Good Bye Proctor's - Zone Leaders

Peggy and Paul Proctor left for home in St. George Utah.  We will miss them so much.  They have been so good to us.  They were the first faces we saw when we arrived here in Frankfurt.  They picked us up at the airport, took us to our apartment, took us to the bank to show us how to get money, took us shopping at Rewe (grocery store) and  organized a group to accompany us to dinner at a near by mall called "Skyline" Mall where we actually had Chipollte! It made me feel right at home!  They planned "movie" nite for us all and had shelves put up in our apartment for more storage in the kitchen.  They kept tabs on all 22 sets of senior missionaries and did such a great job.  We miss them!  They also trained me to take over one of their jobs which was  gathering messages from the General Authorities in Europe to write articles for the church publication of the Liahona.  I remind the general authority of their assignment and when I get it, I have to re-format it with end notes and make sure all the punctuation and grammar is correct.  Then, I send it off to translation where the article is translated into 23 languages.  Once I receive them all back in the various languages, I forward them on to publishing where they are re-checked and sent to Salt Lake City for final publication.  

This picture below is Peggy saying good bye to us all.  We miss your sweet personality Peggy!

 Paul Proctor saying good bye....we have all loved him!  What a nice man and friend!

 This is our apartment building......we are on the 9th floor.  They count the first floor as "0" so we are actually on the 10th floor, #9-7 Porthstrasse

 ...Til we meet again!  ....  We will visit them when we get home!  Good bye dear friends ..... for now.

Elder Ballard Visit to Europe

Elder Ballard of the Twelve Apostles came to Frankfurt.  He traveled without his wife because she is ill.  We heard him speak twice.  He counseled us to watch for miracles and to help bring others to Christ.  It was nice to be so up close and personal with an apostle.  These men are so incredibly busy and at their ages it has to be rough.  Elder Ballard is 89 years old.

Young missionaries working in Frankfurt - We love visiting with these young people from all over the world, far away from their families- who serve for two years.

 Waiting for Elder Ballard to speak

 This was a meeting for all church employees and Sr. Missionaries .... waiting to hear Elder Ballard.  In the front right are our good friends, the Rich's, Ruth and Tom from Sandy Utah.  We work with all these people here in the Frankfurt office and the office in Bad Hamburg.

 Elder Ballard on left and the area President, President Johnson on Right.

 Elder Whitney Clayton spoke to us also......he was traveling with Elder Ballard.

 Waving good bye to us all and he came right over and shook my hand.  I admire these men so much for their counsel to us, their stamina and their conviction and dedication to the Lord.

 Elder Ballard saying good bye as he heads to the airport for Switzerland.  This is our office building with our apartment building in the background.

Another trip to Ruedesheim, a ride up the Rhein with a stop in Bacharach

Another fun weekend with the Canfield's.  The weather was going to be nice on Saturday, unusually warm, so we decided to drive 45 minutes up to Ruedesheim and take the river cruise.  What a fun day we had!

There has been so much going on in the mission these past few weeks, a nice Saturday up the Rhein was perfect!  I am on the "Thanksgiving" committee for our Mission Thanksgiving dinner.  They always try and make the holidays nice for us because we are all away from our families.  There are six of us on the committee and we have split up the duties and are busy getting decorations and food and sign ups for our holiday dinner.

We have also been so busy with our work, Tony working with the young missionaries and making sure they are "legally" in their countries.  The Europe area has strict compliance laws that must be obeyed so he is really busy with missionary visa's and also with contract work.  I am still doing the work for the finance department and it keeps me busy.  

We have had to say good bye to some really good friends we have made here in the mission, as their time came to go home.  The Swensens, Hackings, Proctors, Kirks, and more that will be leaving in the next few weeks.  We are so sad when these great people leave us.  The Proctor's were our Zone Leaders.  They took care of any problems we have with our cars, apartment, getting us registered as residence, and so forth.  They also set up a "movie" nite and dinner's out with other senior missionaries.  They have been gone a week now and are so missed by us all!  But, this is what it's like to be on a mission, people come and go all the time.  We have just gotten new couples, the Yosts, Nelsons, Lindsey's and Skouby's.  We've been able to have them over for dinner and tried to make them feel welcome because we remember how lost you feel when you first get here.  They are wonderful people and I am sure we will be good friends.

 This picture below is of a river cruise ship.....going down the Rhein River.

On the river cruise 

Another castle along the Rhein

Love this town of Bacharach with it's leaning buildings

Tony's found a new girlfriend!  Kinda cute!

Just love this pictures of the buildings that look like they are ginger bread houses ready to fall.

Tony doing his part to help hold up the building

Flowers

And more flowers........Everywhere you look there are flowers!

Me and my honey.....having the time of our lives together!

the Canfields, Steve and Anita.....have become fantastic friends

Did I mention the flowers!

.....More FLOWERS

We took a path up to the vineyards....just beautiful

Climbed up to this bell tower and looked down at the village of Bacharach.

Bacharach

I love this little outdoor cafe....they are everywhere

Tony and Steve being sillly

Sue and Anita

My honey

Love this picture of the village

just passing another village along the Rhein

The Canfields, Steve and Anita

October 2017 Berlin and Dresden

The first weekend in October, we headed to Berlin with the Canfields !  A city filled with history.  We stayed in a hotel one block from the East Berlin Wall!  We walked down the street where "check point Charlie", the US Army checkpoint to enter East Berlin.  A little history I looked up on the internet about checkpoint charlie and the Berlin Wall:
East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Societ Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and defection westward throught the Societ boarder system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into West Berlin.  Checkpoint Charlie became a symblol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West.  Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Tony and Steve goofing around at Check Point Charlie....

This picture below is what it actually looked like during the cold war.

The City of Berlin is very grey

This statue below is a statue erected in 1840 of Frederick II, the King of Prussia ...During WWII the statue was incased in concrete for protection.  It is to honor the King.  The figures at the bottom depict the great men of that time period.

The picture below is the Brandenburg Gate and is probably the most famous building

 in Berlin.  It was built at the end of the 18th Century under the order of the Prussian King, Friedrick Wilhelm II.  It marks the border between East and West Berlin over 25 years ago and became the symbol for the Reunification after the  fall of the Iron Curtain.

This is what it looked like in the 1930's

This picture below is the Berlin Cathedral (Dom).  A Protestant church.  There are 270 steps inside to the top of the dome - which Tony climbed!  The three of us stayed behind.  The inside was pretty ornate.

Inside the Dom


Look at that massive organ


Tony, Steve and Anita (Canfield)

This is the "Gate of Melitus" as reference in Acts 20 where the Apostle Paul ..."sent to Ephesus, and called for the elders of the church..." He then taught them and expressed his love to them and testified to them of Christ and of his love for preaching the gospel and how he has dedicated his life to this one thing....."I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.  And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake that they should see his face no more.  And they accompanied him unto the ship."  This is the actual gate that has been moved from Melitus and rebuilt with the same bricks here in Berlin for all to see.  The bricks were numbered so they could re-construct it once it got to Berlin.  Fascinating !  

This picture gives you and idea of how large this wall is (and this is only a portion of it)

We walked around with head sets to listen to the history of the wall.....see the description below this next picture for the history of how and when it was found and rebuilt.

 

These next photo is a picture of the actual entrance to the market place in Jerusalem at the time that Lehi would have left Jerusalem before its destruction 587BC.  When we looked closely, we could see where new pieces had been used to reconstruct this fabulous structure.  It is amazing to me how much was preserved after the destruction of Jerusalem in.

Tony and Anita reading and listening from Acts about the Apostle Paul

We sat outside and had a small snack while we waited to get into the museum to see the Miletus wall ..... and the birds ate from our hands!

We visited the Neues Museum in Berlin to get a look at the ancient sculpture of Nefertiti.

Neferiti is the Royal wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten.  She is considered to be one of the most famous woman of the ancient world and an icon of feminine beauty.  A German Archeological team discovered the bust in 1912 in the sculptor "Thutmose's" workshop in Amarna Egypt.  It is believed that he crafted it in 1345 BC.  This picture below, I took off the internet because, as you can see in the next picture....we had to stand quite far away to take photos of her and they didn't come out clear.  It amazed me that I was looking at a piece of art that was sculptured in 1345 BC!

My photo of Nefertiti from a distance.

The architecture in Germany is incredible and so well preserved

Tony loves a fancy car!  This was a car museum of some sort that we just happened to go in out of curiosity.  I think they were actually a dealership and these cars were for sale.

The Berlin Wall

Another picture of the Wall from a different perspective.  I am standing in East Berlin, there is the wall and West Berlin on the other side.  These people are looking at a historical display of Hitlers Atrocities ......

This picture below is one I took from the above display showing homeless Germans around 1843

Tony at the Wall

Fall is here and I could not resist taking this....this is Ivy that has turned red.....so pretty

This is the wall to a beautiful village called Dresden

We stopped on our way to Freiburg in  a town called Dresden and had lunch at an Italian Cafe where Anita could speak Italian to the waiter.

In Germany, there are many churches, this one is in the square in Dresden.  Dresden was once part of the East side of Germany and ruled by Russia.  Dresden had been badly destroyed in the bombing raids in 1945 but has undergone massive reconstruction.  This picture below is the Dresden Frauenkirche which was finished being reconstructed in   2005 for the 800th anniversary, mostly from privately raised funds.  There is a gold cross at the top of the church that was mostly funded by the British and the House of Windsor.

Inside this beautiful cathedral.  This is an Evangelist church.

Anita and Steve Canfield

We have become good friends quickly with the Canfield's and have had so many fun times with them already......  We will go home in January 2019 and they leave in February 2019.  They are from San Clemente and we plan on visiting them when we return to the States.

And.....as it so often does here....it rained!

But, with the rain and our crazy schedules .... we are having a ball and loving Europe and our time we get to serve here.