jill

Jill
Dear family, 5/7/08 I have SOO much to do and I shouldn't be tak ing tim e to write a letter, but I know Mom will want to get one off soon, and I have so much to express gratitude for.

First of all, I want to wish my Mom a wonderful Mother's day! You are my exemplar and I feel your deep love for me everyday. I hope to grow up to be like you one day! I also want to wish my darling sisters, daughters-in-law and sisters-in-law a great one too. Hopefully mine won't be the only well wishes you receive on your happy day, as I know many others love you too...

There are so many congratulations to go out: to Stef, Dallin, Tanner & Norma Jean Rem ington for graduations, N ick & Stef for their little Bret, and so many other fun things going on in the family. So glad Rem is back at school and Derek is planning school in the fall; that Scott & Melissa are moving into their dream house of sorts, and Jannene, Bobby & Lorie had fun birthdays; that Bobby seems to be in love and Bret & Sid's Stake Conferences are over; that Elise may become a muckraker, and that's fun. Did I miss any other news? I read the last two barks while we were on the plane & shortly after. Heavenly Father is so blessing our family. Way to go!!

W e are back from our fabulous trip to Italy. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it really was lifechanging. We made the first part of our trip with our very dear and long-time friends, Sandy Solomon and her daughter, Sam, who's Lorie's age. W e spent 2 days in Rome before getting on the cruise ship. Then we went to the ports of Florence/Pisa/Lucca (2 days), Messina (Sicily), Venice (2 days), Naples (including Sorrento, Pompeii & Herculaneum), Split & Dubrovnik (Croatia). After getting off the ship and saying goodbye to the Solomons, we flew to Torino and met Kyle.

Then we spent the next few days driving to and seeing Lorie's old mission areas of Torino, Milan and Modena. W e saw famous places and buildings and m onuments that we've only read about for years but had never seen until this trip. How do you explain the excitement and joy at seeing places like the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Leaning tower of Pisa, Mt. Vesuvius, Florence, Lake Como, and our most favorite place, Venice? How do you measure the joy we saw in Lorie's face as she met up with 4 of her old companions (3 of which she had trained and one who had already gone home to her native country of Sicily), or when she saw fellow members and converts? You can't! You can only show gratitude to our Heavenly Father for paving the way for us to go.

Kyle was SO GOOD to let Lorie and I go on the cruise. He didn't feel he could take off a full three weeks for the cruise and mission-hopping, so he chose to just meet us for the mission-hopping part. We were so happy that he came and shared, really, the m ost im portant part of the trip with us, and that is Lorie's m ission part. However, when we found out he wasn't going with us on the cruise, we asked our friends to go with us. Sandy's husband doesn't like to travel overseas, and was perfectly willing to let them go with us, so we took the opportunity and ran with it. W hat a blessing for all of us! There were things shared that will never be forgotten. It was kind of a rehabilitating and regenerating thing for all of us... kind of like past cruises have been, like the sisters cruise, and our Alaskan cruise after Dad died.

And we definitely discovered that a cruise is the ONLY way to travel in Europe right now, with the American dollar being so weak against the Euro. Having our cruise expenses in American dollars really saved us a LOT of money and we lived in a very nice environment with good food every day. We tried to go cheap on hotels, food and transportation everywhere else we went, but still paid buku in cash after converting Euro prices to US dollars . That was a big lesson for us!! We were thrilled to take our native speaker/translator along with us, as I don't know what we would have done without Lorie's Italian. It was fun to hear her speak the Italian so well everywhere we went (including when they asked her to get up and bear her testimony in the Sacrament meeting of her T orino ward, where we went to church the last Sunday we were there. We had a visitor come up to us after church and tell us that not only did she speak perfect Italian, but she had a beautiful aura about her that could be felt in the whole room). She also told a storekeeper off in Italian that was trying to be rude to us "gringos". She was also invaluable for the communication aspect of the trip, and saved us a lot of time and grief and frustration...and she LOVED it!!

The food was fabulous, of course...it's Italy and it's a cruise! What more can I say about that? We ate a LOT of pizza, because Lorie's decided that she doesn't want to ever eat pizza in the States again...it's just too crusty and too cheesy and too tomato-ey. The pizza there was so light and you could eat a medium-size pizza and not feel like you've eaten a mountain of food. Members served or bought us two fu llsize Italian meals while we were there, complete with the antipasto, pasta, entree, salad, & dessert. However, I didn't get my lasagna until the last night before returning home, which was the best time anyway, because we were just a few miles from Bologna, the home of lasagna. W ell worth the wait!!

There are so many other things to tell you about, but I won't bore you with more details. Suffice it to say, we feel so blessed for this great opportunity. We wish we could have shared the whole trip with all of you, because it would have made the trip even better, but we loved the time we had together. When we got home, we came home running. We got home late on Thursday night (May 1). I found out when I got home that the stake was in charge of the Break Fast for Sunday, so I had to get agendas typed up for the committee meeting and then do Hawaiian haystacks for 40 people. Tuesday was our first week back at the temple after one month, so I had to get ready for that. Then I have 2 camp meetings tomorrow night and Saturday that I am in charge of (I'm the certification director over the 4 level leaders...and this is our first year to cam p by level). Plus we had YSA FHE at our home Monday night and so I had to get all the laundry, unpacking, etc. done and the house put back in order, plus refreshments for that.
Well, like our great mom says...after Heavenly Father blesses you so much, it's payback time! So I'm running fast trying to pay back. Hope you all have great week as well! Love you all so! Jill