Freiberg, Germany

Freiberg was my first favorite city in Germany but certainly not my last. It is a tiny little town rich of history. We played a concert there our first night in honor of their 850th anniversary. It's incredible how far they've come and yet the age old beauty of the town can still be captured. It was our first experience dealing with sticky weather, extreme fatigue, and numerous pre-concert disasters. But the venue we played in was a church that was just magnificent- tall ceilings, beautiful cathedral architecture, etc., so it made it worthwhile.

We stayed in temple housing for two days and it was quite pleasant. The only place that had wifi was the church building next door. But it was locked most of the time so you see a bunch of students including the leaders huddling outside the door like penguins trying to Facebook and Skype. It was a funny picture.

The first night we were served some decent food besides these weird potato dumplings. It was a weird texture and I couldn't make myself finish it, which is rare because I eat anything edible within tangible range. But it basically is the only weird/gross food I have eaten since being here. I also need to add that every meal served to us is accompanied by chocolate. I don't know if it's a European lifestyle or just courtesy to guests but I love it. Our Sunday lunch was absolutely incredible though. It was Russian red soup or German cheese soup, and both just insanely satisfied my taste buds. The Russian soup was like an explosion of favors in my mouth. While the German soup felt like home on the country side(hot dang, blogging about this makes me really hungry).

We put on a musical program for the local ward on Sunday and sat through all three hours of church. Relief society was a neat experience because it was awesome to see that though we were all speaking different languages, we understood each other spiritually because we all speak the same gospel. It was definitely a testimony building experience.

After church and before leaving for Dresden, we got to go into the Freiberg temple and see the baptistry. They told us that the open house of this temple had 10,000 people in attendance, members and non-members(my numbers might be off but just know it's a huge number). What an amazing opportunity to be inside a temple in Europe.

Frreiberg was a relaxing visit and it was just beautiful. This is definitely going on my list of potential cities to live in :)