From Mom 1/25
Dear Family,
It finally feels and looks like winter here. Wednesday morning we woke up to snow and it snowed all day. It just comes straight down, not horizontal like it does at home. Now it is really cold. It sounds like a repeat of your weather. On Tuesday we had a Zone Conference in Nurnburg which is an hour and a half drive. The weather prediction was for 100% chance of snow for that day and we were nervous about having to drive that far in a storm but I guess our prayers were heard and answered because the storm held off until the next day. How thankful we were! We have a standing joke with the Elders about going to Nurnburg. The joke is that we get lost getting out of town every time we go and this week we got more lost than we ever have. It took us over two hours to get home and we went about 40 further coming back than we did going over. Last night the Elders locked their keys in their apartment so they called us a little after 10 and asked if we would drive them out to their landlord to get a spare key. They told us where it was so Dad hurried and studied the map to see where we were going. When the Elders got in the car, they said the landlord had told them how to get to his house and when Dad said, “I think I know right where to go”, we all started laughing and said, “Ya, we’ve heard that before!” But, much to our relief and to save face, Dad did know where to go and we drove right to the house. And before we are transferred to another zone, we have a goal of finding the right way out of Nurnburg!
This has been one of those ho-hum weeks when we’ve had a lot of cancellations. I think the weather scared a lot of people or they had other things come up and we haven’t accomplished a lot. One thing we have done though is to drive out to the Clements home each morning and tended the twins and their 2 year old while Mom took the two school children to school. That is the family that the Dad is in Provo this week interviewing for a job in the German department at BYU. He called this morning while we were there and feels like things are looking pretty good. He also said that someone from UVCC found out he was there and want him to interview with them too so he’s feeling pretty good about the chances for them to move to Utah. We feel like Mom and Dad to Sister Clements and Grandpa and Grandma to the children. In fact, the two year old always says, “Grandpa and Grandma are here!” when we ring the doorbell. While we were there this morning, Sister Gogen, the mother of 9 in our ward, called and asked if I would bring Sister Clements laundry back and she would do it for her. She was half sick and sounded awful but insisted on doing this for her. She is something else. She is always helping someone. A couple of weeks ago a sister in the ward, whose husband is in Iraq, had her baby and Sister Gogen took her to the hospital and stayed with her all day. It’s such a privilege to meet these wonderful people.
We are looking forward to our couple conference tomorrow and Saturday. We have our train tickets and know where to go to get on the train so we’re all set. It will be fun to be with missionaries more our same age. That’s nothing against the young Elders and Sisters. They are wonderful! But it will be nice to hear what other Senior Missionaries are doing. Friday afternoon we are going on a tour of some of the famous museums in Munich then we go to dinner at the mission home and just spend time together there. We are staying in a Holiday Inn hotel that is not far from the mission home and chapel where we will be having workshops all day on Saturday. This week President and Sister Rakow had Zone Conferences until Wednesday. They have today to finish getting things ready for the couple’s conference then next week, President Rakow begins interviews again. They sound a lot like the same schedule Brad and Elaine have. I don’t know how they do it. Sister Rakow said they just don’t think about it, they just do it. There are 170 missionaries in this mission. Another new couple came last week and they are in our district. They were on a mission in the Frankfort Mission 8 years ago.
Their family lived in Germany for 3 years while he was doing a government job and He was born in Munich but has lived in the states most of his life. They are from Bountiful and are such a nice couple. We met them at zone conference. There is another couple in this mission from Sugar City and we will get to meet them. Then Elder and Sister Davis were at the MTC the same time we were and we haven’t seem them since we left so are looking forward to seeing them again. All in all, it should be a wonderful weekend.
I just want to tell you about the clothes and shoes here. I wear a size thirty-nine and a half shoe and a size 40 sweater and a size 75 bra. Eat your heart out, LeAnn!! It’s all this good bread. But I wear a size 1 stocking so I’m still somewhat normal. It just cracks me up to be looking for a size 39 or 40 shoe. I had to get some boots when we got snow. To let you know I really am still normal, I still have to go to the bathroom the minute I walk in the door, even if I just went before we came home. Go figure.
Petra is coming along fine. She has been going out to the Clements to help with the babies in the afternoon when Sister Clements goes to pick up her kids. Yesterday she had quite a day. Both babies woke up and were hungry and cried most of the time she was there. But she’s going back today. She gets of work at 8 o’clock in the morning and sleeps a few hours then goes out there for a couple of hours and comes home and tries to get a few more hours of sleep before going to work again. This shift doesn’t come often but she has it this week. Last Saturday we drove her to Nurnburg to meet with President Rakow for an interview for her baptism. She is clear to go. She talked to President Rakow for an hour and a half and I think she got a lot of stuff out and behind her that needed to be out and left behind. She was impressed with his warmness and kindness and he and Sister Rakow were really impressed with her. She’s already talking to us about teaching some of her friends from work. She’s going to be a great missionary and a great member of this ward. She loves people and they love her. Everyone was so excited Sunday when the bishop announced her baptism. Dad reminded me that there are not many “Petra’s” in the world so I’ve got to come down out of the clouds. But we will be working with her for several months after she is baptized giving her the new-member lessons and just answering any questions she has. It has been such an awesome experience teaching her and seeing her testimony grow. She has a big picture of Buda on her wall and that has really bothered Dad. Not that she’s Buddhist but to her Buda represents some kind of religion and she has never had that in her life. Well, Dad told her one night last week the he had a surprise for her the next day and asked her if she trusted him that it would be a good surprise. He didn’t tell me what he was going to do but the next day when we visited her, Dad took the picture of Christ at the door that we have in our apartment and traded that for her Buda picture. I thought Petra was going to start to cry but she didn’t and agreed to trade pictures. Now we are waiting for one of Clark Prices pictures to arrive that will fit in the frame Buda was in. She’s been a good sport about it. She loves the new Priesthood/Relief Society lesson book by President Kimball and she had one of the pictures of him blown up and has it in a beautiful from on her wall. We want to get a picture of President Hinckley for her too. She is so looking forward to General Conference in April so she can see him.
If you could see Dad and me now you would just laugh. My back is starting to feel better but Dad stood up wrong the other day and he has been miserable. We look like a couple of OLD senior missionaries, especially when we have to stand up from praying or from sitting. Walking helps a lot but it just takes time for those muscles to heal when you stretch them the wrong way. I’m feeling better mentally too. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about taking anti-depressants but I told the mission doctor I would stay on them and I’m starting to feel like I might make it so he’s made a believer out of me that they do help. I’m sleeping better to and my appetite is coming back. Now I’m going to have to start watching what I eat so my clothes will still fit!
You will never know how much your letters mean to us. We look forward to hearing about all the news from your families. I read about all the running you do and all the things the kids are involved in and wonder how I ever did it. I guess it’s just like Sister Rakow said, you do it one day at a time. We’re excited about Cindy and Nate’s good news but it just about kills me that I won’t be there. I guess it’s okay if someone else stands in this time. Know that you are in our thoughts and prayers each and every day. We love all of you so much. Thank you for being who you are.
Much love,
Mom
It finally feels and looks like winter here. Wednesday morning we woke up to snow and it snowed all day. It just comes straight down, not horizontal like it does at home. Now it is really cold. It sounds like a repeat of your weather. On Tuesday we had a Zone Conference in Nurnburg which is an hour and a half drive. The weather prediction was for 100% chance of snow for that day and we were nervous about having to drive that far in a storm but I guess our prayers were heard and answered because the storm held off until the next day. How thankful we were! We have a standing joke with the Elders about going to Nurnburg. The joke is that we get lost getting out of town every time we go and this week we got more lost than we ever have. It took us over two hours to get home and we went about 40 further coming back than we did going over. Last night the Elders locked their keys in their apartment so they called us a little after 10 and asked if we would drive them out to their landlord to get a spare key. They told us where it was so Dad hurried and studied the map to see where we were going. When the Elders got in the car, they said the landlord had told them how to get to his house and when Dad said, “I think I know right where to go”, we all started laughing and said, “Ya, we’ve heard that before!” But, much to our relief and to save face, Dad did know where to go and we drove right to the house. And before we are transferred to another zone, we have a goal of finding the right way out of Nurnburg!
This has been one of those ho-hum weeks when we’ve had a lot of cancellations. I think the weather scared a lot of people or they had other things come up and we haven’t accomplished a lot. One thing we have done though is to drive out to the Clements home each morning and tended the twins and their 2 year old while Mom took the two school children to school. That is the family that the Dad is in Provo this week interviewing for a job in the German department at BYU. He called this morning while we were there and feels like things are looking pretty good. He also said that someone from UVCC found out he was there and want him to interview with them too so he’s feeling pretty good about the chances for them to move to Utah. We feel like Mom and Dad to Sister Clements and Grandpa and Grandma to the children. In fact, the two year old always says, “Grandpa and Grandma are here!” when we ring the doorbell. While we were there this morning, Sister Gogen, the mother of 9 in our ward, called and asked if I would bring Sister Clements laundry back and she would do it for her. She was half sick and sounded awful but insisted on doing this for her. She is something else. She is always helping someone. A couple of weeks ago a sister in the ward, whose husband is in Iraq, had her baby and Sister Gogen took her to the hospital and stayed with her all day. It’s such a privilege to meet these wonderful people.
We are looking forward to our couple conference tomorrow and Saturday. We have our train tickets and know where to go to get on the train so we’re all set. It will be fun to be with missionaries more our same age. That’s nothing against the young Elders and Sisters. They are wonderful! But it will be nice to hear what other Senior Missionaries are doing. Friday afternoon we are going on a tour of some of the famous museums in Munich then we go to dinner at the mission home and just spend time together there. We are staying in a Holiday Inn hotel that is not far from the mission home and chapel where we will be having workshops all day on Saturday. This week President and Sister Rakow had Zone Conferences until Wednesday. They have today to finish getting things ready for the couple’s conference then next week, President Rakow begins interviews again. They sound a lot like the same schedule Brad and Elaine have. I don’t know how they do it. Sister Rakow said they just don’t think about it, they just do it. There are 170 missionaries in this mission. Another new couple came last week and they are in our district. They were on a mission in the Frankfort Mission 8 years ago.
Their family lived in Germany for 3 years while he was doing a government job and He was born in Munich but has lived in the states most of his life. They are from Bountiful and are such a nice couple. We met them at zone conference. There is another couple in this mission from Sugar City and we will get to meet them. Then Elder and Sister Davis were at the MTC the same time we were and we haven’t seem them since we left so are looking forward to seeing them again. All in all, it should be a wonderful weekend.
I just want to tell you about the clothes and shoes here. I wear a size thirty-nine and a half shoe and a size 40 sweater and a size 75 bra. Eat your heart out, LeAnn!! It’s all this good bread. But I wear a size 1 stocking so I’m still somewhat normal. It just cracks me up to be looking for a size 39 or 40 shoe. I had to get some boots when we got snow. To let you know I really am still normal, I still have to go to the bathroom the minute I walk in the door, even if I just went before we came home. Go figure.
Petra is coming along fine. She has been going out to the Clements to help with the babies in the afternoon when Sister Clements goes to pick up her kids. Yesterday she had quite a day. Both babies woke up and were hungry and cried most of the time she was there. But she’s going back today. She gets of work at 8 o’clock in the morning and sleeps a few hours then goes out there for a couple of hours and comes home and tries to get a few more hours of sleep before going to work again. This shift doesn’t come often but she has it this week. Last Saturday we drove her to Nurnburg to meet with President Rakow for an interview for her baptism. She is clear to go. She talked to President Rakow for an hour and a half and I think she got a lot of stuff out and behind her that needed to be out and left behind. She was impressed with his warmness and kindness and he and Sister Rakow were really impressed with her. She’s already talking to us about teaching some of her friends from work. She’s going to be a great missionary and a great member of this ward. She loves people and they love her. Everyone was so excited Sunday when the bishop announced her baptism. Dad reminded me that there are not many “Petra’s” in the world so I’ve got to come down out of the clouds. But we will be working with her for several months after she is baptized giving her the new-member lessons and just answering any questions she has. It has been such an awesome experience teaching her and seeing her testimony grow. She has a big picture of Buda on her wall and that has really bothered Dad. Not that she’s Buddhist but to her Buda represents some kind of religion and she has never had that in her life. Well, Dad told her one night last week the he had a surprise for her the next day and asked her if she trusted him that it would be a good surprise. He didn’t tell me what he was going to do but the next day when we visited her, Dad took the picture of Christ at the door that we have in our apartment and traded that for her Buda picture. I thought Petra was going to start to cry but she didn’t and agreed to trade pictures. Now we are waiting for one of Clark Prices pictures to arrive that will fit in the frame Buda was in. She’s been a good sport about it. She loves the new Priesthood/Relief Society lesson book by President Kimball and she had one of the pictures of him blown up and has it in a beautiful from on her wall. We want to get a picture of President Hinckley for her too. She is so looking forward to General Conference in April so she can see him.
If you could see Dad and me now you would just laugh. My back is starting to feel better but Dad stood up wrong the other day and he has been miserable. We look like a couple of OLD senior missionaries, especially when we have to stand up from praying or from sitting. Walking helps a lot but it just takes time for those muscles to heal when you stretch them the wrong way. I’m feeling better mentally too. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about taking anti-depressants but I told the mission doctor I would stay on them and I’m starting to feel like I might make it so he’s made a believer out of me that they do help. I’m sleeping better to and my appetite is coming back. Now I’m going to have to start watching what I eat so my clothes will still fit!
You will never know how much your letters mean to us. We look forward to hearing about all the news from your families. I read about all the running you do and all the things the kids are involved in and wonder how I ever did it. I guess it’s just like Sister Rakow said, you do it one day at a time. We’re excited about Cindy and Nate’s good news but it just about kills me that I won’t be there. I guess it’s okay if someone else stands in this time. Know that you are in our thoughts and prayers each and every day. We love all of you so much. Thank you for being who you are.
Much love,
Mom
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