A HISTORY OF MIRACLES

Last Sunday night Brother and Sister Wondra, Church History Advisors, spoke at the senior missionary fireside.  They spoke of the beginnings of the Church in former communist countries.  Brother Wondra never imagined the wall coming down without bloodshed.  This miracle happened because of faith.  President Kimball knew everything is possible to God and asked members to pray for a breakdown of barriers and asked the Saints to make friends with communist governments. 

Sister Wondra told us that the Lord can take better care of our families while we are away on missions than we could if we were home with them.  After the fireside we visited and I learned that she was formerly Ursula Tischhauser who dated Paul after he was released from his mission in Stuttgart.  He had told me to watch out for her but I thought the chances of our meeting were slim so this was a fun surprise.

The Brandes worked in Solihull all week so things were really quiet in the office.  Ralf had knee surgery Tuesday.  Francesco had emergency knee surgery Monday with another to follow tomorrow.  Gabi became ill and was out most of the week.  So it was just us and Taylor.

Elaine prepares members to be interviewed

Martin said this week at the office reminded him of the stress level at Questar.  We had emails flying back and forth to the production manager of the UK VideoFlyer to finalize the graphics and the video content.  We also finalized the schedule for the video shoot for the German Newsroom.  Because Gabi was out sick Ralf was asked to direct the interview training and the interviews.  We took Taylor Street along, picked Ralf up early Friday morning, drove a large van through mad traffic over dozens of “talbrücke” (bridges spanning across deep valleys) for 3 hours to reach Düsseldorf by 9:00, pick up Peter and his cameraman and their equipment, then dash another half hour to the church for the filming.  Groups of three were trained by Ralf after they checked in with us and signed permission slips.  Then each was filmed in half hour sessions on often misunderstood Church doctrine.  We took care of keeping people happy and feeding the crew.  

Filming in Dusseldorf

While interviewees waited I visited these good people and learned some of their stories.  Sister Klein’s husband left her and their three children for another woman when he was bishop.  Last year she lost her 35 year old daughter to breast cancer.  Despite these heartaches she remains faithful.

We sat in on the training and some of the filming as Gabi wants us to assist for this same project in Rome next weekend.  We’ll propose making a Power Point presentation and sending it via email instead.  We’ll see what she says.

Had a huge snowstorm Tuesday.  German class was canceled but our Relief Society birthday celebration went ahead as planned. We're praying for spring!

Elaine's English class students

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