Friday, February 28, 2014

February Finals

 Gabby, Anna, Song, Marlene, and Phillip. Some of our JAE's after institute night having fun with left over oranges.
 So this is Elder Tew thinking it is fun to put a glass dish on his head.
 Well... what can I say. OOPS.
 The nice red glass bowl that I normally put fruit in is no more in the church kitchen cupboard. Marlene is here helping clean up the mess. Elder Tew will be on the lookout for a replacement.
 We were walking down a street after an appointment we had with a member and his non-member friend when we noticed this old Catholic church nestled in among the apartment buildings.
 So we had to explore the grounds and the inside. Burrr, it was cold inside but so interesting.
 Spring is here. The crocus are growing right up in the church lawn.

 Another church, but I had to take a picture because it is YELLOW! I love all the yellow buildings and houses here in Austria. 
And... last of all the February pictures is this sign we saw by a bike rack in Vienna, and we see them sometimes along the freeway.  Interesting !  Hummm.  It actually means something like "good trip".

Stake Conference Week

 We treated our Missionaries to lunch at the Leiner Store Resturant after our District Meeting. Elder Thomas is transferred to Munich as a Zone Leader.
 We saw these cute little Cactus plants in the Mercur store where we shop for groceries.
 We drove up to Vienna on Saturday Feb. 22 for Stake Conference and we stayed over at the Hotel close by the church.  After the Sat. eve. meeting in which President and Sister Miles were 2 of the speakers, we went out to dinner with them at a fabulous Schnitzel place called Schnitzelwirt that Elder Strong loves.  Sister Strong was sick and couldn't join us. The Strongs are the Senior couple in Vienna.
 Just look at the size of this tasty Cordon Bleu Schnitzel. Elder Tew and I split one. Yumm, it was gooooood.
 Sunday session was the Broadcast from SLC so we went to the English version. This is the front of the Vienna Stake Center.  It looks small in this pic but it really is a huge building. We come here for Zone Conferences also.  Notice Sister Lassel, our Stake Primary President from Vienna.  She saw that I was taking a picture and wanted to be funny. She is great!
 Looking down the street from the Church after Conference.
 Driving down a street in Vienna. What an amazing city.
 We took some time before we headed for Graz  to walk around a bit in the main center. This is a Government  Building with a huge glorious outdoor skating rink in front.
 Beautiful buildings and skulpture here.
 Wow, amazing to be in Vienna or Wien as the Austrians call it.
 This is the Library of Vienna, the Capital of Austria.
As we were in the car heading for home, we turned a corner and saw this site straight ahead.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

February Features

 Wednesday the 5th was Siri Lex's 20th birthday. She took the ribbon off the bag of candy we gave her and put it on the pair of socks she knitted for Elder Tew to match mine.
Socks!! Elder Tew's are way colorful. She was using up the ends of her yarn. 
 Doing great and loving our Mission!
 On Fridays they have a Farmer's Market close by so we ran in really fast to see what they had. Oh, of course, a bakery!!
 We had to buy Apple Strudel!
 Alex and Sam Driggs from Utah State. They just arrived here to study for 6 months. We welcomed them into our Young Adult group.
 For an activity, we went Keggling. This is less expensive and similar to bowling. The balls are smaller with only 2 finger holes.  The pins are smaller and arranged differently.  When you knock some down, there are strings attached to the tops of the pins that raise them up again to formation.  Shown here in his wheelchair is our Raphael Bein with his mom. He is 18 so she brings him sometimes. He loves to sit and watch and laugh at us. Right now he is tired and ready to go home. The JAE's are so good to him.
 Yay, Joey came !
 On Sunday, we were invited to Bishop and Regina Lex's home for dinner. They have 6 children. The oldest is serving his mission in Romania and here is their youngest. As soon as dinner was over, the kids scampered off.
Driving home on one of the Graz streets.

Valentine Posting

 Our District Meeting this week was in Bruck an der Mur which is about 45 minutes drive. The church is located on the top floor of an apartment building which is beautifully renovated. The Branch here is very small so a few members from Graz are called to serve there to help out.
 This is not the church but is an interesting street in Bruck as we were walking after the meeting.
 Notice the clock tower in Bruck.
 The center of the city. (Hauptplatz). We were walking through here to go to the Leiner store where Bro. Bein works here in Bruck to see him, not knowing if we could even find him . He is the manager and really busy.  I said a quick prayer and to our amazement, there he was walking right toward us from his lunch break. He was rushing to the store for a  meeting. He finished walking with us to the store so we could talk to him. We would have never found him because he usually goes in the back entrance.  Another tender mercy.
 Our Institute meal of Tacos and Fiesta Rice.
 They all loved it. Some came later to a total of 21 for dinner.
 Yay, for our Valentines dessert of Jello Poke Cake!! (again thanks for the jello, you know who you are).
 I had to post another pic of the Mulbergers. He has Diabetes and she is a nurse. Perfect.They married later in life. She is 10 years older than him and we love them to pieces.  We checked in on them this week and had a wonderful time visiting and spending a couple hours there. They are so grateful when we come. Don't they look like the cutest Valentines?
 Can you believe the size of the doors in apartment buildings? Notice where the door handles are. I am standing. This is from the inside.
 Our Valentine dinner of soup and toast. All we had time for but it was yummy.
Valentines 2014

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

February Fun!

 At the Lex wedding celebration at the church they auctioned off this box of goodies, to raise some money for the couple, and we got the winning bid!  Yay! Siri Lex made the socks and Samira knitted the hat. Also there is granola, a bottle of apple juice, jam, dried apples, and some dried herbs.
 Love these!!
 This is cute little Bridget Rauch after her baptism on Sunday. She was baptized and confirmed after our church meetings.
 What a great family.
 This is our bedroom window and we get to look out at this fun tree every day.
Some new friends.  Andrea, Sister Tew and Jane.

February....Burrr!

 Ice, ice, ice!!  Wow. January left and February came in with freezing rain which lasted a couple days. This is a pic of the car windshield from the inside where I am sitting.  It took alot of effort from Elder Tew to get the windows scraped off to the point that we could drive.
 This is the next day on Sunday trying to get to church. Luckily we learned from the previous day to put plastic over the back and front windows the night before and that helped alot.  You can see how thick the ice is from these pics. The entire car was covered with a sheet of ice but here Elder Tew finally has it nearly off.  It stopped raining for a couple hours and a bit of sun came out during this time.
 The people here said they have never seen this happen. Crazy!
 Two days later we took a walk around the Schloss.
 Winter has certainly come here to Graz.


Even the peacocks are hunkering down any place they can.