Having been so blessed ...

Last Wednesday in Institute we were studying Alma chapters 8-16. I had not noticed before the details of Alma in the first part of his words to the people of Ammonihah. Particularly in verses 19 to 22 he lists the blessings the people of Nephi had received. I asked the students to go through the list - there are 14 "having ..." points there. I asked them to compare that list with their own lives and make such a list. In German, there are 14 "nachdem" points.

I asked myself in preparation for the lesson what my blessings were - particularly those which came into play in preparing me and my life for my current condition in the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. It is also a great list.

Then, I ask myself (and I asked the students), after so many blessings and preparations that went into bringing us to where we now are, there are two questions:

1. Are we grateful for those blessings?
2. How can we turn away from all that we have been given?

The second question is really what Alma was asking the people. Each of us struggles with our own trials and difficulties. As we face the thoughts and decisions that might lead us away from the Lord and righteous living, we need to remind ourselves of those great "having been ..." blessings.

Liechtenstein in Winter

We had our District meeting this week on a Monday, which is P-day. Normally we had our meetings on Tuesdays. The Elders were interested in seeing Liechtenstein, which is less than 20 miles from Dornbirn where we had the meeting. Anyway, here are some of the pictures we took in our little jaunt into Liechtenstein.

It just snowed new that day. You can see the snow line. This is actually in Switzerland on the west side of the valley where Liechtenstein is located.

Here is part of the sign going into Liechtenstein. It is small and on a bridge over the Rhein river.

Elder George

Elder Kinghorn

Having fun taking pictures.

It is hard to see, but on the wall next to me it says "Liechtenstein Institut" and no, we don't teach Institute here. I highlighted the picture a little with Photoshop so you could see the letters

The District - end of January 2014

We had our district interviews in Singen, Germany last week. Basically this is where our district meets with the Mission President in one-on-one interviews and we hold a district meeting at the same time. The missionaries go in one at a time to see the president while Sister Miles visits with the rest of us. Sister Miles reviewed a new booklet that the church has put out called "Adjusting to Missionary Life." This is a remarkable booklet and explains very well the different aspects of missionary work and how to cope with difficulties of every kind. It also helps in many ways to avoid stress and some of the problems that crop up in missionary life.

Here I have the picture of our district right after that meeting. The following picture is of some of us as we were leaving our district meeting we had in Dornbirn, Austria on Monday. It is a little less serious, as you can see.

Next, I will post some pictures we took in Liechtenstein that same day (last Monday, the 27th).

Mid-January wanderings

Things are turning a bit slow for a while here, which seems usual for mid-January. Our church attendance the first week was 10, the second week was 20, so we have high hopes for next Sunday. (Now whether the trend is arithmetic or geometric, we are not sure ;-) - for you mathematicians out there...

We have a new elder, so our elders are now Elders George and Kinghorn - both have been out the same amount of time, going home in about 4 months, so we wonder whether we will lose two elders at the same time.

We did have some very nice visits yesterday. We visited two of our older sisters of the branch, but in both cases, they had granddaughters, each had an 11-year old granddaughter. We really miss our grandchildren, so it was nice to have some time with someone else's granddaughters. We have no children in the branch, really (on the records) other than a three-year old who seldom is brought to church. With no children and no youth, we miss that vitality and fun. Our people are great, but it is not the same without children.

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The pictures for today were taken over the past couple of days. The first few I took as I took a walk on the hill behind our home. Over the hill is a nice view of Ravensburg. On the top of the hill where I went is a Kloster, so I took a few pictures there as well. I also couple not resist getting some mountain pictures as well.

I don't think I ever included one of the city signs, so here is one. "Große Kreisstadt" means, essentially, the county seat. A Kreis is a lot like a county in our country.

Here is the panorama view from on top of the hill, looking North. You can see the towers and church steeples in the city. On the right, in the trees on the hill is the Veitsburg, a small kind of a fortress that dates from the 1100s. Now it is a youth hostel. Just to the left of that is the Mehlsack (flour sack), a very prominent tower here. I show it also by itself below.

This is the Kloster (something like a convent) St. Christiana on the hill behind our place.

This is the church yard.

This is Obertor, or the high gate of the city, the end closest to where we live. The road goes through the bottom  opening you see there.

Here is the Mehlsack tower, which is right next to the Obertor.

We visited the marketplace this morning. The picture is looking the opposite direction from the picture of Obertor.

OK, kind of random, but I wanted to get another picture of mistletoe in the trees here.

Here is the city center of Bermatigen. We go through here every now and again. The road goes around the Rathaus (town council building) that you see right in front of us. This is the main "highway" between Markdorf and Salem. It was fun to see the very large semi-trailer trucks navigate these roads and around the Rathaus.

OK. The mountains. This is a view as we approach Ravensburg from the north, about 10 miles from the city.

This is looking out the window of the apartment of one of our older sisters of the branch. The highest peak on the right is called Santis. All of these mountains are in Switzerland about 20 or so miles south of Lake Constance (which lies between us and the alps).

Mini-Senior Conference - Part 2 - Bern and Zollikofen

From Luzern, we drove to Bern and the temple in Zollikofen. The temple has a building with accommodations, called a Herberge, where people can stay when they visit the temple and need to stay over night. The rooms are very simple and small, but cost little and are good for a quick stay. We had some sessions, discussion various topics and then had dinner and then did a session in the temple.

We found it interesting that they had a permanent decoration around the Relief Society room door. Talk about a centerpiece.

Here is our lovely group, minus Elder Schwabe who was taking the picture.

On Saturday morning, the brothers had a brain-storming session about how to best support our wives. The Sisters had a session at the same time about how to adjust to missionary life. Here is the board where we kept our notes. Read and learn!

Now I will show the pictures of the city of Bern. Bern was founded in the 1100s on a large bend of the Aare River. That way three sides were protected by the river and they could fortify the fourth side. Most of the city burned in the early 1400s and was rebuilt, but much of the style stayed the same, mainly streets with many, many archways in front of the stores and buildings. It is remarkable how well pedestrians are protected as they walk down the streets under these building façades. You will see this in many of the pictures here.

Yes it is Switzerland. See the red flag with the white cross?

A street showing the shops. There are also a lot of statue/fountains in the middle of the streets.

Bern was selected by the people of Switzerland to be the seat of government. This is the capitol building of Switzerland.

This statue is on the front of the building. To me it looks like a college professor saying, "read this and write me a report by tomorrow..."

looking out over the river area below.

This building has the year MDLX on it. Care to convert that to arabic numbers? 

another shot of the river area

Here is a protest taking place at the moment. Afterwards, especially with all the police around the area, I wondered whether it was wise to take the picture. Oh well...

Here is some of our group in the oldest part of the city. At the end of the street is the clock tower gate.

a little better view of the gate.

and the clock tower itself.

This is on the front of the monastery. On the left side are the people going to heaven; the darker side on the right going somewhere else. They were pretty serious back then.

Mini-Senior Conference - Part 1 - Lucerne

We have some conferences during the year to help us as senior missionaries in our work. In the Spring and the Fall, we have conferences for all the 40 or so senior missionaries in the mission. The Switzerland area has another conference in the Summer and again in the Winter. This time we were in Switzerland, the actual conference was in Zollikofen (near Bern) where the temple is. We spent some time in Lucerne on the way there. This part shows some of the sights in Luzern (as they spell it).

Luzern was founded by catholic monks around 800AD and has been a stronghold of Catholicism since. The city was built up over time and has played an important part in the history of Switzerland. For a long time, Switzerland was well known for the mercenary soldiers and the skill of battle. This lasted up until the later 1800s when mercenary occupations were no longer allowed, with the exception of the Swiss guards at the Vatican, where they still serve.

On of the terrible experiences of war happened with the Franco-Prussian war,  in the 1870-1871 time. A lot of Swiss men died in this war and a memorial was made in honor of them. Bertel Thorvaldsen, is the sculptor who made the Christus statue that is famous in our church (the original in Copenhagen, Denmark - a large copy in the visitor center in Salt Lake City). He designed the monument in Luzern, a lion wounded and dying. It was really amazing to see.

It is a glacier hollowed area. Nearby there is a set of stairs that climbs to the top of the area behind the monument.

Also, at about the same time, a large company of French soldiers, who lost the battle against the Prussians, were backed up against the border of Switzerland and pled for admittance into Switzerland for safety. There were about 90,000 of them. A man (and others with him) painted a very large circular panorama of the event. It took place in 1871. This panorama is on display in a museum in Luzern. We were able to see it. Here are a couple of pictures. The second one was taken by Elder Schwabe.

In front of the painted mural, they built a scene with figures, wagons, etc. that gives it all more depth.

Here is the monastery. It was built where the old original one stood.

Not far from the monastery is Lake Luzern.

Towards another part of the city, there is a very old wooden bridge. It had a major fire in 1993, so much has been rebuilt. In the bridge there were about 200 paintings. Most of them burned in the fire. Here are some pictures of the bridge and one of the paintings.

On the other side, people were feeding the gulls and other birds. I was able to get a few pictures of the flying birds.

Here is one way to keep track of your genealogy.

The roads between the buildings get smaller...

and narrower.

Next you will see our conference and a tour of Bern the next day.