Have you ever seen a dirty spot on a wall and thought, "I should take care of that" and then your brain says, "Don't do it!"  because you know you are going to end up with an obvious clean spot and then you will need to clean the whole wall? Well...think tile floors instead of walls, and you will know what I have been doing each morning. I saw what I thought was a grease spot on a light brown tile with black grout, so I scrubbed it with some spray that had a picture of a window on it. I have tons of bottles of cleaning stuff that were left here, but I'm not sure what they are safe to use on, so I thought window cleaner was a safe bet. The good news is that the window cleaner works great on tile and it even smells pretty nice, but the bad news is that the grout is really white, not black. Soooooo...I sent Almer to the store to buy more cleaner (twice) and I've been trying to do a room each day. The living room is taking longer because it has 170 tiles, and you have to spray, scub, and rinse each one by hand. Almer has helped with the bigger spaces, which is awesome. I think it will be beautiful when it is all done.

In the bottom picture you are seeing cleaned tiles. Our friends, Dario and Alba, painted the walls and ceilings, cleaned inside and outside, bought beautiful draperies and bedding, installed the kitchen and all the light fixtures, and a million other things to make this apartment feel like a home. I'm actually kind of glad there is still something I can help with.

We were set apart this afternoon as official temple workers in the Rome Temple. It's a dream come true! President Pacini was very kind and talked to us about a lot of ways things may be different from our previous service. I think the thing that has me most concerned is that someone will need something and I won't be able to communicate. Perhaps they will let me fold socks and iron clothing in the laundry for awhile. There are parts of 8 or 9 different countries in the temple district, and lots of languages. They use language cards a lot! We watched training videos into the evening, until we had to leave to catch our bus. We can work as often or as little as we want, but the temple is closing at the end of February, so we will try to learn as much as we can before then. It was very sweet just to be inside the temple again and feel the spirit there. Ciao for now ;)