Pictures of people we have met here. . . 11 Feb 09

Let's see if I can get pictures of our "colleagues" posted here. First, here is President Raimundo Castellani. He's taller than I am and relatively young looking. I'd said he is just barely 50. A kind and very gentle man, he reminds me a bit of my cousin Bill Giauque. He's "been around" in the Church, having served as a bishop, stake president (I think), Area Seventy and now Temple President. His wife has had a disability for about 18 of their 25 years of marriage: Parkinson's disease, so although she looks young, she doesn't move very fast. He seems ideal to be a temple president: he seems "presidential" (if not prince-ly). Never, never gets rattled. . . even though yesterday all the electricity in the temple went off about 10 minutes into the first session. There has been lots of wind throughout Europe, passing through western then central France, and then here. Anyway, he's a wonderful example and dignity, calm, kindness.

By the way, all of the people described below are Italians. We are on the non-French shift, meaning it is almost all Italian, even though there are a few non-Italians on this shift (including an American couple. . . see below) and a widowed Dutch lady who speaks mostly German and a fair amount of English. And another by the way, I see that in most cases, I wasn't standing close enough to the people when I took their pictures. So you don't really see much of their face. Maybe I'll just have to re-do them. Anyway. . .

Directly above are President and Sister Savian. Bro. Savian is the first counselor in the temple presidency, and the leader of the team/shift that we belong to. As you can see, the wife is taller than the husband, but in the temple (at least), you know which of these two is in charge: it's Bro. Savian. Both of these people are strong-willed and a little distant. But they know (really know!) how to do the temple. The amazing thing about Bro. Savian is his linguistic skill. He speaks Italian natively. I've been told that his parents (or maybe even he) was/were born in Armenia. But he doesn't speak Armenian (as far as I know). Besides his native Italian, he speak German very very well. He certainly holds his own in French, although he does make a few mistakes, like saying "il a vi" instead of "il a vu." He speaks English pretty well too, but seems to have to search for the words a little more. And I believe he speaks Spanish (but I've never heard him speak that). In any case, it is he who translates when we have a meeting with several speakers of different languages present. In fact, even as I write this, I can hear him saying exactly those words, in English, with his own special accent.) I respect him a great deal for his ability to switch from one language to the next with less than a second's hesitation! Me, I'm getting there, but it often takes me 5 seconds to get from French to German to Italian or from Italian to French to German. The wrong words just come out of my mouth!! Not so in his case!


Directly below are Lorenzo and Lorenza Perticaroli. It's not easy to say their last name until you've practiced saying it a few times. It has a tendency to come out as “particularment.” at first, and then Perticorali later, and then finally correctly, “Per-ti-CA-ro-li.” They are a very fine couple. He's tall, easy going, and I think he looks like Rudy Giuliani. Lorenza, his wife, looks to me just a little tiny bit like Bonnie Carson Bailey. Unfortunately, Lorenza isn't smiling as much in this picture as I wish she were and as she often does (and that's when she looks the most like Bonnie).

Below are Bro. and Sis. (fratello e sorella) Di San Sebastiano. Their name is almost as hard to pronounced as that of the couple mentioned just above. As with the people above, the husband is fairly calm and the wife a little more animated! But the husband has some stories to tell!! He used to be a parachutist in the Italian army. He took parachute training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and then returned home to teach other Italians soldiers to parachute. He was involved, as a parachutist, in the UN intervention in Somalia. He once gave a Priesthood blessing to a young Italian officer who was severely wounded. Unfortunately, the young man did not survive. He was my mentor last week, as I learned many things about “running a session.” It's not the man who stands in front of the alter in the ordinance room who runs the session. It's someone you never see, or almost never, who does a lot (a lot!) of behind the scenes work to “run the session.” It was somewhat challenging to learn everything, and he was both kind, firm and demanding. This week I have someone else as my mentor, and he's teaching me even more, and “un-teaching” me a couple of things I learned last week. I'll talk about him later. Before I forget, Vittorio (di San Sebestiano) seems to me like "the man who never smiles." (Soooo serious. And his first name means "Victory." Sounds kinda military doesn't it!) But then just today, I saw him act in a more animated and smiley way. I think he likes to pretend to be tough and then be "happy-go-lucky" the next day!

Bro. and Sis. Gavaz (below) are people who just keep on workin' and workin' and working! They look relatively young (especially he does), but he says he's been working in the temple for 29 years! I think that means he's been involved in temple work for 29 years, not that he's been here that long. That's because he has his own construction business and I'm sure he has to keep it going. But I wonder if he works outside very much, because he's here full-time now, and has often been here when we've come to the Swiss temple before. He and his wife even have a son who is a frequent temple worker. Sis. Gavaz is quite overweight, but she still serves a lot and is well-liked. Her mother passed away about last Thursday. The Gavaz's were gone Friday and Sat., but were right back here on Sunday when I took the pictures. Wow! That's why I say, they just never let up!

Speaking of pictures, you see some snow in these. We had about 5 inches on Sunday morning. It looked like Salt Lake to me. I've never seen so much snow in Europe (well, I guess I did in Dec. 1962, when the Seine River froze 3 ft. thick. But even then, it was the cold, not snow, which impressed me).

Two of the couples above have long names and are relatively young (late fifties or early sixties). The next two couples are a little older, with shorter and easier names. Bro. and Sister Bisi are just ordinary faithful members. Bro. Bisi wants me to help him a little with German, but German is quite hard for almost anyone who speaks a Romance language natively. Both of them are nice people.




Bro. and Sis Botta, below, are the “great-grand-parent” type. I think they are both in their 80's. We see them walking home (to the apartment building from the temple) hand in hand, just like young lovers. He is a sealer, and he asked me to participate in a sealing session the other day, as a son. Today I saw him in two sessions as an ordinary temple patron. He can do the veil ceremony in Italian, French and German (and maybe English, but I'm not sure. Sis. Botta is fun like a barrel o' monkeys. . . always upbeat. She often greets us in French (just to be kind, yes, but to show off a little bit too, maybe). I should have gotten closer to them to take this picture. I'll try to do it better next time.




Bro. And Sis. Christiansen (Clair and Joyce), below, are from Granger but recently moved to South Jordan. We are baffled about them. Let me explain. We had heard very clearly that no Americans were supposed to come to the Swiss Temple. Yet here they are! We felt very blessed to be able to work things out so that we could come as members of the Strasbourg Ward (Nancy Stake). But we *wanted * to come here. The Christiansens didn't seem to have this strong desire to be here. So, for two reasons, we can't figure out why there are here. The language(s) is/are not easy for them. . . not in the least. They work their entire shift in the office, not in the ordinance rooms, doing office work (entering numbers into a computer). Of course they get up and walk around, and talk with various people, but still, it's just office work and record keeping. But somebody has to do it, I guess. As I think I've mentioned before, we are kinda like “parents” for them, even though they are older than we are and have had significant callings in the Church in the US (bishop, patriarch, stake president, and she was R.S. Stake President). The most important thing we do for them is drive them around when they need it (and they are so worried that they are taking advantage of us, which of course, is not at all the case). Or, I translate for them. Yesterday, we and they had to get registered with the city and canton officials. It would really have been tough for them if they had had to do it without a car of linguistic help. Anyway, things are ok for them.

I need to take pictures of the French shift and a few more people of our shift and post them later. I also need to ask Mom to tell me more about what she does at the temple. We talk about it, but don't think we should make it "too public." Suffice it to say, we're both pretty busy most of the time that we are in the temple.