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Show Cedar City Missionaries in Germany iTell of Heidelburg Christmas Spirit Heidelberg, Dec. 11, 1931 ; Landfriedstr. 11 bei Erhard Dear Morg.: I would like to use your Record again to get a letter to our many i friends at home. And I hope our friends will not take it that we i are lazy nor impersonal nor too) Scotch to spend 1) cents for each! letter. But time is precious and we are not always in the mood to write when we should. You will notice that we are now stationed in the famous old city of Heidelberg, famous for its old university, made famous by the legions of students who have become leaders all over the world. However at present I shall not write much of the city except to say it Is one of the few cities of Germany that was not bombed during the war and it is one of the most beautiful small cities of the world. We were sent here from Karlsruhe Karls-ruhe to try to organize a branch. Missionaries, four of them, have been here since July and have found a number of investigators. Now three of them are released and on their way home. We were thrilled to come here to a new field, and especially to a city such as this. There seems to be many open minded people here and well educated. We have not started our work yet so we can't say much about it. However we left our German Heimatt, Karlsrhue, very reluctantly reluc-tantly because we had made many good friends and investi gators, some of whom we shall return into a week to baptize and hope to be able to encourage a few families who are not quite ready at present to continue their study. We want to thank the Summer Reading club, Second ward Relief Re-lief Society, the Lady Lions and the many friends in Cedar City who contributed clothing for the wonderful gifts. Elda devised a plan to help the poor saints and friends get good clothing and at the same time held raise a building fund for a much needed chapel. The clothing was sold at a small price, and all were able to buy and our little branch now has a nest egg of 1875 Marks. I wish also to thank Bro. and Sister Thomas Tho-mas Thorley for their cash contribution. con-tribution. It all was so heartening hearten-ing for our dear saints here to see the love of those in our home city manifested toward them. We were so happy to learn that "The Messiah" was to be presented tonight so you can imagine the memories that come flooding in, of the many soloists, the faithful singers and orchestra orches-tra and my beloved college. Roy Halversen, who stood with me through the years, working for months before the presentation to bring this beautiful gift of the Immortal master musician and composer about our Savior and Master Jesus Christ. These are tender memories, sacred sa-cred memories of events we witnessed wit-nessed where thousands came with broken hearts and contrite spirits to worship the great Redeemer. Re-deemer. It is no wonder that we have been drawn to the people of Cedar City and southern Utah. They have challenged us and Inspired us to give our best effort. Even though they were humble, you all accepted them. We were saddened by the death our our beloved director Dr. Driggs. But we were pleased to know Dr. Chase was chosen to be our leader. It seems to us the board of trustees picked the best man in Utah for the job. He was just tailormade for it. It is Christmas season here now and every mother is begin-i begin-i ning to make Xmas cookies, dozens of varieties. St. Nicholas has come. He made his appear-ance appear-ance Dec. fi and with his bags I of sweets for the good children and the switch for the naughty boys, he gave promise of a very happy Christmas to come, j Christmas celebration begins i four Sundays before Xmas. The first Sunday is the first advent and a candle is lighted on a green wreath. In the home of each Sunday a candle is lighted 'till all four are burning. Holy Night (Xmas Eve) about 5 o-cltx'k o-cltx'k the family gathers outside the holy chamber for there is where the Christ Child has been. The tree is decorated and about the base of it, is the manger, with Mary and Joseph the Babe, the wise men and the shepherds. The mother is inside the room the door is locked, she is the only one allowed inside. The father and children sing carols till the mother opens the door and then-Oh then-Oh the wonderful sight. Dolls, doll buggies, beautiful warm knitted woolen dresses, everything every-thing to make a girl or boy happy. hap-py. After the gifts the "family has cocoa and cake, in some fam ilies the beverage differs. Then the radio brings hundreds of programs pro-grams from all over Europe in scores of tongues, all throbbing with the great Christmas spirit of Peace on Eearth, for surely there could be no home, no city, among Christmas peoples where good will could not abide. But we have friends just recently escaped es-caped from the East Zone who say that there is so much fear, so much persecution, so much hate that it is difficult to celebrate cele-brate Christmas, and we listen to their sad stories about how people peo-ple work 10 days, one after the other in order to break up the celebration of the sabbath day. There freedom is worship is almost al-most impossible. We heard recently, a young refugee, ref-ugee, an elect rican engineer who is working for the Americans, give a most stirrinf and eloquent speech on freedom and what it means, to a group of West German Ger-man youths, who were doubt-ling doubt-ling that freedom was worth fighting for. I wish every Ameri-'can Ameri-'can could have heard it; it made us more grateful for our great Homeland, and we could find ourselves singing on our hearts long afterward "God Bless America". Amer-ica". Tonight it is quite cold outside out-side and not so hot inside. We could not buy coal but we bought a water soaked peet and wood for which we paid $5.00 for 250 pounds. Most German coal goes to France and coal is rationed ra-tioned out so thinly to Germans that they become quite resentful, resent-ful, and with us both sitting here with cold feet and sweaters sweat-ers and coats on, we don't blame them. It might interest you to know the Lee Ray McAllister was sent here to work with us. His companion com-panion is a son of one of my j students in Ogden 28 years ago. So it is wonderful to have two of our grand boys with us. Tonight To-night they are seeing II trova-tore. trova-tore. Now our love and best wishes to you all when we say a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year. Ever, Elda and Will. |