Then and Now

I have been reading my old mission journal and letters home and found it interesting how there are similarities and differences between what it was then and what it is now in our mission in Ravensburg. I thought it might be interesting to have you see the two views. THEN was spring of 1970 in Gelsenkirchen (in the Ruhr valley in northern Germany) and NOW is spring of 2013 here in Ravensburg.

THEN
"The streets are quite often cobblestone streets. The sidewalks are almost always made out of stones (big flat stones, like tile squares). The bike riders have to ride in the streets usually and when we hit the cobblestone streets we feel like we're going to shake off. The church here is inside of an office building. It just has a name plate on the outside of the building."
NOW
The streets of the inner cities have cobblestones and the sidewalks are more often cobblestones or larger stones. The curbs and gutters are all stone (not concrete). The main roads are asphalt. We drive a car and most of the elders are on the buses (not bikes). Our church here is inside an office building. Both then and now the church was on the top floor of the building.

THEN
"Right now I can hear the chimes of the nearly Catholic church. It rings for about 15 minutes, about 3 times a day, calling the people to "beichte", confession."
NOW
We love to hear the church bells. They ring often on the hour and often during the day.

THEN
"The places over here are different. They don't have doorknobs the way we do. Everything has a door with a knob on the outside to pull on but it doesn't turn. The door has to be opened from the inside or with a key on the outside. On the inside the door has a handle to turn to open it. Inside doors in the houses have handles on both sides. All doors on the inside have keys setting in the locks - the old type of key like that for grandma and grandpa's house in Oak City. All cabinets and closets can only be opened with the key in the lock. There are no handles on them. The windows of my apartment here have shutters on the outside and when the wind blows they flap around."
NOW
The doors are the same as they were. In our apartment, and on all that I have seen, you open your main door with a key from the outside. The inside doors have locks and keys with skeleton keys. The cabinets and closets are more modern now, usually. Our windows all have shutters, but they are more modern. Here are two pictures, one of our bathroom door and one of our bedroom window with the roll-shutter partway down. They don't flap in the wind.

THEN
"One thing that is interesting is that everybody lives in apartments, no private home (hardly any). To get in we have to push one of the outside door bells (there's one for every apt.). then the person in the apartment pushes a button which allows the outside door to be opened. Then we can enter and talk to the people."
NOW
Most homes have more than one apartment. The doorbells are in a row by the door. People have a button at their apartment to unlock the outer door, all the same as back then.

THEN
"It rains here all of the time. It's always wet. Also the sky is never as blue as it looks on this card. Every once in a while we can get a glimpse of the blue sky.
… The weather here is usually always rain (drizzle). We all wear shawls around our necks to keep us warm. The air isn't as dirty as I had expected. I washed my hair this morning and it was really quite dirty (collected rain from the week). We have a pretty good place. The place even has its own bath tub, so we can bathe twice a week."
NOW
It is pretty gray a lot of the time. There are a number of places where we could see the Alps if the skies were clear enough, but there have only been a couple of days that we have had that experience. It does rain a lot. The people are always bundled up. We are too, but hope for days when we can leave our overcoats home.
My apartments as a young missionary almost never had bathing facilities. Now such is unthinkable. Then we had to live with it. My first place back then was the only place that actually had a tub. The rest of my mission we had to visit the city bath facilities once a week and splash-bathe in the sink the rest of the days. Of course we have a nice apartment here.

THEN
"Here in Germany, the bicycles have the same rights and laws as cars. We ride along with the traffic (as you see on that post card that I sent you, the streets are quite narrow). You can see the cobblestone streets in that post card, and also the street cars. The traffic and cars are really quite interesting. The traffic light turns yellow with the red before it turns green. Also every car is quite small, Volkswagen size or small sports car size. Our car would really be awkward and gigantic on these streets. The Germans don't paint lines much either."
NOW
I have already posted some movies and pictures of the streets.They are still quite narrow in most places and don't always have painted lines. The drivers really know how to get around. Cars are often parked along the road leaving only enough room for one car and drivers wait for the others to pass and are very cooperative. The signals are the same. There are some bike lanes and they are part of the street, not off the side as we have them in America. We really have to watch out for bikes. Lots of people ride bikes, at any age, too, almost.

THEN
"Last Friday after our meeting (we were at a member's house). We stayed a little and ate a little snack and talked to the lady there. She really had a miraculous conversion. It's really wonderful too because she has a really big family that is growing. They are about 1/3 of the branch here. The branch is made up of about 3 families and a few other members. These families talk about immigrating to America and the others are quite old."
NOW
We have had some wonderful experiences visiting people. Almost always they provide us with a "tea," something to drink and to nibble on. It is not usually the best to drop in on people. They really like to have an appointment and then, they insist on feeding you something. They are wonderful people. Our branch here has quite a few old people. But we are old too, so that works out great. We have quite a few in their 80s and they are quite an inspiration. Many of the older women are in care centers and really appreciate our visits to them. There is not really any immigration to America like it once was.

THEN
"The Germans have quite a holiday for Easter. On Good Friday everything is closed. Even our church here had a meeting and we also served the sacrament. Then they have Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. Sunday is for church and Monday is for visiting relatives."
NOW
All the stores were closed on Good Friday and again on Easter Monday. Most stores are closed anyway on Sundays so that was not much different. A lot of restaurants were open on Sunday, though because people go out to eat. Easter service was nice. We enjoyed our services, but the meeting was sparsely attended because many were away visiting family. We did not have any service on Friday and they never do that here any more.

THEN
"Sunday, Apr. 5, 1970 - We returned in time to get ready for church. From church we went to Duesseldorf for conference. … First we saw the 1st session auf deutsch, then we saw the direct broadcast of the Sunday morning session in English. We got home quite late and went to bed."
NOW
We will be watching the sessions of conference over the internet. Priesthood session will not be available over the Internet (yet) so I will drive to Dornbirn, Austria with the elders and a few others to hear a re-broadcast of it  at 11AM on Sunday. I am looking forward to seeing our youngest son in the choir at the conference center. Our other son-at-home was supposed to also be in the choir, but had his operation last Monday so he is still recovering from that.