Anziano & Sorella Stinebaugh

Brigham's mom and dad are currently serving a mission in Italy. They are located in the Italy Catania Mission. Tom sends out weekly updates and photo's to family and friends, so we stay updated with the experience they are having while serving a mission. Tom has such a wonderful way of putting this experience into words. I on the other had lack that talent. So I will try to give you a little update on the Stinebaughs, and include excerpts from Tom's emails. Mom and dad already receive Tom's emails, but I thought that Tina, Steve and Amy would like to know what is going on, and enjoy some photos from Italy.

I probably have the photo's out of order, but all I can say... Italy looks like such a beautiful place. I know that from the emails, that there is not a lot of sight seeing to do. Tom and Sheridan work 9-11 hours of work each day, in addition to going out to the airbase and doing speaking engagements. They are very busy, and they get tired. So please keep them in your prayers. I believe the photos below were taken in Siracusa.

Attached are some pictures we took on our preparation day. They were taken in a beautiful town north of Catania called Taormina. Typical Sicilian houses and shops and an ancient Greek amphitheatre.

This journal entry was taken from a email they sent us in the middle of May. The work is going well and tomorrow we jump into the fire, as our senior couple who we are replacing leaves for the U.S. Our anxiety is pretty high what with all we have to remember and the detail that goes with such things as the finances. Add to that the complexity of getting around this city of 800,000 on narrow (I mean really narrow) streets. No traffic lights at any intersection (which are mostly roundabouts)-----------just stick the nose of your car in and go. It's scary to me right now. Finally, we have the language. It's definitely pushing us out of our comfort zone, but that's what we expected. It will be good for us, but not without a lot of prayer and maybe tears.

The ruins are of an ancient Greek temple to Apollo. They date way back before Christ.

We live on the 2nd floor and the intersection is quite busy most of the time. We are quite pleased with our apartment but no A/C yet and the hot season is around the corner. I don't ask about the weather because I find that ignorance really is bliss. Our apartment does have windows on two sides so we get a nice cross ventilation and we get lots of light so that is very nice. As mentioned we have a washing machine, but so far we've dried everything on drying racks. That's the water heater hanging on the wall outside the window to the left of the corner of the house. It must operate on heating on demand because there is no tank for storage. I have mentioned how beautiful the plants are and they are flowering all over the place. Our parking is inside the metal gates. Nearly all the apartments and homes are gated with large steel gates and the walls around every complex are concrete, or concrete and steel as you can see. We are getting more and more acclimated and getting the swing of our assignments. I am sure that I will never get acclimated to the traffic and narrow streets. I just hope to come home alive!! If you stood on top of our apartment building you could see the Mediterranean. On a clear day when it isn't really humid the view of the sea is beautiful.