A Tender Mercy

We had a very special experience on the 23rd of June and Bob shared it with our Mission President.  The story in his words follows:

" We drove to Fellbach (northeast of Stuttgart) and met Sister Helga Hoerstel (she lives in a Care Center and is a member of the Waiblingen Ward.  She is 90.  We met her and her family in my first area as a 19 year old missionary (Bremen) and we taught this family for months.  The mother and her two teenage daughters were baptized while I was still serving there (the husband was not).  We kept in contact up until about 2000 when I lost track of this family because they moved a few times.  I had this feeling that I would find them on the mission, but I wasn’t sure if the mother would still be alive after all these years.  Well, I was blessed to find the mother and the two daughters (who we have not met up with yet), but today we went and visited Sister Hoerstel and it was a very, very special day for me.  By the way, she has a picture of her grandson on the wall.  He is currently serving a mission in the Germany Berlin mission. Amazing how the Gospel works and blesses families.  She is the sweetest, most faithful person ever and it was so wonderful to see her after so many years.  To complete the story, her husband, Rolf, was baptized in about 1998 and on the anniversary of his baptism, the family was sealed in the Freiberg Temple.  She told me today that that day was the happiest day of her entire life.  This family has been a huge blessing to me over the years and to have a chance to reconnect with her (in this life) was something very special."  

What Bob didn't share is that these three people were his only baptisms on his mission.  But because these three special people joined the church, many more people also had the gospel bless their lives.  Both daughters served missions and helped others to come unto Christ.  Then, they each married in the temple and one has 6 children and the other has 3 children.  Sister Hoerstel and her daughters are all still active in the church.  Her husband was, as well, until he passed away a few years ago. They are a strong and faithful family.  It is a blessing to us to know how the gospel has blessed their lives and many others.  We hope to see Sister Hoerstel again and reconnect with her daughters as well.

"Break the Fast" Dinner and our first Zone Conference

They've had a tradition going here of having a dinner on Fast Day to "break the fast".  The Tonolis have been hosting or organizing this meal since the last Senior couple left, either at their apartment or at the church for the missionaries, some of the single brothers, or less active members of the branch.  Sometimes the Elders have brought people investigating the church.  Since we are the Senior couple here now, we offered to have the dinner at our apartment in June, the Sunday after Stake Conference.  It was a nice opportunity to get to know some of the people in our Branch.  We wish we could have a bigger group, but we are limited by the size of our apartment.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal, stayed to visit for awhile afterwards, and it helped us form some new friendships.

Alex Huber, Wladimir Lange, Ralf Lorenz, Elder Williams, Elder Johnson, Sister Lake, Corinna and Giampi Tonoli 

We had our first Zone Conference for the St. Gallen Zone on June 13 in Zurich, Switzerland.  It was at the same church where we went for the evening adult meeting of Stake Conference.  The Ravensburg Elders rode there with us and we made it in about 2.5 hours.  We enjoy our long drives with the Elders for a couple of reasons.  It's been a great opportunity to get to know all about them and we feel a stronger connection to them.  Also, we can talk about the missionary work in our mission.  We sometimes listen to fabulous talks that the missionaries have on their tablets. And, it is the most beautiful drive imaginable!  We always go past the beautiful Lake Constance (Bodensee), everything is incredibly green and lush, the mountains are high and rugged and snow capped still, and I love all the small villages nestled between the expansive farmlands and up the hillsides.  You can't travel by freeway (the autobahn) everywhere here.  Much of the time you have to drive through every small village.  It makes the trip longer but I love seeing the quaint old towns, the interesting homes and shops and the beautiful and very colorful flowers in gardens, window boxes and pots.  They love flowers here!

This Zone Conference was our first but the last for President and Sister Kohler.  They have been outstanding at leading and loving the missionaries, we could tell.  We have been blessed by them in the short time we have been here.  President Kohler sends out emails every week teaching and inspiring the missionaries.  He is a master at using stories and analogies to teach a lesson. Sister Kohler is warm and fun and we have been very impressed with how well she speaks German.  She doesn't even use notes when she speaks.  It's amazing! The Kohlers spent part of the time interviewing all the missionaries.  This conference was actually several zones combined.  We divided into zones for training from our Zone Leaders.  They were terrific!

Zone Leaders - Elder Mateer and Elder Whitaker, both from Great Britain

 All the new missionaries were introduced to the group, including us.  Some members of the ward there provided lunch for everyone, which was very nice.  This was also a great opportunity for the Elders and Sisters to visit with each other and catch up with former companions.  We took advantage of the time to meet and get acquainted with some of the missionaries.  That was fun!

Sister and President Kohler

 Packages were brought from the office and that is a real treat for those fortunate enough to receive one.  President and Sister Kohler each took some time to speak to everyone.  They taught, testified and gave counsel and advice.  It was their opportunity to say "Goodbye" and encourage everyone to carry on, work hard, do their best, and support with all their hearts the new mission president and his wife.  President Kohler set aside a day that every companionship is to clean their apartment from top to bottom, very thoroughly.  He also set aside a day for everyone to fast and pray that the transition would be as smooth as possible for President and Sister Brown.  He explained how challenging it will be for them and how much they will need the love and support of everyone.  There was a video presentation that President Kohler had made with pictures of every missionary they have had in the last 3 years.  Everyone enjoyed that!  At the end, the Kohlers let everyone come up one at a time and have their picture taken with them.  That way they could also say goodbye personally to each one.  It was a special day and one we will always remember.

Stake Conference in Switzerland

Before I get to the "meat" of this post, I just want to mention that I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies here.  That wouldn't ordinarily be a major accomplishment but it is here.  We had to go to three different stores to track down all the ingredients.  I also had to adjust to an oven in centigrade instead of fahrenheit. But they turned out great!  We shared them with some of the families who live in our apartment building as well as the Elders and the Young Adults.  They were a hit!

Our third weekend on the mission was our Stake Conference.  We are the only German unit in the St. Gallen, Switzerland Stake.  So our conference was held in Frauenfeld and Zurich.  The Saturday Adult meeting was held in the Stake Center in Zurich. But the Sunday meeting for everyone was held in a large community auditorium in Frauenfeld.  President Uchtdorf told us they don't have a church building big enough for the whole stake for the Sunday meeting.  They would prefer to meet in a church but don't want people to be turned away for lack of space.  We took the Elders with us on Saturday and drove to Zurich.  We had a little difficulty finding the best route and it took us almost 3 hours to get there.  But it was an incredibly beautiful drive.  It doesn't work to take pictures out the window of the car so you'll have to use your imagination.  This mission covers three of the most gorgeous countries in the world.  Everything is very green with forests and farmland.  Red roofed white homes are nestled in small villages in the valleys and up the hillsides.  All villages have their beautiful churches with interesting and picturesque steeples.  The mountains are rugged and breathtaking.  It is always a delight to travel here.  Our meeting Saturday was terrific!  The Stake President, Christian Bolt, spoke and he is amazing.  We also heard from an adult sister in the stake. A young man, Benjamin Roffler, who has received his mission call shared his faith and testimony.  A young woman, Alexandra Calame, shared her incredible conversion story.  Our mission president, Brian Kohler and his wife, Cheri spoke as well.  The final speaker was Elder Alessandro Dini Ciacci, the area authority seventy from Italy.  We thought he did a great job and involved members of the stake.  He doesn't speak German so he spoke in English and a young man stood by him and translated. They also had a beautiful violin and piano musical number.  I noticed halfway through the meeting that there was a rack of headsets for translation.  Unfortunately, they were not accessible at that point.  I just felt the strong spirit and enjoyed the association with so many faithful saints from all over the area encompassed by our stake. The members here are very dedicated and willing to sacrifice a lot to be faithful members of the church.  We visited afterward with missionaries and members of our branch and ward in Dornbirn.  Then we drove back home.

Sunday morning we drove to Frauenfeld.  We made it in about 2 1/2 hours and arrived early.  I was able to find the headsets this time.  Yay! Bob was excited to find and visit with Peter Sieck, who was a brand new member in Bremen, Germany when Bob arrived on his mission in 1973.  He was only about 19 years old then.  Bob hadn't seen him in over 40 years. They both enjoyed connecting again.

Bob and Peter Sieck

 We sat with members of our branch and enjoyed another wonderful meeting.  They had organized an outstanding choir which sang several truly beautiful pieces and truly added to the spirit of the meeting.  We heard from President Thomas Ottiker, second counselor in the Stake Presidency.  The Stake President spoke again.  The temple is very special to me, so I was thrilled to hear from the Temple President, Erik Psota, and his wife, Berit.  They gave beautiful messages.  The Stake Patriarch, Peter Gysler, shared a message.   A young sister, told how she had slipped away from church and how she had returned to the gospel.  Tom Erhart, a young man, also shared his story and testimony.  The final speaker again was Brother Ciacci.  I thought his talk was very inspiring.  The whole conference was inspirational and motivating.  We were thankful we were able to attend and be edified.  We mingled with the saints afterward and felt of their strength and unity.

Jurgen and Susanne Klaumunzner and their grandchildren

Elders Williams and Johnson

We were invited to dinner afterward at the home of Max and Suoma Lieber in Felben-Wellhausen, Switzerland.  We met brother Lieber when he visited our branch in Ravensburg the Sunday before when his sister, Susanne Klaumunzner's, husband was released as our Branch President.  We were delighted with the invitation and took the missionaries with us as well.  Sister Lieber fixed us a lovely and delicious dinner and we enjoyed getting to know them both.  We found out that my friend, Susan Lieber Morrow, is a relative of theirs.  We hope to associate with this dear couple again.

Suoma and Max Lieber

New Branch Presidency

Our second Sunday at the Branch was fabulous!  They reorganized our Branch Presidency so the entire Stake Presidency came from Switzerland.  We had twice as many people as last week (about 50) due to all the visitors.  Our Stake President is Christian Bolt.  There is a Mormon Message on him (you should check it out!) He is a sculptor, as in a very good and well known sculptor. We both think he is super cool. One of the counselors is Guido Uchtdorf.  He is the son of President Dieter Uchtdorf.  He approached Bob and I after the meeting and talked to us about the great need they have here for us.  He told us the members had petitioned the mission president for a senior missionary couple. He gave us some counsel on reaching out to members in this tiny branch and encouraging support of the YSA here.  He let us know that we are very much wanted and needed here. Our new Branch President is Denes Wijsbeek.  He and his wife are Dutch.  They have 5 children and are the only family in the Branch with children at home.  The first counselor is Giampietro (Giampi) Tonoli.  He and his wife are the only young couple in the Branch.  He was in the former presidency and served a mission in Northern Germany (yes, he is Italian).  The meeting went a little long because we heard from the former Branch President and his wife, the new Branch President and his wife, the counselor, Rudiger Trautmann, who was released, and all members of the Stake Presidency. Bob was asked to give the closing prayer.  They had a break after the meeting and then we reconvened to set the new presidency apart.  Then there was a pot luck lunch.  They have one of these about every other month for the members to socialize.  The Branch is scattered over a very large geographic area so many members come a long way to attend church.  They don't have many opportunities to socialize.  The only room large enough is the chapel, so they moved chairs and set up some tables in there.  There was lots of good food and the members and visitors really enjoyed it.

I made a wonderful new friend today.  Her name is Irina Kiefer.  She is from Russia but also speaks English and German. I marveled at that but she said it is very common here to speak several languages. She is tall and thin and very kind. She offered to meet us in the old city next week and show us around.  We told her we would love to!

Irina Kiefer

We also had a fun experience meeting up with Talmadge Eyre and his wife, Anita, and their daughter Annina.  He is from Utah and served in Brazil on a mission with our son, Spencer.  He is Richard and Linda Eyre's son.  They were vacationing in our area and just randomly chose our branch to attend church. They live in Switzerland (Anita is Swiss) and are members of our Stake.  It was great to get acquainted with them.  We will look for them at Stake Conference next week in Zurich.

Talmadge, Anita, and Annina Eyre

View from the window of the church
Not too scenic!

The First Week

This was a week of firsts.  The last post talked about our first Sunday in our Branch here. Monday was our first District Meeting.  This is a common occurrence to all missionaries but it was my first time. I enjoyed it thoroughly! The Elders in our district are Elder Darren Quinton, Elder Timotheous Vierbuchen, Elder Riley Hudson and Elder Spencer Williams. They all took different parts and, even though I didn't understand most of what was said because it was in German, I thought they did a great job.

Because transfers are next week, our District Leader decided to have a District outing on Tuesday, which is P Day (Preparation Day).  We took the Ravensburg Elders with us and drove to Bregenz, Austria for miniature golf.  The place we went is right on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) and it is super beautiful.  The weather was perfect!  The Elders are all terrific and we laughed a lot and had a marvelous time.  We stopped afterwards for gelato and ate at tables on the sidewalk.  Bregenz is a touristy kind of place with lots of people walking, roller blading, boating, and just enjoying the beautiful day.

Later, in the evening, Bob and I walked into the old city (Innenstadt) and ate at our first restaurant here.  We stopped at a great Italian place in the heart of the city on the main plaza and ate outside on the cobblestones.  We were surrounded by many classic ancient buildings and beautifully maintained shops and homes.  The streets are narrow and the architecture is fabulous!

Wednesday we traveled to Dornbirn, Austria for our first Institute meeting there.  The meeting is all in German, of course, but I read the lesson in English so I would know what they were talking about.  Bob prepared some material to share.  I fixed fruit and crepes for afterwards.  It was delightful to meet the YSA's and they were very warm and friendly to us.  The Dornbirn Elders also joined us that night.

Thursday was our first Institute in Ravensburg.  We had two men and the Elders.  Elder Hudson taught the lesson. The spirit there was very sweet and we are grateful we are here to support this group.  We had crepes again this night and they really enjoyed them.

Today was a holiday here in Germany.  It is called Christi Himmelfahrt.  It is a Catholic holiday celebrating 40 days after the ascension of Christ.  We found out they have lots of Catholic holidays here.  Quite often they are on a Thursday and then they take Friday off and have a four day weekend.  But on their holidays almost everything is closed and the city is very quiet.

Saturday we were very excited to witness our first baptism on our mission.  A young woman in her 30's, Elizabeth Parso, who is from Spain, was baptized by Elder Quentin.  She doesn't speak German but Elder Vierbuchen speaks Spanish and he taught her.  She was so excited and it was a lovely service.  The Bishop spoke about baptism and Elder Hudson spoke about the Holy Ghost.  Bob and I were surprised to see our names on the program to give the opening and closing prayers but we were thrilled to do it.  Of course I had to do it in English, but she wouldn't have understood it in German either!  The Spirit was so strong at the meeting and during the baptism.  We are so happy this special girl has taken this important step and has become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She was confirmed on Sunday by Elder Vierbuchen.  They had refreshments afterward and I was happy I could bring a homemade treat.

It was a very full week and we loved it!  It's a challenge to get settled, find our way around, get organized, try to learn to speak German and get over jet lag, but it's coming.  The people have been wonderful and we look forward to meeting many more.

Our First Sunday in Ravensburg

Our initial call was to serve with the Young Single Adults.  A few weeks before we were to leave, we received an email from our Mission President asking us if we would serve as member leadership support (MLS) in Ravensburg where they have a small branch.  He also wanted us to serve in Dornbirn, Austria with a small Young Single Adult group there and support the missionaries in part of Switzerland.  Of course we agreed to all of the above and were excited to be able to serve in numerous capacities.  Our mission district here consists of two Elders in Ravensburg and two Elders in Dornbirn and the two of us.  We have a district meeting every Monday to discuss the work in our district and to train using Preach My Gospel and Gospel Essentials.  It usually goes about an hour and a half.  We are in the St. Gallen Zone which includes Ravensburg, Dornbirn, and several districts in Switzerland.

The Young Single Adults in Dornbirn meet on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.  It is a 45 minute drive from Ravensburg. The teacher is Gerda Stubbe-Greill.  Her husband is the bishop of the Dornbirn ward. She has been teaching the YSA's for quite a while and loves them and is very dedicated.  There are about 6 students who come regularly to Institute but they are terrific!  They study the material and are working on passing the exam at the end of the year.  It is a real challenge for Gerda because she has to try to squeeze two lessons into an hour each week.  She has also been providing some food each week and she has been doing this on her own, since the last Senior couple left in October of last year. We are delighted to be able to help her and support these YSA's.

Institute is also held in Ravensburg on Thursday evenings but it is a little unusual. Their are no active Young Adult's in Ravensburg but there are two single men who are fairly recent converts who come for gospel instruction.  The Elders have been teaching them but that will now be Elder Lake's assignment.

Our first Sunday in Ravensburg was fabulous!  We picked up the Elders on our way to church and arrived about an hour early.  The Elders like to help get things set up and be there when the members arrive to greet them.  We meet from 10:00 until 12:00. Our little branch meets on the top floor of a commercial building about 15 minutes from our apartment.  It's actually quite a nice spot.  It's rather new and has a decent sized chapel, rooms for nursery, Primary, youth, and the Relief Society.  There is also an office for the Branch President.  There is a tiny kitchen as well.  We just wish we had a church building that could be a presence in the neighborhood and invite interest from the residents.  We only have one family with children and they were gone that day.  We had two children visiting with their grandparents.  So that was very different for us following our calling in the Married Student Ward in Salt Lake with so many children.  There were about 25 people at church, which is typical, but they are a friendly, close knit group.  They warmly welcomed us and we started learning their names.  The Branch President is Jurgen Klaumunzner and his wife is Susanne.  They are awesome!  They have been serving here for 2 1/2 years even though they live in Switzerland and it takes them 2 hours each way to come to church on Sunday.  They have to take the ferry across the Bodensee (Lake Constance) twice.  We found out that next Sunday the whole Stake Presidency will be at our little branch to reorganize the Branch Presidency.  We are very sad because we instantly fell in love with this dear couple.  She served a mission to France but speaks excellent English.  That was a blessing for me!  We have a terrific young couple in our branch, Corinna and Giampietro (Giampi) Tonoli.  He is Italian and she is German.  They both speak English.  He is in the Branch Presidency.  She sat down by me and offered to translate. Yahoo!  He translated for me the second hour for Gospel Doctrine class.

Jurgen and Susanne Klaumunzner

Elder Hudson (top photo) and Elder Williams

We invited the Elders over for dinner and then we were fortunate to be able to go to Dornbirn for a special musical evening put on by the members there as a missionary event.  They had invited friends and neighbors to attend.  They had a pretty good turnout.  Much effort and preparation had gone into the evening.  There were about 10 different numbers with assorted groups and musical instruments as well.  They had a couple of videos interspersed with messages of finding God.  There was a very special spirit there.  We met some wonderful people before and after.  We met the Institute teacher, Gerda, and she expressed her gratitude and enthusiasm for our arrival.  She is very excited to have our support and help.  They served lots of delicious finger foods in the yard behind the church.  The weather was perfect and it was a delightful evening.

Ravensburg here we come!

Friday morning, May 19, we had a lovely breakfast with the Kohlers.  Then we were introduced to our new little Hyundai that we would be driving for the next 18 months.

We were able to get everything, except the bikes, into the car.  Hooray! The Kohlers were going to Switzerland for a Stake Conference on the weekend and agreed to leave the bikes with the Elders in Dornbirn on their way.  We drove to Dornbirn (45 minutes away from Ravensburg) on Monday, May 22, and picked them up.  So, back to Munich.  We bid farewell to the Kohlers and drove the 2 hours and 15 minutes to Ravensburg.  It was a beautiful drive!  When we arrived, the young Elders met us at our apartment at Wangenerstrasse 88/99 88212 Ravensburg.  The apartment hadn't been occupied since October when the last senior couple, the Justesens, left.  But the Elders had kindly done some cleaning for us so it didn't look bad.  The apartment is actually bigger than we expected.  It has one good sized bedroom for us and another small bedroom with two twin beds end to end for guests. There is a pretty small but light kitchen and a larger living/dining room.  There are two separate bathrooms.  One is a water closet with a toilet and tiny sink.  The other has a bigger sink and a tub/shower and a stackable washer and dryer.  We are on the third and top level of a building with 13 apartments.  We are grateful to be in a corner apartment because there are more windows.  We have two balconies, one off the living room and one off the kitchen.  The living room is on south side and the kitchen is on the west side.

 Most all homes and apartments have exterior blinds that you lower at night and raise in the morning.  They completely shut out the light and most of the noise.  We really like this feature!
So, we deposited all our things in the apartment and then the Elders took us into town to get some groceries.  That first visit to the market was quite an experience!  We bought just enough to get us by till the next day.  We treated the Elders to a lunch of bratwurst out on the plaza.  We were surprised to find out that they really don't eat brats here in Southern Germany like they do in the north.  The Elders had never had one!
The Elders were on splits that day, so we connected them with their own companions and then headed back to the apartment to put the food away.  We took a walk into the old city in the evening and loved seeing the old architecture and the cobblestone streets.  What an adventure lies ahead!

We're off to Germany!

We took off very early on Wednesday morning, May 17, to fly to Munich, Germany.  Our good friend, Eric Belnap, drove us to the airport in his truck.  We had 4 large checked bags, two carry-on bags, two personal bags, and two bike bags. Phew!

 Unfortunately, it was snowing when we left, so we piled all the bags into the cab of the truck and put the bikes in the back under a tarp.

  It was a little bit of a challenge to get everything into the airport and checked.  But we made it and barely came in under weight with our checked bags.  We flew to Chicago where we had a 5 hour lay over.  (The Church travel department made our reservations!)

Chicago selfie

 Then we flew 9 hours to Munich and arrived about 10:30 a.m.  We were exhausted but excited.  Needless to say, it was quite a chore to get all our luggage from the carousel out to the front of the airport where the President and his wife were waiting to pick us up without leaving it unattended. But we were successful! President and Sister Kohler were warm and friendly and we were so delighted to see them. We loaded everything into the mission van and headed to the mission office.  We met the office couples, the Hansens and the Gildners.  They took care of paper work and gave us instructions.  I'm not sure how much of it we remember because we were pretty much in a fog mentally.

 Then the Kohlers took us to the mission home, where they live, and Sister Kohler fed us lunch.  We were able to visit with them for a little while but then Sister Kohler noticed we were dozing off and suggested a nap.  We took advantage of that idea!  We only slept an hour or so because we wanted to be able to sleep at night.  We met the Kohler's 16 year old daughter, Erica.  The five of us went out to dinner at a lovely German restaurant and sat out on the patio.  I had wienerschnitzel, of course, and it was delicious! Everyone's meals were fabulous.  We were grateful we had decided to stay Thursday night with the Kohlers instead of driving two hours to Ravensburg where we would live.  We looked forward with great anticipation to getting to our new home for the next 18 months but thankfully had a good night's sleep before we left.

The Mission Story Begins

(I am finally getting this blog going!  Please bear with me for these first few posts while I get caught up to the present. We want this blog to cover the entire mission.)

I guess I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. We received our call to The Alpine German Speaking Mission on March 2 and opened it March 3 when we returned from a trip to Hawaii early in the morning.  We had Brandon and Julie Ann and their family at our home and everyone else on FaceTime or watching the recorded version later. We also had our bishop, Eric Belnap, with us since he had picked us up at the airport.  Bob let me read the call because it was my first time to receive a mission call.  We were called to work with the Young Single Adults.  We were super excited.  We were told we would report to the MTC on May 8, 2017.  Just over two months to get ready.  We had no idea how fast the time would go or how much there would be to do to get ready.



The next step on this journey was the Open House we had on Saturday, April 29, at our home from 2:00 until 5:00.  We had lots of help from friends and family and it was terrific! We had the Open House so we could see family and friends before we left.  Lots of people came and we loved it!  We felt so much love and support and it was truly a blessing.


Sunday, April 30, we spoke in our Sacrament Meeting and again we felt tremendous love and support. We were grateful for the opportunity to share our testimonies and our gratitude for the opportunity to serve a mission.


On Tuesday, May 2, we headed to the MTC for two days of immersion language training.  We had been receiving language training by Skype once a week for about 6 weeks.  We each had our own tutor and we also each had a learning coach.  This was great but they encouraged us to come to the MTC and spend full days with tutors and volunteers immersed in the German language.  We took advantage of this service and really enjoyed it.  Each hour we had a different experience.  We wished we had been able to spend more time there because it was very beneficial.  The spirit of missionary work is very strong at the MTC and it was inspiring and motivational.

Language tutors, Jaron Thorley, Natalie Motto and Grace Hendricks.

The following Monday, May 8, was when we reported to the MTC to stay for the week and be taught how to be missionaries.  We had a group of about 120 senior missionaries.  We were very impressed by this group of dedicated and faithful seniors heading all over the world to help build the kingdom. We met some really terrific people.  We were taught by outstanding returned missionaries and we all learned a lot. This was an amazing week that we will never forget and we loved it!  We were sad to see it end.  We went home for the weekend and celebrated Mother's Day with our family.  On Monday, we returned for two days of CES training to learn how to teach the Young Single Adults in our mission.  We were joined by the other senior couples who were called to teach as well. The Church has put together an incredible manual for teaching.  These two days we were taught by Church Education instructors who have a lot of experience teaching young people.  We hope we will be able to put into practice all the principles they taught us.

Our MTC district with our teachers. The Grants, the Mechams,and the Dearings.
Sister Donakey and Sister Anderson.

The Senior couples in our CES training.

We came home Tuesday night and finished packing so we could leave early Wednesday, May 17, for Germany.   Our kids and grandkids in Utah came over to help us get ready to go and to say goodbye. We had already said goodbye to the families in Missouri when we visited there at Easter.  It was very difficult to say goodbye because we will miss them all so much, but we hope our mission will bless them as well as us.  Thank goodness we will be able to call and FaceTime frequently.