Monday, May 5, 2014

May Day, Inspections and a gondola ride

Last Thursday was a big holiday here in Europe. Everything closes. Even some missionary appointments did not happen because the people thought that missionary work comes to a halt on statutory holidays like this (Day of Labor). We ended up staying home most of the day because of it.

On Saturday, we did our missionary apartment inspection tour (sorry, no pictures this time). In the middle of the tour, I attended a meeting of the stake bishops and branch presidents in Winterthur, Switzerland (where we were doing a couple of inspections anyway). We had an early start because of the meeting in the middle of our schedule. We were on the road by 6 AM. In the first place, Konstanz, we needed to repair their storage shelves, so that took a while. We did make it to Winterthur in time for the meeting at 9 and at 11 we resumed our work, ending up at Dornbirn, Austria at about 3:30 and then inspected our own elders' apartment in the evening.

On Sunday, we did not have as large an attendance as the past few weeks, but were heartened to see some of the less-active members who started attending in April, also attend last Sunday. We are finally beginning to see some solid progress in re-activation. It is the Lord's influence, with very little credit due to what we are doing. We do have a couple of our sisters in hospitals with serious problems, so we are praying hard for them.

Today we made an excursion to Dornbirn (part of our district, but still in another country - Austria) to take a gondola ride up the side of a mountain. It is called Karren and is about 1000 meters in elevation (about 3280 feet), or about a 1600 foot vertical rise from the base. There is a restaurant at the top that is really quite reasonable. We met with the Elders in Dornbirn and all went up together. Several of the missionaries had their lederhosen and posed for some pictures, as you can see. The views from up there are amazing. The pictures here do not do it justice.

Elders George and Thompson at the bottom, near the map

joined by two other of the elders who also had their lederhosen, Elders Aardema and Nielson

Elder Thompson looking at the gondola going up from the base station

A view across towards the west, as we were going up on the gondola. Liechtenstein is in this valley.

The elders taking pictures at the top.

I was probably the oddest dressed person there, with a suit and tie.

The whole group of missionaries: Elders Weston, Nielson, Aardema, Thompson, Stuart and George.

Another view to the west from the top.

The view across Dornbirn, Austria. In the distance is Lake Constance (Bodensee). Our branch area is on the other side of the lake.

A lonely dandelion among the wildflowers  up there.

They had this crystal/lens to look through across the area.

Sister B viewing the panorama.

looking to the east. There are many small villages (Dorfs) in the hills and mountains.

on the way down, we passed the up-going gondola.

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