THE FETZERS OF ROTHENBURG

We change the bulletin board a few times a week with mostly positive articles about the Church. This one says "God in a backpack."

Most interesting experience of the week, while we were strolling down a Rothenburg street, on Saturday Elaine just happens to notice a young man taking his mail of the mail box and sees the name “Fetzer” written in small letters on the mailbox. Elaine immediately accosts this young man like he is her long-lost nephew.  He knows only his grandfather and also knows they are not related to the Fetzer vineyards in California.  He speaks good English and says his house has been owned by Fetzers for about 100 years. We take his picture and leave Tony with our card and tell him to email us and we will share all our Fetzer family history with him.  Also we invite him to come stay with us when he comes next to the US. Needless to say, Elaine was pretty excited..

Friday evening we did a temple session in French with a group of Saints that had been there all week from near Paris.  It got me thinking of the one person whose conversion I felt I had something to do with  - a young single man in Montpellier by the name of Christian Terreaux.  When we got home, just for fun I googled " Christian Terreaux SDJ" (LDS in French) and low and behold up came a French You Tube Video of Christian Terreaux, Director of the Family History Center in Nimes France, which is just up the road from Montpellier.  The video was an interview of him describing what happens at the Family History Center. So good to know he has stayed active in the church and I am hopeful of getting to see him or at least speak to him while we are here. I put a comment on the website with my email address and I can write to the bishop of the Nimes Ward to get his address. I’ll count this a tender mercy.

Our Europe Image Library.  We mailed to 28 countries who each have their own Church website.

We're organizing VIP gifts in the dungeon (our basement storage.)

This is Tony Fetzer who is studying computer technology in Munich and was home for the weekend.

This is the Fetzer home in Rothenburg.

So surprised to see my name on a mailbox in Rothenburg.

Christmas shopping in Rothenburg.

I was interested to read a piece written this week by Bob Bennett, former Senator from the State of Utah, penned during a Paris conference dedicated to analysis of the 2012 presidential election. Among Europeans, he notes 70% would favor the current President.  Not that they dislike Mitt Romney, they know nothing about him, except that he is a Mormon. But if that means he is a religious person that is a big negative.  It seems all religions in Europe are considered suspect.  No European politician, he says, can afford to be seen as devout or he would not be taken seriously.  Mr. Bennett attributes this attitude to a long history of government supported religion in Europe.  After the 2^nd World War these religions lost their privileged positions and when people were no longer forced to give support, religion lost its hold on their loyalties.  In contrast, America’s long separation of church and state encourages continued lively religious discussion as faiths compete for adherents.  So Mr. Bennett concludes American presidents will continue to embrace religion and Europeans will continue to be amazed by it.

This week we finished our photo and video cataloging project by burning DVDs and mailing them with a picture index to all the National Public Affairs Directors.  In our cover letter we encourage directors to let us know what additional local images would be helpful to them and we would come and do some on-site photography.

On Saturday (excited story above) we enjoyed a day trip to Rothenburg to see this well-preserved medieval town a couple hours south.  The town was a major trading center from about 1200-1400, before falling off the main trade route.  It was spared during the war because the wife of an air force general knew of the town’s history and convinced her husband it was worth saving. Nazis there agreed to vacate to spare the town from being bombed.