The Day After

Another view out our windows.

 I think the whole town left.  From our apartment window we can see many other apartment windows but not one living soul.  We hear people in our building occasionally but all is basically quiet (except for the doorbell ringing last night at 11 and again this morning at 5:30 but no one answered the intercom??).  We took a walk and took pictures so we will share those with the world out there.

Part of the courtyard below us with empty windows

St Lorenz Church, rebuilt many times but dates from 1214.

Check out the brake system on this sled.

We did see a lady in the pink house wave to us from her window.

They must have painted this house just for Deebert.

Visits to friends

You are going to think all we do is eat, and you might be right.  Saturday before Christmas we went to Chemnitz to enjoy their annual Christmas Concert and to see friends.  Afterward we had a meal with the Jentzsch family.  Roland Jentzsch was the bishop when we were here before and we were good friends with Anna and Benjamin.  They now have four children and have a lovely home.

Dave feeding the youngest Jentzsch child.

Roland and Beate Jentzsch

 Then on Christmas day we were invited to enjoy dinner with the Branch President and his family. They served Christmas goose and duck.  President Merkel is here "fighting the goose" to quote him. 

Dave and I both said our best Christmas present was being here and making new friends and seeing ones from before.  Like Alma, (17:2) the greater joy was seeing that they are still growing in the gospel.  We met Mattias Seidle, one of our previous institute students who is now on the Stake High Council and assigned to Hof.  Another is a branch president and several are married with children, raising them in the church.  What a blessing to see the kingdom growing here.  May you all value the blessings the gospel brings.

Our Apartment

Here are some inside shots of our place now that we are living here. Note the big desk.  We are on our way to Ikea to get another one today.

Living room , kitchen combined BUT we do have a large refrigerator.

And the box under the microwave is a freezer. (Yeah! ice cream)

Our big tree.  Merry Christmas to all,

Shower almost big enough to bend over and scrub our toes.

Wow, a washer and a dryer.  This is a really big deal.

A big closet and a bed with German "deckes", or individual feather comforters.

Note the amount of door swing.  You can't close the bedroom door as the bed is too big.

Our building is the newly renovated aqua blue one.

Christmas Party

the Weinachtsmann (Elder Worli) and Helene

The young women, and Sister Kube

Pres. and Sister Merkel on either side of Dave, daughter Sophie in the plaid.

On Saturday we went to our Branch Christmas Party at the president's home.  President Merkel has three daughters, 19,17 and 14.  They have a very nice one family home which is a bit unusual in Germany as it seems more people live in apartments than houses.  The entire branch came to the party to enjoy gluhwein (without the wine part) and cookies which the YW had made the day before. Gluhwein is a fruity hot drink, not unlike a wassail, and is a traditional Christmas drink.  The Weinachtsmann was Elder Worli.  He has s cute Bavarian accent so it was quite fun to hear him talk to the children.

On Sunday we had to talk in church but since the Worli's spoke also, it was short.  We also visited with Stake President Thomas Hengst from Hohenstein.  We had known him and his family from our last time in Germany.  He has asked us to teach institute two weeks a month in Zwickau.  We will go there this Thursday to meet with the Zwickau bishop.

We took the Worli's to the train station early Monday morning and spent the rest of the day shopping and moving into the apartment.  That evening we fed Elders Hess and Briner and then had a home evening with Sister Martha Ernst.

Berlin and Schwarzenberg

On Thursday the 13th we drove all the way to Berlin with the Worli's for a special mission conference with Elder Richards of the 70.  He told how his Great Great Grandfather had baptized Karl G Maeser in Germany in about 1850.  Maeser was instrumental in starting BYU University.

Elder Richards also made us aware that we are witnessing historic times.  He quoted D & C 88:73 "Behold, I will hasten my work in its time." and said with the announcement of the age change for missionaries we are witnessing the 'hastening.'  He said the mission applications have changed from 700/week to 1000/day. Also the focus is much more now on retention.

It was a great conference but a very long day.  3 1/2 hour drive then a 4 hour meeting, lunch (at 2 p.m.) and a return journey of 3 1/2 hours.  I was glad we were able to sleep in the next day.

Before we came the Worli's had made plans with the mission couples from Dresden and Leipzig to visit the Christmas Market in Schwarzenberg.  We had been to Schwarzenberg on our last mission and really liked the small historic city.  The Ebish family also live there, the ones we went to Prague with at the end of our last mission.  The Christmas Market was charming in the historic castle courtyard area on narrow snow covered cobblestone streets.  After the market we ate in a local restaurant having typical Erzgeberger cuisine which often is potato dumplings, red cabbage, and rouladen.

Elder & Sister Margetts from Dresden, us, the Thurgoods from Leizig and Sister Worli.  Elder Margetts served in Switzerland when Dave was there in about 1964.

Scenery from the drive.  Lots of snow.

Dave with the Worli's who leave for home on Monday.

A little unfocused but this is the castle.

The bandstand was near the tree with continuous music.

Every Market in this are had a Christmas Pyramid.  This one was very elaborate.

Another example of Schiefbogens.  The big one is permanently mounted on this building. 

12-12-12

Is that a momentous date or what?  And what better way to spend it than to go to the temple.  We drove to Freiberg with the Woerli's and went to the temple with our district. 

We have yet to really meet any of the young Elders except the two laboring in Hof.  We will have district meetings in Plauen.  On the way back we stopped in Chemnitz to deliver a gift to Dave's former home teaching partner, Rolf Goerkeritz.  We had a nice visit with him and his wife.  He even played is hunter's horn for us.  Note all the antler trophies on the wall.

On the way home I made Elder Woerli stop the car so I can get a picture of the Schiefbogen in all the windows.  This part of Germany has a tradition of decorating with these lighted arches instead of outdoor lights like we do in America.

Hof pictures

view from the Hotel

Quality Inn where we are staying for 10 days waiting for the apartment.

The Hotel where the church rents rooms for church on Sunday.

Rear entry to the apartment building where we will be living. Our apt with the balcony near the top.

View of Hof from the apartment window.

Front entry to the apartment with Dave in front.

A church in Hof with an onion dome.

Looking toward town center and the entry to the Christmas Market.

In the Christmas Market with the big town church in the background.

Hof, Germany

Our assignment is to Hof, the town furthest south in our mission.  We are replacing a couple named Worli, from Idaho Falls.  They had been in Chemnitz, the same apartment we were in, until about 3 months ago when the President moved them because the institute there was no longer viable.  Elder Worli was born in Munich and still has a brother living there.  They went there this weekend to visit. Next Sunday is their last week here and then they get to take the train journey to Berlin and fly home.  Since we overlap for 10 days they have the car.  We are staying in a hotel until they vacate the apartment.  We walked around the town a bit on Saturday and went to their small Weinachts Markt.  The town seems very nice and we are anxious to get to know it.  We bought a map and some warmer clothes.

Our main assignment will be to help with the small branch which meets in this hotel.  They have about 20 active members.  Sunday was their Primary program, all three children!  The program was quite nice.  They sang three songs, each child gave a talk and the two adults in Primary did also.  They meet for only two hours.  The second hour was Primary, RS /YW combined and YM /Priesthood combined.  I was able to understand most of the talks and conversation.  The branch president speaks good English and they have one YW, a recent convert who also speaks good English.  She has spent some time in Utah at Weber College and was converted there. She told me it is a real adjustment to being a member here and attending the small branch.

Dave spoke to the Stake president yesterday and he said we are also to work with the YSA meeting in Zwickau, about 1/2 away by car.  They meet on Thursday evenings and we will probably be teaching an institute class.  We can't meet them this week as we will be returning to Berlin with the Worlis for a mission conference.

It has been snowing for the whole weekend so we have just been spending time trying to recover from Jet Lag.  That means no sleep at night and long naps in the afternoon.

Flight to Germany

 We left the MTC early on Wednesday morning and flew from Salt Lake City to Chicago, then to Frankfurt and then on to Berlin.  The 8 1/2 hour flight to Frankfurt was overnight but due to the time change it was a short night.  Since the airplane was only about half full we were both able to lay down across 3 seats and rest but not sleep.

Frankfurt airport

It is truly amazing that you can travel halfway around the world and never go outside.

We arrived in Berlin at 7 a.m. local time.  The mission president and his wife, Henry and Elke Kosak, were there to meet us with one of the office couples.  We were especially glad to see them because three of our four checked bags did not arrive.  They helped us deal with this problem.  Then we all went out to breakfast with the other office couple.  Since our bags didn't come we were unable to travel on to our final destination and had to stay overnight with the Kosaks in their home

Our luggage was delivered late that evening just as the group was returning from a buffet dinner at a local hotel.  Here is the address to Henry's Germany Berlin Mission blog   http://germanyberlinmission2012-15.blogspot.de/

I haven't discovered how to make it a link.

He included a welcoming picture of us there.