It is Always Darkest Before Dawn....Not Always True

I believe I mentioned yesterday that it would be a late night tonight.  As I write, the sun is beginning to rise.  It officially rises at 4:26 this morning, which is about 14 minutes from now.  But it has unofficially been coming up since about 2:30 a.m.

We had the gala last night.  There was such a flutter of activity surrounding it.  The YW in charge of it made all kinds of assignments and had some great ideas about what she wanted to see happen.

We had a leisurely morning.....after Thursday evenings....especially one where the day's preparations have been intense, I need Friday to rest up!  But our gala committee chair(woman) called around 11:00 a.m. today to see if we could help.  Even though she speaks excellent English, we couldn't quite understand each other, so I told her I would come in and talk to her.

We took the two buses to get there, but parted ways at the last bus stop.  SK went over to the mission office to get the car, and I went directly to the church.  I was told that the people in charge of the spaghetti dinner were no longer doing it.  They wanted me to shop with them and help them figure out how much to buy of everything.  But they couldn't go shopping until 5, the gala was to begin at 6, and dinner was to be ready by 8.  By this time it was 2.

Another glitch was that they were told they could do no cooking at the church.  It all had to be done elsewhere and brought in.  They told us that they were expecting 50 to 65 people.

SK and I said we would go do the shopping and then fix dinner at the center.  We drove out to Metro...(the Costco wannabe) and purchased everything we could for spaghetti, green salad and hot rolls, then hurried back to the center.  I wish I had taken a picture of the huge pot of spaghetti sauce.  We started with 9 pounds of ground beef and ground pork, and added tomatoes and everything else necessary.  It was nearly 5 when the sauce was all put together and simmering.  I began chopping vegetables.

SK went to the church to put the spaghetti sauce on the stove to continue simmering...then he began taking pictures of all of the activities.  I continued chopping vegetables.  I put on three large pots full of water to cook four pounds of pasta in each.

The stove at the center is a blessing to have, but it does not function well if three burners are on at the same time....it hardly functions well if just 2 burners are on.  It took an hour to get one of the three pots boiling.  I got two large salads put together, made some poppy see dressing, baked 2 dozen baguettes and sliced them into a hundred pieces, and sent everything over to the church when that was done.

By the time I had the last pan of pasta done, eating was winding down.  The program was over, and everyone was ready to go to one of our YSA's home, where the dance was to be held.

I had been frantically working away in the kitchen for 5 hours, and I was a small disaster.  I had brought a simple Sunday outfit to wear with the addition of a lovely new scarf.  I didn't have a comb or makeup with me, and just cleaned up the best I could.  Oh well.

It is safe to say that a good time was had by all.  They danced and danced and danced and seemed to love it all.  The night was chilly and beautiful.  There was a full moon and a clear sky...but huge clouds skudded by, sometimes obscuring everything in the sky briefly before hurrying on.

The most spectacular thing was sitting in the back yard with 50 to 60 YSAs and watching the sky (which never competely got dark) slowly getting lighter.  It seemed to be darkest around midnight.  And around 2:30 a.m. the sky became a pale pale blue in the east.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  It made it almost worth staying up to see.

Our counselor in the Stake Presidency specifically told us that the gala was a church program, and so we must stay until it is over and everyone had gone home.  I'm telling you that in case you are wondering what missionaries are doing out until 4 a.m.  I am not sure, but I think that may be a perk of being a senior missionary....the problem is that we are too old to fully enjoy it!

Tomorrow I'll post the pictures!  In the meantime, good night....or good morning.