Butlers in Holland

Holladay friends, Ann and Ron Butler left on their mission a week before we did so we thought it was high time we visited them in the Low Country of the Netherlands. We had a great time laughing, eating, and hanging out with Butlers in  Eindhoven

"Stop Ron!"

Indonesian/Chinese Rice Table

and at the temple in The Hague. It was fun to hear Ann speak Dutch, the language of her childhood.

We were more than a little jealous of their apartment, right on a lake, clever architecture next door.  But it is freezing there!

Holidays

Our Christmas tree

The sister missionaries came for Christmas dinner. Nothing fancy but they were mostly here so they could Skype/Hangout with their families on our laptops - very fun! Looks like two dinner guests is our limit.

Snow and a day of sunshine!

Missionaries having a snowball fight on pday

Keeping with tradition, we went to a movie at the Wiesbaden military base with Sharon Greenwood. Do you remember when movie theaters were this big?  They even started with everyone standing for the Star Bangled Banner. Yea America!

 The girls sent this of their unplanned matching scarves.  Love them!

 Dave continued his masterful White Elephant art of Nick, "Whistler's Father."

Elise, Ted and Julian in McCall.  Always prepared in case Julian gets hungry. :)

A bad odor in our bathroom (it wasn't just from the shelf toilet) evolved into a full-blown leak from upstairs. Since Germany shuts down for two weeks, we don't expect resolution for awhile. Makes for really cold bathroom stops since we're keeping the window open most of the time.

Some of the elders joined a lot of us senior missionaries for New Year's Eve. Aren't they a wonderful-looking group? 

Crazy fireworks in the streets. We had a great view from the Bangerters' 10th floor balcony.

Happy 2015!

Freiberg

Went on a three-day outing to Freiberg, thanks to our well-traveled friends, Brenda and Ron Jacques. They knew President and Sister Kosack in Latvia on their first mission. The Kosacks are mission presidents in the Berlin mission and invited Jacques and a few other Frankfurt seniors to join their Berlin senior missionary retreat. What a treat!

 We loved the Freiberg temple and city,

Here's where we stayed, where temple patrons bunk when they come from far away (4 hours for us)

President and Sister Kosack gave us a very inspirational peptalk about being senior missionaries. I like this quote:

They also shared their experience of growing up in Eastern Germany - fascinating. Were they joking when they said that the Polish translation of "Come Come Ye Saints" says "Not so bad" instead of "All is well"? Sometimes that's all one can say and be honest.

On the way back to Frankfurt, we visited the open air museum at Moedlareuth, also called Little Berlin. It's a small village that was divided by the Iron Curtain in 1952. The town has kept portions of the wall and other paraphernalia (trucks, tanks, etc) for a very visual representation of life in East and West Germany. Rand was a great tour guide with his knowledge of history and German.

More about Moedlareuth