Happy New Year

 At the branch Christmas party we were visited by the Weihnachtsmann (Christmas man) played by Elder Donner.  Although the traditions are a bit different the feeling of joy and celebration are the same.

 Except for the Charlie Brown tree in our little apartment.  We actually bought this tree live for last year and kept it alive for the whole year, although it's self image has changed.

Our last week of 2013 was event filled and the best part was that we were able to Skype with almost the whole family on their Christmas morning while the kids were opening presents.  It was almost like being there.  We are sorry Lisa missed out on this non-event.  That day we had a visit from one of our special friends from our last stay in Germany in Chemnitz.  David Preissler was one of our Young Adults at the center.  He and his family now live in Constanz, Germany near the Swiss border.  They had been in Chemnitz visiting family and called to stop here on their way home.  What a treat to meet his wife and play with their two littles
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 Then last Saturday we were given permission to travel out of our mission and visit the Kaulfersch family in Nördlingen.  We rented a car so as not to put mileage on the mission vehicle and Dave got to indulge his fast driving in Germany gene.  He didn't go over 100 mph though.

 We had met Herbert Kaulfersch when he came to the US on a teacher travel program and stayed with us for about a month.  That was in 1978. On our 2000 trip to Europe we visited him at his home.  We thoroughly enjoyed talking with his wife and young adult son.  They had lots of questions about Mormons and the US.  Arnika had a mental image of us living in the wilderness all alone but we were able to reassure her that we are not so isolated as she imagined.

Because our two Elders, Donner and Pollard, are going home soon, they have a third companion for this week to introduce him to the area. He arrived Monday and we had them all for Home Evening with Eva and Martha.

The very best part of Christmas is indeed friends, old and new.  We love them all and cherish the times when we are together.

For New Year's Eve we went to the Merkels who hosted all the missionaries in our branch (five at the moment) for fondue and Racklett. The latter consists of a warming appliance on the table where you can grill meat on top and warm veggies and a special Racklett cheese underneath.  That is in the backgound with the fondue in the foreground

 Then we sat around and sang songs while Elder Pollard played the guitar.  We discovered that the songs we know are so out of date!  We knew of the songs they were singing but didn't know the lyrics, songs from the 80's and 90's are old to them. 

Here is the Merkel family, or the Merkel girls and the Holy Ghost??


We left their home and took the three missionaries home by about 9:30.  Then we enjoyed the occasional loud bangs outside indicating the town was preparing for the annual 'war'.  The town itself does not do a firework display like in the US.  Instead everyone has their own show in the streets.  This means the whole town is exploding from dusk to dawn with the majority of the sparks between 11:30 and 1:00.  Here is a view out our window at dawn one morning this week and then here is the view around midnight.