A Temple in Bella Italia!

On Saturday morning in Utah (Saturday evening in Rome), our prophet, President Monson announced that five new temples would be built. As he started naming each temple, I thought in my mind, "Someday, a prophet will say, 'Rome, Italy'." I remember repeating it wishfully a couple of times in my mind as he named each one. When he got to the end of the list of temples and said, "Rome, Italy" I let out a small scream, buried my head in my hands, and cried. We all cried.

The only thing I regret is that, for the first time since we've been here, we were at home watching on the internet. The satellite equipment had been moved from our church nearby to a church in L'Aquila (over an hour away) so the members there wouldn't have to travel to see conference as they have done for years. The Italian translation was to be shown in the chapel and two other rooms in the church would be used for English and Spanish. Stephanie and I had made brownies and attended a women's luncheon and stake enrichment meeting just before a delayed broadcast of the Relief Society broadcast earlier that day. We then returned home to watch the Saturday morning session that evening on the internet with the family. Scott had just returned from an afternoon with friends, Marianne had too much homework to drive back and forth between home and the church, and we had friends here who hadn't returned from doing some genealogy work south of Rome. So we had decided to stay and watch that session at home and return to the stake center for the Sunday sessions the next day. Again, how we wish we could have been there to see the sheer joy of the Italian people who have waited for so long for this day!

When I talked to one of President's assistants this morning, I asked him to tell me every detail of what happened at the stake center. How we wished we would have been there to witness it for ourselves! He said that when President Monson said, "Rome, Italy" in English, the person translating it into Italian paused and said, "What?" and then took a half second to let it sink in, then said, "Roma, Italia." The congregation leaped to their feet, cheering and clapping. He said, "The women were crying, the men were hugging each other, and everyone was overwhelmed with surprise and joy.

We have received a lot of emails and phone calls from former missionaries (some of "ours," and some from those who have served years ago), friends, family, members from Italy, and even a call from the Deseret News. I'll tell you what we told many of them: no, we didn't know about it. (Otherwise, we would have been at the church when it was announced!) We always talked about "when" a temple would be built, but I have to admit, I didn't have much hope that it would happen while we were here. But President Acerson always had faith that it would happen and would say things like, "We're not leaving until a temple is built!"

It is so very hard to express what this means to the members. (See my previous blog where I talk about the little family who is planning to go to the temple. Airfares went up unexpectedly so they are now waiting for cheaper airplane tickets so they can fly to the Madrid Spain Temple.) The members here in the Rome Stake rent a bus twice a year and drive overnight and into the next day (about 14 hours) to the temple in Switzerland. Young couples are married here in the church, but then must travel to the temple a couple of days later to be sealed. These saints have been so patient and faithful--praying for a temple, but certainly not waiting on it; they continue to faithfully attend another temple whenever they possibly can.

Today, the national media in Italy attended the Sunday morning conference session. They took pictures, conducted interviews, and listened to President Monson's talk. From what I hear, they enjoyed it. The investigators we brought were very touched by his talk and said that what he and the other speakers said was absolutely true.

What a joyous time for the members and the missionaries alike. We realize how very blessed we are to be here at this historic time and honor all those mission presidents and missionaries who laid the foundation for this moment. Thank you to you all.

P.S. I will have a section on www.acerson.com for updates on the temple when I have them. Watch for it next week (after we complete our zone conferences!).