Received January 2, 2012
Anyone that has ever been in Austria/Europe for a New Years Eve should know what I'm talking about when I say, it was insanity. See, there's good reasoning behind the whole "Don't give the civilians fireworks!" thing. Let's just say, World War III pretty much broke out and all you see and hear is explosions going off all around you. They give the people some intense fireworks to shoot off on their own. They have little boxes with about 16 rockets that shoot up one at a time and burst in brilliant colors. These are the kind of thing that only professionals are allowed to use in America. Luckily, not too many of our comrades were hit. Jimmy went down from the shrapnel but he'll be ok. (Not really) But it was fun. We went to the Miesbauer family (the same as Christmas day) for the evening. It was a pretty full house. Naturally there was Bro. and Sis. Miesbauer, Matthias, and Iris. Iris' friend Clara came from Salzburg and Matthias' fiancee and her father came from Wien. The younger brother of the Miesbauers wasn't there, but he was somewhere with friends I assume. We ate really good food which we "grilled" ourselves on little table top stoves. After eating plenty of that we went and retired to the living room where we played a few games, one of which was Life. I probably won, but it's not like we were counting or anything...After that we watched Tangled (Pres. Miles approved) in German. The music gets the Neumayer seal of approval (so that means those of you who don't have it yet who were waiting for my approval may go and buy it). Alan Menken is always a good option. At the beginning of the movie Bro. Miesbauer decided to sleep because he was tired and moved over onto the couch to do so. After the movie was over we went outside to newly fallen snow. It was a couple minutes before 12 and we went to the neighbors across the street to watch the fireworks. It was awesome and everyone had a great time. Yesterday we pretty much woke up at around 8 (Elder Chandler slept until 11 or so) and got ready. It was a nice peaceful morning. Church wasn't until 3 pm, so we had plenty of time to get our (Mission President approved) 8 hours of sleep. We got to church and I was surprised to see half of the people that I know from Wien there. Marvin Till, Esther Duffles, Arnulf Schaunig, and more. It was awesome to talk to them. Rene and Benjamin came to church like normal. We had an eating appointment after church and we asked if Benjamin could come with us. They said yes and had actually been thinking about inviting him. So we went to the Erlachers (same family as Boxing day). This time it was just Bro. and Sis. Erlacher, Emily, and Sam (not the rest of the Erlacher clan). We had teriyaki chicken and raclette. For those of you who don't know what raclette is, there is a little stove on the table that you use to cook something (like meat) on top of and a little space underneath in which you slide a little pan filled with cheese. After the cheese is melted, you usually put it on top of potatoes. It was really good. I'll have to admit though, never before on my mission have I had to do so much cooking of my own food for eating appointments. It's a good conversation-inducing investment for larger dinner groups. Benjamin had a really good time and it's a really good opportunity for him to see how a Mormon family lives.
I hope everyone had a good New Year and "a gut Rosch" as the Jews would say or "ein gute Rutsch ins neue Jahr" as the Austrians would say. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüß!
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