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Good Start For A New Year.....So Far

We made an effort to start the New Year off with a bang. Our effort consisted of staying up to midnight to watch fireworks in Frankfurt and the surrounding little towns.

The night started with several of the senior missionaries gathering together to play card and board games. At first there was a comfortable crowd, but it soon grew to such an extent that it was hard to get around. Everyone brought some sort of snack. Diane couldn't eat any of them, but I heard the chocolate-filled donuts constantly talking to me until I finally gave in. Note from Diane - there were some peppers and celery I could eat, but they're a far cry from a chocolate-filled donut!

Later that night we took up an offer to watch the fireworks at midnight at Elder and Sister Jensen's 11th floor apartment. Prior to midnight, people in the neighborhood were shooting off fireworks.  It was a great show, but at midnight.... oh my!  The entire skyline lit up from the city of Frankfurt to just down the street.  Unlike America, the display show was everywhere, not just by professionals at one location.  For 45 minutes it went on without slowing down or breaks.  Brilliant colorful displays were exploding right in front of us and just over our heads there on the 11th floor.  The boom of some of them were so loud that the entire building shook.  It was a bit scary, but amazing.  What was interesting is that before the fireworks started at midnight, you could see the distant lights of the Frankfurt skyline.  After 20 minutes, you were lucky to see the end of the street because of the smoke in the air.

The whole thing was so amazing that I decided to share the event with my sister, Jill. She was at home in Virginia eating dinner and watched while fire displays were exploding just feet away from us on the balcony in Frankfurt.  This link shows the fireworks at 12:40 AM.  They were starting to wind down. https://youtu.be/Dpx4SycLWVs

Even when we went to bed about 1:30 AM there were still some fireworks going off in the distance.

Corner next to our apartment building.

Corner down the street shown on the video.  

They swept everything out of the street.

The next morning we took our normal walk. The streets were covered with debris from the fireworks.

The day after New Years, we began preparing for Sunday. We opened the new Church's New Testament study guide called Come Follow Me. We glanced over it and skimmed over it and thought, "Well, this will probably take all of 10 minutes to study. Reading the reference scriptures and answering the related questions from the manual did not turn out to be easy answers, though. It could have been easy had it not been that our minds began to come up with all sorts of ideas for discussion. We spend 1-1/2 hours on just half of the lesson. It was an amazing experience and very informative.

This evening, Friday, we had a second discussion with the missionaries teaching a young man from China. This young man is very mature and smart for his age. He is in his 20s but thinks of things that most older adults don't even concern themselves with. His English is excellent, also. Tonight he told us of some miraculous answers he received from God and that he feels certain that God will answer any prayerHe plans to specifically ask God to reveal to him if this is Jesus Christ's church.

So. That is how our New Year has started. It's been great. Hopefully, it will continue that way for the rest of 2019. We have lots ahead of us! We received our 90-days before departure letter from the assistant zone leaders, so we're starting to prepare to come home.

We love you and miss you all. You are frequently in our thoughts and prayers.

Frohe Weihnachten, Ya'll

We have been extremely busy at work.  We have been pushing hard to get the Technology Groups up and running; often holding meetings until 10:00 at night.  Our stress levels have been overwhelming as we worry about accomplishing everything we want to get done before we leave our missionary assignment.  To make things worse, we just got our 90 day departure letter. NINETY DAYS?????  That is hardly enough time to finish.

However, we have done our best to enjoy our final German Christmas.  Let us fill you in on some of the things we have participated in.

The rain dampened (sorry for the pun) the attendance this year.

Early in the month of December, our International Ward went down to the Zeil (middle of Frankfurt) and sang English hymns.  It was rainy.  So instead of positioning ourselves at the fountain like last year, we got under the overhang of a nearby store.  The crowd was not as full as it was last year but we sure had great fun in singing to the people.

After singing, some of us took the advantage of being downtown and walked through parts of the Christmas market nearby.

Notice the high rise buildings of Frankfurt in the background.

Fancy booths.  This place had shingles and all.

Most Christmas Markets are not so fancy.  

A week later, Sister van Hoff went to Texas to be with her family.  It was her mother's birthday.  The family felt it would be best that they be together this year.

While she was away, our ICS Department(Information and Communication Services) went out for a Christmas dinner.  I now can say that I've tasted roasted goose.  All the spouses were invited.  That made a total of about 20 of us.  There are three others in our department that work from other countries and were flown in.  Our department is so international, we have American (me), German (east and west), French, Spanish, British, Scandinavian, Italian, and Portuguese.  Guess what one of the topics at the table was?  That's right, languages.

Bro. Santos our department head is on the right.  What a great 

example he is of leadership.  He never has an office meeting 

without opening the scriptures.

The brother with the glasses is our immediate supervisor. 

This man is so knowledgeable when it comes to technology.

The brother on the left is our newest member.  He is from France.

Last Tuesday, we attended our German Culture class at the teacher's apartment.  Sister Enger had everything prepared.  She had stories.  One was about the Nutcracker and the Mouse King.  Sister van Hoff and I played some German music with our recorders followed by a friend of hers, Frau Steinkamp, who took the place of St. Nikolaus.  She read from a book which told something personal about each person in the room.  Then Sister Enger presented each with a gift.  Sister van Hoff was told about how well she does speaking German and how good she is with music.  I was told what a good baker I was and how I was able to make delicious chocolate cakes out of zucchini.  

Sister Johnson, the wife of the Europe Area President, is reading

the story of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

Sister Enger lit this tree.  Those are real candles.

Frau Steinkamp is reading St. Nikolaus's notes

 about one of the missionaries 

Sister van Hoff is conversing in German.   

She learned a lot about Frau Steinkamp

Finally, just yesterday we went to a Christmas market in Michelstadt -- a town about an hour away.  What a quaint little town.  It was daytime so it probably wasn't as busy as when it gets dark and they turn on the lights.  It was great seeing the eyes of the people coming to the market. Especially the young children.  There were little rides for them to go on.  The smell of food and other fragrances was wonderful.  They had beautiful Christmas music being played from speakers all over town.  Here are some of the sights we saw.  

Bill Price, if you see this, eat your heart out.

 It was great to see the nativity scene in the middle of town.  Something you don't see in America.

Life size nativity scene in the middle of town.

You can't see from this angle but there is no Christ child.

He comes on Christmas Day.

Busy Christmas market

As you can tell, it's pretty chilly.

We wish every one of you a very Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!.  We love you.

Wonderful German Christmas Season

A transformation happened overnight yesterday. November 30th was like any other day. Then on Saturday, December the 1st, there were Christmas decorations everywhere, Christmas markets opened, Christmas events activities posted, and people were everywhere greeting everyone else with the Christmas spirit. It was the 1st day of Advent.

Last night we attended a Christmas concert at the ward building in Friedrichsdorf. Unbelievable.  The decorations in the chapel were absolutely beautiful and the choir sang a variety of Christmas songs in both English and German. We loved it.

Thong & the sister missionaries who taught him 

A couple of weeks back, Sister van Hoff and I had the opportunity to help the sister missionaries teach a young man from Vietnam. Yesterday he was baptized into the church. Here was a guy who had almost no understanding of God and now he not only understands who Heavenly Father is, he also has a testimony that this is Christ's church. He spoke at his baptism telling everyone how he was guided by the Spirit and felt the witness of the Holy Ghost letting him know that this is the Savior's church.

He asked me to be the spokesman to bestow the Gift of the Holy Ghost on him. What and honor that was. I wanted to pronounce his name correctly, so I kept asking him to say it over and over again. I was just not getting it right. Eventually I had an idea. I asked him to say his name twice while recording it on my phone. I practiced all evening and most of Sunday. I still don't think I said it correctly, but I'm sure I got pretty close.

After his baptism

He is so happy. I remember when we helped teach, he was somewhat expressionless. He is smiling nearly all the time now. Unfortunately, his smile was not captured in the photos.

Before the baptism, I went for one last ride on my bike. Riding a bike has been like a new world to me. Whenever I feel stressed or just need to relax, I get on the bike and ride. I have enjoyed seeing places in the area that I could not have seen by walking or driving a car. I will miss my bike, but I know someone who desperately needs it more than I do. Hopefully I will be able to get a bike when I return to the States. I just hope that the area I live in is suitable for riding. Mountainous areas would probably be too difficult for me.  Here is a link to my last bike ride here in Germany. I warn you, it is 5 minutes long.  https://youtu.be/nddBUoG6F-k

Earlier this week we did some gardening. We had a peace plant that grew more than we expected, so we split it up and planted several sections into different pots.

Having fun in the dirt

Our plan was to give out plants to others. In fact, Friday evening we gave out two of the seven repotted plants. Five more to go. It felt good to get our hands into dirt again.

I want to share one more thing. We have been talking about the technology groups we are forming here in Europe. To refresh your memory, the groups are formed of stake and district technology specialists from different stakes and districts in a geographic area. The organized groups have different communication channels to use for staying in touch and provide support when needed.

This past week we spoke with the facilitators overseeing the three pilot groups we used. Two of the three had almost no communication going on. The facilitators reported that they felt frustrated and that their groups were not functioning.

We reassured them that their groups were functioning just fine. If there are no problems, typically there will be no communication going on. We encouraged the facilitators to periodically send something out in their text group. This could be done monthly or every couple of months. The idea is to help the other members of the group to remember that they have a group to call on if an emergency arises.

The Hungary-Romania Technology Group was one of them that had no communication. We encouraged the facilitator to send out a message on his group text. His meeting was the last video-conference we had that evening. After we ended the meeting and put things away, we left the office to walk home to our apartment building. No sooner than we stepped out of the door, my cell phone began to ding over and over again.  I checked the phone to see what was going on. There was all sorts of texting going on back and forth with the Hungary-Romania TG. Of course, it was initiated with the facilitator. What a wonderful testimony that was. The Lord is truly blessing this program and it is wonderful to be able to see it happen.

We only have 4 months left. It may seem like a long time, but for us it is hardly enough time. There is still so much to do. Lord willing, we will be able to complete all that we want to accomplish.

We love you and pray for you.

Hard Work and Success

This week was full of long hours of work and having success all along the way.

As of the end of this week we have succeeded in initiating 7 out of 10 technology groups for our first rollout over Europe. For this first rollout we chose groups who spoke English, or at least had the capability to speak English. Other than the United Kingdom and Ireland, the groups consisted of the following countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Poland, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, and Cyprus.  Obviously there are more than 10 countries. Some countries only have one or two technology specialists or none at all, so we combined some countries together.

Our meetings with these groups are in the evenings. So after a full day at the office, we go home for dinner an immediately head back to work for the evening of meetings. Some times we worked until 10:00 PM.  By the end of the week, we began to feel the effects of putting in so many hours.  (Note from Sister van Hoff: sometimes I took comp time and came home for a few hours in the afternoon.) 

It is really interesting to visually meet these church members from other parts of Europe. There are so many different personalities and background stories. Some have performed the responsibilities of a technology specialist long before the Church created the position. Some members in the groups have only been in the position for a month or less and are clueless of their responsibilities.

We had one interesting group that actively communicated during the video conference. They had questions and comments and even got involved with a discussion amongst themselves. We learned near the end of the meeting that they had been messaging each other the whole time. That feature is available on the video conference software. It shows up on the right side of the screen.

In another group we witnessed just the opposite. For whatever reason, they would only use their cameras for a short while. Only when they unmuted their microphone, they would also open up their camera. When they finished talking, they would mute their mic and turn off their camera. One of them went a step further. When he talked he would do the same as the others, but would put his hand in front of the camera so that we could not see his face. We tried to encourage them to use their cameras so that each of the members could get to know each other. That didn't change anything.

We’ll have one more video conference with each group before we begin the second and final rollout.

Earlier in the week we got an email from a U.S. military stake. (A stake consists of a geographic cluster of meetinghouses.) They were asking us for help. They had audio difficulties while testing out their webcasting equipment.

We sent them some step-by-step instructions, which we had written up, and told them if they followed them precisely, they should have success.

Equipment set up in chilly High Council room.

Tuesday evening, at about 9:00 PM, we had just finished up with a technology group video conference and were getting ready to head home. The military stake called us up on our cell phone. They were at the church testing out the equipment, but couldn’t get the audio to work. For the next hour, we had them test out each piece of equipment. We checked their streaming capabilities online. We even had them take a picture of their mixer to see of any of the controls looked odd. Nothing worked. So we agreed that we would make arrangements to go to their stake building (a couple of hours away) and work on the problem ourselves.

Sister van Hoff packing up.

Thursday morning we packed up the car with our own equipment and headed to Kaiserslautern, Germany. We used the High Council room to set up our equipment. They had a huge table which gave us plenty of room to set everything up. The only bad thing is that there was no heat on and it was chilly. We turned up the radiators, but still nothing. The heating system must have been on a timer.

The correct way to connect.

We set up our equipment first, because we knew our cables and devices worked. We were successful with the first attempt. Piece by piece, starting with the microphone, we switched out to use their equipment. Next was the XLR cable, then the mixer, then the "Y" adaptor.  Everything worked.  Finally we started to switch out the Teradek.  That is when we found the problem.  The Teradek is a device that encodes the video and audio input and sends it out to the internet.  Immediately we noticed that the audio input jack was connected to the earphone output jack connection on the side of the Teradek.  It should have been connected to the input jack connection in the back.

We ran one final test with all of the equipment and everything worked.  Wow!  Two hours of driving and three hours of testing equipment, all for a mini jack plugged into the wrong place.  Still, it was a great feeling to have solved a problem ON OUR OWN.  WhooooHooo!

By the weekend, we really felt we needed a rest.  We still worked, but in a more fun way.  I did take a cold bike ride Saturday morning.  There was frost on the ground.

In the afternoon, we helped the Sister missionaries teach a young man from Vietnam.  The lesson ended with him accepting and wanting to be baptized.  He has been talking to the missionaries for a couple months.

In the evening SIster van Hoff and I, along with tow other missionary couples;Elder and SIster Johnson, and Elder and Sister Lindsay, were judges in a road show competition.  There were five youth groups who put on skits.  There was comedy, singing, and dancing.  they were all good and very entertaining, which made it difficult to judge.  Yet we had an enjoyable evening.

We love you all and pray for you.  We want to thank you for your prayers for us.

Just Some Of Our Missionaries

This week has been pretty exciting for us.  As we have mentioned in past posts, we are rolling out the Technology Group program.  (Just a reminder: we formed groups based on geographic areas where everyone will speak the same language.  Communication is the key factor in how well these groups function and become self-sustaining.)

We're forming 22 groups.  (One group will be called the Europe International Technology Group.  It consists of 4 separate groups, but they are so small we had to put them together.)  Last week we organized and had Zoom video conference meetings with 3 groups.  Counting the 3 pilot groups, we now officially have 6 groups up and running.  For us, that is a big deal.

It was so much fun meeting and talking to these brethren. Groups can include sisters, but so far there have been no female technology specialists. I even learned about two texting apps that I'm now interested in using.  My sister back in Virginia helped me play with them to me find out which I would like the best.  They are both encrypted, both work on iPhones and Androids, and both allow you to form group texting.  What makes this group texting special is that, even if you delete the conversation in the groups, the group itself remains on your contacts.

We also learned about making a green screen background using Zoom video conferencing.  I'd like to buy some fabric and try it out. Fun stuff.

So, other than working with the technology groups, we had an interesting evening on Thursday.  Immediately after one of our group video conference meetings, we got a phone call from the Kaiserslautern Military Stake in Germany.  They had audio problems when testing out their webcasting equipment.  We worked with them until nearly 10:00 PM.  We think we narrowed it down to one piece of equipment and the next day we drove 1-1/2 hours down to their stake to drop the piece off.  They have their Stake Conference in a week.

We don't have any new pictures so we thought we'd share pictures of some of our favorite missionaries.  These young men and women work so hard.  We are so impressed with them and their diligence and determination.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be in great hands in the upcoming generations.

Elders 

Robinson (very mature and calm)

Bentke (very serious German and a thinker)

Hamilton (had a way of saying things in just the right way)

Johnson (brought happiness and excitement into the room)

Sisters 

Griffin (always happy) 

and Schulz (always a pretty smile)

Sisters 

Schultz and

Hodges (super dedicated)

Sisters

Lowe (powerful testimony)

Fried (loving and happy)

Baker (filmed by reporters and by the Church)

Ruesch (learned German almost overnight)

Elder Winsborrrow (always smiling Tech Elder)

Sister Bonholzer (dedicated and persistent)

Three Weeks of Stress

It has been a while since our last post, but once you hear what has been going on, you'll understand.

Three weeks ago, with the approval of our Area President, I went back to the States to attend my son's wedding.

Earlier in the year, my son called to tell me that he had proposed to his long-time girlfriend and that she accepted. I was ecstatic. A few days later we video conferenced to talk about when the wedding would take place. I told him that I wasn't sure I could get permission. I proposed that I video conference in, but he wanted me there in person. When he mentioned that he would be willing to wait for me to return from our mission in April, I could see the look on his fiancée's face. There was great disappointment in her eyes.

Fortunately, and quite surprisingly, I was given permission to go back home for the wedding. It took a lot of planning on my part, because I've always promised my sons that if they ever got married, I'd make the wedding cake. And that I did. For those who are not aware, I used to be a baker a long time ago.

The day after my arrival I was dealing with jet lag and had had only about 4 hours sleep.  Nevertheless, I was under a tight schedule. I spent that day, from 7:30 AM to 10:30 PM, baking cakes and making icing at my sister's place in North Carolina.

My sons.  The one getting married standing next to me.

Most of the next day was spent on the road to the Outer Banks. That evening we had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Early the next morning, the day of the wedding, I went to the facility where the wedding would be and spent the morning icing and decorating the cakes. I needed to move and assemble the cake in an outdoor tent,  but it was hot and muggy. So I drove to the home of the in-laws, a beautiful beach house, to take a shower and change. I barely had enough time to move the cake and started decorating it with fresh flowers. I positioned the flowers and was getting ready to place the stems around. I looked at my watch and saw that I was 10 minutes late for the wedding.  I  literally threw the stems of leaves on the cake.

Still the wedding was beautiful and the wedding started 15 minutes late. The Lord answered our prayers and just minutes before the outdoor wedding began, the rain stopped.

The reception went very well. It was great to see my family members and to meet many of her family. A few days later I was back on the plane heading home. And it is great being back home again, here in Germany.

Probably due to the stressful schedule I had on that trip and averaging 4-5 hours of sleep each night, I came down with a bad cold a day after returning. Between the visit and the cold, that put me out of work for 2 weeks.

On Tuesday of the next week, I was scheduled to go to Klinikum Darmstadt to have surgery to have some skin cancer cells removed. Now, had I had the squamous cells removed in America, I would have been looking at having everything done in a doctor's clinic and completed in one day.

However, here in Germany, things are done differently. I was originally told that they would make an incision and take some of the cells and the analysis to determine if they got them all would take 24 hours. I would need to stay overnight with an open wound (sealed with some spray on bandage).

It turned out to be longer than that. When they got me onto the operating table, I was then told that it would take two days to analyze the cells. If successful, they would stitch me up, and I would need to stay over one more night. That meant another week of no work for me. Poor Diane has been holding down the fort by herself for three weeks.

During my stay at Klinikum Darstadt.

My ministering fellow senior missionary gave me a priesthood blessing before I left for Klinikum Darmstadt. Between that and prayers from many, I was blessed to have all the squamous cells removed on the first cut, rather than having to stay over the weekend.
This was stressful, but a memorable adventure. I was in a town about 40 some minutes away from my loving wife, staying in a strange facility where almost no one, except for the doctor, spoke English.  Fortunately my German was enough to understand most of what I was told, but it was too difficult for me to communicate back.

Even my roommate, a wonderful man, spoke absolutely no English. He was polite to listened to me struggle to get a conversation going, but I could tell he was grateful that I finally gave up trying.

Now I'm home and things are back to normal. My cold is finally about gone.

Service Project.  This was only one of 3 rooms being used.

Saturday, we even went to the church to help out with a Stake service project. Members and missionaries donated all sorts of clothes, personal care items, and food for the homeless here in Frankfurt. At the church we organized everything for distribution.  We had such a member/missionary turnout, that the 3-hour planned service project only took about 30 minutes.

Still feeling stressed? No. I am back home and ready to get to work with our missionary assignment. More importantly, it is comforting to be back with Diane. When we taught the Dave Ramsey courses, he would encourage people who became debt free to yell out, "We are debt free!"  Well, I'm yelling out, "I AM STRESS FREE!!!"