Saturday, December 27, 2008

Fröhliche Weihnachten

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.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Deutsche Weihnachten

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.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

INTERRESANTE GEDANKEN

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.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Beautiful Fall

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.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mespelbrunn


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.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Ausflugs

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.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Strassen Predigt


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.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The Mission Office

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.
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.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Hello to all

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.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

We are official

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