December 21

The Christmas season is in full swing down here. It's kind of hard to get into the idea of celebrating Christmas during summer, but that's how they do it down here. It's been interesting to note how much less commercialized Christmas is in Australia than in the US. You rarely see commercials on TV marketing Christmas presents. There are decorations in the malls and in stores, but much, much less than at home. Also, hardly anyone puts Christmas lights up on their house. In our entire neighborhood of over 100 homes, only one person has put up Christmas lights. And even that one, by US standards, is pretty plain: just one string of lights across the front of the house and a wreath on the door.

One thing that has helped us get into the spirit of the season is that the Nativity that the service center where we work puts on every year. The center puts up a big display of the nativity outside the main building and an art display of about 50 pictures all related to the birth, death, and mission of Jesus Christ inside the building. The link below tells somewhat of the what is done. Each of the senior missionary couples takes turns hosting guests who come to walk through the display. Generally there are between 80-200 people who come through each night. Tonight though, when we worked, we had just over 2,000!! It was crazy busy. They told us that the Sunday before Christmas is always busy, but tonight broke a record.
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.au/article/many-faiths-meet-together-to-celebrate-the-season

It's hard to tell, but the grounds around the service center and the temple are covered with people waiting to come in.

The room where the art is can only hold about 80 people, so everyone has to be patient until it's their turn.

The three Wisemen are life-size, bigger than I am. The camels are big too, but not as big as real ones.  

There are a couple of tent-like displays that show the journey of Christ's birth.

In the middle of the outside display is this big picture of the Christus.

Every tree on the ground is covered with lights, kind of like Temple Square at Christmas.

These pictures are all by Carl Bloch, a Danish painter in the early 1800s. About a third of the pictures we have on display are by him. Dave and I actually got to see the originals of these paintings last January at BYU. The Museum of Art had a special showing of famous paintings of Christ when we were there. Carl Bloch was one of my favorites. In 1864 he was hired to paint a series of paintings for the National Historical Museum at the Frederiksborg Castle. The pictures we have on display are from this commission. It took him 14 years to paint the 23 masterworks he produced to tell the story of Christ's life.  He painted them for a museum, not a church, but his interpretation of the paintings makes me think he was a religious man.

This is another favorite of mine. I loves the colors. This one is by Heinrich Hofman from Germany. It also was painted in the early 1800s.  

Grandkids:

We had a big mission Christmas conference this past week. We enjoyed spending some time with the young missionaries, that's something we don't get to do very often. One of the most enjoyable parts of the conference was the food! We had pork cooked 'island' style as part of the dinner. The mission President had a man from Tonga cook the pig for us to eat. He cooked it in an 'umu. An 'umu is a way the people in most of the Pacific islands cook food in the old way; they start with a fire first and heat lots of rocks. Once the rocks are hot enough they are stacked around and over a pig which has been wrapped in banana leaves. Then they let the pig cook for a few hours until it is done. Here's a picture of our pig before Grandpa and one of his friends cut it up for our lunch!

This pig is all ready to go and so is Grandpa! Look closely, can you see the pig's tail? 

Would you want to start cutting up this pig? The outside of his skin is very crispy, people eat it, it's called cracklin'

Grandpa wanted to check out the pig's teeth and his tongue!!  One of the missionaries, a great big guy from Tonga, took this head and ate EVERYTHING except the end of the pig's snout (well, I think he spit out the teeth and the bones)~ we found out that in Samoa, the pig's head is reserved for the Chief. It's the most special part of the pig to the Samoans. Do you think you could (or would want to) eat a whole pig's head? I know for sure I couldn't do it. I think you'd have to grow up with the idea that eating a pig's head is a good thing to do.

Here's part of the missionaries eating lunch.  I should have taken a picture of the Elder who ate the pig's head!

I hope you all have a great Christmas in Idaho. I read in the paper tonight that Brundage got 10 inches of snow. I think it's snowing just for all of you so you can have a white Christmas! Grandpa and I love you and miss you. We will talk to you later this week.