Matt is in Italy for 6 weeks, working on the island of Sicily. He's working for the church, filming more of the Bible vignettes you can see on lds.org. So far, Sicily has proved to be a much more interesting place to film than Goshen, Utah. And the food is really good.
Here is the view from Matt's hotel room. He's in a small city about an hour outside of Palermo, near the coast. He can hear goats and sheep in the morning.
There are several "Sea of Galilee" scenes being filmed while he's in Italy: the apostles fishing and Christ calling Peter, Christ walking on water, etc. They've had boats built to look the time period, and Italian fisherman are helping them all learn to sail the boats and use the nets so that it will look authentic on film.
They will also be filming some scenes of Paul in Rome, so the little Sicilian hill town of Eriche is standing in for Rome in the time of Christ. Matt says all the lanes are cobblestone and that it is ancient.
And this is the view from Eriche.
Lucky Matt got to be in Italy for Easter. It was a big deal. He said Palm Sunday was exactly that--palms for sale everywhere and the cathedrals and churches packed. There are huge, beautiful churches on almost every corner, even in the small towns. The the Friday before Easter they marked the day of the crucifixion and had Easter processions with crucified Christs and the whole works. I thought the pictures looked pretty medieval and Matt said, yes, straight out of "The Godfather."
Trapani is a town about 20 minutes from where Matt is staying. That's where he saw the processions and they go there often. This is the view from the road to Trapani.
Matt said on Easter Sunday they got up early and went to Palermo. They attended LDS church in Italian (with an American elder doing some translating) and then went to part of a Catholic Easter mass. Then they went to do some sightseeing and visited the city of Cefalu. Look at that location.
Tomorrow they are going to Mt. Etna, an active volcano. I'll post more pictures when he sends them.
