GREAT THANKSGIVING

Dear Family,

As you know, I had a surgical procedure in my foot and have been grounded for the last four weeks so have not written much.

However, the stitches are out and I was able to celebrate one of the best Thanksgivings we have had.

We had five of our eight daughters and their families here and it was great. Present for Thanksgiving was Cheryl and Paul, Suz and Scott, Cathy and Pete, Becca and Paul and Bina and Scott with all their kids for Thanksgiving dinner. Becca, Suz and Bina and their gang stayed in our home and it rocked.

On Tuesday night, we had a secret reunion; Doug slept over to get to the airport early the next morning and Rob and Eva and their kids were stranded in Salt Lake on their way to California because of the blizzard. Here is a picture of all. It was great to see tham all; we stayed up until one in the morning visiting. Mom took them to the airport early the next morning. Eva is due in February and is doing well.

Well on Wednesday, our home turned into Iron Chef Stadium. Becca was in charge of the cooking assignments. Suz planned the 22 lb Butterball turkey. Becca made rolls and deserts. Bina made the chocolate pudding pie. I was in charge of the oyster dressing and brining and smoking a smaller turkey.

The oyster dressing is somewhat of a tradition in the Wirthlin family; it is at least 135 years old. It was quite an experience for my father who prepared the dressing the night before. I did the same and modified the recipe. Here I am putting the finishing touches on the oyster dressing. It is so good but the number of people who really like it are diminishing.

Becca made pies, rolls, sweet potatoes. Bina did the mashed potatoes. On Thursday morning, the sweet smells of a classic dinner filled the air. Everyone worked hard. Mom made pretty table decorations. For the first time, everything was prepared on time, all the sides were orchestrated to be ready with the two turkeys, the gravy was made in advance, and everything was set.

There was excitement and a lot of noise. I tried to invite people to sit down but nothing happened until I called in a firm voice, "Alle bitte Platz nehmen!" There was instant silence; Cheryl muttered, "That worked!" and we gathered for the prayer.

With family and a close friend who joined us I tried to say the Thanksgiving prayer and was so overcome with such a feeling of deep gratitude for Faith, Family and Friends, I choked but finally managed to voice of prayer of Thanksgiving.

It took 36 hours to do the smoked turkey and with three days or prparation, the meal was consumed in minutes. Here are Cheryl and daughter Madeline looking good and comfy after the dinner.

The boys took the kids to a Walt Disney movie and we gathered again in the evening for dessert. I made a New England Indian Pudding. There were pies of all kinds. Cheesecakes and goodies galore. It was a great time!

Well when it was all over, the left overs were organized, everything was cleaned up and it was the most organzed Thanksgiving dinner and We were so happy.

The next morning, the gals were off at 5:00 AM to hit the early sales and get a start on Xmas shopping. The guys and I went to a Cabelas early morning door opener and had a good time and went to a second one the next day.

Then it was time for all to beat the next blizzard and drive home. What a great Thanksgiving and how grateful we are for the blessings of Heaven.

We love you all, Mom and Dad

FULL WEEK, BACK IN THE SADDLE

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Dear Family,

Well we are back io our schedule. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are full with Church activities in the Missionary Department on Monday and the in the Temple Tuesday and Wednesday.


Thursday,went with Rebecca and her kids and met Cathy and her kids and had an outing at Sam's Club where they stocked up on food items. We then went to Gygi's and the gals picked up more cooking supplies. In the afternoon, Cathy came over to fix Mom's computer. Here is a shot of Cathy at the computer with daughter Lilly and we wonder why her email address contains the word "Wackycathy". She is a whiz on that computer.

Friday, we watched Becca's kids when she went for her followup ultrasound


and everything was OK. We went to Red Robin for lunch. That evening we had our dinner and theater date. We went with our group to the Hale Theater to see The Drowsy Chaperone which was a rousing musical set in the '20s. Her is her picture.

Saturday was the game at the U of U. They played Colorado State and beat them 58-10. It was raining and cold and we appreciated the warm box on the 50 Yard line. President Uchtdorf and his wife came into the box, said hello to Paul and turned and said hello to us. He seems to know who we are. He spoke German to us and I told him about Steffi's wedding in Freiberg. The U of U is eighth in the AP poll...not bad.

We left the game early to go to Stake Conference for our University Singles Stake. I did not have to speak but they had us stand up and review our family stats for the group. They had a good meeting. Sunday we went down for a Stake Leadership meeting from 8:30 to 9:30. At 10:00 there was a televised regional meeting with 71 stakes in attendance and it was translated into 15 languages. Elder Nelson and President Uchtdorf spoke and it was great. They made an appeal to have more missionaries serving young and old and even invited the sisters to serve if they wish.

Had two Blessings in the afternoon and in the evening, we went over to Cheryl and Paul's for their Scripture reading with the kids. They are on their best behavior during this time. Cheryl has her house all decked out for Halloween.

It is great to see family. Next event will be the baptims of Becca's Abigail and Emily's Joseph. Some of us will gather in our home for Thansksgiving and we are starting to plan.

Love you all...Dad

WE GO TO GERMANY FOR STEFFI'S WEDDING

Dear Family,

We had the best short trip to Germany. Steffi Meyne one of our sister Missionaries (from Prussia) sent me a note on Face Book that she had a wedding date in October and I thought that is the best reason to take our frequent flyer miles and go back to Germany for the first time in five years.

Stefffi was one of our great sister missionaries who was a very hard worker, disciplined, effective, great trainer and a love of the Gospel that ran very deep. She reminded a bit of my Mom who also joined the church as a young lady in Zurich Switzerland and who gave up home, country and tradition to come to the states to pursue her gemology work. Her conversion was total body and she loved the church with all her heart and spoke of it daily. We kept in touch with Steffi and were thrilled with the news.

The trip over to Berlin was easy even back in economy. When we got to the airport, there was Steffi who came to pick us up two nights before her wedding. We visited and she drove us to the hotel. There is a picture of Steffie loading us up. So great to see her again!

When Katje's mother, Marita Muench heard that we were coming, she invited us to come to Cottbus on Friday to give a Fireside on Joseph Smiths boyhood operation (the first story we have of Joseph Smith) in her ward and of course in German. I was very worried about this since it has been five years since I spoke any leg nth in German. We drove down to Cottbus on Friday in a neat little Ford four door with a peppy diesel engine and six gears ahead. I brought my Garmin GPS with an Alpine SD map card with me and it took us to the door. We had lunch with Her and the Seidels. She took us through the Spreewald where there were armies of people out gathering wild mushrooms.

Here is a picture of Mom and Marita who took us all around Cottbus, The fireside went OK. I had my fireside talk already translated in German and got someone to read off the legnthier slides. It went for about 45 minutes and I was able to answer questions.

We then drove to Hoyerswerda and stayed over night in Marita's apartment where Katje also grew up. We went to a Baeckerei for breakfast and the first bite of a Brotchen with dried meats and cheese brought back a flood of memories. Marita drove us to Dresden. She has a rather heavy foot on the accelerator and at time we were doing 110 mph.
She knew each blitzer on the way to Dresden but it was great help to have her drive.
We met with our AP Attila Heller, his wife, three kids and his father at the Frauenkirche. Dresden was leveled during the war but the Frauenkirche was built up again. It was so good to see the Hellers. We used to call him Schneller Heller; he would wait till I dozed off in the car and then pick up speed on the Autobahn. We worked together several months driving and having meetings all over the mission. Here is a picture of Papa Heller, Attila, his wife and three kids. We visited for two hours, did a horse carriage ride around the Altstadt of Dresden, went into the Frauenkirche to see its renovations. Visited, talked and just enjoyed to be with them again.


We then drove to Freiberg to meet Dario, Patricia Dzierzon and their four kids.. all boys..twins with red hair. We had one of Dario's famous Topfs and visited again. Both Dario and Patricia were our missionaries and Dario was my AP for a long time as well. They have a spacious apartment in a home owned by their family for many years. The house was built in the 1600's. Here is a picture of their street. Quick lunch and then it was over to the Temple in Freiberg; this was the first temple behind the iron curtain.

We got there for the 2:30 PM wedding and there was Steffi and her fiance, Robert Hammer. He is from a German family who have been members of the church for several generations and he once had filled a mission in California. Here is a picture of Mom, Mary Cox (also one of our missionaries who is getting a PhD at Oxford and writing her thesis in Berlin), Robert and Steffi and me in front of the temple.

The temple is of medium size, bigger than the one in Detroit. They had friends and family and I counted 26 in the room. The men stood but I had a special seat as Steffi asked me to be a witness and that was a great honor. There was a great spirit there and the Temple President, Pres. Apel performed the ceremony and it was great. Lots of pictures and then it was time to drive back to Berlin (two hours) for the wedding reception at the Tiergarten ward. Dario and Patricia rode with us back to Berlin with Dario at the wheel.


Here is a picture of Steffi and Robert doing the traditional wedding waltz. There were tons of great German finger food and a huge cake.
I visited with the Bishop of the ward and all were so very happy for Steffi and Robert. Then we got back in the car and drove two hours back to Freiberg with Mom spelling off Dario at the end. We stayed at Dario's parents home in Freiberg and got back 1 AM.

The next day was Sunday and we went to the Freiberg ward. It is a great ward and Mom and I both recognized that the members liked each other and there was such a great spirit there. It is also a strong ward with the Stake President, stake Patriarch, Temple President and Temple missionaries are members. They had the largest High Priest Quorum that I have ever seen there. Many were distinguished in their own right. The meeting were great; it was Fast Day and I got up towards the end and by then mhy German was pretty good. We loved it there.

We spent the day with Dario and Patricia and it was great. Here is a picture of them with three of their four boys. On the day this was taken, the oldest was in Vorschule. The next morning, we took a little trip to a little town near the Erzgebirge where they make all those fabulous Christmas decorations. They had the smoking men, Pyramids and nutcrackers that were life size. Cheryl would have gone nuts there.




Here is a picture of the full size nutcrackers guarding the way in. I had to control myself a lot. There was this fat little Raeuchermann with a great beard that was a Forester but they wanted 280 Euro and that cooled the enthusiasm. It was so neat to be there and it was like being in the Mother Lode of all Christmas stuff. We saw how they painstakingly put everything together.

After a super lunch there, we drove back to Berlin. We left early the next morning; the airport in Berlin was socked in so our flight to London was delayed and we missed the connection to the states. British Air was kind and put us on a flight to Chicago going Business class that was very good. We made it home and got our bags a couple days later.

It was such a great short trip and we met dear friends again and were part of Steffi's wedding which was the highlight of the trip. Going over there could be habit forming.

Alles Gute und Alles Liebe, Mom and Dad

CONFERENCE WEEKEND

Dear Family,

General Conference was great and all the activities with it were also outstanding.
We went to my missionary reunion from my mission in the 1950's. They have been meting regularly but this may be the last one. Saw the missionary i went over on the boat with and my first companion and other companions. Mom and I will probably have our mission reunion in the spring of next year.

The sessions of General Conference were terrific and Iwant to study the talks when they are printed. All sessions were terrific. You can't pick favorite talks but I did like Elder Ballards talk and counsel very much. I added the audio clip. I had been fishing with him in the past but not fly fishing. He gave a great analogy. They were all so good and uplifting with a plea to the youth to keep on the straight and narrow.

We had quite a group come up for the Priesthood broadcast in out ward house. John Hickey and his boys came as did Mike and his crew with friends and brother in laws, Doug and his boys with his brother and law and his boys. We picked up Paul H. jr and he joined us. We filled an entire row in the middle section of the chapel.

After the meeting we went home for the traditional semi annual Post Priesthood Meeting feed. We used to go to restaurants but they are so filled and the food is better at home anyway. Other people showed up a well with friends of friends and we counted 22 that came for a rib eye roast, smoked ribs, dutch oven ribs with secret ingredient that Doug brought. He also brought Kristina's banana cream pie, Emily's funeral potatoes, corn on the cob completed the meal and they completely ate an 11 pound roast and it was so good. We had a little review of the Priesthood meeting talks by the young guys and they did real well. So much fun!


Sunday we had three visits and ti was so great. Mary and Mark and their two great kids plus there new highly pedigreed German short hair hunting dog, Gunner der Jaeger came up from Alpine. They came back to run int he St. George marathon and both finished well. So neat to see Mary and her crew and we had a little lunch.

Then we had a visit from Switzerland. Pascal and Nicole Hoffman, both of them served in our mission were visiting conference. Pascal was my great Secretary and AP and we recruited his sister to fill a mini mission with Steffi Meyne in Munich. She just finished a mission on Temple Square in Salt Lake. So great to see them; they all seem like family. We had Wuerstli und Sauerbrot with Sauserkraut for lunch and talked about dating.

Then Roy's daughters, Lexie and Hanna came up from BYU and ti was so great to see them as well. They are great grand daughters and seemed to be doing so well. Mom loaded them up with food for the condo. We had such joy n that Sunday.

Well we are going to Germany on Wednesday and not spending enough time over there but what time we have will be great. I asked what we should bring Steffi and she wanted Reeses Pieces. We asked the Dzierzons what they wanted us to bring and they said, Jiff Peanut Butter with nuts. So great!

More later.. still nervous about my German Fireside. We will meet some of our German missionaries there next Sunday.

Alles gute.. love Dad and Mom

THE GLEN BECK AWARD FOR CHARITY; JON HUNTSMAN

Dear Family,

Went to an unusual event today with Cheryl and Paul. You all have heard and seen on TV (although much understated) Glenn Beck's Washington Mall event of 8/28/2010. He had a massive turn out that was largely for a non political event. As part of the program, he gave an award to someone who best exemplified Faith, Hope and Charity. Jon Huntsman was given the award for Charity.

Jon and his family were at a wedding of a gran daughter and could not attend the massive rally but had someone else accept the award in his honor. Today that person gave the award to Jon at a meeting up in their Huntsman Cancer Hospital. Beck always has a picture of Ben Franklin with the subtitle 'Charity' on his TV show and he put a picture of Jon as also the embodiment of Charity.

It was quite an event honoring Jon and Karen for all their charitable contributions over the years. The figure of over one billion dollars in aggregate contributions was mentioned. Tributes were paid and when it came time to place the medal around his neck, they had Glen Beck on the phone live talking to Jon and his family and the group of practitioners at the Cancer Center.

Glen Beck obviously respects and thinks so highly of Jon and was quite emotional as he commented on the award. He said that they had to search a bit for the recipients of the Faith and Hope awards but there was no question as to who would receive the Charity award. It was interesting that this was done in the Cancer Hospital which will forever be a monument to the Largess and generous giving of such an unusual person. It was impressive to see the new wing of the hospital also going up. His many other charities were mentioned and it was quite a moment. I have been watching Glen Beck and his show is interesting. He is doing his homework and makes a lot of good points relating to the direction of this country.

Well as a side note, Mom and I are trying to get ready for our trip to Germany next week to attend our former Sister Missionary, Steffi Meyne's temple marriage in Freiberg. This is the site of the Temple the Church was allowed to build in East Germany when the wall was up. We will see our AP Dario Dzierzon and his wife, Patricia (also a former sister missionary). I think we can make the trip. I am a little nervous however as they want me to present my Fireside on Joseph Smith's operation in the Cottbus ward in German of course. Yikkkes

More later Love, Mom and Dad

FALL GENERAL CONFERNCE THIS WEEKEND

Dear Family,

This is conference weekend and we are looking forward to the meetings and instruction. I hope all of you will be able to pick up the meetings.

If you cannot get it on local TV, you can get it on video streaming on LDS.org. We used to go up to Bear Lake and pick up conference but it is good to see it on our big screen. If you get tickets to attend, there is no better experience.

We will host the Post Priesthood Meeting cook out at our home and maybe even Roy and kids will be there. We will pick up this meeting in our ward and get back to the house right after. Bring all the Aaronic Priesthood kids as well!

We so look forward to the inspired messages of our Church leaders.

Alles Gute Dad

TRIP TO MAINE AND THE VASCULAR MEETING

Dear Family,

Mom and I went to the yearly meeting of the New England Vascular Society in Rockport Maine. This society was once founded by my vascular mentor, Robert Linton with whom I was associated in practice and I was one of the early members. It has been a very long time since I went to a meeting and we went to get the CME credits for licensure,

Here is a picture of Mom at the edge of the bay; the meeting was held on Penobscot Bay and everything was so New England. The meeting was OK but it was mostly non surgical stuff. I met a member who was a resident when I was on staff at the MGH, Craig Donaldson; we published a paper together. I met some of Doug's surgical teachers at the MGH who are two generations younger than me,

What was really great was being back in Maine, the site of deer hunts, family vacations on Lake Sabeo and High Adventure trips with the Explorer scouts canoing down class II white water rivers, And of course there was the cusine! Mom and I flew to Boston, rented a car and with the GPS drove to Rockport which was a four hour drive. We stopped at Kittyport, Maine and found a great seafood restaurant. They had two 1 1/4 pound lobsters for $17.00. This has been a good year for lobsters. Also had a bucket of Steamed clams that you see in the picture. Probably 20 years since we had that treat.

The meeting was held at a fancy resort overlooking the Bay and we left the door open in the evening to fill the room with fresh sea air and it was great. The meetings were in the morning and we had the afternoons free. We discovered another great sea food place out in the bay a bit with their own lobster pots

Here is that great place that has bee there for years, Had a lobster which is pictured below; there is absolutley no sea food better than a fresh Maine lobster boiled.

Rockport and Rockland are artsy little towns and we visited the Andrew Wyeth art museum and saw where three generations of Wyeths contributed to American art,


Here is the bruiser that was good for almost two meals.










For smaller snacks, they had these Lobster roll shops that you can visit after the art exhibits. This is a junior roll and it is economically better to get the big lobster.

We stayed till Sunday. Mom caught the tail end of the Women's Conference on the Internet. Sunday morning I finished the meetings and we got to church. There was a little branch close to the Resort and Sacrament meeting was interesting and it was great to see faithful members up there in Maine. We drove four hours to Boston n and had a four hour plane ride back and it is good to be home again.

Doug and Christina went to the Western Vascular meeting somewhere in Oregon; I thin we had better papers and food.

Love, Dad