Weeks 5 thru 8

Welcome to weeks five through eight of our adventure in Germany. Above is our Bishop in the Frankfurt Hochst Ward. It really is a small world after all... it turns out that our Bishop Jorge Klebingat, a native German, was a good friend of our daughter Heidi's while at Ricks College in Idaho. He is head of European Church Distribution here in Frankfurt. He speaks excellent English and Russian, along with his native German.

Above are Melody's international shoppping buddies: (Left to Right) 80 year old East German, Elfie Herrman, Dutch born Canadian, Arendje Whidden and Finnish born Raija Maddock. We each must bring our own shopping bags since grocery stores typically do not provide them. You also are required to make a deposit to get a shopping cart.

Whenever one or more of the missionaries completes their assignment and goes home there is a party. (Gary is chatting with the McNamaras with the Madsens in the background.) Food is always good and Sister Gutherie writes personalized songs that detail the experiences of the person leaving. It will be fun to hear what details will be in our "farewell song" (although we aren't thinking too much about that yet).

This is a familiar site...Gary on the phone. We could have done a whole blog with photos of Gary here, there and everywhere - with the phone. He's talking to missionaries or their mission presidents in 16 different countries. This is the site most often seen by Mel who sits directly across the desk from Gary. We did hear the other day, however, that the Area Presidency is going to encourage more travel by the medical department out to missions. We may get to meet some of the people we talk to on the phone all the time.

Think of that Sesame Street Song: "Who are the people in your neighborhood..." Well, here is Roland who is known for his somewhat grumpy demeanor and failure to smile. We've actually gotten him to say, "Hello", use our names and smile!

Fortunately, Gabi works noon to closing and has a ready smile for all. She's shown a lot of interest in the dozen or so missionary couples who live in the building above the store. She has looked up things on the Internet about the church and asked for something to read about the church. She is very sweet and Melody is forging a genuine friendship with her.

Stacy Silipu was born in Peru but when her father died they were disinherited and moved to Germany where they had family. Stacy is a bright girl of 16 who wants to improve her English. Melody and Suzanne Dye meet with Stacy weekly to help.

This is amazing to us...dogs seem to be welcome in restaurants, shopping malls and above in the Jewish Museum.

Melody is attempting to read the Hebrew publication. We visited two Jewish museums. One focused on their survival of the holocaust the other on their culture over the ages. We learned that the European Jews were persecuted and required to wear a "mark" on their clothing as early as the 1300's. Bans were lifted and reinstated over many centuries.

In Cologne, Germany we visited the Roman/German museum. Many amazing Roman artifacts have been excavated within Germany. Cologne was at the far Northern extreme of the Roman empire in its glory days.

This is the most fantastic Gothic cathedral! This photo shows about half of it. We chose this photo because we could NOT find a place far enough back where you could fit the whole building into the frame. Nor could we see the top of the tallest spire! It was up into the clouds! The interior featured an unusual amount of stained glass. Our friends, The Whiddens, said that it was more impressive than Notre Dame which they saw in December. The construction of this cathedral spanned over 600 years.

Near the cathedral we visited the Nazi Gestapo headquarters (now called El De). We like this old photo of the young Nazi soldiers in front of the Cologne Cathedral (The same one in the earlier picture). It really brought history alive for us. We visited the actual Gestapo headquarters where they had kept things pretty much as they had been. There was a lot of writing on the walls of the cells that told the horrific story of those interrogated there.

The main reason a cathedral was built in Cologne was to house the relics of the Magi. It is believed that the bones (relics) of the wise men who visited Christ are held in this chest. Our guide informed us that modern scientific studies prove the relics to be from the correct time period, but whether these are the actual bones is still debated. Over the centuries many have made pilgrimages to Cologne to worship because of these relics. There was an early (pre-1200 AD) church on the site, but eventually, a better building befitting the special relics needed to be built. And it is grand!

Couldn't resist capturing Gary at the Roman/German museum wandering among artifacts doing an emergency counseling session. There is time to relax and recuperate on weekends, but the job involves being on call 24/7 and there are usually weekend and evening calls.

Mel is thinking about the name of this street: Willy Brandt. She thinks this is the German doctor who discovered a blood condition (slow clotting factor). She and a few of the kids have this factor. If you are interested, Google "pictures of Frankfurt". The down town, which we are in the middle of in this shot, is very impressive. Notice the weather. Got to go when we have the chance.

Where ever we go across the whole wide world...Gary can find a McDonalds! But it is sometimes necessary to pay extra for ketchup and the small size drinks provided are not refillable.

Until next time. Our love to all.

Weeks 3 & 4 Germany

Welcome to weeks 3 & 4 in our lives here in Frankfurt...Melody has been busy "nesting" and making our home more attractive. A little bit of color, rearranging and some shelving make our once impossible little kitchen quite workable. (Gary will expect better meals now!)

Gary leaves for work (all the way across the parking lot!) at or before 7 am while it is still fairly dark. The missionaries he works with are up early. You can see from the number of lights already on that Gary's not the only one "up at at it"!

Last Saturday, the Whiddens called as we were tying on our scarves for a trek downtown. So, instead we headed for the quaint university town of Marburg.

Throughout Europe there are still plenty of specialty stores. The bakery, the shoemaker and the all important "brush store". Some of the little brushes had smiley faces on them.

Here we are are on a typical street in Marburg. We love the narrow pedestrian-only streets.



Our friends, the Whiddons are just ahead of us on this downhill slippery walkway.

The following week we head off for a Senior Missionary outing to the Deutches Ledermuseum (The Leather Museum) in Offenback. It turned out to be more than shoes and purses.

We pose in front of a fiersome dragon made of leather.

Native American art in Germany? Go figure! Gary acting as docent and

explaining to Brother Fankhauser the meaning of life.

We continue to try to meet new people who might be interested in learning about the church. This guy was a bit stiff necked and hard headed.

It was interesting to learn that the gold leafing was affixed to books and

other leather objects with egg white.

Here we learn the origin of the unicorn. It was a Norseman who found a long (very long) tooth from an ancient large fish. When he returned the story mutated until, as the legend goes, it had been found on a mystical animal.

The designer, Louis Vitton, got his start in creating a great travel trunk.

He soon created many other leather pieces.

Melody is intent on getting the right view of these leather crests.

We end our 4th week with a trek into downtown Frankfurt. Melody has been dying

to get a photo of this great ancient tower justaposed with the modern skyskrapers.

We usually don't have the camera or it's dark out.

Till next time...

Weeks 1 and 2

Our view...

Two weeks out and we are feeling more adjusted to our new home and assignment. We've discovered that it doesn't snow that much in Frankfurt, but obviously from the picture, you can see that it does happen. This shot is looking out our apartment window at the Europe Area Headquarters, where we and a number of other employees and missionaries have offices. You can also see the back of one of the chapels in Frankfurt with two folks heading in for Church just to the left of the office building. (We don't have a very big trek to church no matter the weather conditions.) Two wards meet in this building with ours being one of them. Church is from 2 to 5. Small parking lot so no overlap is possible. Gary didn't pass out last Sunday! No more problems of any kind. Had to be just a fluke from the high blood pressure medicine.

This picture was taken 9:30 pm New Year's Eve. We did have a little work to do New Year's Eve. Melody is actually working, not a staged shot, but Waldo is missing. Gary actually doesn't spend a whole lot of time at the desk. He has a headset and tends to walk around when talking to missionaries.

New Year's Eve wasn't all work. We were invited to watch fireworks from another missionary's apartment. This couple (Whiddens) are from Canada and serve as the other Mental Health Advisors. They have a seventh floor apartment facing downtown. Perfect view of fireworks. The spread shown is proof that we won't starve in Germany.

Great picture huh? This was a futile attempt to capture the amazing fireworks which were of a kind and intensity totally new to us. Apparently, it's a German thing. All over Germany they go all out with private fireworks. Not the public ones we are used to, but thousands of individual displays all around from every nook and cranny. These weren't sparklers or the fireworks we get in Utah, but full out rockets shooting off everywhere. Noise, smoke and color. Quite spectacular, and also quite impossible to describe. Guess you will just have to come over and see for yourself next New Year.

This is one of our investigators. We met her at the z00 last Saturday. It doesn't seem to bother her that we don't speak German. Actually, Melody does have a person from the grocery store close to us who could be coming to Church with us one day. Virtually all of our time is spent working with missionaries, but that hasn't kept Melody (Gary is a little more shy) to reach out to people and make friends of as many locals as possible.

This was also taken on our day at the zoo. If we look cold, we were. A little below freezing. Typical for this time of year, but it won't last. We have promises from everyone that Germany and the surrounding areas are absolutely beautiful in the Spring, Summer and Fall. Note the hat on Elder Taylor. Again, it's a German thing. (Melody really likes hats:)

So how do we spend our time? Gary is basically full time talking to missionaries and Mission Presidents all day and sometimes into the evening. He was worried that this would get boring and stressful, but so far, it is very fulfilling. It's obvious that the Lord's missionaries are very special to Him. Great blessings come to them and to those who work with them. Melody makes appointments, does medication checks with missionaries, and handles a lot of the necessary paperwork. There is a little time left over for her to shop & make our apartment cute, and spend time with other missionaries and locals. Weekends are ours to use as we see fit and it should be possible to take extended weekends every once in awhile. It seems like the missionaries who have been here a while have all seen a great deal of Germany on their weekends. We have a cell phone for the emergencies and plan to venture further once the weather improves.

We are in Germany!

Sorry folks...we're still getting the hang of how to insert into this blog...first few photos and comments are out of order.

We were delayed getting to Germany because of severe storms and cancelled flights. We felt like our new home was going to be Chicago!
We were able to get a hotel for that night but there wasn't another scheduled flight for 24 hours. The one compensation (for Gary) was that there was the last half of a BYU game on the hotel TV. Go Cougars! It was a really long trip! But as the billboard says, "Push forth fair lady!"

(Backing up in sequence...)

Shortly before we left for California we had a chance to spend some time with Elder Oaks and his wife at Clint and Nadine's. Elder Oaks was the Area Authority in Europe until recently and gave us a good heads up about what to expect. Basically, he said you will work long hours but have the best experience of your lives. He is very excited about the work in Europe which has seen a 20% increase in converts recently. Most of this has come from the young adult sector. The next day we set off in our RV for California. Great chance to see some of our California kids before boarding a plane for Germany. Elder and Sister Dye met us at the airport and here we are (above) with our large amount of lugguage in front of our new apartment building. It's probably significant that Elder Dye (an MD) was on the phone a good part of the time we were at the airport. He was speaking with an ill missionary. It was a problem that he was more than happy to refer on to us. Mel made a follow up call to a missionary on Christmas Day to set an appointment for her with Gary the following morning.

They already have our name on the door. This is outside our office in Frankfurt. No pictures of the inside yet.

We were treated to a traditional German Christmas meal on our first night in Germany (Christmas Eve). The lady on the right is 80 year old, Elfie Herrmann. She was born in East Germany and had interesting stories of life under Hitler. The other two are fellow medical missionaries. Robert & Raija Maddock. A small world experience - Robert is the uncle of Gary's South Jordan Doctor:) Raija is from Finland. Fantastic food and a great evening.

Our hosts on our first night gave us some candles to brighten our apartment and German chocolate. (One was White chocolate with cocobut) How did they know? We also found that our pantry and fridge had been filled with food for a week. We kept asking who to thank and wanting to pay whoever back - but everyone claimed it was someone else. This is all a great blessing since stores are closed for 5 days over the holidays and we won't be able to set up our German bank account, etc. until Jan 4.

Living room all set up when we arrived. Two TV channels in English (CNN and BBC).

Eating area. Three chairs in the apartment. Definitely won't entertain large groups but plenty of room for guests. Usually people bring their own chair and everyone shares what they have--so come on over!

The bathroom is like the rest of the apartment. Everything necessary. Nice and clean, but small by US standards. (Everything but the size of the rent anyway.)

A pair of Senior Humanitarian Missionaries, Blaine & Chris Colton, invited us to go with them on a trip to Heidleberg (about an 1 1/2 hours from Frankfurt) on Saturday, our second day in Germany.

Here we have Elders Colton and Taylor in front of part of the Heidleberg castle. I expect we will see several more castles before our 18 months is up. Beautiful and interesting.

The shops are fun too. Just need to keep the Sister missionaries moving along. Lots to see (and buy). Bread store in Heidleberg. (gotta love that hat!) Don't think we will go hungry in Germany.

This morning was our first Sabbath in our new German ward. Great people and a great Spirit. We had a headset and listened to an English translation. At the end of Sacrament meeting everyone stood to sing the closing song (in German of course). After the first verse, Gary started to feel dizzy and had to sit down. The feeling didn't go away and pretty soon he found himself lying on the bench with his legs being held up. Gary totally passed out--a new experience. Happily, there were two great physicians in the row behind us (part of the missionary medical staff) who were a great help. Paramedics were called but when they got there Gary had recovered and is fine. (However,Melody is still shook up!) Apparently medication for high blood pressure works better in Germany and Gary had such low blood pressure that he'd blacked out. The paramedics were great and didn't charge for their service. We both received priesthood blessings.

Interesting way to start off in our new ward! In general, our experience so far is like what living in the Celestial Kingdom must be like, except lousy TV and we miss our family. There are great people here who look out for everyone else.

Tomorrow we start in the office, but it may be a light load for awhile since the country is still on holiday status and we haven't connected with Mission Presidents yet. Good time to get settled.

Love from Melody and Gary