The Conditions of Repentance

Athletes know this, good students and musicians also know that it is important to continually change and improve. So it is with life. Another word for change and turning of life habits is "repentance". As we work to change our lives, we need an expert, a counselor or a facilitator. The same is also true with our spiritual lives.

This is our joyful message - not that we MUST repent, but rather that we MAY repent and that this change actually can mean something. It is a message of hope. It is a joyful thing to improve ourselves, change that which is a weakness or a problem and become a different person, a better person. The power of this message is that it is possible to do so and that it has the ability to affect our lives forever.

Helaman 5:11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.

This salvation is a freeing of the soul from captivity, from enslavement. Sin enslaves a person and they can feel helpless fighting against it when they do not have this hope.

This is what we preach. It is not a condemning message, of casting people into fire and brimstone, but rather is a message of liberation and expansion.

Alma 5:9 And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed?  I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love. …

It is the ability to see beyond our self-made walls and limits and know that we can be much more than we are - and to make that change. We tell people that this is possible, but requires help. The help comes through our Savior, Jesus Christ and the Atonement that was made for us, for every single one of us, regardless of our present state - through faith on Him and repentance. The Lord is our facilitator and the Gospel tells us the way.

Senior Conference in Zollikofen, Switzerland

On March 20-22, 2014 we joined the other Senior Couple missionaries and some other guests for a conference in Zollikofen, Switzerland. There were about 30 of us in the conference. It was a wonderful experience. One of the most rewarding experiences was our group session in the temple on Thursday. They showed us a new temple film. The new films are not being shown in general here, because they are not yet translated into other languages. Since we all understood English, they let us see this film. It is only the second time they have used it here. Just being together with the other missionaries made it a special experience.

We had a number of workshops and presentations. Also some of the people performed some traditional music with local instruments. I added two short movies of them at the end of this blog.

One of my fun experiences was meeting an old friend, Armand Johansen. We went to high school together, both in music and performances together. He is with the Area Presidency office and was here as a guest with his wife. We also have two other missionaries here who served with me in my mission 43 years ago.

Here is one of the pictures I took of the temple. The weather was beautiful, as you can see, but it was all the more beautiful inside.

From the temple steps you can see across the area and see the alps in the distance.

We met in the stake center, which was right next to the temple.

This is a photo of those couples, the men of which served in the Central Germany (Düsseldorf) Mission at some time in the past.

Here is Armand and I with our wives.

In our discussions, we talked about how to help each other in the work. We have quite a few new missionaries this time. Being a senior missionary is an interesting experience. No matter how much you plan and prepare, the actual experience takes a lot of adjustment and learning. Each place and assignment is so different from the others. Some of us have small villages, some large cities. Most of the missionaries called here are Young Single Adult Center missionaries who work with the local institutes and young single programs in Europe. The church here has struggles, especially with the young people, since there are not many in one area for support and friends who are members of the church. Because of this, the Europe area is working to strengthen these young people and help them learn the Gospel together and to have activities together. Our people are part of the St. Gallen Stake, in Switzerland, so it is hard for our young people to get to meetings there, so we have a small Institute class here every Wednesday evening. Technically, we are not Young Single Adult Center missionaries, but are MLS (Member Leader Support) missionaries. One evening we had discussion sessions broken into these two groups of missionaries. I headed the discussion group for MLS missionaries and we had a marvelous time together helping one another learn how to work better with our wards and branches and our missionaries. With the "Hastening the Work" effort here, we play a critical role in helping the members strengthen and help the individual members.

[related item - this is a subject we discussed]
There is a world-wide effort going on right now to find lost members. Many of the members have been lost over the years. When they are no longer known to the local leaders, their membership records get sent to an "address unknown" file. Over the years, this had been a growing problem. Every quarter, a batch of old records are returned to the branch or ward which sent the records to "address unknown" to see whether a concerted effort can find these lost members.

In our branch, we have been able to find some, but many are just impossible to find anymore. You should all be aware of this work and help where you can. If you know of friends or relatives who are no longer involved with the church, see whether you can get their records to the correct wards or branches. We do a lot of work using social media, such as Facebook and have been able to locate some people. With the Lord's help. we can find more. We have found that some of these people are now interested in becoming more involved with the church. It is a great blessing to them.

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OK. After all that, here are some videos that might be fun to see and hear. These were part of our conference.

One of our missionary couples play the alphorn, a traditional instrument of the alps. 

This is a Quetsche or "Pull Harmonica." It is also a traditional instrument here. I just recorded a portion of her number.

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Lastly, I wanted to show this because it shows how expensive meat is in Switzerland. This advertises some dinners at our hotel. It is definitely not a 5-star hotel, so this is probably somewhat cheaper than many restaurants. The 200 gram (about 7 oz.) beef filet listed at the top is 42.50 swiss francs which is $48. It does include vegetables and one side dish.

Guten Appetit!

Senior Conference - Cheese Factory Tour

The Senior Missionary conferences come in the fall and spring. This time, it was held in Switzerland. Our main conference was held in Zollikofen (near Bern) where the temple is. On the way, we were able to have a tour of a cheese factory in Emmental. Swiss cheese here is called Emmentaler cheese and originates from this area.

Along the way to the the village of Affoltern im Emmental, where the cheese factory was located, we passed through these beautiful hills, with the alps in the distance.

This is an old storage building there.

One of the buildings was decorated with these carvings.

This is part of the modern facility. They use copper basins for the cheese production.

The cows graze in the hills and mountains - all free-range. They wear bells like these so the farmers know how to find them.

This is the master of the old-fashioned cheese making process. He also uses a large copper cauldron. We watched the whole process from the original raw milk and added bacteria to the placing of the curd in molds.

Here are President and Sister Miles as they watched.

The curds are forming. It was regularly stirred as the curds formed.

Here they are extracting the cheese curd from the whey in the cauldron using mesh fabric.

One of our sister missionaries helped push it into a form.

On our way out towards Bern, we went on some small and quaint country roads.

A Busy Week

I know, that is a pretty poor blog title. Sometimes I have a hard time thinking of a good title for these reports of various activities. We often are out and about quite a bit and snap some pictures along the way. I like to share those pictures and make some general comments.

This past week was busy with our usual  activities of District Meeting, Institute and being at the church for our open hours. I also had the opportunity to so some microfilm research for one of our Sisters. On Thursday through Saturday, we were in Switzerland for a Senior Missionary Conference (Two separate blogs for that). The last item mentioned here is the bread-making visit we had with one of our members yesterday (details below).

You have to kind of twist your head around to get the right perspective here, but this is the grass lawn around the church in Dornbirn where we had district meeting a week ago. Here in Europe, mainly in the Spring, the lawn grass is full of small flowers. When they first cut the grass (much later) the flowers are usually finished blooming and get cut with the grass. I have not ever seen a dandelion in the grass around here.

On our way home from Dornbirn, Austria, we go through a tunnel in the mountain. The tunnel goes for about 5 miles. This fortress/church is on the hill above where the tunnel runs.

One day while at the church for our open-house hours, I took this picture of Ravensburg from the window of our meeting rooms.

On a walk on the hill behind our home there is a number of walkways. Quite often in Germany, there are little crucifix monuments along the way. Here is a small one up there between some trees.

Sister Trautmann showed us how to make bread with Dinkel flour. Dinkel is a grain similar to wheat. I heard that it is an older form of wheat and that it is healthier for us to eat. In America it is called spelt. Here Elder Kinghorn is kneading it. We are getting some wonderful recipes from Sister Trautmann.

Zollikofen Temple

We rented a van this past week and had the pleasure of taking three wonderful sisters of the branch with us, as well as the missionaries. Up until recently, the missionaries were not allowed to go to the temple unless they were assigned to Swiss areas. Now they can some with Branch or Ward trips.

Here is a summary of what Sister B wrote about the experience.

"Since we have been helping members with their Family History, we decided it was time to attend the temple. We rented a van (bus in Germany) that held 7 people and filled it.  The missionaries in our Zone are now allowed to attend the temple so Elder Kinghorn and Elder George were invited to go with us along with three sweet sisters in our branch.  Dear sweet Sister P came with us.  She is the one who lost her records when the French invaded their home after World War II ended, and we have been finding her family.  Sister T had been praying for someone to come help her process all the records given to her by her mother for temple work.  And Sister K who prayed for a miracle at work so she would be allowed to come with us, and her prayers were answered.  We left at 8:00 in the morning, picking them up along the way and after a long drive talking, singing, and enjoying each other, we arrived at the Bern Switzerland Temple.  We had made arrangements to do baptisms, initiatories, and a session.  Because of traffic we were a tad late, but the temple hurried us through the baptisms and confirmations, getting about 55 of their forefathers baptized!  We then did some initiatory and most attended a session.  Sister T was able to do her mother's endowment.  I think we were all glowing when we came out of the temple.  Check out the picture to see if it is true!  Elder George said, "This is the best day of my mission!"  All week I have felt their forefathers getting excited to be in the temple.  Another wonderful part is next week we have a Senior Missionary Conference at the temple, and the Senior Missionaries have said they will help do many of the endowments.  Then we are planning to go again on April 4th and complete the endowments and have a massive sealing session.  I think their ancestors will help us see miracles here in Ravensburg!"

Here are a few pictures of the experience.

Sister P and I on the ferry

The Castle again

We are blessed to have a wonderful castle near us. Technically it is not in our branch boundaries, but it is close (about 30 miles away) on the coast of Lake Constance (Bodensee). I have posted some pictures of it in past blogs. This past week we took the elders to see it. Sister B decided to work on her artwork while we were in the castle. Her artwork is another story, for later.

I did not take many pictures but here are a few. It is the Meersburg Castle.

This is not the castle, but a small road between houses on a old part of the city.

Elders George and Kinghorn

in the castle there is a wooden model of the castle, made more than a hundred years ago.

a horn on the wall (Try this one Nathan!)

these are Armbrusters (crossbows)

Some strange-looking lion carvings

Elder Kinghorn checking the picture I took of him with his camera. The moose is watching.

Trees, sights, and visits

Some of our visits lately have brought interesting results. As usual, we take a few pictures along the way, so there are several pictures of the sights, mostly odd tree pictures, but they help add to the flavor of the experience here.

We have one family we have been working with, visiting, etc. since we have been here. A brief summary is that we first contacted one member lady about a year ago and she suggested we visit her mother who lived in a sort-of retirement center. In the process, we requested the membership records of the mother. She ( the mother) was an active member years ago in Nord-Rhein/Westfalen (where I served my mission 43 years ago), but for various reasons stopped attending. We have since had wonderful visits with her, occasionally accompanied by her daughter. On our last visit, she asked me to say a few words at the burial of a near relative. This took place last Friday at the Heiligenberg Friedwald (literally "peace forest") where they bury ash urns among the trees. I quoted a few scriptures and said a prayer for them. Afterwards, the husband of the daughter asked me what it would take to become a Mormon. Today (Sunday) the daughter and her mother, along with a granddaughter, attended church with us (the first time in decades for them). It was a wonderful experience and they really connected well with the members.

Some of these pictures were taken as we were in the area visiting them.

This is a lake near the Salem Schloss (Castle)

The apple orchards are dormant, but you can see how they are very closely trimmed and kept at a uniform height and spacing. They really produce a lot of apples here. At this time of year they look pretty rough.

a hazy sunset

some freshly tilled earth and a line of trees between fields

An unusual evergreen tree. It doesn't have needles, but blades of a sort (closeup below)

Fastnet 2014

Here it is called "Fastnet" or Fasching. It is a major time of celebration here, similar to Carnival in the north and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. In some ways it is like Halloween in that they dress up in costumes, kids and adults alike. It is amazing how the local people here are so particular about how they look and how proud and proper they are and during this time how crazy they look. They have lots of parties and parades. Each little community has a particular costume style, with very specific masks and chants.

This corresponds with the coming of Lent, or the time of fasting before Easter. It is also intended to drive out evil spirits and fools before this sacred time. There are a lot of old hags or witches. Most communities have special clubs, called Narrenzunft, or Fools guilds or clubs, complete with the costumes mentioned and bands. Each one has a particular chant where they yell a phrase in the local dialect and your are supposed to respond with a particular answer. Last year, I thought it was just a particular nonsense phrase, but this year discovered that each group has a special phrase pair. It was published in a handout. They have a huge parade each year. Here in Ravensburg, it lasted over 3 hours. We only made it through the first hour and a half.

This year it was not quite a cold as last year, though it was still fairly chilly.

Here are some pictures. I have some in the blog entry I made a year ago as well.

This is a week or so before Fastnet, in a neighboring town. It shows the town preparations for Fastnet. They always have multicolored small flags across the roads.

Here is a local band practicing a few days before the parade. There are a lot of these in the few days prior to the main parade on Rosenmontag (Mar. 3, this year)

The band went right into a local bank and out the other side.

Some of the "fools" went into a store while we were standing there.

This is the beginning of the parade, on Monday this week. Notice the interesting horns they play. The horns have several bells.

This costume is interesting. See the cucumber shaped object that is part of the mask (on the nose), and the little Mehlsack towers on the toes of the feet.

The children are definitely a part of it as well.

Sometimes, instead of elaborate masks, they just paint their faces.

Here is the sign of the Fools guild in Reute. On the sign are some of their masks and symbols as well as their chant:  "Wa muinet 'r" and the appropriate response: "Ha Wellawaeg." I have no idea what it means.

Notice a couple of the masks shown on the sign in the above picture.

Another group with witches masks

Here is a group that uses Mickey Mouse as their scary masks and costumes.

More scary people. They kidnap people along the parade route and put the in the cage. It is usually children that they capture.

In addition to the capturing of people (they are released soon afterwards), they also throw handfuls of small paper bits on people and scatter it all over. One group scattered hay.

It is quite a spectacle.