Week 3

This has been a very different week from the last two. For one thing it has been a slow one in the temple. It was Dresden's week--each stake and district have an assigned week, though members can, of course, attend whenever they choose--but the numbers of those who made the short trip were very few. Perhaps that illustrates a principle that when things are close at hand and easily accessible we don't prize them as highly as when we sacrifice to have them. Dresden is only 30K away. Friday is usually our busiest day but it was dead until the evening session and throughout the week things were likewise pretty slim. Saturday we had a lot of missionaries show up and two large youth groups from the Czech Republic and Slovakia so that made it a humming day.

I was pleased to have finally managed to complete my learning of all of the ordinances in German and have had the opportunity to perform them as well. One afternoon I worked doing English with one patron and German with the next, back and forth for an hour. It was great to have set the words in my brain more firmly in both languages. In the future I'll have to tackle Hungarian but for now, I am going to savor getting this far.

The weather has been crisp and cold with frost on the grass in the morning, but it has still been lovely during the day.  On Monday John and I went to town and did a little shopping, bought our first Italianisch ice-cream cones and enjoyed a stop at a bakery for our indulgence for the week. It was fun to enjoy just being together and exploring. We love this little town with its old churches and flower shops, its cobblestone and parks.

We took the bus down and had fun finding our way around with the help of the map we had acquired. The buses here are a real step up from those we rode in China. For one thing they are all Mercedes buses and all look brand new. And they are never crowded and all have wonderful shocks! Those are all the pluses. On the downside, they don't cost just 7 cents as they did in Xi'an.

We have been noting things that we find interesting since we have been here. One is that the Germans have a clever way to avoid the challenge of grocery carts left helter skelter in grocery store parking lots as they are in America, even when collection points are readily available. (This idea is worth marketing!) The German baskets each have a little chain connecting them. To get a basket you must insert one Euro into a slot for the chain to release. You then take the cart and go do your shopping. When you are finished, you must return the card, reinsert the chain from the adjacent cart into yours. When you do so  your Euro is returned to you. Pretty cool. Each euro is worth about $1.40 so it is worth reclaiming. The result is no stray carts left in the parking lot, down the street, or in front of a junky apartment house (actually there are no junky apartment houses either).

Another thing we like is my German oven. It is such a treat to have an oven at all after my little Chinese toaster oven, but this one in our apartment is really neat. It has a built in roasting tray which slides in and out on ball bearing runner. It is great for roasting potatoes, making granola--all kinds of useful applications. It got good use this week.

 Since we arrived I have been unsuccessfully searching the local shops trying to find a covered pottery dish that would allow me to make my 18-hour-no-knead bread; then while we were cleaning out our cupboards Monday we found an oval shaped, pyrex-type casserole with a glass lid that looked promising.

I tried it out and it worked just fine. The loaf turns out oval instead of round but it tastes just as good. Germany has good breads but being able to make our own is just one more step to our settling in.

Saturday night we enjoyed going out to dinner with our next door neighbors who are back for their second stint here at the temple. Because they are renting a car we went to a little restaurant out of town for schnitzel.

It was yummy. Each couple ordered one dinner and split it. Good thing--they were huge. We ended with one apple strudel and four forks! It was a delightful outing after our slow week.

We hope life is as good for you in your corner of the world as it is here in sleepy Freiberg.