The END.....A FOND GOOD-BYE

The end has come and we must depart for home.  To see our loved ones again.  We are fortunate to be going at this time of year to be celebrating the Christmas Season with our family.  All the kids will be traveling to our home in Utah for the Holidays to be together once again.  The last time we were all together was Christmas 2015.  We have three new baby's to meet and love on!  Makenna Young, Crosby Nowels and Rindi Goodall.  We are so excited to see them and hold them and get to know them.  All four of our children will be home with their loved ones, even Kerianne will bring her dog Jaycee.  All seven grandchildren and one grand-dog.  We are feeling so blessed and can't wait to board the plane for home........

The end has begun....this is Oliver taking our names off our office door to replace with the Peshell's who will replace us.

 Dr. and Sister Carol Nelson across the hall from our office.  It's been a lot of fun to get to know them both.  They live close to us, so we will be able to see them again.  But, they plan on serving another medical mission in Australia soon.

Elder Fager and his daughter visiting from the states on the left and Randall and Paula Call on the right.  We have grown to love these people who we see every  day.  It has been a pleasure!






Just can't say enough about Christian Wohlfurt
who is an employee and not a missionary.  He is a co-worker but has become a great friend to both of us.

The picture to the right is the OGC conference room

 This is Anika, she works for Steve Maines who is Director of Temporal Affairs.

 Dr. David Koegler and Christine from Canada.  They haven't been here long but we have gotten to know them fast and they've become good friends!

The two doctors giving us a little Christmas cheer.

Conlin's lead their first FHE - so fun

 Kay Johnson and Carlene Walker

Theresa Dewey

Paula Call and Trudena Fager












Lane Smith and Tony

                                             Sister's Walker, Dewey, Johnson and Lindsay

 How we will miss the Meiers

 Myself, Carol Nelson and Christine Koegler 

 

The wonderful Lindsay's our traveling friends and game playing friends.... Marlene and Jim

 Elder Scott Conlin - Secretary to the Europe Area Presidency

The Peshell's - our replacements.

Lynn and Gundren - office workers.

 Jeff Nelson, the head of the OGC.  Area Legal Council

 Jurgen, he sits at the front desk and handles a million jobs.  He's the first person we see each day.










This is just part of downtown Frankfurt - I thought it looked like a movie set.

Kay and myself going to lunch and the Frankfurt Christmas Markt

 Going to my good bye luncheon at Janet Nelson's.  This is (rt-left) Marlene Lindsay, Susie Yost and Linda Carroll

 Carol Nelson and Kay Lundquist

 Luncheon: Paula Call, Wendy Jensen, Kay Johnson, myself, Kay Lundquist, Diane van Hoff and Janet Nelson.

 Such wonderful friends never to be forgotten

 Janet Nelson and Kay Lundquist (Janet is from NYC and Kay is from Utah)

 Marlene Lindsay and myself with one of Janets grandson's

 Julia Skoubye, Gerri Conlin and Linda Carroll

Janet is saying sweet things about me and embarrassing me.



My wonderful - dear friends.....we are trying to do a "selfie"...me, Marlene, Linda and Susie

 The LAST picture from our kitchen window......a storm is coming in....

 Dinner at the Nelsons to say good bye to us and hello to the Peshell's.  The Call's and Sister Peshell

 Tony and the Fager's - wonderful people!

As we come to a close of these past 18 months, we have a lot to look back on.  Walks thru the most beautiful Frankfurt Cemetery, new friends, scripture studies, Family Home Evenings, zone conferences, special conferences with General Authorities Elder Ballard, Elder Clayton, Elder De Feo, Elder Sabin and Pres. Johnson(leaders of our church), trips to many beautiful countries, volunteering with the refugees, work with the Office of General Council, work with the Financial Auditing dept., walks to Eis Christina's, bike rides, a trip to the hospital (fall off bike - broke thumb), games at the Lindsay's apartment and ours, and wonderful service projects like the "baby boxes" for the expectant refugee mothers, Christmas Markets, river trips up the Rhine, visits from friends (Gallups, Mocklers, and Jill Osborne and my sister Deb Teran).  Plus work, work, work, 8-9 hours a day.  So grateful for the experiences.

Thanksgiving 2018 and our last Excursion with friends - Our last in Germany

Last year we had a big Thanksgiving dinner with over 150 people attending.  I was on the committee to organize and plan this event.  This year the zone leaders decided that it was just too much work so Kay Johnson and I decided to have an "italian" meal to celebrate the holidays with all the Senior Missionaries that were not traveling this weekend.  It turned out great and we all had a great time.  We even brought in a TV and watched a taping of the last BYU/U0fU football game.  We are very close to going home so this was especially wonderful for us to get together with all those we have grown to love here.

 I just love Theresa Dewey.  Her husband is one of the Psychiatrists here in the mission and she works for the public relations dept. and writes our monthly missionary Wegweiser.

Kay Johnson and myself....we had a ball planning this and we think everyone had a great time together.  We decided to keep it easy so we didn't even do any table cloths or center pieces and no one even noticed!

 Two of my dearest friends  Kay Johnson and Carol Nelson

 Tony and I sang in the choir in the Frankfurt 2nd Ward and before the meeting started I snapped this photo.  This is the international ward so we have people who speak English from all over the world.  Most of them work for the American Consulate or the church.

Christian Wohlfurt came over to help Tony practice for a musical piece he was singing at our Christmas Family Home Evening with all the Senior Missionaries.  He sang with Elder Nelson with Elder Koegler at the guitar

We were invited over to the Chavez's home for dinner.  Paula and her husband are from Portugal and we just love them.  She teaches our Sunday School class and she's fantastic.  We will not forget them and their kindness to us.

 It was so nice to be in a real home all decorated for Christmas!

We headed out on a Thursday (took off from our assignments) and went on our LAST trip with dear friends, the Lindsay's, Johnsons and Conlins.  We went to Dresden - a beautiful city situated right on the border of Czech Republic.  During WWII the Americans and British bombed Dresden bringing it to ruins and killing over 25,000 people.  After the war the city was rebuilt beautifully and as it once had been.  On some of the buildings you can see the older stones used to rebuild the city.  The people collected the boulders from the rubbled of the bombed city and they re-used these pieces to help rebuild and restore this wonderful city.  Hitler was using this city as one of his headquarters during the was.  In 7500BC this city was inhabited mainly by the Slavic people until the eastward expansion of the Germanic people who mined in the nearby Ore Mountains.



Gerri Conlin and Kay Johnson.......................

Our group ready to head out to the Dresden Christmas Markt.

 I just can't say enough about these dear friends!  Kay (right) lives in Southern California and Gerri lives in Layton Utah.  We will definitely see them once they come home!

 The wonders of the Christmas Markt.  Like no where else!  We bought a few things to take home with us.

 Bigger than life pyramid!  This one was about 50ft. high

 Dresden Christmas Markt

 This little man reminds me of Gipetto

We are looking tired......it's been a long 18 months but so worth the experience!  Have loved EVERY minute!

Gerri and Scott Conlin, Gary Johnson and Tony and me

 We old people don't know how to do "selfies"

 Bratwurst for dinner

 Gerri, myself and Tony and Jim Lindsay in background

 1st day is over.....saying good-nite in our hotel

 I love these two....the Conlins.  They play tennis every week with Tony which he loves.  He also pays with Steve Maines and Gary Sabin- wonderful memories for him!

 Below is the Dresden Frauenkirche which was completely destroyed during the war.  If you look closely you can see the darker bricks which were used from the townspeople collecting them from the rubble after the bombing to be used for the reconstruction.  It was Catholic until during the Reformation it became a Lutheran Church.

 A closer look of the reconstruction

 Just beautiful

 Tony is standing by one of the walls that was not destroyed from the church....this gives you an idea of how large the pieces were that were re-used for the re-construction

 Inside the Frauenkirche

 We climbed the 200 plus steps up to the top of the Frauenkirche to the bell tower to look over Dresden and the Christmas Markt below.  It was really cold on this day!

You can almost feel how cold it was just looking at the Lindsay's all bundled up!

 This is where we ate lunch.  Coselpalais.....it was lovely and the food was great.....AND IT WAS WARM!

Tony and Marlene Lindsay outside of the Frauenkirche

This building is called the Semperoper - meaning Opera House - it was originally built in 1841 and rebuilt by the orginal architect after a fire in 1869

This building is called the Zwinger and houses an art gallery and a beautiful display of original porcelain collections.

Scott and Gerri Conlin from Layton Utah

Kay and Gary Johnson from Southern California

Jim and Marlene Lindsay from American Fork Utah

 We walked out from lunch and these people were standing at the entrance so I took their picture...I have no idea why they are dressed like that.....

 Breakfast the next morning and off to Freiburg

 Outside the Freiburg Temple

 I took this picture because it just looked COLD!  I love how every "dorf" (village) has a church in the center.  It reminds me of Massachusetts where each town square usually has a Catholic Church.

 These next pictures are after we left Freiburg and drove another hour south to a small town named Seiffen.  It is Christmas there - 12 months of the year.  It is always decorated for Christmas and all the stores are filled with Christmas stuff.

 I loved this small town nestled in the hills.....so quaint 

This young woman was making these
trees that you see on the right.  Amazing to watch her at work.  This was the factory where they make all these treasures.