New Apartment

On August 1 we moved into our new apartment.  It was a very busy day because we were in the middle of new missionary training.  We had a group of almost 30 new missionaries come into the mission field a week ago.  Now this week the president brought them and their trainers back for a new missionaries training.  He did this in three separate sessions.  On Tuesday the group from  Milano and parts west came to the Milano for training.  We went to this session to help with the lunch and observe the training that was provided by the Lynches (the couple we are replacing).  The Lynches last day was Wednesday.  Then on Thursday, we loaded up the lunch supplies again and drove to Verona for the 2nd group of new missionaries.  This was a 2 + hour drive on the Autostrada.  We put the lunch together, gave a 45 minute interactive slide show on mission finances, had lunch, then conducted another 45 minute session on apartments, bikes, etc.  We then loaded up the lunch supplies and drove back 2 + hours to Milano.  We then moved all of our stuff down the street to our new apartment (in the same building as the Mission office).  Went back to the old apartment and cleaned it up so assistants to the president could move back into that apartment and came back to our new Home.  It was hot, humid, but we are now in our new home. 

It is a wonderfully furnished one bedroom apartment.  Let me show you some pictures.

Here is the entry hall - actually a view from the living room

Turning a little to the right and walking into the entry hall we see the kitchen on the right and the bedroom door on the left. 

Here is our bedroom. Lots of nice built in closets (something you do not see in Europe). 

Here is the other side of the bedroom with a nice antique dresser. 

Our bath room vanity.  There is another built in closet left of this shot, a washer and dryer just out of view to the lower right, a shower to the right, and a toilet room. Also in the picture you can see the paretti.  These are exterior shades that in old days were shutters. All of the homes and apartments have these. Most are manually operated where you pull a strap and the paretti roll up from outside the window into a box above the window.  This apartment has motorized paretti where you can just hit a switch and they roll up or down.  They are nice because you can stop them as they are in this picture and they still let a limited amount of lighting through the slits between the boards.  Or you can lower them completely and the boards rest on each other and block all of the light.  

In our living room is a antique table we use for a desk.  It is also the only location in the apartment that the Wifi from the office reaches. Notice the cureo show case above the table. It loaded with old jade carvings of elephants and other oriental items. It belongs to the owner and is locked up. 

Turning to the left is our TV and fireplace. We have Sky TV - a European satellite system. We get lots of news channels and lots of discovery, national geographic and similar channels. Some times we can switch the language bottom to the original language (English). But if not it is in Italian. 

Here is our couch, which makes into a bed for visitors. We also have a couple of inflatable mattresses as well. 

Another view of the couch and a door that opens to our patio. 

The door from the apartment out onto the patio. 

Another view of the patio. It is too hot now, but when it cools down we will be having some dinners for the office staff up here. 

And lastly a view from our patio looking south. 

There is also a small balcony off of the kitchen and another off of the bedroom. The apartment is full of antiques and book cases and built in cabinets. It is just gorgeous. The kitchen is very large, with an electric oven, gas stove top, and large refrigerator.  The cupboards are full of dishes, pot, pans and loads of canned goods.  We are ready for visitors - So drop us an email and make your reservations.

We really love it here.