Aaron's visit

As senior missionaries we are able to have family visits.  Aaron had work conferences in Brussels and Frankfurt and was able to get two days at the end of his trip to spend with us.  YEAH!

He arrived Wednesday evening and we walked round Hof for a bit but mostly enjoyed just talking to each other.  We do miss our kids and seeing the Grands and it is always good to get current updates.

This picture is taken by a rather comical fountain in the old market place in Hof.  It was really striking to note how much more these two men are looking alike. 

 The day Aaron visited was a German holiday celebrating the unification after the wall came down and Russia withdrew from managing East Germany.  We live near a tiny village nicknamed "Little Berlin" because it, as well as Berlin, was divided by the wall.  This town has no more than about 20 homes but the wall went right through the middle of it.  It now houses quite a nice museum chronicling that period in history.  There were many people there that day but most spent their time in the massive beer hall (tent) put up for the occasion rather than in the museum.

Fortress Rosenburg

 The next day we visited the towns of Kulmbach and the castle and museums at Plassenburg and then Kronach and the fort of Rosenburg.  There are earlier posts on this blog about those places.

Plassenburg Castle

Two days was not enough but we will take all the visiting time we can with our family...

Missionary work and other stuff

 Today we drove to Chemnitz for another Zone Training meeting.  We enjoy these days but are glad to return to our area after the almost 3 hour meeting.  The young Elders are good teachers and really try to motivate each other but most of the training does not really apply to our assignment.

We also have weekly district meetings in Plauen with missionaries from Hof, Plauen and Zwickau attending.  This group was the one before the last transfer.  Our DL is in the rear middle, Elder Lichner from Germany, who has since finished his mission, then returned to Zwickau to go to University so is now in our institute group.

After the last tranfer we are now working with  Elder Pollard on the left from San Diego and Elder Donner from Texas.  They are both NOT looking forward to another German winter.  As you can see, the leaves are telling us winter is coming.

 Elder Anderson worked in Hof for a long time.  This is what happened to him shortly after he left to serve in Goerlitz.

Most of our work in Hof is reactivation.  Here Dave is having fun with Brother Rechner who has not come to church for about 20 years.  Part of the reason is he now lives most of the year in the Cook Islands.

We visit weekly with two sisters who have started to come to church since we have been here.  Sister Ernst loves to feed the missionaries and then the Elders give her a gospel message. 

We hold a 'home evening' on Monday nights with our two activated sisters and the missionaries.  We take turns giving the lesson after a meal.  The missionaries then go out to work and we play games with the sisters. 

Occasionally we have a district sport day.  This was earlier in the summer in Plauen.

Now for some other stuff.  We really enjoy the unusual things we sometimes see over here.  This loaf of bread was for sale at the 'Harvest Festival" in Hof which was more like a large yard sale except for the professional traveling vendors that we find at all the festivals.  This vendor markets his bread as being baked in a wood oven.

The Harvest Festival also had displays from various groups in town like the fire department.  Their truck is a little more modern that the one we use at home, but it looks like the firefighters are about the same.

And, lastly, here is a balloon animal I really liked at the mall in Plauen that we visited after district conference one time.  They had several other balloon displays as well which were very imaginative and creative.