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.

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.