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.