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Merry Christmas!  Here are our activities for the last couple of days:

On the 21st we had a cookie exchange over at one of the other missionary's apartments.  We met there, talked for a while about things that missionaries talk about then swapped cookies.  One of them was a dark chocolate base cookie with a cherry in the center then covered with a dash of chocolate fudge on top.  Pretty tasty!

Cookies!

The ladies that made the cookies.  Well, except I made our cookies.  They came out weird too.  Peanut butter but the little fork marks disappeared when they cooked.  Never had that happen before and I've made a lot of peanut butter cookies.  Ate a lot of them too!

Splitting up the goodies.  We still have a big bag of cookies left over.  I can only eat so many goodies.  

The activities for Christmas Eve started at 10 AM with us helping the Site Missionaries setting up for Christmas Dinner in the Stake Center with chairs, tables and decorations but when we got there everything was already set up.  We set up a few things and they let us go.  Well, OK, but Sister Simons was going over to the Arrival Center to set up for the soup bar/hot chocolate bar that was happening later that night between caroling and the other activities.  So, we hoofed it over there.  

Arlene and I stopped by the temple and conned the security guard to open up the Arrival Center so we could get in there.  We had several other couples come and help.  

After all that, there was a "Live Nativity" that we got tickets to out on Highway 61 on the way to Burlington, just outside of Fort Madison.  It was a park and ride to an old barn and some other things going on.  

We loaded up into the barn with 150 of us, similar to sardines, eagerly awaiting the start of what turned out to be a Christmas Eve church service.  A protestant one after all.  The people in front and next to us are all missionaries we are serving with.  We're sitting on hay bails.

More of the inside of the barn.  It's a big barn.

The barn was built in 1857 and mostly from hand hewn timbers made from whole trees.  Here are some good examples of the kind of timbers used.  Anyone got a match? 

Loading in the wagons to go back to the parking lot.

The barn was filled with loose hay that was driven up through these doors and dumped in the middle of the barn.  They backed the wagons, with the hay, up this ramp on the right into the barn during harvest time.  Here we are waiting for the wagon to take us back to the parking area.

Finally made it on a wagon to go back.  Brrrr...a bit chilly.  Note ramp in back.

From the back of the wagon, the road back to the parking area was a bit rutted.  We were sliding around a lot as the horses pulled us through the muck.  The driver said there was quite a lot of road base under the mud.  I have my doubts...

The wagons.

A better shot of the barn from the other side with a little sun on it.  

The next activity was the soup/rolls/hot chocolate at the Arrival Center back in Nauvoo.

Sister Simons welcoming us and giving us some directions.

The engineers table with Bro/Sis Hendricks and the Chapmans.  Lots of different kinds of soups and homemade rolls.

At 6 PM we were supposed to head on over to the front of the temple for "spontaneous" Christmas Caroling.  However, the temple gates were closed.  One of the sisters asked me, as an engineer, if I had a key to get in.  Well, no, but security wtas here.  Let me go talk to him.  So, I managed to get the gates opened and all these people, members and non-members, flowed onto the temple steps and sang a bunch of Christmas steps.  

Bro McDonald warmed us up by playing his bagpipes.  We all enjoyed hearing him play.  We also know now that bagpipes do not like the cold.  It took him a while to get them warmed up.  Ever heard a bagpipe that isn't liking cold weather?  It's not quite as mournful as you'd expect.

People climbing up the steps and singing their hearts out.  Pretty interesting.

A little light on the subject.

This is a shot from the back, where the wind wasn't blowing quite so hard. 

We then headed back to the Arrival Center for more Christmas Carols and hot chocolate, goodies ('cause we need more sugar).

After that we cleaned up and left for our own activities.

We decided to head out and get some of our own Christmas spirit.  The temple manger scene was close by so I got a picture of it with the temple as the backdrop.

Next we headed over to Keokuk (12 miles away) and drove through the local Christmas display (City of Christmas) they do there in Rand Park.  You can view it at:  http://www.cityofchristmas.org/Tour.html  Enjoy!  It's quite the display!

Just millions of lights to look at.  Took us forever to get through it.  Pretty interesting to see, also.  Yes, you drive through most of these.  Go to the site above to get a better idea of what they do here.  

There's more but I'm going to continue on another page for the day.  This wraps up Christmas Eve.