ADVENT EVENTS

We learned about Advent from our friend Christina in Dresden and wanted to participate in this tradition. For each of the four Sunday evenings before Christmas you light a candle and enjoy family and friends with tea, Lebkuchen, Stollen and other goodies. This is a time for telling Christmas stories and singing songs.

We celebrated the first Advent on the Monday after we arrived in Magdeburg. Since we arrived Saturday and spent the day settling in, we had to shop for the Advent candles and goodies. Monday morning went to the University to email our families and then stopped downtown on the way home at the Weihnachtsmarkt. This is our Advent candle...look closely and you will see that one candle has been lit. We had Vanilla Roibos tea with Stollen (a type of fruit cake) and Lebkuchen (chocolate covered soft ginger cookie)


Our second Advent Sunday we invited our new roommates Sister Vasileva and Sister Hoffman to join us. They were happy to be part of our celebration and it helped us get acquainted. Sister Gill was so excited to be able to entertain. We had Christmas Guacamole, chips, crackers, salsa, Lebkuchen, Stollen and a winter tea. It was fun. See the two candles burning?


The third Advent Sunday, all the missionary sisters went to a nursing home after church and sang Christmas carols..in German (we can read it pretty well) and read scriptures. We then rushed home and prepared for the Advent Social. We had invited all the JAEs and investigators. Sister Gill was really in her realm of entertaining glory. We added to our repertoire. We read Christmas stories from the Liahona and enjoyed each other. We did not light the candles because we were in the church.


The girl on the left, reading, is our newest baptized member and the boy in the green sweater will be baptized on New Years day.


The fourth Advent Sunday we were back to our little group in our apartment. We had traditional baked apples with vanilla sauce and tea. We did not get a picture of this but here you see our special guests that attended all of our apartment festivities. These were all gifts. The stores are full of them in all different sizes and personalities.


This is an Advent calendar that our good friend, Heidrun from Dresden, gave us before we left. She and her 9 year old son, Paul, hand made these bags. Each day we got a little candy and a scripture in German. It was nice to remember them daily and the good times we had with them.



This shows the Advent calendar that our JAEs in Dresden gave us as we were leaving. In each package we found a different German Weihnachts (Christmas) tradition. We sang the songs, read the stories, baked the apples, made the potato salad, cut out the cookies and cooked the goose. We even enjoyed a Cinderella type Fairy Tale filmed in Prag with the German dubbed in called, "Drei Haselnusse fur Aschenbrodel". Our final gift was a CD of Russian Saints sharing their musical testimonies. It is beautiful and one we will listen to and enjoy for a long time.


Sister Gill could not resist this Nativity. We have enjoyed it being in the center of our decor to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.

ZONE CONFERENCE IN BERLIN

Our first mission activity in Magdeburg was a two hour train ride to Berlin for a Christmas Zone Conference.

For our part of the program we (the Elders and Sisters in our District) baked 400 cookies. We wrapped them in 60 small packages and tied bows on them to hand out as part of our Christmas skit.



Roommates and traveling companions. Sister Wells, Sister Vasileva, Sister Hoffman and Sister Gill.


Elder Orton, our District Leader, led us in "Joy to the World"



We each had a note to sing when Elder Orton pointed to us. We then passed the cookies out. They were a hit. That was really our talent.

CHRISTMAS DOWNTOWN

A very big tree in the Allee Center Mall. This is a very nice big mall.

Looking up

Sister Wells is writing her Christmas Wish in the Weihnachtswunscbuch.

Looking down the mall. This does not do justice to the beauty of the Christmas decorations.

The front of the mall.

Every country has one or many.

Our favorite department store. We can get everything we want there..including some American food.

There are even Indians from Peru...at least that is what the sign said.

He was advertising some Peruvian Music he was selling on CDs. He was actually dancing and playing his flute on the sidewalk in front of Kardstadt.


These are called Raeuchermaennchen (smoking men). They come in all different characters. We thought the Pope was an unusual one. They put incense inside and the smoke comes out of the mouth.

MAGDEBURG HAS A MEDIEVAL MARKT TOO

The Blacksmith

The Weaver

The Weihnachtsman

Puppets Hanging in one of the Huts

The Roasted Chestnuts

We forgot to take the picture of them in the roaster so we took it at home. It was a new taste experience. The nut inside looks like a brain and is soft. One of us liked it a lot and had to get more on the next trip.

WEIHNACHTSMARKT IN MAGDEBURG

Here we are at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Magdeburg. Every town or city in Germany has at least one or more depending on the size.

These are present in most. This one is smaller than Dresden's. You will also find them in many homes.

There were many cookies hanging in this booth. We found it interesting what they write on them.

This group was raising funds for a local church. They were really good......we donated. We have enjoyed various musical groups during the season.

..
We bought one of these and each ate our way to the middle. It took a long time to just eat our half. We also tried roasted chestnuts, flat bread pizza, potato pancake, and a cherry crepe. These were some of many, we ventured to try.....not all in one night though.

574 Dresdner Striezelmarkt

This is the oldest and the biggest Christmas Markt in Germany. We were so happy they opened the night before we left and we were able to enjoy a little of it.







Glass ornaments in one of the huts.





This little video will give you a feeling of the night.

Medieval Weihnachts Markt in Dresden

Friday night before we left to Magdeburg we met the Austins at the Medieval Markt. It gets dark at 4:30 and it was very cold. It was set up in the castle courtyard where the sports and jousting took place. They had no artificial lights and they were all dressed for the times.


This was a jewelry hut.



There was all kinds of armour displayed in this hut.


I believe this is a pig.


This man had a lot of carved musical intruments. Here he is demonstrating the nose flute. He made good music with his various and odd little instruments.

Our "German Thansgiving"

Christina Gaelauf invited us for a "traditional American Thanksgiving" dinner. She served on Temple Square as a missionary and was excited to celebrate the day with us.



Her mother and brother celebrated with us. Thomas served his mission in Colorado. The "traditional" dinner turned out to be turkey legs, rotkohl (cooked red cabbage), Knoedel (potato dumpling), pumpkin soup and a pumpkin cake that she called pumpkin pie. It was a "lecker" German meal.



Santa sat on the couch and reigned over it all. Christina lit all her advent candles, burned the Christmas incense and brought out traditional lebkuchen (cookies). We began our Weihnachts Feier (Christmas Holiday) celebration in Dresden. Thank you Christina

Thanksgiving with the Missionaries in Dresden

Before we left Dresden we were able to have Thanksgiving with the missionaries. Elder Shoenwald and Elder Sononini (District leaders from Meissen) were the chefs and the rest of us contributed what we could. We had district meeting at the church, they went out "finding" for awhile and when they came back we all got together for a wonderful American Thanksgiving.

Getting the turkey out and ready to serve.


The table with most of the food. The cookies and cranberry sauce, were our contributions. The best we could do in the middle of a move.

We were all a bit emotional as we sang this song.


Elder Juengling's tradition. You must say what you are thankful for as you pass the corn around.


Finally, time to eat. The three Chinese girls enjoyed our American tradition with us.


Resting to make room for the dessert.


Elder Shoenwald, our German Chef, made the dessert. It was not pumpkin pie but it was tasty.


It was hot and served with ice cream. Yum!


Can''t be complete without the clean up crew.....they were the ones who got the rest of us going. It was a fun day. The missionaries went back to work and we headed out to a "German" Thanksgiving dinner.