Oct. 6-12, 2019 Institute Meet and Greet

Picture of the Week!  We were sitting on the tram and this little dog was in the aisle across from us and was the cutest ever.  I had to take a few pictures with her big eyes and cute outfit.

So glad to have our spirits recharged this past week.  We had such an amazing, fun, adventurous, spiritual week last week we were ready to face this week and all that we had going on.  We started Monday with Russ attending our District Council and I stayed home and made 80 Cinnamon Rolls for the Monday Family Home Evening that we were going to watch the final session of General Conference.  With the time difference it is broadcast live at 10 PM  and so we watched it later on Monday night.  We actually stayed up and watched it Sunday evening, but made it available for anyone who wanted to come to the Institute and watch it on the big screen.  We had a large group, especially when they found out we had Cinnamon Rolls and Waffles with bacon and fried potatoes.  We had a man, Manuel, just walk in from the street and said he had been a member years ago and just felt a need to come back and see what was going on in the building.  He stayed and ate and had a nice discussion with the visiting BYU professor, Bro. Keele.  He actually made an appointment to meet with the missionaries on Friday evening.  He is a very nice man and made the hardest first step in coming back to Church by coming in the building.  Once he was there, he knew he was in a good place with people who really cared that he was there.

Tuesday began bright and early at an 8:00 AM appointment to meet a plumber at the Sister's Apartment.  We did our apartment inspection while we were there and we love the time we spend with all of our missionaries.  Sis. Mendenhall and Sis. Griffith are wonderful Sister missionaries and their apartment is kept very clean.  They told us they were having a problem with their dishwasher not cleaning or the soap pod not dissolving so I opened it up, removed all of the filters and drains and cleaned everything.  I checked everything I knew and did not find anything that would cause a problem.  I gave them some new soap pods to try and then I said, let's start it and see what it does.  They did not know how to start it - that's OK, I don't know how to start mine either, Russ always starts the dishwasher.  So, we got out the manual and read what the dial numbers meant and found out they were only using a pre-wash rinse cycle.  We showed them how to start it and they are so happy.  It is always good when we can help with the little things that make a big difference.

We did some shopping for our big Wednesday event and then hurried back home to finish preparing for a District P-day activity and then went to the activity.

 It was ALL THINGS PUMPKIN.
They had asked if I would help make some fun pumpkin foods.  They each brought a pumpkin and had so much fun carving them.  We have two Elders from England in this group and they did not get too excited about the activity.  They were trying to figure out what it was all about.
It is fun to see what they carved on their pumpkins.  You can really see what is on their minds and things close to their hearts!
Funniest thing ever was Elder Kuttler wanting to make a pumpkin head.  He is a big guy with a big head and he bought the biggest pumpkin he could find.  He had so much fun making it and we all got a great laugh.

Our Zone Leaders

Swiss Flag

Two Sister Missionaries

Temple

Dinner in a Pumpkin with Pumpkin Waffles

PUMPKIN DIP
1 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
Mix:  cream cheese and powdered sugar until creamy.
Add:  pumpkin and spices, mixing well.
Cover:  Chill 8 hrs..  Serve with gingersnaps, apple or pear slices

Canned pumpkin is not available here so I cooked a pumpkin and used the fresh pureed pumpkin.  It was so good and especially good on the pumpkin waffles.

PUMPKIN WAFFLES
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder       1/2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon                1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ginger                     1 pinch salt
2 eggs                               1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup pumpkin                  1 2/3 c. milk
4 Tbl. butter, melted

Mix together flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt in large bowl.
In a second bowl, add eggs, sugar, pumpkin, milk and butter.  Beat Well.
Gently fold in the flour mixture.
Cook in hot waffle iron.  Can be made in Belgian or regular waffle iron.  Makes about 8

With homemade Buttermilk syrup and the pumpkin did, they were soooo good!

The Dinner in a Pumpkin is a family tradition on Halloween.  I was able to create a new recipe out of necessity due to a lack of available ingredients.  It was better than the original.

DINNER IN A PUMPKIN


1 Medium pumpkin
1 Tbl. oil
1 onion, diced
1 cup mushrooms
1 1/2 lbs. hamburger
salt and pepper to taste
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbl. soy sauce
4 cups cooked rice

Preheat oven to 375*
Cut out top of pumpkin and clean out inside.  I put the pumpkin in the oven at this point.
Saute' onion and mushrooms in oil.  Add beef  and cook until done.  Drain.  Add salt and pepper.
In a large bowl mix soup, brown sugar and soy sauce.  Add beef mixture and rice.  Remove partially cooked pumpkin from oven and add beef and rice mixture.  Replace top and Bake 1 hour or until pumpkin is soft.  Scoop out pumpkin and filling to serve.  (leftover filling that does not fit in pumpkin can be put in a casserole dish and baked in the oven for about 30 min.
New Option:  We cannot get canned condensed soup.  We have KNORR dry soup mixes.  One of their soup flavors is pumpkin.  I used it instead of the cream of chicken and used 2 cups of water instead of 3 that were called for in the recipe.  It was so creamy and pumpkin flavored.  It brought the recipe to a new level and the missionaries ate the Whole thing!

OK, enough of recipes.
This is just the start of food thoughts, however.  Wednesday was our big Meet and Greet to start off the new school year and Institute classes.  We have been preparing for it for weeks.

The guests said they had never seen a buffet table filled like this before.  It really looked nice and they all really enjoyed it.
I made 250 meatballs, ham and cheese sliders and chicken salad on mini croissants.  Very common foods for me, but a real treat for them.  They loved the meatballs and said, now we know why you say they are your famous meatballs!
People kept saying, "We need your recipes", and Russ kept telling them, you can buy her recipe book.

 I served apples with the pumpkin dip and a caramel dip.  Once they realized the pumpkin was not a curry dip - curry is a big thing here-they loved it.  I made granola bar bites, oreo cookie bon bons, ginger cookies with ginger cream spread, brownie bites with a chocolate covered raspberry and then we bought a local favorite Lebkuchen cookies. It was a feast and I am so glad they enjoyed it.  Pres. Jankowski from the Stake Presidency was so pleased that it was so nice and that people were staying and talking and eating and not leaving like they normally do at the end of  meeting.

 

 This is one of our happy students.  He served his mission in Twin Falls, ID (my hometown) so we have had a connection since we met.  That was his first plate and many more trips to the buffet were had.

The food was nice, but the real success of the night was filling the Institute with people.  We had about 60 people in attendance - we filled the building.  It was so nice meeting new students and having many bring friends for the first time.  We had an opening meeting to introduce the new teachers, student leadership, and outline the new year.  We then divided into the two classes, German and English.  We will be teaching the English class, Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel.  We had 21 in the class and it was so rewarding being back in the classroom.  I will forever be grateful to the Institute Directors that I was so blessed to work with and to learn from.  I am grateful for the past 8 years that I taught the Adult Religion Class in Arlington.  It was a great preparation for this time in my life.  We had a great class discussion and participation.  It was only a 20 minute class and I needed to have it prepared well so that they would see what an awesome curriculum we would be studying and why they would want to come back.  The best part of all of it is how it blesses our lives as we prepare for the class and learn before we ever get there to present the lesson.  It is going to be a great semester.

Can you tell I love FALL and all that comes with it.  Food, smells, holidays, colors, nature and traditions with family.  Looking forward to seeing what Fall is like in Vienna.

We got to be part of history today as Eliud Kipchoge broke the record for the fastest time to run a Marathon under 2 hours.  It is not an official race, but it was amazing to watch him run and we were also at the finish line to see him break his own record and all of the celebrating.  Vienna was selected because of the weather, ideal park to run in at the Prater - it is 5 km one way with large round a bouts on each end to turn around in.  He had 7 other runners running with him to break the wind and keep the pace.  They would run one round (5 km) and then trade out with new runners.  His goal was to run it under 2 hours and he came in at 1:59:40 to break the record - his own best time. The event was sponsored by INEOS 1:59 challenge, No Humansislimited. We got our exercise in as well walking in the park and them speed walking 1 km to get to the finish line before he arrived there.  It was a great way to start a beautiful Fall Saturday morning.

Victory Lap

We then went to the Stake Center and helped with a Clothing/Household items exchange.  They invite their friends and neighbors to come and participate.  Items are donated and you can take what you need.  I found a nativity made on a glass brick so I took it to put up in the Institute.  We each found some nice winter boots and a Christmas tie to use at the Mission White Elephant Gift exchange in December.  All in all it was a productive day.

We were given permission to purchase a new Dining Room table so that we can have more people for dinner.  We purchased the table on Friday at IKEA and Elders Boden and Olsen volunteered to come and help us get it into the apartment.  I made a new recipe I found for Chick Pea Tacos.  They actually were really good.  I also had taco meat and rice with homemade Salsa and chips.  They are learning that when they volunteer to help there is usually a meal waiting for them.  They were really happy to have lunch today after we had all worked at the Stake Clothing Exchange.  They offered to help put together the new table, but we knew they had better things to do.  Russ said, it will only take us about 30 minutes.  Three hours later we finished and can now enjoy our Saturday evening at home. Sounds like a Hallmark movie will be a good finish to the day.

I want to close with the words to a Hymn that our friend who came to the Institute on Monday night asked us sing on Friday evening when he came to meet with the missionaries.  He asked if we knew this hymn and if we would sing it with him.  Not very many knew the song, but it was a neat experience and the words are beautiful.

EACH LIFE THAT TOUCHES OURS FOR GOOD
Each life that touches ours for good
Reflects thine own great mercy, Lord;
Thou sendest blessings from above
Thru words and deeds of those who love.

What greater gift dost thou bestow,
What greater goodness can we know
Than Christlike friends, whose gentle ways
Strengthen our faith, enrich our days.

When such a friend from us departs,
We hold forever in our hearts
A sweet and hallowed memory,
Bringing us nearer, Lord, to thee.

For worthy friends whose lives proclaim
Devotion to the Savior's name,
Who bless our days with peace and love,
We praise they goodness, Lord, above. 

Viel Liebe,
The Grimmett's