We Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

We finally heard the bells on Christmas Day here in Slovakia. Actually, every Sunday we hear church bells ringing through our window. We love the sound of church bells ringing. We have two churches nearby so we hear the sound of bells ringing through the air both near and far.

But after all these years, it is the first time we both can say “I heard the bells on Christmas Day”. We love this song and look forward to singing it in following Christmases to come.

We hoped to have twelve missionaries at our home for the Christmas holiday. They began arriving at our apartment for breakfast at 8:30 hours. Some traveled as far away as Banska Bysterica, about a four hour train ride. 

We enjoyed the company of so many great young men and women joining us for breakfast and the Christmas holiday. After breakfast, we revealed our “secret Santa” where each had bought a $5 gift for another.

Sitting in a large circle we watched each person present their gifts one by one; ties, socks, candy, souvenirs etc. Everyone also brought a $5 white elephant gift which involved swapping and trading. This was a lot of fun and a wonderful morning laughing together.

In the afternoon, plans were made to visit an Elder Care facility to sing carols and visit with widows and isolated elderly. A visit to an Orphanage where more carols were sung to some of the children inside the facility. Next, a visit to a Roma(gypsies) community where the missionaries had obtained some donated gifts and handed them out to the children. They truly spent a few hours trying to make the day a little brighter for those in the community.

Christmas is one of the occasions missionaries take time to Skype (video call) with family. We had made sure to set up two Skype accounts to ensure all missionaries time to talk with families back home. We had to accommadate for the eight or nine hour time difference between Slovakia and Utah.

Calls were also made to Canada, Czech Republic, California, Idaho, Florida, Colorado, Washington and other places. Talking with family, when you are away from home, is one of the great joys in life.

A day earlier we were surprised by a group of missionaries singing Christmas carols outside our apartment. We

certainly appreciated it and so did the gentleman in the apartment below ours on the second floor. He listened to the caroling and was making thankful comments and even walked out the front door and left them a bottle gift. We checked to see a full bottle of Vodka which we set aside but appreciated his gesture.

We also stopped to sing carols at the home of a wonderful family. We presented them a small gift and she invited us all in and thanked us. Upon leaving, we learned their daughters were arriving home on a bus and so we stopped at the bus stop to sing some more. As they exited the bus, all the other passengers were treated to a Slovak Christmas carol and it was much appreciated.

As we were walking home past the large church in the center of town square we had snow falling gently in our face. We love being here in Slovakia for these holidays and the winter of 2017.