Super Full Week

The week of the 13th thru the 19th of May was without a doubt one of the fullest of the mission.  But is was filled with many great events.  Sunday, the 13th, was Mothers Day here and in America.  I was blessed (?) with the opportunity to speak in Sacrament Meeting, in German of course. My German has improved but I'm still anything but fluent.  Poor Bob had to listen to me practice reading my talk many times to make sure my pronunciation was correct so they would be able to understand me.  I think he was more relieved than I was when it was over!   Bob fixed lunch, so that was nice.  But the highlight of the day was FaceTiming with our children and grandchildren.  We caught Jared and Robilyn's family on Saturday, so we were able to squeeze them all in.  It's a challenge being 8 hours ahead and having to catch everyone after church.  So we were up quite late, but it was definitely worth it!
Monday was our weekly District Meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland but this week was special because President Brown came to interview all the missionaries in our District and Sister Brown came as well to visit with each one.  They are amazing and it is always a privilege and delight to be with them.   We bring the lunch that we eat after our District Meeting and we love visiting with these outstanding missionaries and learning more about them and the experiences they are having.  Such a blessing!  It takes all day because of the distance we have to travel, but it is a highlight of the week.
Monday evening we went to our Branch President's home and made their family "American" pancakes.  They have 5 children and they love this special treat.  And we love to have this time with them to get to know them better.  Great FHE!

Tuesday our service plans got rained out but it was P-Day (preparation day) and we had lots to do to get ready for the rest of the week.

Wednesday was super busy from early till late.  We have Institute in Dornbirn, Austria every Wednesday and I always prepare dinner and then we take it there, we eat dinner and then have an Institute lesson with our YSA's.  But on this Wednesday I also had to prepare food for our Zone Conference in Zurich, Switzerland on Thursday.  Fortunately, because we combine the 3 Swiss zones for one Zone Conference, we have 2 other Senior Couples to help with the food.  We feed about 90 people so it's a lot of food.  And we have to travel over 2 hours to get to Zurich, so the food needs to be mostly ready before we go.  Anyway, I also needed to shop for all the food on Wednesday so it would be fresh.  I cooked all afternoon but everything wasn't quite finished when it came time to leave for our Institute class in Dornbirn, Bob didn't want me to be up super late cooking after getting home from Institute, so he convinced me to stay home and finish the food preparation for Zone Conference.  It's the first time I've missed Institute and I really felt bad when I found out that we had the biggest turnout ever and I missed being with all our fabulous students.  But they enjoyed the food I sent with Bob!

Thursday we had to get up early to get ready, pack the food in the car, and pick up the Elders in Dornbirn.  We made it early to Zone Conference and teamed up with the other couples doing last minute preparations for lunch.  We joined the other missionaries for our terrific Zone Conference.  President and Sister Brown and the Zone Leaders really do an outstanding job of teaching, encouraging, and inspiring all of us.  It is always such a blessing to attend.  And we LOVE to see all the other missionaries that we only see at Zone Conference.  Lunch turned out great!  They loved the taco salads and chocolate cakes we served them.  We had more excellent lessons in the afternoon and left feeling rejuvenated and ready to continue trying to be the best missionaries we can be!  We dropped the Elders in Dornbirn and then hurried to Ravensburg for a meeting with our Branch Leadership that evening about how we are going to implement the new "Ministering" guidelines in our little branch.

Aaron and Sheila Andreason serving in Singen

Walt and Katie Gasser serving in Freiburg

President Christopher and Sister Laura Brown

Elder Hartle and Elder Irvine with Bob

Two of our Sisters with Elder Whittaker and Sister Lake

Friday morning we took off early to walk to the train station in Ravensburg to catch our train to Salzburg, Austria.  We have a wonderful Senior Couple serving there, Tom and Larena Matthews from Brigham City, UT.   They invited us to come visit them and see Salzburg before they go home in June.  They didn't need to ask twice!  Bob and I haven't been there, but we've heard how beautiful it is and we couldn't wait to go.  With the Matthews heading home in June, we didn't want to miss the opportunity of having a personal guided tour from them.  They met us at the train station, we dropped our bag at the hotel nearby and we headed out.  The reports about Salzburg were correct (Bob did visit Salzburg after his mission back in 1975).  It is an incredibly gorgeous city with breathtaking scenery all around.  The Matthews were excellent tour guides and drove us to St. Gilgen, St. Wolfgang, past the Wolfgangsee and on to Hallstatt. Words just can't describe the beauty!  Hopefully, you can tell from the photos how pretty it is.  We were extremely blessed to have great weather.  It rained hard as we drove back to Salzburg but was finished by the time we walked to our hotel.

Larena and Tom Matthews at our stop for lunch overlooking Wolfgangsee

Wolfgangsee

Hallstatt

On Saturday we all walked into Salzburg and saw everything we could before we had to catch the train back to Ravensburg later that afternoon.  What an enchanting city!  If your remember the movie The Sound of Music, this is where it was filmed and we saw some of the locations.  Others were filmed in Hollywood in a set. We saw the Mirabell Palace and Gardens, the historic center of the city, Mozart's birthplace, the Salzburg Cathedral, and the Hohensalzburg Fortress on the top of the hill.  The 360 degree views from there were unbelievable!  We had delicious traditional German/Austrian dinners both days and loved it.

A scene from The Sound of Music

A historic street in Salzburg

 

Mirabell Palace and garden

Is that one of our missionaries on top of the gold ball in historic Salzburg?

This was where they would drive in their horses and wagon to wash them.
The Hohensalzburg Fortress is on the hill above.

View from the Hohensalzburg Fortress

The city of Salzburg with the Salzach river running through it.
One of the most important rivers of the Austrian Alps.

A different view from the Fortress.

What a blessing it is to serve in such an amazing part of the world and with some very dear and cherished new friends, young and older.  We love being missionaries!

Belated Birthday

My birthday was two months ago but I want to post about it because it was one of my most special birthdays and shows how terrific the people are here, where we are blessed to serve.  I wasn't expecting any kind of celebration because we are away from our family and long time friends.  But the day played out very unexpectedly!

In the morning we had District Meeting in St. Gallen. Somehow the missionaries found out it was my birthday.  They really went all out to make it special for me. They decorated the room and had it darkened with little candles and when I walked in they started to sing "Happy Birthday".  They gave me a few small gifts as well.  We brought lunch but made it very simple.  We had picked up special cheese cakes at the Saturday Market in Ravensburg and they loved the special birthday treat.  It was one of the most delightful District Meetings.

The St. Gallen District

Visconti, Bushman, Hilton, Sister Lake, Elder Lake, Chisholm, Weisler, Pedersen, Passey, Titmus

Bob convinced me that we needed to stop in Dornbirn, after taking the missionaries home, to study for awhile at the church before going home.  I agreed, never imagining he might have an ulterior motive.  I thought we were going out to dinner for my birthday.  He told me we needed to stop at our apartment to get umbrellas since it was raining.  I decided that I would change into pants and comfortable walking shoes to walk into the city.  When I opened the door, I was shocked to find our apartment filled with many of the wonderful and dear friends we have made here in Ravensburg and in Dornbirn.  I actually got quite emotional realizing how much these dear people mean to me. They had planned and prepared a really fun surprise birthday party for me.  And boy, was I surprised!  It never entered my head.  Some of them came all the way from Austria, almost an hour away.  Our cute young friend, Corinna Tonoli, had organized the whole thing and had people bring food.  She came early and decorated with streamers and balloons and had party hats, too.  Everyone came into the hall when I walked in and sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  They had a wonderful chocolate cake with candles.  Some of them even brought gifts.  Corinna remembered that we had said we missed having Mexican food here, so they prepared a taco buffet.  Very thoughtful!  And everything was delicious.  It was really a fun party!  Everyone enjoyed visiting and eating.  It was a birthday I will always remember because of the love I felt from so many.  The people are definitely the best part of a mission.

Irina Kiefer with me

Gerda Stubbe-Griell, Diane, Susann Trautmann

Nicola and Jordy Wijsbeek

Fleur Wijsbeek

Jorg Stubbe and Rudiger Trautmann

Ralf Lorenz and Wladimir Lange 

Irina, Corinna, Flora and Bob

Elder Hilton

Elder Bushman

The Buffet

The Tonoli Family
Giampi, Corinna and Flora

Senior Conference in Innsbruck

On the 19th of April, we headed to Innsbruck, Austria on the train for our semi-annual Senior Conference with all the other senior missionaries from our mission.  Our wonderful mission president's wife, Sister Laura Brown, posted a lot of fun photos from the conference on Face Book immediately after and tagged me in the post, so anyone who follows me on Face Book has already seen a post about this event.  Well, now you will see and read my version of the event.

We were thrilled that the conference was held in beautiful Innsbruck.  We have been anxious to see this remarkable city and we were not disappointed.  But we were also excited to spend some time with the other senior couples.  These are outstanding people who are serving here with faithfulness and dedication and giving everything they've got to bless the members, missionaries, and others in the Alpine German Speaking Mission.  It is called the Alpenlaendische Mission here.  This was an opportunity to share ideas and strengthen each other and be inspired and motivated to continue serving with hope and optimism.  And that is exactly what happened! 

We arrived in Innsbruck on Thursday about noon and enjoyed a lovely lunch sitting outside at the hotel.  We had some wonderful workshops in the afternoon and then a delicious dinner at the hotel.  In the evening, we had Elder and Sister Peery from the area office in Frankfurt speak to us.  They are  mental health advisors for the area.  But they are also terrific missionaries.  They shared some helpful information and some incredibly inspiring stories.  We loved them!

Friday morning was a wonderful breakfast buffet at the hotel and then more workshops in the morning at the church, which was in walking distance from the hotel.  All the senior couples participated in teaching the workshops or filling some assignment for the conference.  We were on our own for lunch and then we had the afternoon free to do some sight seeing.  One of the couples, Dean and Judy Wade (from Davis County, UT), gave us fabulous ideas for things to see and do. We were very blessed because the weather was absolutely perfect! A group of us took a tram to the top of the mountain and we trekked around in the snow and enjoyed the incredible view.  We had dinner at the hotel and a delightful evening focusing on Family and Marriage.

Saturday morning was another breakfast buffet at the hotel, we checked out, and then headed to the church again.  The Browns shared and inspired us all.  We all shared "Tender Mercies" experienced on the mission which touched our hearts and caused tears to flow.  It was a special conclusion to a special and memorable conference.  We look forward with great anticipation to the next one!

We had a fun afternoon seeing more of Innsbruck before heading back to Ravensburg.  I'm afraid the photos really don't do it justice!

The Austrian Alps

Walking to the church.

President and Sister Brown starting the conference.

The Wades, the Andreasons, and the Stephensens

The Peerys, the Madsens, and some guests

The Browns, the Mathews and the Hansens

The Hughes' and the Stringhams

The Norths, the Russells and the Lakes

The Golden Roof

Looking down on Innsbruck from the top of Nordkette

From the top of Nordkette

Snowboarding hill

Innsbruck

Adorable President and Sister Brown

Hofkirche

Bob on the stairs climbing to the top of Stadtturm.