I'M SO GLAD YOU WERE BORN

The biggest event in the mission this week was Elaine’s birthday today.  Thank you all for your nice cards, letters and emails.  We spent this past week working on the Country Fact Sheet project, continuing to organize our department’s master records file on the computer, and preparing to brief Elder Christopher Charles, the Area Seventy for all the eastern countries in our area, plus Greece and Cyprus.  We spent a delightful couple of hours with him on Friday, sharing what Public Affairs does in Europe and what his responsibilities are as advisor to the Directors in his countries.  We treated him to dinner afterward at a nearby Biergarten so he could have a German cuisine experience, as he is from England.  All the new area seventies are here this weekend to be trained by the Area Presidency, but only Elder Charles asked to get some Public Affairs training as he is brand new.  We were fascinated by his stories of Greece where he was most recently Mission President.  

Christian Terreaux and the Cravens at the Huggenotten Garten

Midweek this week, we went to dinner with our wonderful French friend Christian Terreaux who was here for French week at the temple.  

Then on Thursday night our missionary friends the Swifts, invited us to the Palmgarten for an outdoor blues music concert staring several legendary American blues player/singers who we had never heard of but who were really good.  It was fun to see the conservative German crowd loosen up and dance in the aisles.  A little lager helped raise their spirits.

Saturday we enjoyed a lovely walk in the forest with our friends the Livingstones and our friend Gabi Harth who takes care of the missionaries registrations and drivers licenses. The Livingstones go home in a couple of weeks we will will feel the loss tremendously.  They have been such a perfect example of the Savior's love shown by service.

Gabi and Robbie on the left, Martin middle, Elder Livingstone right

Sister Livingstone, Gabi and Elaine

AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

Farewell lunch  for Tasha Singer, out dear adopted daughter and intern

       Lorenzo Snow’s priesthood lesson #15 today was really an admonishment to cultivate an attitude of service where ever and whenever we are in life.  A great way to cultivate desire to serve is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude – in other words to count our blessings and acknowledge their source!  We daily express gratitude for all the “big” things – testimony, good children, beautiful grandchildren, faithful heritage, extended family that love us, health, sufficient moola for our needs.  But here is our list of little things we are grateful for this past month:

1.     the car Martin backed into in Zwichau didn’t sustain any damage, whew!

2.     we had our little A/C unit during Germany’s two weeks of summer,

3.    summer only lasted 2 weeks and now we’re into fall,

4.    the beautiful view from our balcony,

5.    the little grocery store in our building,

6.    Elaine is such a good cook,

7.    we can go exploring on our bikes,

8.   CISCO VPN, Netflix and an Ipad – technology that has been a mental life saver, not to mention related apps – Facetime and Intsagram in particular.

Well could go on for a while but that’s it for now, keep smiling and say your prayers.

Drenched to the bone from being caught in a sudden rainstorm while biking downtown.

Sweet Tasha, makes us a sweet goodbye card!

What happens when you don't know how to play volleyball.

With Dan and Ann Eyre in Marburg, our dear friends who came into the field with us.

A Saturday outing took us to Marburg and St. Elizabeth's Cathedral

The east choir houses the remains of the famous.

Marburg University is where Martin Luther studied and questioned the Catholic doctrine.(actual photograph taken during a heated scriptural debate)


 

39 YEARS

We spent most of this week in the office working on odds and ends, but Friday got to get out for a drive down to Heidelberg to make a What-is-Public-Affairs presentation to the senior missionaries serving in the Frankfurt mission.  This group of 36 missionaries are assigned in little towns all around the mission, mostly doing Young Adult outreach and member support but also watching over the younger missionaries.  We told them about some of the more colorful higher profile events that have happened in Europe recently and got in a little message on how they can be good media spokespersons by always focusing on our key messages.

Oh and last Friday, we celebrated 39 years of heaven on earth (and our wedding anniversary) by driving up the Neckar river and having an ice cream Sunday after the missionary meeting.

Saturday night we supported the missionaries by playing volleyball at the ward with their investigators.

Today, Elaine was sustained as Ward Primary chorister.  I sneaked in and took a picture of her on the job.

TRUTH WILL PREVAIL

British Pageant Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMKpGSPNwU

The link above should take you to a You Tube video of the Dress Rehearsal of the British Pagaent

The British Pageant opened on the Preston Temple grounds last Thursday and plays through next Saturday evening.  The weather has been extremely wet so the organizers did so well to arrange for a massive tent to hold 300 cast members and 1600 audience each night.  We read the first night's report from the Pagaent President, Stephen Kerr and it sounds like it is off to a resoundingly successful reception with a full house of appreciative audiences.  Next week the Pagaent will host 3 apostles and 3 Seventies from headquarters.  As best we can tell it is also getting good coverage from the press.  It certainly will be a life-time memory for those who participate or attend and hopefully will reenergize the British Saints to share their gospel heritage. We have so many young missionaries in the field now, they need people to teach and they are going to come from the efforts of the members.

This is 100% Martzipan, made to look like fruit - but so much better!

You can even get your Martzipan fix pretending you are eating vegetables.

We enjoyed this recently seen ad poster for head phones.  Try to find words that really are German.  I wonder if they have made up all the other words they use from different languages.

We took the Kagels to the Mexico Lindo restaurant in Mainz this weekend.  Their menu is in English and points out that the restaurant is run by "real Americans" (the source of all authentic Mexican food).  Their name is Rameriz however the food tastes real to us.  The best part shown above is that they serve ICE water from the tap and you don't have to pay extra for it!!!!

Weisbaden is next door to Mainz and Elder Kagel served there so we stopped by the Russian Othodox church.  Actually we wanted to buy some more frankenscense but apparently it is a seasonal kind of thing. (ok,you spell frankenscense!)

This is real live Edelweiss.  It was velvety soft but looked hearty enough to poke up through the spring snows of Austria.  Not much to look at however, reminded us Utah sage brush in color.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMKpGSPNwU