Small things - 2019 Christmas

What's wrong with this picture?

Here it is Christmas Adam (tomorrow's Christmas Eve) and this is our small tree. At the pinnacle of decorating, Jean had nine trees ready for Christmas by now, with ornaments enough for four more. 

We returned to our apartment in Gdańsk from our trying to grasp all that departing Elder and Sister Małachowski know about running the mission office in Warsaw. After a few final days here for Christmas we'll return to Warsaw for good. The four-hour drive back and forth and living in three places at once has pushed aside what have been the normal activities of the season.

(The other wrong thing you noticed with this picture is the bottle of milk on the balcony. As a welcome home after two weeks we found that our fridge was cold only in the dead sense. We're so lucky it happened at this time of year when outside it's a steady 3° C—perfect to chill milk)

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 Jean loved that some child thought to cheer us all by adding their small decoration to the apartment building elevator.

More elaborate, but no more important decorations are setup at the Wilanów palace which is not far from the Mission Home. President and Sister Chandler hosted half the missionaries on each of two days at their home. The nine hours of speaking and music and food in that homey environment seemed like minutes as they addressed head-on that missionaries rightfully are missing home.

As they, then we, reflected on the Christmases that are most memorable, it was obvious that the acts for others stick most. After 18 or 19 years of Christmas being "What am I going to get?" it can become "What am I going to give?"
Beyond that, what small things can I give "of" not just "from" myself.

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 At the Oliwa cathedral in Gdańsk we were lucky to enjoy a very good performance of The Messiah. The relatively small space and excellent diminutive orchestra with talented soloists brought us the powerful emotions of that work we love.

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The Church branch in Warsaw is unique in all of Poland. There are over 100 people attending weekly.
We were there for the Children's sacrament meeting program. Two children at a time approached the podium; the first said their part in Polish, the second said it in English. The children sang each song in Polish, then repeated it in English. Little kids are amazingly adaptive.

For our Gdańsk Christmas sacrament meeting we sang and heard Christmas hymns with individuals' sharing their thoughts on each, ending, as appropriate, with Silent Night.

Edit out the 7 missionaries and it's obvious our little branch is quite different from where we are going to be.  

With the driving back and forth and general busy craziness, 

these weeks have reminded us how much our hearts have grown to

💗 GDAŃSK