CZECH MISSIONARIES COMMEMORATE 84TH ANNIVERSARY OF DEDICATION BY JOHN WIDTSOE

On July 24, we met up with President and Sister McConkie and their Czech missionaries at the site where Apostle John A. Widtsoe dedicated the country for preaching the gospel 84 years ago to the day in 1929.  The missionaries rededicated themselves to their part in realizing the promises pronounced on the Czech Republic and its surrounding neighbors.

 Overlooking Prague from the castle on the hill.

 Dinner with the McConkies at a great Italian  restaurant on the river.  Notice President McConkie on duty 24/7.

 The Prague missionaries do a "Musical Display" near a busy subway/bus transfer stop.  They take turns with their companions, first singing a while then street contacting passers-by for a couple of hours each Friday.  Hyrum was anxious to street contact too and accompanied one of the Elders for his first rejection :(.  Now he has done the hardest part of missionary work and it will only get better.

 On our way to Zwichau to visit Christel Hafner, we stopped for an hour in Dresden and went to the top of the Frauen Kirchen where we had a beautiful view of the entire city.

 Martin Luther's statue in front of the Frauen Kirchen.  also Martin Craven with his Frauen Elaine.

 Mutti sacrificed for me and arranged for us to take the Phaeton assembly plant factory tour in Dresden.  We decided we did not need a Phaeton ($100,000-$160,000 VW) but now appreciate why they cost so much.

 We spent Saturday with Elaine's distant Buttler cousin, Christel Hafner  in Zwichau.  Her son Uwe and spouse Sybile joined us for some site-seeing, a walk in the forest and dinner.

 Christel wanted us to have our first roulande in Germany and we could not turn her down.  Our first real beef dinner in over 2 years.  Probably took 2 years off our lives, but sure was gute.

 The temple and surrounding grounds in Freiberg are very pretty.  Very warm and kind members here and in Zwichau where we attended Sunday. We pray they will find more to join them.

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Last week's trip to Budingen - the Frog town

It's been a quiet week in Frankfurt.  We have been preparing for our next training assignment and helping  the Kagels get up to speed with their duties.  The paid employees are all on annual leave in our office and when we call people in other departments we find most are off on holiday until sometime in August, when school starts again.  The weather has been warm but we are not complaining, gets up into the 80s and, hold on to your sun bonnet, could get to 90  this next week. There does not seem to be air conditioning in Germany, so we have lots of fans blowing all the time. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner yesterday and had a young member here on business over for Sunday lunch.  Elaine is a good cook and they are grateful. We have been enjoying our children's vacations vicariously via Path and Instagram and are grateful to be able to see our grandchildren grow up  and enjoy the summer, if only via photos.
Stay with us, we hope to have more to report next week after visiting the McConkies in Prague.
  

Looks like Elaine lives here

As castles go, Budingen is fairly humble

MOVING FORWARD

Elder and Sister Rick and Jan Kagel arrived on July 2nd.  They hit the ground running and you know how these new young missionaries bring energy and enthusiasm to the office.

On the Fourth, the Senior Missionaries got together for KFC and root beer in the parking lot at the Fredrichsdorf chapel.  Good food, great friends.

 On our way to Copenhagen we stopped near Hamburg in Northern Germany to see Buttler relatives, Anne and Gunter Dembski and their son Andreas. (So where is Andreas?)

 We spent Sunday afternoon with the family of our Denmark Public Affairs Director, Martin Stokholm.  The girls Kristina and Sophie are on the left, then wife Eva, Martin and Martin and son Michael.  These folks are the best of the best and so good to us.  Made us feel like family as we got to help choose among 6 wedding cakes, the one for Kristina's wedding on 27 July.

 Monday was our culture day.  We visited Thorvaldson's Christus, Dennis Smith's "Kristina" on the old docks of Denmark where the saints embarked for Zion, and we went to Frederiksborg Palace to see Carl Bloch's paintings of the life of Christ.

 Kristina - by Dennis Smith. Engraved bricks in walkway next to the water contain the names of some of the 20,000 saints that left from here in the 1850's to go to Zion.  Danish saints were once the largest ethnic population in Utah.

 Carl Bloch paintings in the Palace prayer room.

Got to go to Ward Temple Night in Copenhagen.  The interior is beautiful.  The Danes know design.

Most important part of the trip was training 3 zones in 3 cities on 3 days in how to be good spokespersons for the church with media representatives.  This is the zone in Aarhus, Mission President Sederholm is on the front row 3rd from left.

On the way home, we stopped by Gisela Werth and Hans Fischer's home near Hannover to say hi and renew old friendship.  Gisela was married to Ortwin who died a few years back. She now has a good friend Hans to keep her company