Sister B's Epistle

[Sister B has started writing epistles to family members - emails that often have more detail than is wise to include in a blog, but this time I thought I would put most of it here in the blog. I have edited out the name references.]

Here I am again, giving a taste of life here in Germany.  We love it here!  We are experiencing such a wide variety of weather right now.  About 5 days ago we were 37 degrees C (99 F) and yesterday afternoon we were 11 C (52 F) with lots of rain.  The humidity in our apartment is usually between 50-60%, the only thing that has remained constant.  As most of you know my 'love' of wearing a coat, it has been a struggle to keep it off since it is the end of JUNE!  Today I'm back in long sleeve shirts so I might be able to get by without a coat.

I have to comment a bit on some of the differences here.  One interesting item is the clothes dryer, which most people here do not have.  They line dry year around.  We are blessed to have one, and learned the bottom collects the water from the clothes and has to be emptied each time.  It is great it doesn't add to the humidity!  I also have a little conversion chart to change US cooking measurements to metric.  I find it interesting when following a German recipe I have to weigh the flour etc.  Luckily I have a scale on the wall.  

I thought I might share our typical Sunday.  Many of our branch members do not have cars so members pick them up along their way to church.  We also have our list to pick up, so we leave about 8:30 am to pick up one or two on the way to church, where I drop them off with Elder B so he can get the church unlocked, while I head out to pick up a few more.  Church starts at 9:30 in the top floor of a business building.  We have a small area which includes a chapel, 7 rooms, a kitchen, and restrooms.  We love our little area, though we pray they might someday have a chapel of their own.  We have a two hour block with Sunday School on the first and third weeks, and Priesthood and Relief Society on the second and fourth.  After church I deliver members or investigators home while Elder B does his Branch President business.  Sometimes I bring a snack so we can head off to do more visiting, usually with the Elders, when all is done at the church.  I love Sundays!  Our little Branch has a strong spirit in their meetings.  We have usually between 20 to 30 attend, with our lowest attendance being 11.  There is much work to do, since our enrollment is about 80 members.  Our dear friend translates the meetings into English for those of us still learning German.  I usually help out in Primary since that is where my heart resides.

We loved the Missionary Conference last Sunday.  We stayed up and watched it from midnight to 2:00 am.  They are indeed hastening the work.  Now all will be involved in the effort.  I'm guessing it is time I joined Facebook!  Our missionaries have a long way to go to not do any dooring or tracking.  It will be a tremendous change for them.

One quick experience:  Another branch contacted the Elders saying they had one of their members in a treatment facility in our branch area and were asked to contact him.  Since it was not near Ravensburg, we offered to take them.  We went last Saturday so when we arrived we found the main office closed in an area of individual apartment buildings.  We had no way of finding the member.  I believe he knew we were coming, so as we started wandering, I prayed he might find us since the Elders' white shirts were easily identifiable.  Within 5 minutes as we entered another main building, the member came up behind us and said, "I think you are here to see me."  We had a lovely visit and felt the Lord's willingness to assist in the search of his lost sheep.

We love being here.  Our apartment is up a small canyon with forests on both hilltops.  We listen each morning to the bird song as what sounds like thousands of birds singing praises to the rising of the Son!  We love you all!

Then and Now, June

Here is another list of comparisons between mission experiences in 1970 (and 1971) and now.

The Weather

A lot of the month of June has been cold and rainy, with the exception of a few days last week when it got up to 37°C  (98.6°F). Sister B mentions that in her post.

June 21, 1970:
"It's real hot and muggy here lately - and working in a suit all day doesn't help either. It was about 32° today (Centigrade) 90°F"
Monday June 29 - Fri July 3, 1970
This week was quite dreary and rainy all week - and cold.
Monday eve. We walked the bikes home in a big rain storm.
July 4, 1970 (letter home) We've about frozen this week. It's been quite cold and has rained all week. It's been pretty dreary.
June 21, 1971 (1 year later, in a letter home) It's really been cold and wet lately. Almost since the 1st of June it's been almost constantly raining and the past little while we've had the heat on.

About money and the value of things

The church and mission take care of our housing, including all utilities, etc.  We pay $1336 per month. The exchange rate now for dollar to Euro is about $1.25 per 1 Euro. We usually get cash out and Visa gets a small percentage and there is a conversion fee as well, so we lose about 2% in the process. We can use our debit and credit card at some places and then there is only just a 1% Visa fee.
Milk is pretty reasonable here, about .6 Euro per liter or about $2.40 per gallon. Eggs are sold in cartons of 10 and sell for about 1.39 Euro per carton, or about $2 per dozen. Gas is only 1.59. Unfortunately, that is Euros per liter. I will let you figure that one out. It isn't pretty.

Then

(June 27 letter home) Yes, I can cash the money fine, but the value is always going down. I used to get 3.66 marks for 1 dollar Now its 3.61 for a dollar. Last November it was 4.00. Eggs here are about 2 marks or 55 cents a dozen (sometimes a little cheaper). Milk is about 60 or 70 cents.
(July 4 letter home) I got the check alright and cashed it. $90 = 325.80 marks and immediately 100 marks went for rent (kind of expensive, but it's a nice family). The land lady does our wash for us.
(We didn't care what gas cost back then :-)

The way of missionary work here

The elders do a lot of door-to-door work, what we used to call tracting. Usually when they do not have appointments or other activities, they visit an area and just knock on doors. It is not very productive work ( and wasn't back then, either). Sister B and I have done a little door knocking as well, but not much. We visit less-actives and do research in trying to find them. The new broadcast from the Church leadership is very interesting concerning that work. We are excited to see the changes coming. The Elders now can use the internet only in order to send and receive their email on preparation days. They have cell phones that do not have additional (internet) services, but they can text. (Back then we did not even have telephones.)

Then

June 21, 1970 (letter home) We haven't had any success at all lately. It's getting discouraging. We tracted 32 hours this week. (20 hours is the expected total). Nobody will even listen. One family who we talked with shortly explained that salesmen really give the people a bad time and the Jehovah's Witnesses are around about every 2 weeks.

Transfers

The whole system now has a 6 week transfer cycle. Every six weeks they get contacted by their zone leaders to let them know whether there are any changes. They are usually contacted by telephone and then a published newsletter summarizes the transfers and other matters, which also comes out every 6 weeks. Quite often, elders stay in a place for a longer time than before. We appreciate having the elders stay longer with us.

Then

Tuesday June 2, 1970 - Today we ate breakfast at the other brethren's place because they'd find out about transfers sooner than us. Nothing came that affected us. There'll be more big transfers next week and the following though.

The People we work with

Many of the new converts here in our mission are not native Germans (or even Europeans). A number of our members are originally from Russia (actually Kazachstan), but many of the converts are refugees or immigrants from Africa. The missionaries usually teach the African people in English. Many of the Africans are seeking refuge from military conflicts and oppressive regimes.

Then

June 16, 1970
We next went to a referral next who we met on fast Sunday. (They came to church in the afternoon - when there wasn't any.) They were really nice - Frau Zippel described to us the real present-day Russia and East Zone - very ugly. She and he used to live in Schlesien out by Poland. We ate a short dinner there.

A lot of the members and more receptive people we found back in 1970 and 1971 were from the eastern countries, including (as mentioned) Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia (as it was called then). They usually spoke German, though. They came to Germany seeking refuge from the Soviet governments.

Here is an interesting quote from back then:
(also June 16, 1970) We tracted for a while. Before we knocked off for a "lunch break" we talked to a communist fellow. He said that the East Zone (East Germany) and Russia were beautiful and made it sound like paradise. He said that if Christ were to come to earth again he'd go to the Communists because they have his teachings in the most complete form.

Right...

He guides me with His eye

Recently I pondered as I listened to the words of the song, "Consider the Lilies," particularly the chorus of the song:

"He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds in the sky.
And he will feed those who trust him,
And guide them with His eye."

I thought to myself. How powerful an image that is. What does it mean to be guided by the eye of the Lord?

Have you looked someone in the eye and watched as they turned their gaze away to something else? It is pretty evident to you where they now look, or where their eyes lead you. Often you are naturally drawn to look towards the same location to see what is so important.

First we must look into His eyes - be acquainted with Him and look "with an eye single to the glory of God" (e.g. D&C 4:5). Also the term "see eye to eye" brings up an important image as well.

I then wondered, where else do we find this phrase, that "He guides us with his eye ?"

I found two other places, besides the words of "Lilies of the Field." The first is in the second verse of our hymn, "I Know that My Redeemer Lives:" "He lives to guide me with His eye."

Then I found it in the scriptures, only one place (King James Version):

Psalms 32:8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

The Psalms are so comforting. This expression is so endearing and brings us into an intimate acquaintance with our Lord. It just leaves me wondering. How can I best follow the eye of the Lord. It is something I will ponder for a long time.

- - - - - - -

A curious point I also discovered. The German scriptures and hymn book do not render the phrase  in such a wonderful way. In the hymn, "Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöer lebt," (#85), the phrase is completely missing. In the "unity translation" bible, the scripture says (literally): "over thee watches my eye." Martin Luther, however gave a good rendition of it: "I will lead thee with my eye." We use the Einheitsübersetzung version of the Bible in our meetings here, published by the Catholics and Lutherans together. As a missionary 42 years ago, we used the Martin Luther bible. I have my old one with me still.

Here are some additional scriptures (English) I found that seem to be related:

D&C 4:5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

Luke 11:34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

Isaiah 52:8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.

3_Nephi 20:32 Then shall their watchmen lift up their voice, and with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye.

D&C 84:98 Until all shall know me, who remain, even from the least unto the greatest, and shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and shall see eye to eye, and shall lift up their voice, and with the voice together sing this new song, saying:

Helaman 13:29 O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you?  Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides?  Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?

Matthew 23:16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

Fun with words

Fun with German Words

The good thing about long German words is that they really make sense - when you understand that they are usually a lot of smaller words all stuck together. If you don't know that or don't know what those smaller words are, it can be a bit daunting.

For example, here is a label that is on a package of vine (cluster) tomatoes. They are simply called:

Cocktailrispentomaten - literally Cocktail Panicle (or bunch) tomatoes. Of course the picture is a dead giveaway because you can see the tomatoes in a bunch.

Also, food usually contains a Zufriedenheitsgarantie (satisfaction guarantee).

When you want to go to the store for the Spring Closeout Sale, you go to the Frühlingsschlussverkauf.

When we went in to get our visa, we got an Aufenthaltserlaubnis, literally "permission to be a resident."

The church words are no different. The sisters in the church attend Frauenhilfsvereinigung, or in other words, "women's help organization" (Relief Society). Sacrament meeting is Abendmahlsversammlung.

There are some interesting words that I found in the Book of Mormon. For example, in Alma when they were preparing for war it was Kriegsvorbereitungen (Alma 50:1) and the Christians were told not to "shrink" (or cower), which in German is zurückzuschrecken (Alma 43:48).

But when you get to the numbers, you really have fun. Here is the 327th year, as mentioned in in Mormon 2:3 : Dreihundertundsiebenundzwanzigsten Jahr.

I know that Mark Twain had fun with the language and wrote a book: "That Awful German Language," where part of his complaint had to do with the large words. It is a fun little book to read.

Hugs in the mail

It was a clever idea. We received an envelope from one of our families a day or so ago. It contained loving notes from grandchildren. Part of it was sets of hands connected with strings. Sister B put them around her and felt the hugs. Here are two pictures of us receiving our wonderful greetings.

Thank you for your love!

Back to Ravensburg for the end of the tour

This is the conclusion of the previous post. We are here on our way back to Ravensburg and then will inspect the apartment of our own Elders.

Sister B. has been trying to get a picture of this pretty hill/valley area not far from our city. There pretty little farm homes and buildings all over the hills and fields here.

For the end of our tour, we walked from our place into town to inspect our own elders' apartment. We walked along the path through the trees. This time I recorded the walk so there is a narration in this video.

In town, we have a little fountain area with some unusual structures. In the winter it looked like a super large pin cushion with bent pins in it. The tops of these things pour water down into the fountain. In the background is the Grunerturm (Green Tower).

We sometimes pick up the elders here. It is near their apartment. We just say we will pick them up at the Pin Cushion and they know what we mean.

June Inspection Tour

This past week we did another of our assigned missionary apartment inspection tours. Our Mission Zone boundaries are changing so we are not sure how they will be in the future. Also, in this tour, we included another apartment, this one in Richterswil, Switzerland. Also, we are getting a lot of new missionaries so the needs are changing. One apartment now has four elders where they used to have only two. Their refrigerator is small and they could not keep all their food fresh so we bought a new refrigerator for them (another small one). Here is how we packed it into the back of our little Opel Corsa hatchback (looking back from the front seat into the back) It is kind of hard to see, but it is tilted in order to fit in.

Their apartment is in Konstanz (Constance, Germany). Here is a statue along the road near the arm of Lake Constace (Bodensee).

The road between Winterthur and Wetzikon (all in Switzerland, now), is a major road, but like a lot of them here in Europe, they often go between farm buildings so they are kind of narrow and winding. Apparently, the buildings and farmlands are valued much higher than transportation and traffic flow.

We visited the apartment in Richterswil, which has a tremendous view of Lake Zurich.

As you can tell, I stitched three pictures together so you could get the idea of the view. This is looking out the window in their sleeping area.

The next pictures are of the mountains and buildings in the little villages between that part of Switzerland and the mountains going over towards Liechtenstein. This is the area between the bottom of Lake Zurich and Wattwil, Ebnat and then the pass to the east from there along highway 16. The mountains are really quite rugged.

This next one is the view of the valley which includes Liechtenstein. We were coming down the mountain area on one side and can see Liechtenstein across the valley.

 This one is the mountain near the area of Dornbirn, Austria

This is one of the road signs. Wattwil is the direction we came from. The other names looked kind of interesting.

One other interesting thing about our trip was that it was clear with high clouds and in the seventies until we went over the mountains where it rained a lot and was in the lower fifties.

The next entry includes some more about our own area.

Temple trip

Hello again. This time I will describe our experiences from yesterday. As mentioned, we struggled in finding a way to get to the temple. We finally made it!

Here is Sister B and one of the sisters from our branch who came with us.

A week or so ago, I just got to thinking that the best way we could do this is to rent a car (since we do not have miles available on our Mission-issued car) and go to the temple. Now after experiencing that we might try something else. But it really did work and it was wonderful and well worth it!

The temple was really beautiful and the trip was very nice and pleasant as we visited with each other, including the language translation process.

It rained the entire day. It was just plain wet.

Also, an unforeseen event was the fact that we needed to pay for the use of the freeway system in Switzerland. They do not have tolls or toll-booths, but you have to have purchased permission to drive on the freeways, a thing called a Vignette. Our mission car has one. Our previous branch president bought one for us for the year and gave it to us. It cost him about 40 Euro (about $45) for the year. We also had similar problems with the Austrian freeway system, but could buy a day or two-month pass there. We now had this rental car. I though I could easily just get a day pass for the freeway system. However, the only thing you can buy is an annual pass. We decided to spend the 35 Euro, mainly because it was so difficult to travel on the local roads. We needed to get to the temple so we could do two sessions. It just cost us about $40 to use the freeways for that day. At least the rental car is now authorized to use the Swiss freeway system for the rest of the year. I guess that is a blessing for the future car renters. You can see the wonderful sticker in that last picture.

Next time we will see if we can convince a member to drive or we can try the trains.

After our wonderful time in the temple, we headed back home. It took us about 3 hours to get to the temple. Our trip home took us about 5 hours. It seems that the entire country of Switzerland decided to head out for the weekend. The roads (the wonderful freeway system) was just choked with traffic.

I asked our sister from the branch about this. Switzerland, actually, is a very choice vacation and holiday destination. When someone lives in the vacation wonderland of the world, where do they go for a vacation? Somewhere else, obviously!

We still had a great time, listening to the Gentlemen of the Court CD and some other music and good conversation. The rental car was a nice comfortable car and we were dry inside.

It was a beautiful day!  We just had to call our District leader and tell him that we would not be home in time for curfew (it doesn't really apply to us anyway, but we wanted to call him anyway).

Temple Visit - and thoughts

Back home we visited the temple often. I cannot say that we took the temple "for granted," but it really was not much to just head out and go to the temple. We had wonderful experiences as we worked in the temple for the past few years in our assignments. Also in the last few years, we took the opportunity to visit temples in other areas of the country, particularly the Pacific Northwest and California. Now we are here in Germany and we have found that it is not so easy to go to the temple.

We have a car issued to us as missionaries, but are limited to the number of miles (kilometers) we should use each month. Also, we are not allowed to leave the mission boundaries without permission (which is not often granted). The temple in our mission is the Swiss temple, in Zollikofen (near Bern), Switzerland. It is not easy to get there from here. The members in our branch seldom get to go to the temple. I hope we can find ways to get them to the temple more often.

Yesterday, we drove to the temple in Switzerland. It was a wonderful experience and a beautiful day. The spirit in the temple was astonishing, it was so touching to our spirits. Our sessions were both in Italian, so we had translating headsets. We experienced two endowment sessions. It was glorious to feel that wonderful spirit again. I had some matters on my mind and found solace and direction as I sat in the Celestial room between and after the sessions. The room was very beautiful. I am amazed at how each temple's Celestial room is different and yet always so inspiring.

I had a couple of specific inspiring thoughts this time. First was that how the Savior knows each of us so personally and is with each gathering of Saints, and that it is not a casual interest. I could just feel His concern and love in each of our situations. The second thought was how that the temple's message is not just the words and ceremonies we experience there, but more importantly, it is where we learn to understand the language of the spirit. We have scriptures and conference talks and lessons and programs, but the true learning we receive is very individual and is through that language of the spirit. We do not read nor do we write down what is spoken in the temple. That sometimes bothered me. Why cannot I read those words again when I get home? How can I remember those specific things? How do those specific words tell me to live in my daily life? It is rather the way the spirit works and the way the Lord teaches - that we learn in the temple. It is not the same as what we hear and learn in our other church meetings, though there are similar themes. In the temple, it is strictly our minds and spirits that are at work, not some specific printed text or prepared lesson. We can get too caught up in the physical details and lose the real meaning. We need to learn the language of the spirit.

Elder Dryden of the Seventy spoke to us last week in Stake Conference about the language of the spirit and quoted from the 100th section of the Doctrine and Covenants:

"5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;

6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.

8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say."

This speaks mainly of the work missionaries do, but it does say that when we are in tune with the language of the spirit, we well be able to know and to say and do those things that are the right things. It is often a thought or a scripture that we have recently read, or even a song, but it will be the proper application of it for the moment that the language of the spirit directs. Humility and obedience are necessary for it to work. The hard thing is that we try to figure things out and come up with the answers on our own. Sometimes that is what the Lord expects of us and He works with us, but there are times when we just need to do something unexpected or unplanned at the moment and let the spirit direct us. That is what we learn in the temple. As we are obedient and doing what we should be doing, and are listening to the language of the spirit, the Lord can more readily use us to do His work.

It is a difficult thing for us proud mortals to learn. I have a long way to go. I am just glad the Lord doesn't ever give up on us.

When I started this blog entry, I intended to do a brief summary and show some pictures. I feel that I needed to say these words, particularly that I could hear them myself. The next entry will have more in describing the events of the day.