It is definitely a lazy day here. Very few stores open yet, and people are mostly staying home still recuperating from Christmas Eve. It is really very nice. It is still basically a holiday with the post office having another day off like everyone else. I hear that most places will be back open for business again in the morning. Both yesterday and today when we have been outside, it has seemed that there is an air of "no one home."
We found a few people home however. We did apartment inspections. Since we are still not familiar with the area here, we ended up scheduling them all over the place and so put a good amount of miles on the car.
There seems never to be time to stop the car, get out and take pictures, but we passed some beautiful scenery, and I snapped this one from the window as we passed by. It is a little group of people who are feeding the gulls....the birds were swarming everywhere, and everyone - especially the little children seemed to be enjoying it.
We traveled outside of the city to a fashionable suburb, but ended up driving out into a somewhat dilapidated and industrial area. When we arrived at the address we wondered where the missionary apartment was. We called them and managed to find a nice free-standing building that was home to four young elders. It had a lovely big living room, two bedrooms with bunkbeds in each, two closet-sized study rooms with desks and two bathrooms...also a washing machine and dryer. They have it pretty good! We spent some time with them, checked everything off on the clipboard and said goodbye.
Our next stop was sister missionaries...another 1/2 hour in transit. It was a lovely old street with well-kept old buildings where they lived. They were both cute and shared with us that for the past couple of weeks they have gone caroling a lot. They carol for a family and that family says, "Wait! Can you go sing to my friends?" So they have been doing a lot of that and are teaching a couple of people who are interested in the Church. Things are going well.
The last stop of the day was to two young elders in a third-story apartment in a little suburb. Like all the other missionaries we saw today, they are keeping their places neat and clean. Like all the apartments we have been in, there were homemade Christmas decorations throughout the apartment. There are a few things we asked them to focus on and to keep up a little better, but by and large they were doing well.
That took the bulk of the day, but we enjoyed the travel time and we especially enjoyed the time with the young missionaries. It is quite a sacrifice for them to be out here, especially at age 18. Here they are doing their own laundry, cleaning out the oven, defrosting the freezer, vacuuming, making sometimes gourmet meals, going without the video games and movies and tv, being out on bicycles in icy weather, pushing themselves outside of their comfort zones in approaching people about the Gospel. I just think they are wonderful.
Day after Christmas.....with no need to elaborate. I have not been on the internet for 3 days. With a house full of company - including the 5 little great-grands- it has been BUSY and exciting. We (my UT son, his wife & I ) had decided since it had been so cold - we would not heat the pool. When they came with the older kids- 17-23-24) they couldn't believe we would make such a rash decision - so we called Braxton & Sabrina and told them to bring the kids swim stuff. It is always so amazing to me how much fun the little children (7,5,3,2,9 mo.) and the old ones have together in the pool. It was well worth the heat. I may feel wallet shock when the gas & electric bills come - but - "it is tradition, Grandma".
ReplyDeleteYour days of Christmas sound absolutely wonderful! Glad to hear that your missionaries are keeping their living quarters clean - in keeping with Danish tradition.
These Christmas times will be CHERISHED! L&P