Excerpts from my Mission Journal, initially to Italy Southern Mission 1975-76
The mission was later renamed from Missione D'Italia del Sud, to
Missione Italiana di Roma.
I discovered my, not so used, Journal siting on the book shelf, as I
was creating my homepage, and thought I would include a few odd pages and
I mean ODD!
Now 1975 was smack dab in the middle of bell bottom pants and longer hair. This Mission (87k) Photo taken by the late Mrs. Johnson, from whom I took typing, for 2 years, (could only type 15 WPM, not counting mistakes), shows me at a very youthful 19.
Glued in one page of my Journal is a card from a young member girl, Teresa Marongu (brown down). She also shared a fascination of religion, and gave me this small card, that was old, say 30 to 40 years old. The card was in her grandma's bible, one of many. It is a nice engraving of La Madonna (44k) of Carmine. (page 84)
It is subtitled Mary Most Holy Mother of Carmine. Then in some grammatical form I have forgotten, it says If one would come or that one would come to church at Saint Marlino at Mount PP Carmailour.
At one point in my Mission, I had become discouraged of having nothing positive or faith promoting to write in my Journal. Without much forethought my Journal, one day, evolved into a scrap book of what ever I had sitting near my bed at that time. Well since I liked religion and Rome is the birth place of such, and because I had a few black and white prints symbolizing that, it seem appropriate. Now it appears a little odd. The inside cover (34k) of my Mission Journal.
At some point in time, as boredom got worse, so did my sense of reverence. It became an irreverent collage starting at the top, a torn pick of a poster, announcing the death of a prominent person. I like this because of the Pietà, by Michael Angelo. It was also common to see these posters which I saw as interesting but also bizarre and dark. (47k) Also are pasted on hand numbered page 87 are a few of the umpteen political party logo's from Italy. The photo copies of the Missionary Pass Port photos of the members of our district at that time, were swapped with each other and pasted in our journals. I started touching up spots on my bad photo copy and next thing you know, I was wearing my old mustache, (61k) page 83 that I had grown accustomed to over a 4 year period. Which says something about our state of mind.
What is not shown, but glued above that photo copies is a small strip of toilet paper from a train. Toilet paper in Italy, was the antithesis of our Charmin. It had the look and texture of crape paper. Train station paper was the worst, more akin to a fine grate sand paper. Stamped across it on every sheet was FERRORVIE DELLO STATO FERRORVIE DELLO STATO FERRORVIE DELLO STATO FERRORVIE DELLO STATO. As if you would want to steal the stuff! It was included in my Journal, for the sense of touch, and the Internet has not created a browser with that feature yet, so you will have to take my word for it.
I had a page dedicated to Anno Santo, or Holy Year. Which was celebrated only every 25 years. There is a special door in the Vatican that only is opened during that years and sealed again. If you walk through that door, say certain prayers and exit another door, all your sins were forgiven.
Unfortunately I don't remember which door I exited last and my prayers have always been "mancato un po". It appears a little telling which Presidents of The Mormon church were grouped next to Due Grande Papa. I guess my favoritism for certain Presidents, has been more longer standing than I thought. Not any great artistry or design, but possibly the only Mormon missionary journal with pictures of Popes and Prophets on page 42 (148k)
Every 6 months or so, I would send home books on Catholicism & Jehovah's
Witness. Part of sending packages registered mail, was to buy stamps that
were put on special receipts, and then canceled. (the vertical left column)
The Italian Government is capo at bureaucratization.
(49k) Also on page 75 are receipts from train tickets and Bus tickets,
and even a long distance phone call receipt. At that time, to make a long
distance phone call you had to actually go to the phone company and use
their phones, in these special phone booths. You could receive a long distance
all, as in a call from the Mission President that you were being transferred
to another city. Those calls were rarely expected and always a big deal.
Calling cards (52k) for each of the 4 cites where I worked, page 52
Transubstantiation in the 1852 Italian Book of Mormon.
Vicarius filii dei or 666 (56k) or how we how we taught American Halloween culture to the MIA, page 65
Challenging " Baldy" (45k) to give up Cigarette's,
his last pack, well for a day, at least, page 70
Ciao Perry
All opinions are mine and mine alone, and represent
my thinking at this point in time,
All original writings of mine are just that, to
reproduce, forward or use, parts or whole, you need to get permission from
me first.
Spellings constructed for effect and to confound
the ridged. ;)
©1996 by Perry L. Porter. All copyrights
are maintained by any parties (individual or corporate) which may have
originally created any of the information or artwork contained herein.
If you see your work, and I've mistakenly not given you or your company
credit, please E-mail me, I'll gladly add the appropriate credit, if you
feel it's necessary.
Or if that does not work, try this mail form.
(subject to change based on better information).
plporter@pobox.com (E-Mail)
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ftp://ftp.xmission.com/pub/users/p/plporter (download)
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