December Highlights Part 3

We were blessed to attend a special Christmas Zone Conference on the 21st of December in Zurich, Switzerland.  Three zones came together, the St. Gallen Zone, the Bern Zone and the Zurich Zone.  Thanks to our outstanding mission president and his wife, President and Sister Brown, it was a tremendous conference.  Sister Brown began by teaching about the significance of the Temple Shepherds as well as the gifts of the Wise Men using a power point presentation.  President and Sister Brown had an interactive discussion with everyone on the Doctrine of Christ.  Then President Brown gave a power point presentation about the miraculous coming forth of the Book of Mormon. We had three terrific musical numbers from some of the missionaries.  President Gappmaier, from the mission presidency, taught a wonderful lesson from Preach My Gospel.  We had a discussion with ideas from the missionaries about practical ways to keep our spirits up in the dark days of winter.  After a delicious lunch prepared by the members there, we divided into zones and played a fun left/right game with wrapped gifts brought by everyone.  Elder Lake was the reader of the left/right story.  It was lots of fun when everyone started opening and "stealing" gifts from the group. Then we sang Christmas carols with Sister Brown accompanying on the piano.  They passed out tiny electric candles and we listened to the nativity story from Luke 2 read by President Brown.  The Browns brought the mission van packed with all the Christmas gifts and letters mailed to the missionaries.  Such fun to watch those distributed.  Zone conferences are always a delight because we all have the opportunity to connect with the missionaries we don't see very often.  This was a wonderful day and we are so grateful to the Browns for all their efforts and the love and dedication they have for all the missionaries in the Alpine German Speaking Mission.  They started on Monday, the 18th and did 5 of these Zone Conferences, one each day, and had to travel all over our large mission.  We all love them and appreciate their tireless service and love for us.  They are amazing examples and leaders!

The assistants to the President, Elders Tunnicliff and Whitaker.

Two amazing senior couples, the Gassers and the Andreasons.

Elders Ormsby, Lake and Davis

Elder Lake

President Brown

Sister Brown and Sister Lake in our dirndls. 

The Lakes, the Browns, the Andreasons, and the Gassers.

Sunday, the 24th, we celebrated Christmas Eve.  We enjoyed attending Sacrament meeting in the morning and focusing on the birth of the Savior.  We watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional.  It was shown in German in the chapel and in English in another room for some visitors we had that day.  I watched with them.  It was such a beautiful meeting and the choir music and the messages shared truly helped us feel the spirit of Christmas.  We had a single brother from our Branch, who is all alone, come home with us to celebrate Christmas Eve.  We traveled to Dornbirn, Austria, where we joined the Dornbirn Elders at the home of the Vuissa family, Andreas, Carola, and their teenage daughters, Lena and Emily. Three of the girls' grandparents were also there.  We were treated to a delicious dinner.  Then we sang Christmas songs, Andreas shared a spiritual message, the Elders shared a video, message, and their testimonies of the Savior.  Gifts were opened and we shared the American apple pie I brought for dessert.  It was a lovely evening and we appreciated the hospitality of the Vuissas.  We didn't get back home until almost midnight, so our friend, Alex, missed his train and stayed the night with us.

Carola's mother, Emily, Elizabeth, Carola, Lena

Harold and Andreas

Elisabeth, Carola, Lena, Elder Bushman, Alex, Elder Hilton

Christmas morning we had breakfast and then, while I started dinner preparations, Bob and Alex went for a brisk walk.  We invited some people from our Branch who would be alone on Christmas to join us for dinner.  One elderly sister caught a cold, so she stayed home.  Another brother wasn't able to come, so we had two single men and a young couple with their brand new baby join us.  I cooked all afternoon and made pork tenderloin in mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, home made rolls, and cinnamon rolls, and a special salad.  We also had mulled cider.  It was different for us to spend Christmas without any family, but we loved sharing a meal with some new friends who we really cherish. It was especially sweet to have a tiny new baby here who reminded us of the Christ Child, whose birth we were celebrating. We were able to FaceTime with each of our families in the evening and share a part of their Christmas with them.  This was a Christmas we will always remember.  We are very grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord in this mission and thankful for our numerous blessings.  We feel the love of the Lord daily.

Sister Lake with Flora Tonoli

The Tonolis, Giampi, Corinna, and Flora

Alex Huber, Giampi Tonoli, Wladimir Lange

December Highlights part 2

The members of our little Branch are scattered over a huge area and many have to travel 40-45 minutes to get to church, so we didn't have a Christmas party as such, but a special pot luck dinner after church on the 17th of December.  Our Sacrament meeting that day was very special.  We had a guest from the Stake in Switzerland speak.  We also had our former Branch President, who also lives in Switzerland, speak to us.  They both have to travel over 2 hours to get to our church.  They shared beautiful messages and truly inspired us to have faith and be strong.  Our Relief Society President has a beautiful voice and she played the piano and sang.  It is not easy to be a member of the church here.  Our Branch is small but we have faithful and dedicated members who are close knit and support and love each other.  It is indeed a blessing to serve here with them.  We all enjoyed eating and visiting and sharing the Christmas of spirit with each other.

Connie Hofmann, Alexander Huber, Rudiger Trautmann

Juditha Schilling, Susanne and Jorg Klaumunzner, Deise Van der Heiden

Susann Trautmann and Giampi Tonoli

Vera and Janosh Stevens, Jordie Wijsbeek, Giampi Tonoli, Levi, Jaane, and Rachel Wijsbeek

Rose Marie Pabel and Diane Lake

Bob Lake and Alexander Huber

On December 19, we traveled to Stuttgart, a couple of hours away, to visit with Helga Hoerstel who Bob taught on his mission.  I posted about her earlier.  She is 91 years old and still strong and faithful after more than 40 years.  We adore her and wanted to wish her a Merry Christmas and share our love with her.  She was so thrilled to have us come!  She lives in a tiny room in a care center and on her table we saw a framed photo of us with her that was taken the first time we visited her.  We both teared up when we saw it.  I guess we are as dear to her as she is to us.  We had a wonderful visit with this dear woman.  Her legs are so painful now that she will not be able to travel to her daughter's home for Christmas.  That made us very sad.  But the family will come visit her, of course.  They are very devoted.  This was definitely a highlight of our season.

Diane, Helga Hoerstel, Bob

We spent a wonderful evening with our Young Single Adults on December 20 having a special Christmas lesson.  We worked with our incredible teacher, Gerda Stubbe-Griell, to bring the Spirit of Christ to our students.  We showed some wonderful Bible videos (in German, of course) about the Nativity and the birth of Christ.  There is also one about Thanking Christ.  Gerda had an activity focusing on the names of Christ in the scriptures.  Bob shared a lesson from the #lighttheworld initiative and we had the class write thank you notes to someone who may not receive appreciation very often. We also sang some Christmas songs together.  We finished by playing a fun game that we all enjoyed (even Bob!).  I gave each person a bag of chocolate chip cookies and Gerda put together a very thoughtful gift for each of us.  We began the evening with a dinner of homemade lasagna and french bread that I brought.  The evening was everything we hoped it would be!

Bob, Elder Bushman, Elder Hilton, Christian Szabo,
Julia, Diane, Gerda Stubbe-Griell, Anya 

Julia, Elder Hilton, Anya, Gerda

Highlights from December part 1

I thought I would share some of the highlights from this special month.
They celebrate here the four Sundays of Advent, the first two focusing on the coming of Christ the first time and the second two focusing on the second coming of Christ.  Each Sunday they light a candle in the Advent wreath or Adventskranz.  We had a beautiful event on the first Advent Sunday, December 3.  There is a choir from Switzerland of young adult members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under age 30.  They are outstanding!  They performed two Christmas concerts and one was in a small village called Waldburg, 15 minutes from us.  Our Branch was responsible for finding the venue and advertising the event.  We have less than 30 active members, so I was worried about having a large enough audience to make it worth the 2+ hour drive the choir members would make that evening.  We were thrilled that about 130 people attended!  The Spirit of Christ filled the hall as they sang one gorgeous song after another and welcomed in the Christmas season.  We were excited to have less active members of the church and people not of our faith in attendance.  This is such a beautiful way to give people a positive impression of the members of our church.  As missionaries, we are grateful for events like this to help us share the gospel with others.

We attended the ward Christmas party held by the Dornbirn, Austria ward on December 16.  We have made many wonderful friends in that ward, so we are always excited to be invited to their events.  Their theme was "Let Him In".  They had a lovely program with members sharing scriptures about the Savior in different languages.  Most congregations have members from many different countries. We sang Christmas hymns between the parts. The new Bishop spoke as well.  Then the Primary children acted out the Nativity from the Bible.  Santa visited and gave each child a little gift.  We enjoyed a lovely pot luck dinner.  We have a new missionary in Dornbirn who just arrived the day before.  He is Elder Hilton from South Jordan, Utah.  We were excited to welcome him!

Elder Hilton and Elder Bushman

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2017

Elder and Sister Lake

Wangenerstrasse 88/90

88212 Ravensburg

Deutschland

Merry Christmas to friends and family!

We want you all to know how much we miss you this Christmas season.  It is definitely different to experience Christmas so far away from family, friends and loved ones.  So please know how much we love each of you and that we think of you often.  We are doing well and getting into the Christmas Season here in Germany.  We have a little two-foot table-top Christmas tree which is festively decorated, a friend gave us an Advent Wreath, and we burn one of the four candles on each of the four Advent Sundays, and we have a little German Christmas decoration with candles in the window, received as a gift from family at home.  Each of these helps to bring the Christmas spirit into our home and lives.  We enjoy our occasional evening stroll through the Christkindlmarkt in the old city of Ravensburg, and love how the German people honor and celebrate their Christmas traditions.  We must add that we are enjoying the more simplified approach to Christmas this year.  Rather than the usual hustle and bustle, the shopping, traffic and the heavy emphasis on gifts, we are really trying to enjoy the simple beauty of this Christmas season in Germany.  Christmas appears less commercialized here and there seems to be less of an emphasis on the shopping and gifts, but we certainly feel the value placed on the gift of time, friendship and food. 

This season we are pondering on the Savior and His Gift to us, feeling tremendous gratitude to our Father in Heaven for his bounteous blessings, grateful for family and friends and striving this season to find ways to reach out and bless others in our expanding German circle of missionaries, friends and acquaintances (#Lighttheworld).  So, as we celebrate the Christmas season, we feel a profound measure of gratitude to a loving Heavenly Father who sent his Son to provide a way that we may each find our way home, and a reverent appreciation to our Savior Jesus Christ, who teaches us how to love and to live, and who was willing to submit to His Father’s will.  May we each strive this season and ever to follow Him, to be more loving, more helpful, more forgiving, more encouraging, more supportive and more patient with everyone we associate with, be it family, friends, co-workers or strangers.  Each of us carry our own insecurities, burdens and trials and how we all appreciate a kind word, a helping hand, a smile and the love of the Savior, often delivered to us through the hands of others.  To date, the primary thing we have learned on our mission (among so many lessons) is Gratitude to Heavenly Father.  Our eyes have been opened and we are so thankful and feel so blessed to have you as family and friends.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2018!

With Love,

Elder and Sister Lake