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.

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.