Dear All,

This has been a busy week as are they all.  This first part of the week we were busy preparing the proposed 2013 budget for the Europe Area.  This is a pretty involved process and takes a lot of coordinating time with the missionary couples in the various countries.  Each must be contacted to learn what projects they want to do, and then fitting that information into a master plan for Europe.  Then the plan has to be approved by the European Director for Temporal Affairs, and the Area Presidency.  Once that is done it must be submitted to the Church Welfare Dept. to be incorporated into their master plan, and then it starts moving up the line to the First Presidency and the Counsel on the Dispersion of Funds.  All this must be done while still doing our normal duties, and fulfilling our normal responsibilities.

Last week I taught Priesthood, which is a very interesting experience, because in our HP group is the Area Presidency and the Area President was in the class  ex- mission presidents, a just released temple president, and many highly educated members.  The lesson was on Pres. Uchtdorf''s talk " The Merciful shall obtain Mercy" form the last general conference.  It was a very interesting discussion as we defined mercy and its several meanings.  We discussed how to really apply mercy and the difficult thing this can be to do.  One of the main conclusions was that to be merciful is as essential for the giver as for the receiver, both need the principle of mercy, for growth, and we are all both givers and receivers of mercy.  When mercy is not extended an opportunity is lost for both parties.

The next day on Monday I gave the weekly devotional for the staff of the Area Office.  Surprisingly I was not stressed about this assignment,but knew what I wanted to say and present.  Many people in the world think of God as their creator (if they believe in God), only a few of those think of God as a Father, and only the Church teaches that as Children of God we have divinity within our spiritual genes, and therefore a divine potential if we choose to live for it.  I had several good discussions centered on that subject throughout the week.  In fact I think I will ask one of the mental health missionaries to present that topic in our Nov. fireside.  He has really thought this topic through and developed quite a presentation on good and evil and their influence in our lives.  It all sounds quite simple and concise, but there is much more to this idea than a quick look reveals.  It is amazing just how much the scriptures contain when you really look thoroughly at a subject, or principle.  The same passage you can understand on several levels.

This week I  thought that I would share photos of Frankfurt and some pertaining to our apartment.

As you can see German engineering has now learned how to built gravity defying structures or this is a new design in rockets just taking off - take your pick.

These blue and purple flowers just stay beautiful all the time.  I think they are perennials that just keep flowering.  We certainly have enjoyed them.  In the window behind them you can see our Wetterhauschen.

It is the last day of September and the geraniums on the balcony still look pretty.  I think I'll bring them in and put them in the stairwell for the winter and see how they will do.  We don't have a window sill big enough to hold them in the apt.

Our tomato plant has become domesticated and is now indoor tomato plant.  It has now grown to the ceiling of the living room/dinning room/ironing room/ laundry drying room.  Now will it produce inside like a good little tomato is the next question (maybe they will be red for Christmas).  I can say that so far it has not had 1 accident on the rug (that's better than most puppies I've knew).
We wish you all a good week next week.
Love, Oma und Opa

Herbst im Deutchland

Dear Ones,

The weather is changing.  The temperatures are dropping at night and during the day.  Dad was worried about our beautiful tomato plant so he brought it into the living room this past week.  You can see it is almost to the sealing and the tomatoes are ripening   We are hoping that we can keep it healthy and beautiful until Christmas.  It will be beautiful with a string of lights, a few ornaments and Christmas presents under it. Maybe it will have red tomatoes still ripening on it, how festive it will be. It has grown a good four inches since we brought it in.
This was a special week for our Brittany.  She turned 16 on the 19th.  We had a quick visit with her.  She was out on a date with her Dad.  She was wearing a pretty new dress and high heels(she said that the heels were not to high)  They family was meeting the two of them for lunch.  It was fun to talk with her on her special day.  Happy Birthday again.
This week we have been very busy in the office.  This was the week of the Area Review as well as the end of the quarter for finances.  We had visitors from all over reviewing our operations here in Frankfurt.  We had Martin Gardner from England who is over employment, Mark from SLC in the Welfare department, and Demitri from Moscow who is head of the Welfare department for Eastern Europe Area.  This review is done every three years.  This team is chosen and they visit all the facilities in the area to see how all is operating.  So we spent Thursday morning being interviewed.  It was friendly and a great opportunity to share information that might be helpful for future operations.  We drove people to hotels and to the airport as well.
It was a great feeling to feel that we had learned enough to be able to participate fully in this review.  We know what we are doing now and can really be useful.  This week we filled out the paper work to request our replacements.  It is hard to think about leaving.  We love it here and we are finally feeling confident about our abilities and skills to do this work.  But we were told that this is how the cycle goes.  So with excitement  we look forward to being with our family and friends but sadness to leave this wonderful experience and all of our new friends here
This week has been somewhat of a recovery week.  We have tried to go to bed earlier and get a little more rested.  Our traveling schedule this summer has been very tiring.  We work all day with our couples in the field and then we come back to the hotel and try and keep up with the office work.  We have been working Saturdays and Sundays here to catch up.
Friday we spent the day in Wiesbaden taking care of military business....renewed my ID card, renewal of our pink card so we can use the commissary and Px, picked up an Rx from the Pharmacy, shopped at Mains Kastel, and other places in the area, then we went to the Px and Commissary.  It was a full day.  On our return home we went for a Bike ride.  We rode downtown to the city center.  It was really fun and we did not get lost and it took us about 10minutes .  The weather is beautiful and cool, the leaves are beginning to turn.  I love the fall here.
Saturday, Dad stayed here in Frankfurt and worked a while in the office.  He went on another bike ride downtown.  He had a great time, got a little lost but found his way back home.  I went with Reingard to visit Ruth and Milo in their new home. The drive was beautiful and the conversation just great. They live in a small commuity close to Koblenz.  Tim has finished his schooling and is  now interning at the BAUHAUS.  He is going into management there.  We had a delightful day playing with Milo,looking at all the baby things that Ruth had collected, shopping at several flea markets for baby clothes for the new baby that will come the 29th of November and  a trip to C&A for some maternity clothes.  Milo, who is 2, and I hung out together while the two ladies shopped.  My german is about on his level so we got along just fine.  In fact, he helped me.  He is really a cute little guy.  A lot like my little Evan.  So I enjoyed it very much.  I loved being with Ruth and Reingard.  We got home about 9 pm and John made soup for us.  So we had a little dinner together and Reingard went home and we went to bed.  We were really tired.
Today is Sunday and Dad is preparing for his Priesthood lesson and will be at the office to do a little more work to get ready for the coming week.  We have our meetings at 2pm in the Frankfurt building.  It is so nice to just walk to church.
We love you all and hope this has been a great week for all of you.  We are thinking of you.
Love,
Oma and Opa

A busy 2 weeks in Hungary and the Czech Republic

16 Sept.,2012
Dear All,
This has been a very busy 2 weeks, but very good weeks. The first we spent in Budapest Hungary which is one of the prettiest cities in Europe. We were there to train E/S Wiggins who came to us from Sandy UT. They lived in Sandy and he use to ride his bike up to snowbird all the time. They are a wonderful couple, highly computer literate, and very enthusiastic to serve the Hungarian people and the Lord. The second week we spent with the Pages in the Czech Republic participating in and helping with a wheelchair training program. The Church has worked with Motivation Romania and WHO and now WHO has adopted the wheelchair training developed by Motivation Romania as their standard for distributing wheelchairs. I have included some of the pictures we took in both countries. We spent very little time site seeing, but did enjoy what we saw. I have included some pictures of Prague which may be the prettiest city in Europe.
For the past month I have been working on setting up a fireside with Elder Nelson for when he came to Frankfurt this past Weds. We returned from Prague Thurs. night, and was asked to conduct the Fireside Fri. noon. It was a great fireside with Elder Nelson, very interesting the the stories he told about President Kimbal and Pres. Monson. After the firside as I was sitting on the stand I had the opportunity to visit personally with Elder Nelson. I mentioned that I had some uncles that I thought he might know. He asked who, I told him Owen Reichman, Hyrum Reichman and Wilford Reichmann. Elder Nelson said, yes I know them, then he said "you have some very good blood in you". I thought that was a great tribute to Grandma and her family, and it affects all her descendants.

This is Elder Robert and Sister Janice Wiggins the first Humanitarian Missionary couple assigned by the Church to Hungary. They are highly skilled people and will do a wonderful job. She is a PhD in education and taught at the U of U and wrote grant proposals for the ED. Dept. She taught teachers how to teach blind children. He has a degree in ME and formed his own co with 2 friends. The co. sold calibrating technology throughout the world. You can see that they have special skills that will be very helpful to the work in Hungary. We spent 4 days training them, and helping them get setup in their apt. We also took a bunch of office equipment to them.
This is a garden project that was started in Veszprem Hungary a year ago. The sister in the blue blouse has fed her family the whole summer on the produce she has grown on her garden plot. She only goes to the store for milk, bread and occasionally meat. The Lord has really blessed the ground and it has produced a lot for the members participating in the gardening project.

In the wheelchair training program the people to be trained are put immediately into a wheelchair for the entire first day of training, so they can begin to understand what a poorly fitted wheelchair feels like, and thus better appreciate how important it is to fit the chair to the recipient. A poorly fitting chair can actually cause damage to the person.
Kim Brown a PT volunteer from SLC teaching the group how to properly assess if a person is in the proper position to be tested for a chair. They teach a 90/90/90 principle. Susan is in the blue with the clipboard
Judd Thalman a PT volunteer for the Church (from Richmand UT.) teaching the trainers. Seated is Elder Dennis Smith a wheelchair specialist for the Church and standing next to Judd is Jakob a translator
Susan is learning to test if there is any sensory loss (neuronal damage) in a potential wheelchair recipient. If there is any sensory loss it will affect if the person is a candidate for a wheelchair and will influence the kind of chair they will receive.
Here a couple of trainees are actually fitting a wheelchair recipient into a properly fitting chair and the proper type of chair. This is the final step in the training process.
At the end of day we took a small stroll around the small town where the training was conducted. As this picture was taken it was almost dark, but we used a special setting for low light, and this was the result
In Czech (in almost all towns and villages in Europe) the town is built around a center square. This is the famous Astronomical clock on the square in the daylight. I just want to show a few sights of Prague as the most important part of our visit was the wheelchair training that we did for 3 days
This is the famous clock tower with the Astronomical clock at night.
This is a picture of the Prague (spelt Praha in Czech) castle at night
This is a front view of the castle from the town square. The castle is actually a block behind the square. Rain in Europe is just normal

A side view of the Prague castle
A beautiful house on the town square
This is the oldest known market in Prague. How long it has been there is not exactly known, but it was first mentioned in writing in 1232 (let's see you top that Walmart ?)
Susan with Jakob (one of the interpreters), Sister Smith and Sister Page in a very old wooden church in an open air museum in the Czech Republic. We took an hour and visited the museum after the wheelchair training one day.
We are grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission and the support you all have given us. We love you all,
Oma and Opa

Bosnia, then back in the office

2 September 2012
Dear All,
Two weeks ago we were in Bosnia visiting and training E/S Winters. They arrive in late June, and in early July they were transferred by the mission president from Croatia to Bosnia. This move has been very difficult and fraught with challenges, but they have persevered and made the move. They have one remaining hurdle to overcome before they will feel settled and can progress the humanitarian work. Part of our fast today is focused on them and their needs.
Fortunately they come with a wealth of knowledge and experience which will be extremely valuable as they travel throughout Bosnia. Bosnia is small country and poor like all the former Yugoslavia countries. We flew into the capital Sarajevo, rented a car and drove the 130 kilometers (about 80 miles) to Tuzla. This short distance required 2 1/2 hrs. the entire drive was on a 2 lane road through the mountains. Bosnia has almost no highways.
We felt good about the training and the time we spent with the Winters, the are a good humble couple. Returning to Sarajevo to fly back to Frankfurt was also an experience. We didn't have a GPS with us because only about 3% of the roads in Bosnia are mapped on the GPS, so a GPS really is of very little help.. Therefore we were depending on the airport being marked as we drove into town- it wasn't! But the Lord blessed us, two or three times as I was driving I could feel that we were headed in the wrong direction. We would pull over to the curb and ask if someone could speak German or English. Each time we found someone who could speak English - very rare in Bosnia. Long story short we made it to the airport just before our plane boarded (boarding was late), I turned in the car key while Susan checked us in, walked to the gate and walked on the plane. Without those promptings and English speakers on the street there is no way we would have found the airport. There were no signs until we were almost at the airport.

Back in the office on Tues. we met with a mountain of work in spite of working in the hotel each time until 11:30 or midnight. Thus this has been a very busy week requiring long, long days and working Sat. and 4-5 hours today before and after church. We did take Friday evening off so we could go to the temple, which was very refreshing and relaxing. I guess I should also admit it, we did sleep in until 8:00 on Sat.
Tomorrow we plan to drive off at 8:00 for Budapest Hungary. If we drive straight through stopping only for gas and at the borders to pay the rood tax we should arrive at the hotel between 6 - 6:30. If we hit any road construction, or there is an accident on the Autobahn then it will take longer. We are excited to be going, the new couple in Hungary is a very accomplished couple and will pick up the training quickly, and the work they will do will be wonderful. The next week we will be with the Pages in the Czech Republic working on wheelchair training.

We are standing here with the directory of the old folks home in Tuzla, Bosnia, our interrupter, and the Winters. We were looking at the needs of the old folks and if we could do something to help. An 86 yr. old man with a cane in the home asked us to help him find a wife - alas we were unsuccessful.

Here we have some local volunteers making cookies with some of the residents of the old folks home. You will notice the tags on the volunteers, here everybody is monitored all the time. The affects of communism is still quite ingrained in the people. Anyway it was nice to see the volunteers doing something nice for the older ladies in the home.

At the end of the week we took a P-day and went with E/S Winters to a restaurant for dinner. Bosnia depends on the rain to water everything, and you can see in the background how dry everything is after 2 months with very little rain. We have found the food in these Balkan countries enjoyable and especially the Balkans salad -Shopjeka, a combination of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. In Bosnia they eat a lot of meat especially beef, so the salad is light and refreshing especially when the temperature is close to 100 or above.
We hope you all have a good week.
Love, Oma und Opa