Reformation day in Germany is a celebration of the day Martin Luther nailed his Theses to the Wittenburg door. This particular day marks the 500th anniversary of that event.....a world upheaval sparked by Luther in 1517.
Because of this historic event we decided to go the the Lutheran Church on the square in Frankfurt and join in the celebration. It was very interesting. It was held in a beautiful Lutheran church that had been bombed during the 2nd World War and renovated back to it previous beauty. The service was held by a Lutheran Minister and a Catholic Priest. I could not understand much of it since it was spoken in German but I enjoyed the music and the spirit there.
This picture is Lori and Jeff Markel on the train. Jeff was Tony's roommate in Provo back in 1972 when they were preparing to serve their full time missions as young 19 year old kids. We were excited to have them here in Germany again. Jeff is a Doctor and he and Lori serve in the Frankfurt Mission Office.
I ran ahead to get this picture of a group of Senior missionaries on their way to the Reformation Celebration down town. It was a really cold day! About 1/2 of us went to the Reformation.....It was a fun day. Some couples stayed afterwards to go on a walking tour (which we have already been on), around Frankfurt and the rest of us went to eat.
After the service, we had a group picture taken by Tony - as you can tell, I am "always" paying attention.......
This is a picture of the inside of the church which had been restored after the war. Everything is the same as it once was except for the ceiling. It had, at one time, beautiful paintings on the ceiling which are now gone. It was really nice because the two men standing at the pulpit .... one was a Catholic Priest and the other a Lutheran Minister.
Here we are waiting for the train by our apartments.....Sister Julia Skoubye on the right and her husband on left with Carol Nelson in the middle....and the rest of our group behind them.
On the train....Dorene Lear (Records preservation and Jill Roberts(Refugee and Elder Batesons secretary)
Carol Nelson (Dr.s wife and Karen Orlowski (publicity)
Our last few weeks have gone by so quickly. Is this what the rest of our mission will be like? We are so busy with planning our Thanksgiving Celebrations (including 80 people) in our mission. I am on the planning committee. I have been kept busy with meetings such as Book of Mormon class on Wednesdays, and Conference talk review on Thursdays and driving out to Bad Hamburg on Fridays to work. I am still plotting Stake Presidents travels on a spread sheet and just completed Cape Verde, Portugal and Spain and will be working on Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany, Romania and Switzerland this week. It keeps me so busy.
Tony is still busy with keeping missionaries in their countries of service with current Visa's. One missionary has duo citizenship in America and another European Country (I cannot name the country for the missionaries protection) but this country is insisting that he must register for the countries Army. (remember, he's lived in America all his life) This is the kind of thing Tony works on (I think they've come up with a solution). Tony also works on contracts which I cannot talk about in our blog.
***So much of what Tony works on is not permitted to be spoken of because of Attorney/Client privilege.***
We had an interesting and very special experience this week. The Carroll's, who work with Self Reliance in the European Area, were traveling and she had her purse stolen. They were in Denmark. Her purse had in it, both of their passports, and $450 Euro. She was devastated! They found the United States Consulate to help them. They received temporary passports so that they could travel back to Germany. The problem is, they have not gotten their residency papers here in Germany yet. (they just arrived a month ago from New Zealand). The Germany government told them that they will require their original birth certificates and other paper work in order to stay in the country. They did not know how to get the "original" paper work that was required of them. (This is the kind of problems that will end up on Tony's desk). After our Book of Mormon discussion class this past Wednesday, we were all asked to kneel down and pray together for this situation. I don't remember who gave the prayer but we all knelt down and when the prayer was finished, Sister Carroll's phone beeped and she had a message from the secretary at the Germany registration dept. telling her it was not necessary to have the "original" papers, they could have a copy and they would be granted a new passport and residency paperwork. These records are already in the office here in Frankfurt because they were required by all missionaries entering the mission. The Lord watches over us, I am sure of this. We have had so many miracles take place since we have been here. It is a blessing to feel the hand of the Lord in our lives while we serve Him.
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