Still Cold

We have had several really cold days now. Today it actually warmed up a bit (-1c) and lots of the snow melted. The sister missionaries wear a t-shirt, blouse, two sweaters and their scarf. (and that's inside the building). They also wear 3 or 4 pairs of socks. Their boots are starting to rip because of the extra bulk. Also, the salt is taking away the water proofing from their boots. Today I suggested they start putting plastic bags inside their boots. To go outside they bundle up in their coats, hats and gloves. I wear a blouse, sweater, a jacket, and then my coat along with a coat, scarf, and gloves. I wear a hat if we have to do any amount of walking outside. The elders all love the cold weather. They spend a little time goofing off as they go from appt to appt. Just a tiny bit of playing though. They really are very dedicated and hard working and very spiritual guys. They particularly loved getting to church on Sunday all covered in snow and looking like snowmen. All of us are in great spirits. It is wonderful to be doing the work of the Lord. We are in Europe and we are doing something we all love. We love the Lord and each other and we love working with the people, teaching them the way to salvation.

Today we had interviews with the president. We also had district training. Whenever we do that we do lots of role playing. That is always lots of fun. I love being with the missionaries. We learn a lot and we always enjoy being together. It is always an uplifting day. Two of our missionaries play awesome piano, so we always have really nice music to listen to now. We all had lunch together, made by the zone leaders. If zone leaders make lunch we always know what the menu will be. It is sandwiches made on bagettes, chips and a drink. Today Sister Brubaker made a delicious wassil in addition to our regular drinks. We all wanted her recipe which she gladly shared.

Dh and I went out for a couple of hours to the Marche de Noel in Rihour. It was fun to walk around and see all the stuff for sale in the little booths. We ate something that looked like donut holes with sugar all over them. Yummy.

Then we went back to the church to wait for the time to leave for our appts. I spent time talking to missionaries who were still waiting to be interviewed and to Sis. Brubaker. Dh went into a room and worked on his talk for Sunday. As the High Council guy for Calais he has to speak every month. He puts in hours of preparation and his talks are always great.

Finally we drove to St. Andre and made several visits. We had another busy and productive day. It was great.

Snowing

It has been snowing here for the past few days with today being the coldest. It is about -5c. In fact, some of the churches were closed and the roads were, "as slippery as skating rinks" said the news. The snow stopped falling long enough for me to take pictures out our front and back windows. The snow is so pretty to look at, but it's sooooo cold.

We had our last institute class for the year. Now we are on a 2 week break. Here is my cute cleaning crew from last thursday. They had a lot of fun talking and giggling while they were cleaning up and it sure helped me a lot. These young adults like everything I prepare for them and are so appreciative that it is makes it a pleasure to do the cooking each week for so many people.

Our stake presidency likes to "drop in after their meetings and sample the food. In fact, if there is anything left at all, they make sure to finish every last bite.



One of the JA's insisted on taking my picture.

In most of the stores I find these little marzipan piggies. I bought some just for fun. I usually like marzipan in chocolate and in food, but I do not like these little piggies. Dh got to eat them all. He was happy.





This is our little Christmas tree. It's just right for a missionary apt.

We had a really fun activity yesterday with the missionaries, some of the JA's and even a few ward members. We met in the afternoon and made chocolate chip cookies. Then we went to Place Republic and sang Christmas hymns. The choir sounded really good. We sang in parts and it really was good. I only sang a little because I am not a good singer. I can only sing well to little people.:) Then when people stopped to listen or were interested, we gave them the bagged cookies and a Joy to the World video. Then we all went back to the church for hot chocolate.

Here are a few missionaries practicing singing.

Sister Koehler is new to our district. She is companions with Sister Gappmaeir. These two hit it off right away.

Manu getting the room set up for cooking.

Everyone helped mix, bake, etc.

Some waited to go and sing. Although the Petrov's didn't cook, they helped pass out cookies at the town square.








After the cookies were made, we had a short rehersal in the chapel.

Our cute Aurelie was the peppiest conductor. She is barely 18, but she got everyone's attention and was a good little chorister.

We had a lot of fun, but we all froze. It was soo cold.

Missionaries contacting shoppers. One young girl in her early 20's listened for a long time to us singing. Then a missionary talked to her and gave her a video and a pkg of cookies. She listened some more and finally joined us and sang the rest of the time. Then she wanted to know if we sang often and also if she could come to church with us on Sunday. You can bet that we were so happy to have her join us.

We really enjoy our activities with the youth.

Andrea and Diogo

Today is such a beautiful, wonderful day. Today is the day my daughter Andrea and Yoho are going to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity. I wish I could be there for this momentous day, but alas I cannot. However, I wanted them to go ahead and go and not wait for us to come back because it is just too important. I am thrilled and excited for them. I am so grateful that they are following Heavenly Father's plan. I am grateful that they can be together forever.

Last week they both went to the Provo Temple to get their endowments. The Provo Temple is

nestled in the foot of the mountains of the Wasatch front. It is a lovely, peaceful place to go. My sweet Valerie was her escort and Yoho's Dad was his.

Today they will be going to the Salt Lake Temple, the great prototype of all temples in the last days and the mother of all temples even though it is not the first.

Congratulations to my darling girl. Papa and I are so happy for you.

Petty's visit

Last week we had a wonderful surprise visit from the Pettys. Robin had called about a week before and we were able to make arrangements to spend some time with them. We had sooooo much fun. We started out by going to Grand Place where we walked around lots of little shops. Unfortunately is was so dark that they didn't get to see the magnificence of the buildings.
Nevertheless we really enjoyed ourselves. Rick is so funny that he had us laughing much of the time. We had a yummy dinner of steak, salad, and fries. We also stopped for hot cocoa, belgian waffles, and belgian frites. Robin and Rick had a waffle with chocolate and strawberries and Dh and I had one with chocolate. The fries are double fried here; first in one oil and then in another one. Both the waffles and the fries are a regional specialty not to be missed.

The next day we met up with the Phairs and visited the Cinquantenaire. This is a huge museum complex and park. The arc with the huge statue can be seen from many parts of the city and is one of the great landmarks of Brussels.

Inside the museum are several exhibits. We saw the African, American Indian, Greek and Egyptian ones. They were all very interesting.

They had lot of ancient writings on tablets, plates, scrolls, and stones. Some of them were very large while some were very, very small.

There were lots of interesting tapestries.

Carvings on stone and wood were so interesting.
We also saw lots of statues, sculptures, paintings, and other various objects of art as well as ancient household objects, dishes, pottery, vases etc.

There were several representations of the tower of babel.

The Phairs and Dh.

Robin admiring some of the jewelry.

An ancient burial casket.

One room was dedicated to mummies. We saw old bones, skulls, hands and feet and toes.

Lots of the mummies had doubles enclosures like our casket and then cement tomb.

Not sure how this picture snuck in here, but we went to visit the Atomium at night. It is the representation of a molecule of iron magnified 105million times. It was a lot of fun to go into several of the balls. First we took an elevator clear to the top and could walk around up there and look down at the city. Then we came back down and then up escalators and stairs. There was a 50's exhibit in one ball and an African exhibit in another. One of the balls was empty because they use if for school kids to have overnighters. We then took stairs and escalators and finally an elevator down. It was so pretty all lit up.

More mummies.

The American Indian exhibit was fun, but most of the things on display were very familiar to us.

This is from the top of the museum. The view of the city is beautiful.

In one of the opposite buildings there is a section of medievil things and also a WWII musuem with tanks, tons of weapons, etc. The men really, really enjoyed this part.

Saturday we drove down to Brugge, a lovely old city. We took a boat ride in the canals. As you can see, it was really, really cold. We are bundled up in 4 or 5 layers of clothes. We had fun looking at the shops, the belgian lace, and lots of fun things. In the evening we went to our church building and listened to the Stake Christmas Musical Program which we all enjoyed.

Robin and Rick spent the night in our missionary apartment and Sunday we went to church. We had fun introducing them to our friends and ward members. The U.S. missionaries were super excited to have them there.

After church, we had a nice turkey dinner and then we drove them back to Brussels. What a great surprise and what a great visit we had.

The Pettys have been our friends since we moved to Texas. We were their neighbors down the street and then Rick became our Bishop. In fact he is the one who helped us fill out all of our missionary papers. There were many a time we would run up to his house for help with one question or another. We were his first missionaries too. Interestingly enough, our daughter Andrea and their daughter Meridith were great friends before we ever met them. It was a super coincidence and wonderful surprise that we moved so close to them and became such good friends. Hurray for friends!