The Lake's Alpine Mission: Wrap up February and Welcome March

We had lots of great things happen last week. We started off with Zone Conference in Zurich on Monday, February 26. We haven't had a Zone Conference since before Christmas, so it was great to meet with our three Swiss Zones again. Zone Conference is always a wonderful spiritual and motivational infusion. We love being with so many outstanding missionaries and seeing missionaries we haven't seen for awhile. Our fabulous Mission President and his wife inspire us to be the best we can be and teach us to be better disciples of Christ and representatives of Him in the Alpine German Speaking Mission. We also received instruction from the Zone Leaders and from President Markus Gappmeier, who is a counselor in our Mission Presidency. He does amazing presentations and has an incredible testimony and spiritual strength that blesses us all. We learn so much from each conference and we're always grateful to be serving here.

Elder Whittaker, an Assistant to the President, who used to be our Zone Leader (He's from England).

Elder Davis and Elder Wrangell (Both from Finland)

Beautiful musical number by some talented missionaries.

Elder Ormsby, our former District Leader (He's from Australia)

On Tuesday, our P-day, we took the train to Stuttgart. Our next door neighbor in Bountiful, Brad Kofford, and his son, Quin, were in Stuttgart on business and wanted to meet us for dinner. We were anxious to go and see a little of Stuttgart at the same time. Unfortunately, it was the coldest day yet this winter. We bundled up the best we could, but we still froze! We walked 20 minutes to the train station in Ravensburg and then walked from the train station in Stuttgart into the city. Our train ride was just over two hours and we arrived at lunch time. We walked through the very large inner city. Stuttgart has many, many streets of shops and businesses but we were looking for a good place to eat lunch. We found the restaurant where we planned to meet the Koffords for dinner, so that was good. We finally found a little Asian restaurant and thawed out while we had some delicious stir fry. We don't have a good Asian restaurant in Ravensburg, so we don't get this kind of food very often. After lunch, we made our way to the Information Center and asked about what we could see in Stuttgart. The kind woman gave us directions to some "in door" attractions. We went to the Landesmuseum Wurttemberg in an ancient castle and wandered around there looking at relics from the area. The museum was founded in 1862, but it contains things many hundreds of years old. We then went to an indoor market in another old building (mainly to stay warm). It was filled with many different shops selling cheese, meats, vegetables and fruits, candy, etc. Everything looked delicious but we resisted the urge to buy because we didn't want to carry anything home. We left there and walked until we were sufficiently frozen and then stopped at a cafe for some hot chocolate. We relaxed and visited and warmed up until it was time to meet our neighbors, the Koffords. We enjoyed a lovely evening with them having traditional German food in a quaint and cozy European style restaurant. It was fun to get caught up on the happenings at home. They also brought some things we needed from home, and that was a blessing. We caught the 8:00 p.m. train back to Ravensburg and then walked home through the deserted city at around 10:30 that night. It was actually not as cold as when we left, so that was good.

A castle in the city of Stuttgart.

Bob inside the courtyard (at the Museum).

The central square.

Fun photo opportunity!

The Opera House and Ballet Theater.

Brad and Quin Kofford at Ochsen Willi restaurant in Stuttgart.

Brad, Quin, Bob and Diane at dinner.

Wednesday, the 28th, was our weekly YSA Institute class in Dornbirn, Austria. We welcomed our new teacher, Sarah Reid. We were sad to lose our former teacher, Gerda Stubbe-Griell, as she was called to be the Relief Society President, but we are excited to have Sarah. She is a delightful person and very enthusiastic about teaching the YSA's. We had a great lesson from her and look forward to getting to know her better and learning from her.

Sarah Reid, our new Institute teacher, standing by Diane.
Left to right: Anya, Eva, Yamina, Elder Bushman, Bob, Elder Hilton, Sarah, Diane

Friday evening, March 2, we had a special "Date Night" in Lindau, Germany. Lindau is a quaint old city on an island in Lake Constance, or Bodensee. There is a bridge from the mainland connecting it. In the spring, summer and fall, this is a very busy tourist destination city and a fun place to visit. The buildings are very old and the streets are narrow and it has a very old German feel. There are many fun shops and restaurants. But in the winter, it is much more quiet and peaceful, especially at night. Our good friends, Giampi and Corinna Tonoli, gave us tickets to the marionette opera in Lindau as a Christmas gift. We went early in the evening and had a delicious dinner at Zur Fischerin, a restaurant recommended by our friend, Kenneth, who lives and works in Lindau. It has been open since 1952. We can't think of a restaurant at home that has been in business that long, but here there are restaurants that have been opened much longer than this. Then we walked to the opera house and watched "Zauberflote" or "The Magic Flute" opera performed by marionettes. It was in a small theater and almost every seat was taken. This is one of the few places in Germany where you can still see this kind of performance. It was very well done. The music was recorded but it was beautiful. Of course it was all in German. It was a lovely evening!