Willkommen

2010-02-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

Hallo to all as they say here. It is hard to believe we will shortly be finishing our time here in Frankfurt, Germany. We have had some wonderful experiences as we have come to know Germany, its people and the many friends and members of the church here. Here are a few pictures and thoughts from the last couple of months (it really has been a long time since we updated our blog).

Here you see some of our Primary activities. We have been teaching various age groups for the last year and here is a little sharing time activity. Looks like kids all over the world doesn't it. Some of the children in the Primary are bilingual while others speak only german. We always have a little adventure in class depending on who is there that day and the mix of german and english in class.

This is the cathedral in Worms where Martin Luther's trial was held and he was excommunicated from the Catholic church. A fairly significant event, especially in light of all that has happened since that time. It is a beautiful cathedral and sits near the center of the city. Worms was a hotbed of political and religious activity for many years. Many cities in Germany have themed statues all over in the city. Worms has a lot of small dragons spread throughout the city.

Some of our responsibilities during our time here have been to open and close missionary apartments. This has given us a chance to see all of the cities in the Frankfurt mission in which missionaries reside. Recently, as we were opening a new apartment, we had some very interesting weather and this is a picture of the effects of an ice storm as we were doing our chores. The frozen branches and limbs of trees and other shrubbery were beautiful, although it was a little slippery at times on the road.

Around this pool and fountain were some very interesting metal sculptures indicating how money is exchanged from one person to another. It was a bunch of men in various positions indicating how money can move quickly when there is theivery involved. As we were trying to figure out the order of the metal sculptures, this lady took off her shoes and climbed into the pool and started retrieving all of the coins from the pool. Money does move quickly given the right circumstances.

It is time to post this to the blog. We will be seeing many of you in the coming weeks. Thanks for your support and encouragement as we have been here in Germany. It has truly been a delightful and wonderful experience for us. Thanks to all who have made it so.

2009-12-27T08:43:00.001-08:00

Weihnachten has now come and gone. We have been enjoying a few days of slowing down as we were up to our ears in getting things done before Christmas. As you can see the Weihnachtsmarkt were in full swing and they are a lot of fun to see and look around. Lots of food to eat and fun things you would like to purchase. Pumpkin cream soup and dampfnudeln with vanilla sauce are among our favorites. We'll try for a couple more pictures of these markets.

Ginny found a new friend who was interested in giving her a ride but he wanted a carrot and some hay first.

These are balls made of dough strips and are covered with cinammon, sugar, chocolate, fruit toppings and a bunch of other really good and tasty delights. Try taking a bite,they will make you want more.

The Klein family invited us along with a couple of senior sisters to their home for Christmas Eve. This is the evening on which presents are delivered by St. Nicklaus and it is also a time for talking about the true meaning of Christmas before presents are opened. It was a very delightful evening and St. Nicklaus found us here.
This is a life sized choir carved from wood which was located at one of the Weihnachtsmarkt we visited. We kind of felt as stiff as these folks as we sang christmas carols at the Friedrichsdorf temple on December 20th. The temperature was -15 degrees centigrade and we sang for those who visited the temple grounds that evening. It was a lot of fun, eventually we did get warm and we had a chance to think over the events we celebrate this time of year. The birth of the Savior, the gospel which he brought and was later restored along with his atoning sacrifice for all of us remind us of why we are spending this time here in Germany. We give thanks for His birth and know we have the opportunity to return to be with Him as well as with all of those whom we love.

2009-11-15T05:45:00.000-08:00

We thought you might like to see a picture of our ward. This also is our Stake Center. We have all the modern conveniences here and the best part is, it is only a few steps away from our apartment. The outreach center is attached to the building in the back. There is hardly any parking for the ward so most of the time members have to park on the street or over at the Area Offices. Many members do not have cars so they ride the bus or the U-bahn. They are very faithful.

We wake up to beautiful sunrises that are unbelieveable. It is a great way to start the day. By the time we get into the office it is usually overcast. The fall season is awesome here in Germany. The colors have been incredible.

Everywhere you go we are reminded of the beauties Heavenly Father has created. We are now looking forward to Thanksgiving and have grateful hearts that we are able to be here in Germany serving the Lord. We have so many blessings, among those we treasure the most is our family that we miss so much.

We had fun decorating a pumpkin and filled it with carmel popcorn and took it over to our Mission President and his family. They work so hard helping the missionaries we thought this might give them something to enjoy and laugh about.

It won't be long and the Weihnachtsmarkts will be in full swing. The first day of advent, which is November 28 will be the beginning of the Christmas season.

2009-10-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hallo to all, as they say here. We've been crazy busy here as Ginny has taken on the additional responsibilities of financial secretary until a replacement arrives. This has been a lot of work for her but she seems to be handling it quite well. Since we last checked in we have also had the chance to see and experience quite a few things here in the mission area.

As you can see we have the opportunity to have some of the missionaries over for dinner occassionally which is a lot of fun for us to get to know them better and share their missionary experiences.

This is a picture of those attending our weekly staff meeting. President and Sister Ninow are in the middle along with some senior missionaries and the assistants to the president along with the elders who keep the computers running when older minds can't quite get the grasp of new technology.

This is a picture of a wonderful castle overlooking the Mosel River in Cochem. It was originally built in the 1100's and fell into disrepair along with some unhappy encounters with the French in the 1600's. It was restored according to its original plans in the 1800's and is a great reminder of happenings in medieval history.

This is inside some man made caves in a mountain near Homburg. Starting in the 1200's a fortress was built on top of a hill with mining of sand under the fortress. Over the next few hundred years, the mining of the sand in the mountain encompassed twelve levels of mining tunnels and taking out the soft sands used in the making of clear glass. The mining wa abandoned in the 1700's and the fortress on top became a ruin. In the early 1930's the mining caves were resdiscovered by children playing in the area. During World War II the caves were used to shelter people in the area during bombing raids in this area. They were able to shelter between 5 and 6,000 people at one time for up to ten days.

Let's conlude with the brief story of Emma. Emma is in her mid 30's and was born in Bolivia. In her 20's she went to Italy for about five years and then came to Germany for some additional schooling and work. Occassionally we have the opportunity of going with the missionaries to teach and work with their investigators. We were asked by the missionaries to go with them while they worked with Emma. The elders "found" her at the streetcar stop near their apartment and her apartment. This was located near the ward in Frankfurt and provided the opportunity to teach her in the ward building. Emma accepted the gospel quickly and in spite of language difficulties, at times, she came to treasure her new found understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was baptized about a month after meeting the missionaries and is very happy in her ward activities. The road home may be circuitous but the end of the trip is always worth the drive.

2009-09-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed a morning at the Frankfurt Temple with Kim and Michele when they came to visit us this month. We spent every minute we could on weekends showing them as many beautiful places that we had time for. They came to a baptism with us of a sweet sister from Boliva that just joined the church. We tried to let them feel of the spirit these German people bring. The church is growing here and it is wonderful to see the missionaries get so excited about teaching the gospel to those who have been prepared to receive this glad message.

This picture is of the Jewish cemetery close to our apartment. It is situated next to the German cemetery where we have visited many times and find it very interesting. They are not supposed to put flowers on the graves but instead put small stones on the grave that represent a memory of a visit to the grave.

Just a sampling of the beautiful flowers that are still blooming along the quaint streets of some of the villages we drive through on our way to do apartment inspections. We are still amazed by the care the people of Germany take to keep their surroundings looking clean and neat.

We loved having the girls with us to share this wonderful experience we are having here in Germany. We feel we are very blessed to be here.

2009-08-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since we did some work here. Kind of busy but hopefully we can show a few things about life here today. We keep on the run and we have been glad to have visitors. visitors are always welcome. This is a picture of of Rick and EllaRene as they are coming out of the Air Moldova terminal here in Frankfurt. As you can guess it is a little ways out and I think they might be a little behind on their payments to the airport authority. It was great to have them visit.

We're not sure what happened to them here but they seem to be a little under the weather or just plain tired from too much running around as they are trying to find their way home from a place where they couldn't understand much of the signage.

If you look closely at this picture or click on it and it becomes larger, you may be able to identify Garth "Potter" in the background. He has put a spell on the girl in the picture as he attempts to practice some of his wizardry.

Below are some pictures of a places we visited last week which are in Weinheim. They had a wedding set in the castel halls and it was quite a setup. The grounds around the castle park were very well done.

Last week a young man named Pascal was baptized in Frankfurt. He was first met by the missionaries 17 years ago and had some lessons from them. He decided to quit the discussions and continued on a life doing things which are very typical of many young men in Germany. He found after 17 years that this was not bringing happiness to his life and he remembered the feelings he had when he had spoken with the missionaries years ago. He wondered how he might find them again. Two days later two sister missionaries knocked on his door and he was very happy to see them and invited them to teach him the gospel. He was baptized about a month after meeting the missionaries and we had a chance to be a part of some discussions with him. You never know the impact or the timing of the efforts made by the missionaries as they labor hard to find those who are prepared to receive the gospel. The work continues forward and we are enjoying our time doing things we have been asked to do.

2009-06-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

It's spargel (asparagus) season and this is a metal sculpture which depicts a little girl with her dog who has come to the local farmers market to buy some spargel for her family. Much of the spargel here is white and grows underground in very neatly arranged rows.

We went to the Schwetzingen Palace with its wonderful gardens last weekend. The palace gardens were designed many years ago and cover almost 100 acres. A lot of the trees have been sculptured to look like the ones in this picture and were planted with a long distance future over a hundred years ago.

This is a replica of a turkish mosque which occupies quite a few acres in these gardens. Since they cannot have any graven images on display, there are some wonderful sayings which are shown throughout in arabic and german. The outside is pink but the inside is covered with blue and yellow designs.

This is Elder Curtis who lives in the Colonial Hills Ward and has been adopted into the "gully gang" which is a couple of generations older than he. He has accepted to provide some youth and vigor to the aging warriors. He is one of our favorite missionaries. Despite some physical challenges, he is out working hard everyday. This is looking towards downtown Frankfurt and was taken from our apartment balcony.

2009-06-07T09:27:00.001-07:00

We haven't dropped off the end of the earth. We are keeping busy and loving all of the things we have to do that bring us home tired every night. We have especially enjoyed having some visitors from home. Here's a few pictures of things we did and saw. These are three 'wanderers' in front of their Uncle Charley. They didn't know there was royalty in the family line. We're not sure if Neptune is royalty but he is looking regal with some of his subjects. I think we caught the royal family in front of their House of Parlaiment when they thought the camera was turned off. Naughty!!

How's this for a photo shoot in the flower patch!!! Not bad for someone who is about to lose their braces. Oh happy day!! Just in case anyone is wondering, the translation of the street sign above this good looking group is 'The Road to Hell'. Just in case you were wondering. What did they do on this trip? Anyway they did end up in the right place and the picture in the center is on the Frankfurt temple grounds where they must have gone to take care of some of the matters left from the picture on the right. Garth and Cortney will have to wait to be spotlighted on the next blog as their pictures didn't make it on the flash drive this time. Isn't it great that old people can get some things right and then have no idea how technology works five minutes later!?

A quick story that lets you know what investigators think of the missionaries who teach them the gospel. Two missionaries went to an appointment and the people weren't home so they decided they would do a little finding time on the street outside the apartment house. They rounded the corner from the front door of the apartment house and started talking to a lady on the street. She wanted to hear more so they began teaching her over the next ten days. They took her to church on Fast Sunday and when she saw the members bearing their testimonies, she went up and bore hers also. She included the line that she was grateful for the two young 'prophets' who had found her and were teaching her the gospel. Life is good and we are enjoying the work we are doing.

2009-05-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

You might think this is a field of dandelions but actually there are fields of these flowers all over Germany. We have been told the flower is used to make some sort of oil, even in perfume. It just is such a beautiful sight over the rolling hills. This is one of the reasons both of us have had some allergie problems. The blossoms on the trees are so beautiful. These purple flowers are wysteria and grow around the building here. They must love the rain and the humidity. We haven't had a lot of sunny days but it is getting warmer. April has been just beautiful. We see all kinds of flowering trees from our balcony.

On our way to the Zone Conferences we get a chance to enjoy the countryside and all it's beauty.

This picture was taken at Eastertime. Lots of pink and white blossoms. A lot of the cars are covered with the yellow dust that is in the air from the pollen. This is a great time of year to be here in Frankfurt. The beauty far outweighs the sneezing and itchy eyes.

Garth and Cortney came for a visit in April. We sure had a lot of fun with them. It was great to see family and have them in our home for a few days.

2009-03-26T00:33:00.001-07:00

Love Those Castles!!

Last Saturday was Ginny's birthday so our neighbors, the Cutlers, told her they would take her anywhere in the mission she would like to go to see what she wanted to see. She decided she wanted to see the castle at Marksburg. It's about an hour and a half drive from Frankfurt and is a knights castle that was never destroyed by Napolean or the French. Along the drive up the Rhein there were a bunch of other castles to see. Here's a few pictures of a really fun drive. Some of them we were riding in the car so they are a little crazy.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, enjoy your reading. The work goes on and the gospel is true. We are enjoying our work and the association with the missionaries.

2009-03-08T08:19:00.001-07:00

We haven't disappeared. Maybe you thought so but we have just been running our heads off the last few weeks. When we moved into the apartment where we are living we knew the furnishings would someday go to the sister who had lived here before us. In Germany, when you rent an apartment it is completely empty. There are fixtures in the bathroom but no lights, no kitchen cabinetry, and in some cases, no flooring. A true blank. The sister who lived here finished her mission but her new place wasn't yet ready for her to move into. She has been living with relatives and friends for a while. Her apartment was finally ready and so we took everything to her. That included the light fixtures, but not the flooring. We bought the kitchen cabinetry as she would have new where she was moving. We did have a bed but no other furniture. Interesting few days until we could scrounge a couch, a table and some chairs and some lights. I was a little concerned about installing the lights but it went okay and I was only shocked once (it was a good one). The next week was the first week of the cycle which means getting new missionaries, transferring those that need transferring and then sending home those finishing their missionaries. 18 new missionaries arrived on Tuesday and 22 went home on Thursday. Wednesday is transfer day which means about half of the missionaries were affected. On Wednesday, all the public transportation workers went on strike which means we had no public transportation to get missionaries from one place to another. That was a really interesting day. We really watched the hand of the Lord help get everything done that needed to be done that day. We have been called as Primary workers. Ginny is thrilled that both members of our class speak english. She'll get more from Primary than from being in the other meetings even with translation. The kids understand most of our english and sometimes we talk german. Maybe it is just a good mix of both and it works. In February they celebrate Karnival here (Fasching to those who may remember) so the Primary had a party a couple of weeks ago. Here's some pictures of the party. The Primary isn't very big but they are a lot of fun.

Vincent is the one in the Tigger outfit (he has a Tigger hat also). He might be three or so. When he was told he was really cute, he said, "I'm not cute, I'm Tigger". Kids are the same everywhere and we are having a lot of fun in the Primary. It's tough learning all the songs in german, though.

Ever Changing but also Never Changing

2009-01-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

Hello to all. Our assignments in the office are everchanging. From one cycle to the next, we have new things to do. We keep some of the old, get something new and adjust to whatever we are asked to do. The following picture shows us with our new (to us) trusty "milk truck". We've been assigned to figure out what is happening with the apartments in the mission. This will take some figuring out as there are about 85 of them. Some of them have been rented for many years while others are just newly acquired. We will be visiting all of these apartments as quickly as we can to try and get a reading on what needs to be done. We have visited about half of the apartments and we think they should be classified according to the three degrees of glory and outer darkness. There are a few which might qualify for the celestial category and there are a few more which could easily qualify for outer darkness. Most seem to fit somewhere in the terestrial and telestial. It is fun to go and see how the missionaries really live. Sometimes they know we are coming and sometimes it is a surprise. The surprise visits seem to elicit the most response based on whether or not Ginny feels any smiley faces have been earned or if they should just empty the place using a fire hose and start over again. We have a GPS device that can speak to us in a variety of languages and her (Dorothy is her name, as in the Wizard of Oz) favorite saying seems to be, "Please make a U turn at the earliest possible moment". We recently had a chance to spend a couple of hours in the city of Aschaffenburg. It is really a very picturesque city. This is a picture of the palace there.

It is filled with a lot of pictures, statues and other memorabilia of the various persons who have lived here over the last 1000 years. Not too old for here, but really old for most of the U.S. There are really a lot of historical artifacts in this castle that is really more like a huge palace than a fortressed castle (It does have a moat around it but there is no longer water to keep out the invaders). The picture below is of the Frankfurt skyline at night taken from the balcony of our apartment. We thought this was a fun picture and illustrates there is a very modern part of this country that is continually building for the future. During the last few weeks we have also had some time to visit Michelstadt, a very picturesque city about an hour's drive from Frankfurt. The following picture is of the city hall.

The ground level is really an open area with the offices over this open area. The open area contained a scale to weigh all kinds of things traded in the town square as well as a linen press, which was used to straighten out a number of items made out of linen.

To the left (I hope) you see a painting of Puss 'n Boots which has been done on the side of one of the houses in this city. A number of the houses in this area have paintings of various fairy tale characters painted on them and it is probably good for the tourist trade. The village is very beautiful and the date on the town hall is 1484. The original town hall (built before this one) is still standing but doesn't have as much character as does its replacement. The work of the Lord continues to go forward here. December was one of the best months of the year for baptisms. It is fun to see things happening in places that have not had baptisms for quite a few years. The missionaries work hard and are meeting some wonderful people that are looking for the truth and a purpose in their lives. We enjoy doing our part to help this all happen.

Fröhliche Weihnachten

2008-12-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are in Rüdesheim for the Weihnachtsmarkt. There were so many fun Christmas scenes and decorations in this little town by the Rhein river. It was so cold that day, we had to keep buying warm things to eat. (Waffels, hot chocolate, & warm pastries). This was an enchanting place with all kinds of portable wood shops spread out in the city.

There was a little train that went
around on the track that children

could ride on. The cottages were all
decorated with lights and greenery.
The manger scene below was life size. Most of the little towns have their own weihnachtsmarkts. This one was a pretty good sized one. They get so crowded at night you can't even see all the displays. The German people love to come and eat and drink their glüwein. It is quite the tradition here. They have two Christmas days. One on the 25th and one on the 26th. We were invited out to dinner on three evenings. The members of our ward have very little but are so willing to share and feed the missionaries. Some of them feed missionaries for 3 or 4 different nights. Christmas morning we opened our presents and enjoyed the day, especially talking to our kids. We have
much to be thankful for. It is hard being away from family at Christmastime but we also feel our

Heavenly Father needs us here in Germany at this time. We feel of His spirit and see the gospel being shared with many here and touching many lives. We are excited for the new year and the changes for good that it will bring.

Deutsche Weihnachten

2008-12-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

We thought we'd throw in a couple of pictures as we approach the coming Christmas season. Even though they aren't thankful here for the pilgrims, we are. We had a fun evening with young and older missionaries for Thanksgiving. Everybody pitched in and we had a good time. No cranberry ice cream, though. We do miss that stuff. We had a lot of normal Thanksgiving things with a little german twist at times. We had a mix of people from Canada, Germany, England and the United States. That may have been some of the mix at the first Thanksgiving. We also have a couple of pictures of the Christmas Market here in Frankfurt. It is a really crazy place with lots of food and booths full of stuff to purchase. If you click on the picture it will fill the whole page (I think) and you can get a look at some of the things for sale here.

I'm trying to move the picture but it doesn't want to go.

While we were here at the Weihnachts Markt, Ginny had her wallet stolen right out of her purse which was hanging on her shoulder and zipped. We didn't find out it was gone until we went to buy some things at a store on the way home. Needless to say she was a little upset. The wallet was found the next day by a construction worker at the market. Everything was still in the wallet except the money. They did leave the small change, though. The police explained to us there are a number of organized groups who come to town for the markets and make a handsome living stealing from those who attend the market and come to buy handmade articles. The people doing the sales in the booths don't take credit cards, so everything sold is done with cash.

Below are some pictures of our Christmas Tree and Adventskranz. We are grateful for the kind thoughts we've received. As you can see, our tree is on the windowsill in our apartment.

I hope some of you will remember doing an adventkranz where you take some time on the four Sundays before Christmas and listen to Christmas music, tell Christmas stories, talk about Christmas past or talk about the true Spirit of Christmas. We are grateful at this time of year when we celebrate the birth of the Savior. It is truly a time to reflect on our many blessings and the promise given to us all through the birth of the Son of God. It is also a time to give gifts in honor of the great gift of eternal life we have been given by Jesus Christ.

INTERRESANTE GEDANKEN

2008-11-23T05:36:00.000-08:00

We live across the street from the main cemetery in Frankfurt. There are some really interesting things to be found there. They work hard to maintain graves all year round and there are at least 5 floral shops spaced around the cemetery. They maintain graves even in the cold weather (which it has been the last few days) and even when it snows (which we got the first taste on Saturday). Here's some of the things we found there which might give all of us something to think about. The marker to the left says this section of the cemetery has been dedicated to those who gave their lives as scientific experiments. It says this is to be a reminder to those that conducted this unnecessary scientific work of their responsibility for what they have done. The picture below is the grave markers for those experiments. Sometimes it is interesting to see things from both sides of history. I think it's remarkable they have this section of the cemetery. There are some other grave markers that are interesting but I think I won't add a bunch of them at this point. The picture below is an area dedicated to those who died in World Wars I and II. As we've wandered through various parts of Frankfurt we've also found some other fun metal and bronze sculptures in various locations throughout areas in Frankfurt. Since space is at a premium here, the parks are well kept and are places for people to walk through on a good day(actually any day) and enjoy. They like to go for walks here so they get a chance to wander through areas set aside as green space. The sculpture here is of a court jester and is one of many found in the park one day. They have statues of poets, heroes, political figures and lots of other things. They have a few years of history on us so they have lots of things that date back over 1000 to 1200 years ago. This statue is a fun one that is dedicated to various fairy tales and is found in the center of town. You can miss a lot of these kind of things as you walk around because there are no signs to light them up. They are there for all to see and enjoy or just walk by and not think about. The crest below is found on the wall of the oldest church in Frankfurt. This is a large church today but it started out as about 1ooo square feet in size and was where they held both political and church meetings. This crest is a Frankfurt crest and is political in nature. It was placed there when the head of the church was also the political leader (or was that vice versa). There are lots of fun things that give you some interesting things to think about when nothing else is going on in your head. Nice to visit with all of you. We love it here and find the work to be very rewarding. Some days are long but then where there's action, there can be fun and games as well as some spiritually rewarding happenings. It's great to be involved with the missionaries and share their many experiences, both the good ones and the not so good ones.

Beautiful Fall

2008-11-02T06:34:00.000-08:00

It's coming to the end of a beautiful Fall day here. We wish we were in Austin at Dean's blessing. Sorry, we hope he didn't scream through the whole thing like some of his forebears.

We have officially arrived in our apartment. You know this is true because we have three locks on our door (one is a chain kind), a peephole in our door and we have a "kaufwagen" to go to the store and get groceries. Hopefully a picture of Ginny will appear and you can see this wonderful apparatus. Actually we are now part of those of our same age. It can hold enough to fill your refrigerator and then some. The refrigerators here aren't very big so you get to go shopping at least twice a week. We were carrying our groceries home from the store in our hands and arms but they got heavy so we resorted to doing it the way most of the people here do. Saves the back and arms.

We've also attached a picture of the method for drying our sheet. The washing machine works great (takes about 2 hours to wash the sheets and pillow cases and that's all that can go in the machine) but with no dryer and the temperatures outside, the posters on the bed work great to dry our sheet so we can use it that night. Where there's a will, there must be a way. Yesterday was a busy day (that means we were on the move the whole day. A new couple arrived early Saturday morning and they will be going to Heidelberg to work in the Institute program there. They needed to be oriented to the mission before they got on their way to Heidelberg so the office staff met them at President Ninow's home where she had prepared breadfast for all. Yes, the Ninow's are very busy to say the least.

In the afternoon we had the chance to just wander around in the old city of Frankfurt and see what's there. This was our first chance to do that so I'll try and put a few pictures for you to see what some of Frankfurt looks like. I think if you click on the picture it will get bigger and you can see more if you like. These pictures are of Roemer Platz (Roman Place) because the Romans where here for quite a while and had quite an influence on this city, its politics and religion.

There were a lot of things going on at the square and because the weather was pretty good a lot of people were out going for walks and just wandering around, (like us). I'll try and get a couple more pictures here just for practice.

We found a really fun antique and new Steif teddy bear store. Ginny can be seen with her new best friend. Pretty amazing stuff there. On the right is Charlemagne. He had quite an influence here on bringing together a lot of political and church delegations. I wish I had listened better in those history classes but it was hard to relate about stuff so long ago. I guess when we get to meet them we'll do a lot better listening.

Mespelbrunn

2008-10-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hi to all - The last few weeks have been busy but we have had some saturdays when we've gotten out to see some of the countryside. I hope some pictures of some of the places we've gone will show up here. Oops, the picture you see is the skyline of Frankfurt from our balcony. We will be living on the 11th floor of our apartment building for the rest of our mission so we have a great view looking out over the city. They like to think of Frankfurt as the "Chicago" of Germany. There is a lot of banking and financial happenings that go on here, hence the buildings you see on the skyline. Many of them are connected with the banking industry but others are office buildings and condos which are going up in the downtown area. Fall is in late bloom at this point but the colors are still gorgeous as compared to the shades of brown we are used to and like to call "fall colors". The folks in the picture below are ones we went to a beautiful castle called Mespelbrunn a few Saturdays ago. They are serving in the area office and a couple are full time church employees here. It is fun to get out after the busy weeks we have going on with transfers, new arrivals and those who are going home.

The picture below is of Mespelbrunn. The family still lives in part of this castle and it is located on one of the main "roads" from Wuerzburg to Frankfurt. When this place was started, back in the 1200's, roads were for horses and this never became a major road for cars and trucks. The family has a lot of stuff that has been part of the family belongings on display in the place along with some really fantastic stained glass windows. They have their history of family crests and their evolution as marriages have occurred in their stained glass windows. One of the group had 22 children. No polygamy here, though!!If we're lucky a picture of a stain glass window will appear here. Interesting way to do your genealogy work.Just in case you get the opinion that all we do is play and go see stuff here. We work pretty hard here and we're always on call as all calls to the mission office are forwarded to us when we're not in the office. Some nights get interrupted and we have a lot of fun and spend a lot of time getting things done that go on in any office. It is a lot of fun to see and deal with the missionaries as they come in and out of the office and as they arrive and leave the mission field.

There are lots of wonderful stories about conversions and how the Lord prepares people to find and receive the gospel. We just finished a great Stake Conference here and it is exciting to see the numbers of the membership grow, especially when compared to the numbers we saw 45 years ago. There are three stakes here in the mission and we cover about one-fourth of Germany.

The sunday morning session of conference was held in the Friedberg City Hall because no building in the stake is large enough to hold the members attending. Just over 1,200 attended this meeting and many of them came in Saturday night because they have some distance to travel. The stake area is large but slowly the church is growing. Hopefully, the second and third generation members which are just getting to leadership levels will accelerate the growth of the church here.

Ausflugs

2008-10-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

We hope this gets to our blog. We have a few minutes over the weekend to use the office computers so we'll try and get a little update on what is happening here. Wasn't General Conference great!! We get some of the sessions live and others are delayed. We got the last session of conference today (Sunday). It has been great to watch fall come here. The leaves are turning into all kinds of colors. At home we get shades of brown, but here we get the colors like you do in New England. We like that. We are getting a feel for our jobs in the mission office and we occasionally have the chance to go on discussions with the missionaries when they need someone to meet with single women or with women where no men are present. That is really fun and a good opportunity for us to chime in when it seems the right thing to do.

We have also had the chance during the last month to go on a couple of Saturday Ausflugs with senior people in the area. We don't work with them but they always invite us to go to the temple and other activities which are sponsored by them I hope a few pictures will appear here of some of our activities. The castle below is Burg Eltz and the Cutlers on the right were kind enough to take us as a part of their ausflug a couple of Saturday's ago. They told us about this place and it is one of the most well preserved places we have ever seen. The family which built it in the 1100's still owns it and have turned it into a tourist attraction. The whole setting around this place was very picturesque and had some interesting history. Below is a picture of the family coat of arms. It has some interesting stories and all of the things you see mean something in the family history.

The work goes forth and the history of this land has a lot of fun things that have gone on here. Considering we don't have this kind of past, it is great to see the preservation of some of the great history here.

Strassen Predigt

2008-09-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

We have returned to post some new stuff. We are working in the mission office and replacing Elder Hanzal and Schwester Gessner who are returning home at the end of September. They have been a tremendous help to us. We get to meet the new missionaries as they come to the mission. We get to see the missionaries as they leave to return home after two years. What a difference a couple of years can make. We do a lot of other office type things that have to be handled in the everyday course of mission activity.

During the last two weeks, we've been to Heidelberg for a couples conference. Hopefully a picture of the Heidelberg Castle will appear somewhere close to this. I always like it when a picture appears. The couples we met with run the outreach programs in various cities in the mission. They are really busy working with the youth from 18 - 30 in lots of ways. Their evenings often run late as young folks can't tell time.

This week we've been involved with zone conferences so we've gone to different cities. No sight seeing time at zone conferences but a good chance to meet with the missionaries and feel of their strength and spirit. We had a chance at the end of the zone conference in Frankfurt to go on a "strassen predigt". That's a street preach. All of the missionaries in the zone went to a pedestrian traffice only area of downtown Frankfurt, gathered together and started singing church hymns. Each district then took turns going out and speaking with the people as they gathered to watch this event. It is really a good way to have a chance to talk with people. We had a chance to go out and talk and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully a picture of the missionaries practicing for the strassen predigt will appear here.

Fall is here and the weather is on the cool side. Ginny thinks it is on the cold side and she is already wearing her gloves. It will be interesting to see what she does when it really gets cold. Everyday is a new adventure and this is a civilized country. Here's a few more pictures just for fun.

The Mission Office

2008-09-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

The pictures you see are looking out the windows of the mission office here in Frankfurt. We are in a very nice neighborhood not too far from the center of the "altstadt". We ride here on the subway and then walk a little way to the office. The Bosnian Embassy is under our office. The good part is they have pretty good security here in the
neighborhood because there are a couple of other embassies very close. The sidewalks are made of bricks and have the feel of cobblestones. Part of the sidewalk is dedicated to bicycles and you better be out of the way when they come by. We've had a couple of close calls. Below is a picture of Ginny hanging out our wash on our clothesline. When the wash is on the line it fills the empty space in our apartment multiuse room. We just got a washing machine but they haven't invented dryers for the poor people (that's us). It takes the washing machine two hours to do the wash and then all day to dry the stuff.

(comment below written by Ginny, added by Amy ...to funny to leave out)

The washing machine is another story. We just got it hooked up and when it came to the spinning cycle it about jumped across the bathroom. We had to sit on it to keep it down. Man oh man we died laughing. Every day is a new adventure.

2008-09-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in Germany. The keyboard for germany is different from the one we're used to, so watch out for misspelled words and funny things appearing. We have a temporary apartment to live in that is about the size of our living room at home. That includes a front entry area, bathroom (with pink tile, no less), a living room that triples as a bedroom, kitchen and a living room. When we stand behind one another in the kitchen we are wall to kitchen cabinets. Not a bad place if you don't mind having a lot of contact in all of your doings.

We had a nice flight over and all went well other than it seemed really long. We've flown to Europe a number of times but this time it took about 11 hours from Dallas. We got in late and the mission president and his wife along with the assisstants still came and met us at the airport. The Ninow's are wonderful people and the missionaries are out anxiously doing the work. We spent the first couple of nights in a hotel because the apartment wasn't ready. In Germany when you rent an apartment it comes with just the sinks, tub and toilet in the bathroom and nothing else in the apartment. There is an area for a kitchen but no cupboards, no sink, no refrigerator, no stove, etc. It is truly Old Mother Hubbard style.

When we got in the apartment, we got a card for the subway, called the U-bahn, and we set out to get lost. Thank heaven there are two sister missionaries that live in the same apartment building that work in the mission office and they have led us here everyday. I'm going to try and put a couple of pictures of what you see out the window of the mission office here so you get a feel for our view of the world.

Hello to all

2008-08-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hello to all. We made it to the MTC thanks to the help of all of you. Thanks for your help in getting the house under wraps (sheets), the dust bunnies on their way out, the water out of the system and all the bugs and critters out of the house. Thanks for getting us down the street to the MTC. We thought we were living in a barracks, but we have since found we are really in the lap of luxury. The young elders live in a room with four and community showers. We live in a room for two, have our own bathroom with sink and tub and two chairs for visitors. Life is good. All of you who have been here know the drill. Get up, study, eat, go to class, eat, study, go to class, eat, study, and go to class. Not that this isn't a lot of fun, but it sure seems like we spend a lot of time in the cafeteria. The food isn't bad and you can eat all you want. That is the bad part. Sorry, Garth, they don't have Cap'n Crunch anymore. Chad, you got us all excited about Chicken Cordon Bleu on Sunday evening. We went and it was a long way from the good thoughts in our head. The good part is that someone makes your food everyday and all you have to do is show up with an appetite.

As you can see we are new to this blogging game, so the picture is rather large but it does show we are here and now look just like all the others who have had their picture taken in this memorable location. Maybe we will eventually get smart enough to get the pictures the right size and all that kind of stuff. It has really been interesting to be here and see what goes on. The classes have been great and we have learned a lot about how missionary work is done today. When I went we had a series of six lessons to learn. We didn't have an MTC so you learned them in the field. They leave a lot more of the presentation to the spirit as you are working with the people who are your investigators. That is hard when you are also struggling with the language. The language is coming back. Sometimes I'm surprised at what comes out of the mouth and sometimes I wonder why the words don't come out the mouth. The first day in the cafeteria I heard a "Hey Joe" which isn't normal talk for this place. It was a former companion from Austria (Darol Denison) who is going to the Hill Cumorah with his wife. On Sunday in sacrament meeting (german speaking), the service was being conducted by another former Austrian missionary (Ruediger Lehnhardt). At the beginning of the week we ran into Alan Call and his wife. They are going to Brazil with the Perpetual Education Fund. He is the father of Greg Call, one of Garth's best buddies. We also ran into Sam Stringham from the old Holladay ward. We found one of Ginny's best friends in Oregon grandson and Sister Stowers from Scott and Michele's ward in Draper. Lots of people to find and meet.

We're going to try another picture which we took of the Provo temple when we went last Saturday morning. Hope you like it.

Fuer alle deutsch sprechende leute. Wir sind froh dass wir hier sind. Alles ist in ordnung and Ginny war der lehrerin unsere deutsche klasse gestern abend. Bis wir wieder schreiben. Auf wiedersehen.

We are official

2008-08-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight we were set apart as missionaries for:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
serving in the Germany Frankfurt Mission