A very busy time traveling and preparing to return home

Dear All,
We have been very busy trying to visit several couples and still get everything done in the office.  In addition we have been trying to prepare for the couple coming to replace us, which will be in 2 weeks.  We will remain in Germany for 3 more weeks 2 weeks to train our replacements and a week to rest and travel.  On of the highlights we are excited about will be a Leonard Family reunion on 21 April, back in the small village were the first Leonhard is supposed to have settled.  It is in the village of Klingen, and there is a rich history of Leonhards there.  1/2 the village is related one way or another. 
Starting in late February we have traveled almost every other week.  We first went to Bosnia to work with the Winters on a wheelchair project.  The Winters are a wonderful couple and have worked very hard to help the people of Bosnia.  They have been assigned by their mission president to open a city in Bosnia which had now known members.  He has served as group leader in Tuzla while trying to do humanitarian work throughout Bosnia and Croatia.  We had a wonderful visit with them, and spoke in their sacrament mtg., and tried to edify as we could.
We then visited Hungary and the Wiggins.  They are also a wonderful couple.  She has her PhD and taught at the U. of U. Br. Wiggins is an engineer and with some friends developed a company to measure tolerances in equipment to the thousands of an inch and smaller.  They use a method involving quartz crystal.  We work with them and our contact Julia Bernath to set up another wheelchair distribution project with training.  Julia is a wonderful lady and very committed to helping the the disabled in Hungary.  She is also disabled being almost blind, and most constantly battle with the government has the cut benefits to the disabled.  She is a great friend of the Church and very appreciative of the help the Church has given Hungary over the years.  Julia is a special person and we hope she wil respond to the Wiggins loving manner and develop an interest in the Church.  We also got to see Rita Mester and her husband  Gyrus.  We worked with Julia and Rita before we had a couple assigned to Hungary, and love them both.  Rita is a very strong member of the Church, and therefore a good contact to work with Julia.  Rita helped us many times as an interpreter.  We have included pictures of some of the people we have known and worked with, but it is hard to send a picture of a special feeling and relationship.  We were in the city of Budapest, which we think is the prettiest city in Europe.
This past week we were in Slovakia to visit with the Coopers, and to see several of the projects we have worked on with them.  One was a ICU hospital bed and monitor.  The hospital services over 25,000 people in the region, and yet they did not have a bed designed for an ICU.  We were received as special quest and had a wonderful day with these people.  We also got to be with Maria and her family which the Church has helped mainly with the example of the humanitarian couples over the years.  She is very vocal with her appreciation of what the Church has done for the people of eastern Slovakia.  In fact we were so far east that we could easily see the mountains of Ukraine.  Each night we would then return to the city of Kocise, which is a very beautiful small city, and has the farthest east Catholic cathedral in Europe.  It the 13th and 14th centuries it was a very important city on the trade route to Asia.  Below are some of the pictures we took in our travels.

This city of Bamberg was not bombed in the war, and so much of the old charm still can be seen.  This city was first mentioned in writing in the 900's, and has had a rich an full history.  You can see the beauty of the buildings and the city in general with every turn of the head.

This is a wall hanging of the City Coat of Arms  that was in the palace.  There is at least 1 Pope buried in the cathedral here in Bamberg.

While walking along the river in Bamberg we noticed the ultimate in tree houses.  This is very much alive tree, and is probably at least 50 years old.  The houses are several hundred years old.  I hate to live here when the river rises.

This is a picture of the city hall in Bamberg.   This city in the 14th and 15th centuries was a very important trade city bbecause it was at the confluence of two rivers.  The city was build on both sides of a river, and so the city hall was built in the middle of the river so neither side of the city would appear more important than the other.  We took a Saturday and visited this city with another couple the Livingstones.

 

 

 

 

In Hungary we worked with E/S Wiggins on the right, who are the first Humanitarian missionaries in Hungary.  They have been working with several people to do a number of projects in Hungary, on of those people is Rita Mester.  She and her husband Gyrus are faithful members of the Church.  Rita has dark black hair (naturally) and light blue eyes.  We noticed several of the woman in Hungary with this same coloring.   

This was the view of Bosnia  as we drove through the country side.  We were glad to be in a warm car.

Elder and Sister winters are being interviewed by several local TV stations about the Church donating wheelchairs to local Bosnians with severe mobility issues.  In the Background is the head of the Red Cross who will distribute the wheelchairs.  To Elder Winter's right is Nerman their translator.  He is an excellent young man who stays in Bosnia to take care of his elderly parents.

 

We are standing at a hotel resort where they NGO with whom we partnered for a Wheelchair distribution project took us to lunch after the official ceremony.  We are with E/S Gary and Susan Winters.  They are an amazing couple who have had some real challenges placed in front of them as they have opened the country as the first full time Humanitarian missionaries living in Bosnia.

 

 

A Visit to Moldova

Dear All,

This past weekend we were in Chisinau Moldova visiting with E/S Pinder and seeing some of the projects they have done to help the people of Moldova.  When we arrived you could see that it had snowed the day before, but not too much.  3-4 days prior to our arrival they had had a larger snow of about 10-12 inches.  Most of the streets are not plowed, they are left as they are until the snow melts on its own.  The streets are full of potholes, and the government has no money to fix them plus there is a high level of corruption in all levels of government in Moldova so very little gets done without a bribed.  Living the Gospel in these Balkan countries is very difficult because of the  50 years of communist rule after WWII, and the present day corrupt governments   During communism the people were promised security:  a place to live, a job, and food on the table.  In exchanged the people gave up their agency and lost their ability to think for themselves.  They weren't suppose to think, in fact they got in trouble if they thought and asked questions.  They people were to obey and do as they were told, not think or reason.  Now that they are free the older generation is floundering and struggling.  They don't know what to do and look for someone to tell them what to do.  Before the government told them where they would live - no choice, if you didn't like it too bad.  The government assigned you a job or vocation for your life- you were not free to chose your occupation.  If you didn't want to do that job-tough that was your job and you had better not complain.  You had food on the table, but you had no say about type,quality or quantity   When the Russians left they took everything- money, equipment, industry and know how; when the Russians left they Mafia moved in.  The Mafia was generally comprised of former KGB members.  Because of the high unemployment and low wages many people leave Moldova   They immigrate to anywhere out of the Balkans.  1/3 the passports in Frankfurt are non German, the lucky ones can get a workers VISA some may even get an immigration VISA.  There is such a problem here in Germany that when we came we had to show proof that we could finance being here, and not become a burden on the government.  Most of the immigrants send money back to their families in their homeland.

Once you get out of the main cities the life style goes back over 100 years.  In Moldova 1/3 its entire population lives in the capital city of Chisinau.  Let me show you some of the living conditions for many in the villages.

Picture of Chisinau (capital city) airport on arrival.  Taken from the airplane window.

Local neighborhood water supply in a typical village.  The water is contaminated and should be boiled before consumed.  If you want a bath you must make multiple trips. then heat the water in typically a wood burning stove.

These wells are every where in the villages.  The Church did a project to bring clean water into the homes of a village.  A resident in his 80's, he said this is the first time he has ever had water piped into-his home.  He will never see indoor plumbing.

This is the bathroom in a school for the handicapped that the Church is partnering with another organization to remodel.  Notice that there is only 1 tap, no hot water so we are going to install a boiler so the kids will have hot water for bathing.

This is the same school for the handicapped.  The lampshade is just plastic paper wrapped around the light bulb.  They hardly turn the lights on because they can't afford the electricity

The door of the school is so warped that it won't close any tighter than this.  We will also replace doors and windows in the school.  The school was originally built in 1963 by the communist, and not touched since then.

This is a new bathroom in another school that the Church is funding to have installed.  Presently the students who live at the school must walk about a 100 yards to use an outhouse.  Not too bad in the summer, but at night in the winter- pretty miserable.

This is suppose to be the oldest standing Church in Moldova.  It is a UNESCO site.  They think it was built in the 12-13 century when the Ottoman Turks ruled Moldova.  At one time there was a Mosque near by.  This Christian church had  to be built so it would not be higher than a horseman with his sword raised up.  You can see the people going down into it, it still has a dirt floor.   The walls were painted in the 16th century with religious scenes, and you can still make out many of the scenes.  Legend has it that one night the Turks used it as a barn for their horses, and the next day when they came to get their horses they were all dead.  The Turks in retaliation gauged out the eyes of the saints painted on the walls of the church.

Here is an example of the interior walls.  The wood bean was added after an earthquake in the 1860's damaged the
church.

These lovely orthodox churches are seen in several villages.  They are funded by a government tax.  But most of the Moldovan have had their belief in god beat out of them, and don't believe in God anymore.

We will be traveling a lot in the next few weeks trying to visit some of our couples who are really isolated, and also going to Lisbon Portugal to help create a project there to do in conjunction with the temple groundbreaking.  These almost 2 years have really flown by, and the last 2 months will not pass any slower.  

We send our love to all,

Oma und Opa

,

D

Two busy weeks in the office

Dear All,
It has been a couple of very busy weeks since we have Blogged.  We have been in the office for these two weeks, and won't start traveling again until the end of the month.  So what have we been doing?  WE have been trying to get a replacement couple for us before we leave the end of April which is approaching rapidly.  Last week I talked with a couple who were thinking about another country, but as I talked with her Sunday morning she got really excited about the possibility of coming to Germany.     Her Husband's  father left Germany  shortly after Hitler came into power. He was Jewish, was able to get US citizenship, and then  sponsored his family out of Germany as Hitler was coming into power.  The family came originally from Berlin, and  he is very interested to visit Berlin and try and find where his father and grandparent's lived.  Anyway we are trying to rush their missionary papers through the system to get them in to the March MTC class for senior missionaries.  If they can get into that class they will arrive in Frankfurt 2 days after Derek, Alexis and the Twins leave.  Then we'll have some overlap training time which will really help them.  Needless to say there have been a number of emails and phone calls to this couple and the Church Office in SLC.  I talked the couple through filling out the essential parts of their mission papers. I received an email today stating that their papers have now been submitted.  While I've been busy doing that Susan has been busy training all the couples on a new finance system.  She has taught herself much of the new procedures, and pointed out areas (to finance) where the bugs haven't been worked out yet.  This has really been a nightmare for everybody.  She is becoming quite the little accountant, but she still doesn't want to balance the checkbook.
Last weekend we spent most of Fri. and Sat. in the office and several hours hours Sun. after church in the office working on the monthly computer in thenewsletter that we send out each month.  The couples all submit a report with a picture or several and we then rewrite what they say to get their submission to fit into the program we use for the newsletter.  Doesn't sound like much work, but it is.
We also have been working with our couples to encourage them to close old projects and send in a Project Summary sheet (this is templated), these generally have to be touched up.  They are then attached to the  Church's Humanitarian file in the computer.  We also make a copy for our personally file.   I am going to send a copy of the newsletter in another Blog.
During the last two weeks I have been(with Susan's help) updating the country project book and making 2 new books for each country.  When a visiting dignitary from one of these countries visits the Area Office they are  given a book to show them what the Church has done in their country over the past.  It is quite an impressive book and all pages are in English and the country's native tongue.

The biggest news of the week is that Susan flew back to NYC on Thurs.  to spent a weekend with her mother and sister.  Susan was at the airport here in Frankfurt almost all the day waiting for Delta to get it's act together, and then her flight was cancelled.  They continued to make mistakes, and by the time they were finally correct there were no more flight out to the States, so I picked her up and we had dinner with some of our distant Leonard Cousins.  Thursday morning early I took her back to the airport, and she flew out at 9:00 with Singapore Airlines.  She arrive safely and is now having a wonderful time with her Mom and sister Vickie.  Susan will arrive home Mon. morning at about 10:00, I bet she will freshen up a little and then comes into work.

 This nativity scene was in front of the annex at the temple

We send our love to you all,

Oma und Opa

Holly's trip - Wurzburg

Dear All,

On Sat. (22nd) we drove to Wurzburg for (yup you guessed it ) the Christmas market.  We had been there before, and Holly and Susan had a good time the last time they went.  As we were driving Holly decided, like Heidi,  she would like to go to where we lived when she was a little girl living in Wurzburg. We had no trouble finding the road to Lincoln Housing which is now university student housing.  Holly took pictures of the playground to show her brothers and sister.  Then she wanted to go to the chapel where she and Owen were baptized.  Below still stands the sign for the Leighton Chapel.

You can see that at one time it was a nice military chapel.  We have some fond memories of many different people that we shared experienced here in this chapel.

We also drove to see Holly's elementary school.  She was dissappointed that the playground which she really liked had been destroyed over the years.  From the school she pointed out different buildings where some of the families in the ward we knew lived.  Such as the Youngs and the Waltzes, Simcoxs, and Mickelsons.

Mother took a picture of us unbeknownst to me.  Part of this school is now being used for classes by the university, but most of it is vacant

This picture was taken from the old All Saints Bridge over the Main River.  We took many a walk down to the center of Wurzburg, and saw this same view many times.  Holly was having a great time taking all the picture she wanted.  She took over a 1,000 picture on her trip.

Mother took this picture of me with the river, Fortress, and the little chapel on the hill on the left side of the picture while we waited for her to take pictures.  From here we went to the Christmas market and I began my duties as bag carrier and the wallet handover-er.  Holly shared with me that she and Heidi always wanted a big Lebkucken heart to hang around their neck, so I bought one for each of them.  Holly said she would mail Heidi's to her when back in the States.  We enjoyed the sights, smells, and taste of the Wurzburg Christmas market all over again.  We drove back to Frankfurt well after dark.

We enjoyed Holly's visit as we have all the others who have come to visit us here while in Frankfurt, and we kept moving the whole time she was here.  She was a good sport to let us go back into the office to work from time to time.  Watching her get everything she had purchased here into her suitcase, carry-on,  backpack, coat ,and a big sack was something to see.  I didn't think she would make it, and to be truthful she did leave a few things here, but nevertheless she was amazing.  We were all worried about the airport, but she was blessed and got everything on the plane.  Life has been really good to us these many years since we lived in Wurzburg.   We are very proud of and grateful for our children, and the good people they are.  we consider ourselves most blessed.

We wish everyone a good 2013 as we begin this year.