First Week of February

I'm afraid my title for this post is not very original but this past week has been busy with a variety of activities and I couldn't come up with a title to reflect that - so - here is what our past week included:

Sunday dinner at a member's home - Pon from Thailand.  She served us a very healthy meal of brown rice, fresh vegetables a broccoli and fish dish and yogurt and fresh fruit for dessert.

 

 

We went with the Sister missionaries and after dinner, Pon's daughter - Ponita wanted us all to play the "Guess what I am game".  It was an enjoyable afternoon and we got to know this cute family better.  One of the joys and blessings of a mission is getting to know so many wonderful people from so many different places! 

The Sisters with Ponita

 

 

Monday was our Family Home Evening with the Young Single Adults and Tuesday included beginning preparations for Thursday's Institute dinner and a trip

 to the Rathaus ( the fourth trip) and finally receiving Hal's German driver's license.  He can now drive anywhere in the European Union for the next 15 years!  He did however have to surrender his Utah driver's license... so he will have to renew that when we return home.

On Wednesday we attended a Missionary Zone Conference and spent time helping a new senior couple that had just arrived and were awaiting their car before going to Leipzig.

 

 

On Thursday we finished preparation for dinner for the Institute kids.  We made 86 chicken enchiladas and all but 5 were eaten that night by 64 hungry Young Single Adults.

 

On Friday we cleaned the Institute facility and then had time for shopping and going out for dinner!

 

 

Early Saturday morning, we gathered with 65 of our ward members to board a bus headed for the Freiberg Temple!  Even children were invited (the Primary had games and activities for them while their parents and the youth attended the temple).  You can see cute little Pon and Ponita in the photo below.  It was another special day at the temple for us.

 

This photo shows us with Heiko - one of our Young Single Adults.  Heiko had become less active in recent months and is one of the success stories of efforts to reactivate the YSA.  Hal has befriended him and he now comes faithfully to all meetings!

Tucked in at some point each day of this past week was organ practice for Patty.  I was asked to play the organ today for Sacrament Meeting and that required lots of practice and more than a little stress!  I am glad that I did it and hopefully it will be easier if I am asked to play again!  We also had YSA Sunday today which involves meetings for the YSA and a dinner afterward (we were not responsible this time for cooking that meal - but we did help with the clean up).  We do like to stay busy and we are growing to love the members of our ward and the YSA more and more as the weeks and months go by.