Sicily and "La Famiglia" Arena

For those who don't know, I engaged in voluntary missionary work for my church from 1998-2000. Although that service sent me to Utah, Kentucky and Indiana, my final destination was Italy where I spent over 19 months amongst the unique and wonderful people of that country. I fell deeply in love with the country, people, language and culture. Looking back now, nearly a decade later, the whole experience has taken on a dream-like feel but when I speak Italian or meditate on the experiences I had there, I realize how real and life-changing the experience was. I still stay in touch with a few people but I have remained particularly close to my good friend Antonio whom I consider a brother. We met on a cold morning in the city of Palermo and on that morning, our lives changed forever. Before I write more about Antonio and his family, I'd like to provide some context to his story by describing some details about the mysterious and peculiar island of Sicily.

Although I spent the majority of my time as a missionary on the majestic island of Sicily, I still find it difficult to describe Sicilia. It's no wonder that poets and philosophers have often used the term "enigmatic" to describe this place. It is both beautiful and ugly at the same time, it's rocky landscape peppered with blooming flowers, citrus groves, vineyards and, almost all the time, the bright, crystal blue water of the Mediterranean Sea sparkling in the distance. There is at once a wealth of activity as the food markets bustle and the traffic screams around yet the specter of poverty looms. Although I don't remember the exact quote, a Greek writer once said that heaven and hell coexist in Sicily.

Sicily is not a dangerous place and although the mafia does operate, it's mostly behind closes doors and is no more corrupt than many of the corporations from which we buy products here in the U.S. in terms of the way money is worshiped and governments manipulated.

“You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never to get involved in a land war in Asia. And only slightly less well known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
-From the Princess Bride

From wikipedia:

Sicily (Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is an island off the Southern tip of the Italian Peninsula.

Sicily is one of the twenty regions of Italy, albeit one of the five granted special degrees of autonomy. The population of Sicily is 5,015,591 (2005 est.) The capital city is Palermo. Although the official language of the region is Italian, the island is home to its own unique language.

As a consequence of Sicily's strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea, the island was conquered numerous times by various civilizations, resulting in Sicilians being a distinct ethnic group from mainland Italians.

The method I have found most effective in describing the location of Sicily to people is to simply say, "Hey, it's the football the boot is kicking, you know?"


The Sicilian Flag (creepy and cool eh?)

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LA FAMIGLIA ARENA

One morning my missionary partner and I were standing in a busy shopping center in downtown Palermo, the largest city in Sicily. I had spent the night on a lawn chair in a hospital (that's a whole 'nother story) so I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and we had split up in order to talk to as many people as possible. As volunteers for the LDS church, one of our primary goals is to talk to people about God. We like to find out what they think about God, life, death, etc. You know, the "big" and "terrible" questions that so many people want to avoid. As you can imagine, when one is walking busily through the streets to or from a particular destination, it's not easy to stop and begin having a ponderous conversation about the meaning of life. Nevertheless, this "street contacting," as we referred to it, is one of the few tools we had in order to share our message about God and Jesus Christ.

Most of the time things went like this:

"Buon giorno! Come stai?" (Good morning, how are you?).

"No, no!" (Do I really need to translate that?)

Even when people did stop, they usually did so out of curiosity since my companions and I were usually American or because they wanted to have an antagonistic conversation. As you probably know, the vast majority of Italians are Catholic not only "by religion" but as a result of their culture and heritage and, therefore, religion is something they grew up hearing at school, etc. and not something that affects their lives in the sort of intimate way that other religions and belief systems do. In other words when the average man or woman stopped to talk, the response likely sounded something like the following: "Yes, yes, of course I believe in God! You know, I'm not an evil person. Yeah, it all sounds very interesting, but I'm not interested and I don't have a lot of time. You seem like a nice young man, good luck with everything, but no thanks!" With that, he or she would be on their way. The older folks were always bewildered and the Italian girls just giggled and mumbled, "Like the Backstreet Boys!"

Now that I've provided that background information, you can imagine my reluctance to say anything to the handsome young guy in a hip coat who was sporting some fancy sunglasses and facial hair and whose very gait screamed, "I'm not interested in talking about God or anything else with you" as he walked toward me. I decided then that the fifty plus rejections that morning had been enough and that I'd simply remain silent or, perhaps, give a nod to say hello when he passed. As he approached, however, I felt urged to say hello. I shrugged it off. I was tired and besides, if he were really interested, he could approach me. Once more I felt as if I were being prompted to address the young man and once more I suppressed the feeling. He was almost upon me! Then, that still voice almost seemed to shout within me and I stuck my hand out and blurted awkwardly, "Buon giorno! Come va?" The young man turned to me, returned my greeting and we began talking.

I'll spare all of the details, but suffice to say that Antonio was easily the most intriguing person I had met during my missionary service. He was young, about twenty-four. He told me he was an artist and had just completed his art degree. At the time he was dating a beautiful young blonde girl and was basically living a life of leisure like most young Italians: working during the day and going out at night on the weekends from about 1AM to 6AM.

As we shared our beliefs with Antonio and challenged him to pray and ponder our teachings, he took the lessons very seriously. Eventually he received the answer to his prayers and, despite the objections from his parents, he decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was soon transferred to the city of Milazzo which is on the other side of the island and although we stayed in touch, he was sent of to complete his mandatory military service like all Italian men. We saw each other twice before I returned to the United States.

Despite some difficulties both spiritually and temporally, Antonio remained true to the faith and eventually married the ex-branch President's daughter, Gabriella, in the Swiss Temple. After serving in various callings, Antonio was called to be the President of the District of Sicily (the equivalent to a Stake President since there is not a stake there yet) which was a bit shocking considering the fact that he is quite young. Despite the fact that he often works past 6PM and on Saturdays, he has been able to fulfill his duties in this calling which often requires him to drive across the island and keeps him busy most of the day on Sundays. In addition to all of this, Italy is one of those places in which being a member of any church besides the Catholic faith can make one a bit of a cultural leper and, therefore, members are very much pioneers who face a great deal of ignorance and spite from other members of their culture.

Gabriella and Giada

Antonio and Gabriella have one child, a beautiful little girl named Giada (that's pronounced "Jah-duh" not "G-eye-dah" like people mistakenly say when referring to the Giada of FoodNetwork fame) who is about four months older than Carter which makes her almost four now.

When Sarah and I went to Italy in 2003 before we had any children we visited Antonio and Gabriella and had a great time. They live in a suburb of Palermo about twenty minutes from downtown where he and I first met. We went back to that exact spot and even reenacted the moment in which we met. I love Antonio like a brother and his example has helped me through some difficult times. In many ways I feel like he's my long lost brother since I don't have a brother of my own.

I hope someday he'll be able to come visit here, but life in Italy isn't easy for the average citizen these days. When Italy joined the European Union, they switched from the lira to the Euro which has been very tough. The Euro is worth a lot, way more than the dollar, and this has negatively impacted the cost of living because effectively everything became more expensive but peoples' salaries didn't change accordingly in all cases (this is a simplified explanation of a very complex economic process but you get the idea) and people like Gabriella and Antonio report that it's made their lives difficult. And besides, a lot of countries like Italy, despite its classification as a first world country, still don't provide the same sort of blank slate that America does in terms of education, real estate and so forth. If one finds a decent job, one sticks with it because you can't just quit and go looking for something else because you might not find it. I think the idea of nepotism must have come from Italy because it's all about who you know not what you know.

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I leave you with this image from the Cathedral of Monreale. This is one of the most fantastic buildings I have ever seen. Monreale was the first city in Italy in which I served as a missionary and I've been in this church countless times. It has mosaics all around on the inside that depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments and most of it is done in pure gold. As you can see in the back of the chapel, the crowning image is that of Christ with his arms extended. This cathedral was built, if I am not mistaken, by Normans who had conquered Sicily at some point and much of the labor was done by Moors. I have taken by my parents and wife to this wondrous edifice.



Photos of Monreale.

More of the cathedral of Monreale here.