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Coming Home

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      Well, we're coming down to the end of things here in Freiburg. It is deeply humbling to have such continued affection expressed by those around us, but that also has its lighter side: lots of folks are filling up our social calendar the last month in the form of dinner invitations. We, too, have made it a point to see as much of the missionaries as possible. Which brings us to another point.     Back in July and August, an awful lot of missionaries went home, with very few replacements coming in. One of the upshots of that was that Freiburg lost her sister missionaries, who live one floor above us. President Martin Bates had to spread his missionaries a bit thinner among three countries. Leesa and I felt the loss of the sisters immediately. Our lives became just a bit less joyful, and we missed our "granddaughters."     On a happier note, we got to hobnob with all the senior missionary couples one last time at our Fall Senior Couples Conference, ...
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Three Months Left and Counting Down

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    Sorry it's been so long. I've had some technical difficulties with the computer and the blog, but all seems to be resolved now. Speaking of which, if your browser won't play the short videos below, try using Google Chrome. Blogspot apparently doesn't play well with Microsoft Edge.          Leesa and I have been here over 18 months now, and we are beginning to make preparations to return home. We are two of the old hands at this point, and it seems like we just got here. Everybody had been around longer than us, but now, everybody is looking to us to help them along. We're seeing the mission as a giant revolving door. All of the missionaries who greeted us are long gone home, and have been replaced by ever-fresh faces. Martin and Donna Bates, our president and his bride, have only a very few left who got here before they did. We preceded them by only three months, and now the days dwindle down to a precious few.     We have cherished every...
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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 carr...
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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 in...
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