Week of May 2nd, 2010

Monday is P-day (preparation day) for the missionaries. This is the day when they do their personal things such as write letters, send e-mails, shop, clean their apartments, and have fun activities. They invited us to participate in their activities. We celebrated 2 birthdays that day. We got together about noon and had a lunch of hot dogs and chili which we ate on baguettes. I made chocolate brownies for the birthday boy and girl.

What is best: cosmetics (lipstick, nail polish, hair stuff) or a box of chocolates and gummy candies? It was a toss up. Luckily each thought theirs was the best gift. Soeur Curran was happy with her gift and so was Elder Porter.

After lunch we watched the Thomas S. Monson movie which is just great. I just loved that movie and am going to buy it. Then we played games. Later in the afternoon Dh and I made a few visits and then we had FHE. We had 7 investigators. It was awesome. Natacha made a yummy pasta/salmon and tarte au maroille. The tarte is made with a very, very stinky, but once it's cooked it is yummy. She made 2 tartes and they were gone in minutes. Our FHE attendance is growing and we are having really good lessons and fun games. I think the youth are enjoying themselves.

Tuesday the birthday activities continued. After district mtg Elder Niedhart surprised everyone with lunch. He made Swiss museli which is oatmeal cooked with yogurt, oranges and bananas. It was quite good. I served the rest of the pasta dish and some desserts.

After a day of teaching we meet at 8:00 at Pizza Pai and had pizza by the meter. The pizzas were so good and each time they brought out pizzas with different toppings. They had a Mexican style topping with peppers, sausage etc, one with olives, one with 4 cheeses, one with salmon, and another with blue cheese. There was a veggie one, one with lardons and olives and many other kinds. Oh my gosh, everyone was totally stuffed. Then each person also had a choice of dessert. I picked chocolate mousse which was delicious, but I could only eat a couple of bites. I shared with others. Elder Porter got some yummy raspberry parfait and he shared with me too. I had 2 bites of that deliciousness.
The black fellow by Natacha is Xavier from Guadeloupe. He has been taking the lessons and he had just set a baptismal date before the dinner. He was pretty hyped as were all of the missionaries.

Elders Dungan and Neidhart were too busy at DMP and another meeting that they had to miss the dinner. They came just to say happy birthday and then we shared our desserts with them. Elder Neidhart happily ate most of my mousse.

We all had a really good time together laughing, eating, telling jokes and enjoying each others company.

Wednesday was spent teaching and teaching.

Thursday was institute so Dh and I were buy cooking most of the day. In the evening while class was going on we were doing last minute preparation. I made BBQ pulled pork on buns, salad and chocolate applesauce cake.

Elders Dalton and Perez helped a lot. They were very excited about the end result. They are so happy to be assigned to work with the JA Center.

We had such a great attendance. We had 34 JA's and 7 investigators. Oh my gosh, they loved the food. I had some little leftovers in the crock pot, just a bit and some on them came into the kitchen and scraped out the crock pot. I'll tell you, there is no waste of food here.:)

One of the first to serve himself was Benjamin. The room soon filled up and there was no more room around the table without waiting for your turn.

There were young adults everywhere: in the eating room, in the chapel, in the hallways, everywhere. It was great. We had a very successful evening.