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Spring Musings after a Routine Winter

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       Noses have been pretty much to the grindstone after the holidays, continuing to feed the Young Adults at the Wednesday night Institute classes, making the rounds around the ward with birthday chocolate and knitted washcloths.      Things proceeded pretty much along those lines until March, which was rather eventful. On the first weekend, there was a full mission conference, presided over by Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Twelve. And it was in VIENNA, on the other end of the mission from us, about a nine-hour drive, if we were to take that one on in one go. We didn't.     In the run-up to the conference, Leesa decided that if we were going to Vienna, we ought to have the opportunity to see a live classical music concert. It didn't take long for me to find one at viennaconcerts.com, an evening of Mozart and Johann Strauss II (the Waltz King), featuring an eight-piece orchestra with two singers, a soprano and a baritone. It also carried the option of a dinner/concert p
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Holidays in the Alps

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         Thanksgiving and Christmas on a mission are very special, indeed. We've made a lot of new Facebook friends, several of which are senior couples who have since been released. One, in fact, Kathey Mackay, is pretty much directly responsible for the fact that I own a pair of lederhosen. I was hesitant, anticipating untold ridicule from our children, but she challenged me openly, posting, "Oh, the worst thing that can happen to you is that somebody will hand you a tuba!" The inevitable result:     A more somber conclusion is the overall impression I get that while the couples are overjoyed to be reunited with their families (as we certainly will be), they also sorely miss the friends and places they experienced on their missions. Leesa and I have been so completely accepted by the members of the Freiburg ward, the young missionaries, the other senior couples in the mission, and both our mission presidents and their wives, that we are led to two inexorable conclusions
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Autumn in the Black Forest

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      It has been six weeks since our last post, and while in that time we've been trying to do our jobs, there has been time for an outing and fun with the missionaries and members in the Freiburg ward.     After August (universal time for vacations in Europe), we started in again feeding the Young Adults every Wednesday after their Institute class. Now that everybody's back to work, we have a much better turnout, usually about 15 or so. (from L to R, Joshua Winterhalder, brothers Corvin, Lucian, & Victor Voßler, Louise (Corvin's bride of but five weeks), David Merkle, and Anthony Gastañadui-Gutierrez, who is from Peru) (Sister Rachel Weber, Bethan Hoggan, Louise and Corvin Voßler, Sister Makenna Kunz, Anthony, and Elder Chang)     On our way out to a small village east of Freiburg to visit a member having a birthday, we stopped by our favorite fruit stand to pick up a couple of pumpkins for Young Adult carving that night. Leesa and I were amazed at the talent shown by
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Vacation Time!

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      A number of you, including my sister-in-law, JoAnn, have questioned our commitment to actually working here in Freiburg. We post a lot of pictures of places we've been, sights we've seen, and we've been (jokingly) accused of being on vacation out here, and not doing much in the way of real missionary work. All I have to say in our defense is that this post will do nothing to disprove any of those allegations.     August is THE month for vacations here in Germany. There are lots of cars towing trailers and lots of those rented motor homes clogging the roads all through southern Germany and Switzerland. Friends of ours here have taken off to Italy, the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza, vacation islands in the Mediterranean belonging to Spain), and even the Maldives. This is an island nation off the southwestern tip of India, and is becoming quite popular.     As far as we're concerned, our prime responsibility is to feed the Young Adults after Institut
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