October was a beautiful month in Northern Italy.  We visited an Olive farm and bought some olive oil. It is near the mountain close by, and a beautiful farm of olive trees on the mountain side. I was standing waiting some of the people with us, and a lady came up and popped one of these in her mouth, and told me to eat one.??? I'm not big on eating what I don't recognize, but I did it, what a surprise!  It was furry and prickly, and bland in flavor....any ideas what they are?

We took a p-day to go to Trieste looking for Roman ruins.  It is a beautiful ancient town on the border with Croatia, and a big shipping town. This is a view from across the Adriatic Sea. I've included the Roman road we went town, being led by our Tomtom.  We barely got back up!  True test for our little Ford Fiesta and the driver!










This is the road, it leads up to the gate of the fortress, you can feel pretty sorry for those horses coming home after a battle and facing that road. Can you see the blocks of granite that form the road?  It's held up for hundreds of years! It was probably a deterent to the conquerors.  This area was forever being conquered, taken over by every faction in Europe and across the sea.

Well here is picture of Elder Martin after volunteering at the base chapel, on his way to the elementary school library to volunteer.  It is fun to see the kids so anxious to get books, following the rules, and trying so hard to be quiet.  When member kids come in they always come up for a hug, good kids.  

Our ward had a weinie roast Halloween Party/Trunk or Treat.  You probably wondered how we got Michael Phelps to come?  He just showed up looking for Elder Martin Hot Dogs.  He cooked them for hours that night.  Even though we decorated our trunk, we had to leave before they got to that part of the fun.  Our fun was watching the Italians as we drove wonder why these two mature people had a ghost painted in their back window.