We live next door to the Syrian Embassy. The Syrian's that live in Germany are not happy with the Syrian Government and they protest outside the Embassy once in a while. There is a blockade fence around the embassy and police guards 24 hour a day, 7 days a week. It was a bit surprising when last Sunday as we walked by the embassy building on our way to church that we noticed the building had been graffitied with red spray paint. Since that time, the police presence has increased but I wonder where they were the night of the spray painting. I imagine someone has some explaining to do. I found out that it has been spray painted before and had to be sandblasted to get the paint off. As of 1 week later, it is still not cleaned up and there are usually 2 vans full of police just sitting outside the embassy waiting. It is kind of like shutting the gate after the cows escape.
Last Sunday we went to the Mattias home for dinner. They are an English family who moved to Germany almost 20 years ago because of employment. What a lovely, talented family they are. Sister Mattias and her 4 daughters are all musically gifted. The oldest plays the harp like I've never heard beore. The other girls play the piano, organ, and violin, viola, and flute. They quite often play for us in Sacrament meeting. They do not have a car, so we all went on the bus to their home. It was snowing and it was cold. Sister Mattias got dinner in the oven and we had hot chocolate and visited for awhile. When Sister Mattias went to check on dinner she found that her oven was not working. Dinner was not cooked. She had to call the neighbors and use their oven to cook dinner. When we finally ate, it was very good, chicken and broccoli pie, potatoes, rote kohl, and corn. We then had to wait for dessert, rubarb cobbler, to cook. It was all worth the wait. We sat around the table chatting. The girls wanted to know how Elder Johnson and I met. We also heard how the Mattias' met. We were at their home fo 5 hours. We took the bus home, it was still lightly snowing.
Today, Sunday, Brother Celnap invited us for lunch. He cooked in the church kitchen. He is a single middle aged man, very nice, but a little different. He invited some others to help cook and eat. I sat watching Hines, Sebastian, Kurt, Hardy, and Leno all run around the kitchen getting lunch ready. They cooked rice with a bunch of veggtables(canned), and hamburger in a sauce. I was a little bit worried, but it was very good. Hines said it was his mother's recipe. She calls it chinese food, but there was nothing about it that was Chinese.
I have also posted a couple of pictures that show the canal by our house frozen, and a public toilet thatI couldn't believe. Look closely at the top and read it's title. Also, one picture shows ice forming a mound where the water drips and freezes because it is so cold. The temp hasn't been abouve 0*c in 3 weeks, staying mostly-5*C or lower. This weeks forecast shows the temp rising to 4*C by Friday with snow showers on and off. We will see if it holds true. It isn't much fun riding our bikes to the store in minus degree weather.
We also had the opportunity to meet Elder Texeira this week. He was here in Berlin doing a Zone Council with the Zone leaders in our mission. We helped Elder and Sister Monson cook lunch for the Elder Texeira and the Elders. Sister Monson went all out; she had Portugal flags on the cake, chicken enchiladas, rice and salad. She had fresh tulips on the tables. It looked very nice. The Monson's work in the mission office and will be going home at the end of March.
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