The senior missionaries take turns preparing for our "Family Home Evening" which is just an excuse for us all to have an evening together doing some sort of activity and then having refreshments at the close. It was our turn to decide what to do on our chosen date. We asked a church employee Ralf Grunke who at one time was on the city council of Windecken, Nidderau to take us on a tour and give us the history of Windecken. It was fascinating, he did such a good job and we all had a great time and dinner at a little restaurant at the close.
The picture below is Ralf giving us a little bit of the history of Windecken. It is now a Protestant community. The neighboring community is Catholic and to this day, they do not communicate with each other because of their differences in belief. You would think that after WWII some of these hard feelings about religious freedom and differences of opinions would be buried but apparently they still exist.
Listening intently as we stand on the bridge of a small river
This picture below is the original Protestant church from the 13th century
Just look at these beautiful half timbered homes, as we walked by we could see the slope of some of them that gave the appearance that they may be falling down but apparently they don't and the people that live in these are required to maintain the historic architecture of the buildings and it is extremely costly! Also notice the cobblestone streets which are a pain to walk on!
We stopped here because this was a main market in Windecken during the war. Hitler came and took this store over, removing the owners and sending them to concentration camps. Hitler used this building for offices during the war.
This is the owner of the market - Salli Reichenberg, he made it to America while his wife died in Auschwitz along with one son and the other son died at Buchenwald concentration camp. He did not "leave" his family, they were separated never to see each other again.
These "stepping stones" are all over Frankfurt and all the "dorfs" - villages showing and honoring those that lost their homes, their lives in WWII because of Hitler's regime
This store on the left is the home of the famous Lindt family that originally lived in the city. Their grandson left the city and moved to Switzerland where he discovered chocolate. He was an apprentice for his grandparents at the candy shop where he was in charge for the evening to shut off the mixers of the chocolate at a certain time. He forgot and the mixers ran all night, making a wonderfully smooth chocolate that became the famous Lindt chocolate which became one of the most famous chocolates in the world.
When homes became too small for the family, they removed the roof, added another floor and put the roof back on top - here is an example of that process.
This is the old town hall that now serves as a library
Another example of adding on to the "top" floor to make room for more children
I took this picture to show the leaning of the homes, they appear to be leaning all different directions.
On of my favorite pictures of our mission, this is just about all of the senior missionaries we work with. Some work in the family history archives, some in legal offices, some in welfare and some in finance as I do. It is a honor to work with such wonderful people. We have made absolutely many wonderful wonderful friends and fond memories!
This is the present Jewish center that was burned down during WWII and after they burned it down, they went to the Jewish Rabi and handed him the bill!
This is the remainder of the wall that surrounded the city of Windecken. Most cities had a wall around it during medieval times but this wall had a gate that divided the Jews from the rest of the town and they had a curfew where the gate was closed every evening to separate the Jews from the rest of the village.
The inner castle gate is the most prominent remaining part of the Windecken Castle. The castle is now used as a place for the towns dementia/alzheimer patients, sort of like a nursing home but only during the daytime....they do not sleep over night.
The tower of the castle which housed supposed "witches" who were tortured and some were burned at the stake. This was before the "Salem" witch trials of Massachusetts .
Dinner after the tour of Windecken, Monson's, Harrison's, Call's, Yost's, Carroll's and Goodall's.
Thornock's and Witt's
Bateson's, Fager's, Smith's, and the Grunke's
Done's, Nelson's, Dewey's and Johnson's
The Carroll's and Yost's
It was a wonderful activity and everyone enjoyed it. This picture below is of our chapel - I love all the flowers.....
Tony going to exercise at Fitness First - a fitness club that he joined when we first got to Frankfurt. He usually rides his bike, even in the snow and cold weather.
Our neighbor took a picture of the front of our home since we've been gone to show me how much the plants have grown. Kerianne is taking care of our yard and doing a great job keeping the weeds at bay.
Paula Call who's husband works for the OGC, me, Pamela Done and Carol Nelson who are both the Doctor's wives. Pamela Done and her husband Stephen leave to go home in just two months. They will be missed. I've enjoyed getting to know them.
The work in the mission continues and we are extremely busy each day. When ever we can, after work, we walk to Eis Christina's which is a Gelato shop about 2 miles from our apartment. It's the best gelato around and a great walk thru Frankfurt. It's one of our favorite things to do. We continue with our greeting of new missionaries which seems like almost each week. Someone is always heading home and new missionaries are arriving. In the past few weeks, we've had the Orlowski's leave, the Rich's leave, the Thornock's arrived along with the Smith's. We will soon have the Garrett's, the Bateson's and the Peery's leaving which means a group of new missionaries arriving. We just got word that there is a request to fill our spot come this December. We are down to 5 months 3 weeks left. Where has the time gone? We also heard from church headquarters in SLC that they are making our plane reservations for our return on December 18th. It just seems unreal. All the experiences we've had and are still having will leave a special spot in our hearts always.
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