Out of touch

I prided myself of being in touch with the things around us. I knew how to vote and why I voted that way. I knew the issues and definitely had an opinion. We don't even know who is on first base and what the score is. We received our absentee ballots and we don't recognize any names (almost). And when it comes to the Constitutional Amendments, we don't even know what they are talking about. The propositions we do not even understand. I feel like that we are living on a different planet. To show you of how out of touch we really are, let me tell you that we missed an extra hour of sleep we could have had. In Germany they changed to standard time this morning and no one told us. We don't listen to the radio or watch TV nor do we read the newspapers. For some reason or another the Book of Mormon does not say anything about the time changing to standard time on the last week-end of October. It does not tell me anything about a McCain or an Obama.
All we really know is that the Stake and Ward budget is a little tight this year. The church budget is figured in American Dollars and the dive of the Dollar compared with the Euro makes it a little more difficult to make ends meet.
Today our Sacrament meeting was a little different.The Sacrament meeting took up a two hour block. We had the Sacrament and than we watched the last session of the Sunday Afternoon Conference. The best thing about this Sacrament meeting was that Anina was given a headset and she was able to hear it in English. It was a little difficult to keep the little kids in check that long.
This past High Council meeting was devoted to the question of how to make due with the Stake and Ward budgets for the coming year. It was one of those marathon sessions that we had with the whole Stake council, which included all of the auxiliary leaders. Each organization has their own priorities. It was good to see how the process works.
The more we learn about the people, we find it sad to have so many that are inactive and for some reason or another have not been to church for years. Those who are faithful members with strong testimony's have been disappointed so many times with their efforts to reactivate others. They are good saints and we are sure that the Lord will bless them for all they have done.
We have had a good number this week participate in our Out-Reach Center and for that we are grateful. We think that the Lord is blessing us for our efforts. Last Thursday evening Anina served over 40 people and barely had enough for all. She worried as more and more showed up, but that is a good problem to have. (This is easy for me to say).
We better close for now, we need to get ready to go to our Bishops home. We have been invited to eat dinner with them. The other two sets of missionaries are invited to.