A FALL WALK

Here's a less-than-flattering photo of the senior missionaries having our after temple dinner at a warehouse that had been converted to a medevial castle/bowling alley.  Elder Craven is way in the back and is chuckling that he alone is aware a picture is about to be snapped.

 Ha, ha.  On Saturday we took our BYU intern couple the Wisners to Rudisheim a quaint little town about 45 minutes from Frankfurt.  This time our GPS took us a different route and we had to board a ferry to cross the Rhein over to the town.  Pretty interesting when out of the blue the GPS chimes in with "turn right and board ferry".

Rich and Nat may remember riding in a gondola up the mountain above Rudeshiem.  We hiked up this hill through the grapevines on a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon.

This is statue "Germania was dedicated about 1883 to celebrate creation of the Republic of Germany.  We had a our picnic here with the Wisners as it is at the top of the hill above the vineyards.                               

The Rhein River valley below with Rudesheim off to the left.

A fall walk in the leaves in the forest above Rudisheim.  When the wind blew, we would be pelted with hundreds of acorns and a blizzard of falling leaves.

We (us and the Kagels)  helped Dinis and Sylvie Adriano unpack their moving boxes on their arrival in Frankfurt.  They are from Portugal and Dinis will start work for the Church as Assistant Public Affairs Director Nov 1.

The highlight of our week was helping the missionaries teach Sasan, a religious refugee from Iran caught distributing copies of the Bible to friends.  He loves Jesus so much, loves the Bible - sleeps with it.  He came to church for the first time today then came to our house for dinner with the missionaries. His dad had to pay $10,000 to get a fake passport to get Sasan safely out of Iran.  Sasan is reading the small Persian Book of Mormon - the parts that have been translated.  His English is minimal so communication is hard but he believes Joseph Smith really saw God and Jesus and he feels good when he reads the Book of Mormon.  All the missionaries had investigators at church today and the German ward has a baptism scheduled for next week.

VIENNA

Our most recent assignment took us to Vienna to take pictures of members for use in producing an Austria Country Fact Sheet and for illustrating articles that are posted on the Austrian Country Newsroom website.  These assignments are some of the most rewarding as we get to meet members in their home wards, enjoy dinners with them and go to their homes to take pictures of Family Home Evenings in progress.  We have many more friends this week than last as these members enthusiastically support our efforts and share their lives with us for the short time we are there. 

Elaine does a great job shooting pictures under a fair amount of pressure and under conditions where the lighting is often poor and the ability to compose the picture extremely limited.  She is grateful for the Lightroom software the kids gave us last Christmas and is really developing her picture editing skills.  

Although the real seats are often sold out far in advance, for the cultural part of our assignment we attended the Vienna Opera on Saturday night, paying 3 euros each for stand-up places in the gallery.  The opera was Giuseppe Verde’s “Don Carlo” and it was a treat to enjoy the beautiful vocals and the dressed up Viennese in attendance from our bird’s nest view of the theater. We had little electronic English subtitles at each place, but still had go home afterward and read the synopsis to get the story line straight.

Our local public affairs specialist, Gerda spoiled us with arranging all the details for taking the Sunday photos. 

Elder Kagel celebrates his 70th birthday with us by enjoying a traditional German chocolate mousse cake

Our dear friends Gretel and Swen Swenson have dinner with us before we take them to the airport headed to home.  Dr. Swenson was area medical advisor and gave free home visits to the Senior Missionaries.

Brother David Cunia was our Saturday city guide in Vienna.  He is a charming, warm and kind man and I am ashamed to say.about 5 years my senior. A retired banker, he is locally famous for his Elvis impersonation show.

Need I say more?

Expressive Viennese sculpture 

Atlas on the roof of the Habsburg winter palace

Only 343 identical steps to the top of the St Stephan cathedral tower.  We came out dizzy from coming down too fast.

A fuzzy selfie at the Habsburg summer palace - Schoenbrunn

Palace guard budget cuts

It's good to be king - Hapsburg summer palace Schoenbrunn

The king's hunting grounds - he was a great hunter as nothing but squirrels and pigeons there now.

MUENCHEN

Fall is a beautiful time in Germany. It is getting colder and seems to rain just about every day for at least part of the day.

Visited the BMW plant in Munich this weekend. Their corporate headquarters is the "4-cylinder" building. Friday evening we visited Marienplatz and the Hofbrau Haus and had a Bavarian dinner in town.  Saturday we visited the Deutsches Museum which is Germany's Smithsonian with 10 miles of museum on the history of everything.  Elaine's camera died so we spare you pictures of ancient sailing ships, early flight machines and demonstrations of paper making, etc., etc.  We could have spent a month inside and were overwhelmed with the cleverness of mankind.

This is the artsy inverted cone part of the BMW World showroom featured in advertising.










Pretty

Somehow after seeing all the super fancy fire-breathing monsters featured in the showroom, a white station wagon seemed like a more reasonable German souvenir.

 Did we tell you how happy we were that our apartment halls were painted - used to be the brown cave.








 
 Our apartment building parking lot - full of mission  and area cars.  Everyone else parks out on the street to save on parking fees and fill Germany's roads with cars parked everywhere.

We discovered a fresh squeezed apple juice only available for a few weeks in the fall.  It is like drinking an apple :)



Flowers in October

OKTOBERFEST

Dear Friends,

This week we worked hard in the office as we were, for most of the week, the only ones on duty. We updated directories, mailed materials, counseled with an area authority about PA work and finalized our Christmas card list  for the 11,000 Christmas cards sent out by our Public Affairs directors. Elaine photo-edited the many member pictures taken by Elder and Sister Foote during their assignment in Albania.  Albania is on track to have their first stake this next March and the District the Footes visited has 35 missionaries out from their families.  These are a faithful people who are receiving the reward of their sacrifice. Those of you who can deal with us taking pictures of our weekend outings and not make insinuations about dedication, please read on.  If not, please stop reading now, and have a nice day.

___________________

For the rest of you, at the request of our missionary buddies, we did an outing on Germany's national unity day holiday Thursday because our office was closed and the country was closed and because  they were carpeting the floors in the office so we could not get in, and also the wash was done and it only takes 30 minutes to clean our apartment and we need a break sometimes and it can be boring to sit in our apartment all day long.

 Elaine organized a quick 3-dorf day trip with our friends the Eyres who came from the MTC with us, our new friends the Footes, from Las Vegas, who replaced the Livingstones, and with our cute newly-wed intern couple, Casmin and Jordon Wisner.  Here we are in front of the lake/moat of the castle at Mespelbrunn.  This 1100's castle escaped the destruction of the 30-years war and has stayed in the family with the current inhabitant a descendant of centuries of Lords and Ladies.

Royalty had to prove their nobility back 4 generations to claim a right to reign.  This family made fun stained glass coats of arms of their ancestors to remind visitors of their blue-blooded parentage.  This castle is so well hidden it escaped all wars unscathed.

                                                                                   

Our next town was Werthiem with the largest ruins in southern Germany since they did not do as well in avoiding the the 30-years war :( The ruins sit above the confluence of the Tauber and Main Rivers.

More coat of arms plaques on the castle entrance to remind people of the nobility they were about to encounter.










This statue is unique because it is the resurrected Christ holding the cross.  Christ's foot rests on the skull of Adam often seen at the foot of the cross representing Christ's victory over the fall of Adam.

Very possible these flags are being flown because it is Germay's National Unity Day.  We will never get over the beautiful healthy window flower boxes we see in many places.  Sure wish we could do this in Utah.

You can tell you are in a historic part of town when you encounter these beautiful ornate and detailed iron sign displays.  This one belongs to the oldest hotel in Germany - the Hotel Riesen in Miltenberg on the Main River just above Frankfurt.

 Unlike last, this year we are getting some fall colors.  This is our view from the apartment balcony.

Sisters Stoker and Smith with one of Elaine's primary girls, Avery Ebert, who was baptized on Saturday.  Missionaries here are incredible dealing with much rejection and disappointment they smile on with the best attitudes.  They invited us to come teach Saturday but the appointment fell through.

New carpet in the Area Offices this week.

Elaine keeps the deck swabbed in our happy missionary apartment and its little toy kitchen.

Luckily we happened to visit the Wertheim Castle the day the Queen was at home and we were able to get her picture up here on the ramparts.