I took this photo to show you the goodies on the tables. I'll post a couple of clips tomorrow.

DECEMBER 13, 2008 FRIDAY

We had to be at the church at 8:00 this morning to catch our ride with the AP’s to Dielsdorf for zone conference. Today was also wash day so I got up at 6:00 in order to get that done in time. Of course we didn’t have time to dry them so that’s what were doing now at 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning. I know we’re technically breaking the rules although senior missionaries are not held to the same rules at the younger ones. More on this later. Before we could leave to walk to the church the DL’s called and wanted to do one more thing with the computer before we left. Needless to say, this made us a few minutes late for our pick up. All’s well that ends well and we were on our way. First we had to go to the mission home and pick up some sisters and the Christmas packages for the missionaries to be given them after the conference. Everything went ok except when we got there and tried to set up my computer to play the video, there wasn’t a projector in the building. The Elders, always resourceful, were able to burn a disc and play it on the TV with the disk player.

We had a great conference with a lot of inspirational training segments given by various missionaries and talks by Pres. and Sister Matern. Lunch was great and/or delicious consisting of a green salad, either fried or BBQ chicken and/or ham, peas and carrots and/or corn, mashed potatoes and gravy and/or potato salad, and carrot cake and/or some sort of cheesecake for dessert. In addition to that they had the traditional pile of tangerines/chocolates/peanuts/cookies at each missionary’s spot. What seemed funny to us is that most missionaries didn’t eat much out of their pile of Christmas goodies, so I cleaned up the tables, scooped them all into a box and brought them home. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that good stuff going to waste.

During lunch the video was shown which had most of the missionaries captured in their favorite photos. Some were funny, some serious, but all were good. After that came some more training and then the serious stuff was over. The talent show came next and most were funny skits of one kind or another, a couple were videos of which one we posted on the blog yesterday. The white elephant exchange came next. I received a note and a couple of toy jets and a deck of cards with jets on the back which all played on the “don’t get trunky yet because it’ll be a long time before you fly home. Diana got a children’s storybook written in German which she really loved. Then came the quick ride home because we had to get back to the church to help with Monika’s wedding.

Even though there were some complications, we were able to get there in plenty of time before the guests started arriving. It was a busy night, but we had the AP’s, DL’s and Suki helping in the kitchen. I got the best job which was slicing the piping hot ham. The only problem with the wedding is that it lasted way past our bedtime. We finally left at 1:00 a.m. because we still have to get up fairly early to get to Luzern. As we said at the beginning of this entry, here I sit waiting for the clothes to dry. I think it’s about time to take them out even thought they aren’t quite dry yet.