A quick update

We are established now, except for the Internet. We were told that service here is slow. Most things require a few weeks to get done. In order to order the Internet connection, we had to have a bank account set up. We got that set up. It was still not active yesterday, but at least we had a number to give the O2 people (the providers). They told us it would take 2-3 weeks to get it installed.

We are getting a lot of exercise walking into the city from our apartment. It is 1.9 kilometers each way, plus walking around once we get there. I will get some more pictures for tomorrow's post.

We had about 4 inches of snow overnight and it is -4 degrees (not F). I think that is about 23 or 24 F. We know that it is a lot colder in Utah so we don't complain.

Pictures, etc.

Here are a few pictures of our area. The first one shows our car (Sister B is in it) as we stopped a bit on our way to Ravensburg. The second one is the view out our back window. We have a lot of windows and are on the top (3rd) floor. It is quite nice. The last one is a picture of Sister B standing in one of the small alleyways. They built their buildings quite close together and not in straight lines. The cobblestones are the standard pavement within the inner city.

We tried to set up our Internet to the apartment yesterday, but they require a local bank account, so we hope to get that set up today. They say that it will take between 2-3 weeks to be installed, so we are still going to have limited access for quite a while yet.

I am going to give our cell phone number to one of our sons in case of emergency.

We found that the best equivalent to Walmart here is a store called Real. We were able to get stocked up yesterday.

It is a bit cold here , but I know that it is a lot colder there in Utah. We feel for you!

In Ravensburg

We are serving in the Ravensburg (Rah-fens-boorg) branch of the St. Gallen (Switzerland) Stake. There are two elders here, Elder Hyatt from Highland, UT, and Elder Pope from Missouri. They are great elders. The branch is small. In church today there were about 18-20 in attendance. The Branch President is from a city in Switzerland. The southern boundary of the branch is the Bodensee (Lake Konstanz). We are in the Dornbirn district, so we need to travel into Austria to meet with the district leader. The top half of Liechtenstein is in our district so we have 4 countries in our district.

Ravensburg is a beautiful, small and old city, with many of the old original centuries-old buildings still intact. I hope to post a few pictures in the next post. We do not have internet service in our apartment yet, so we are using the branch president's office computer to send this. The people in the branch are wonderful. Both of us had the opportunity today to introduce ourselves and bear testimonies (Sister B even did most of it in German - the people were impressed - "you have been studying only for 3 weeks?")

We are well. It is wet and we have had some snow. We are driving a nice Opel. Fortunately the GPS (Navi) tells us where to go and when to avoid speeding tickets. It is hard to go fast anyway, but the speed limits change every few blocks.

Well, that is all for now. We love you all!

Our address is:

Elder and Sister Buchanan

Kirche Jesu Christi HLT

Wangener Str. 88/90

88212 Ravensburg

Germany

Report from Germany

I wanted to send off a quick note, so you would all know that we arrived and are well here in Munich. We will be here in Munich until Friday, when we will get a car from the couple who have been serving in Ravensburg. That will be our assignment, the Ravensburg Branch. It sounds like a wonderful place. The branch president actually lives across Lake Constance (Bodensee) in Switzerland. Ravensburg is in the Zurich, Switzerland stake so we will regularly be travelling to Switzerland in our work.

We are well. It was a very tiring day yesterday. Neither of us slept much on the plane. We are going to be working on our visas and official papers for a couple of days. I am not sure how much Internet access we will be having until we get settled in, so this may be the best way to get the word out for a while.

We are having a wonderful time!

Interim few days...

We took advantage of the opportunity to spend a few days at home after our last class on Friday, but did not realize that there were reasons for us being here (other than spending a few more days with our boys and home). We did get a few good things done that needed to be done (e.g. Shauna did not get the kitchen swept before we left. Now that is done. - That was not a priority for me :-).

Anyway, we found out that a sister in the ward that Shauna and I have worked with for a few months, she as RS Pres and me as WML, was to get baptized this afternoon. We had the wonderful opportunity to attend her baptism and I was asked to be the voice in confirming her tomorrow. I see that as a "tender Mercy."

Also unexpected was our daughter-in-law needing to go to the hospital because of complications with her pregnancy. She is OK and the baby is fine, in general, as far as we have heard, but after having been in the hospital most of the day (tests, dilation, etc), she will likely be delivering the baby within the next two weeks (way early). We were needed to stay at their home to take care of the other children while they were in the hospital. She and the baby are in our prayers. We got to spend some precious time with our granddaughters that we would not have otherwise. I hope I have not said too much. They will let you know about things when they are able. The Lord will bless them and all of our family, though I suppose that we will still have some tough times. We were promised that the Lord would bless our family while we served our mission.

Now we are off to the temple for a session. Tomorrow we can attend the family get-to-gether (also not in our original plans).

We will probably surprise a few people at church as well...

More from MTC

We are having a wonderful time (as long as we stay warm indoors).

It is amazing how different the approach is now in missionary training from what we had before. I even expected that we would be reciting D & C 4 in a meeting, but that has not happened. Instead we are studying the best way to bless people's lives.

The purpose is "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  It is  remarkable to see how the Lord works with us even in our role-playing as we practice teaching people.

The MTC is quite full. New regular missionaries arrived yesterday and we could see the change. They say that by early Spring, they will be past capacity. The setup for the Senior Missionaries is pretty much all in a nearly chapel now, and not in the MTC itself. Some are housed in the MTC (not us), but all else takes place in the church. They are still working at figuring out how it all works, though we don't see any lack of organization or anything like that. It is wonderful. We are enjoying getting to know so many great people from all over. I have been enjoying my visits with a brother who was born in Oak City and knows all of our relatives there.

One thing Shauna and I learned is that after our training tomorrow, we have nothing that we need to be here for until we fly to Germany next Monday, so we are allowed to come home after sessions Friday afternoon. That will help us catch up on a few things before we leave the hemisphere.

All we have to do is not freeze to death in sunny Provo...

Happy New Year

We arrived in Provo and were welcomed at the MTC. There are a lot of other missionary couples here with us, going to all parts of the world.  We found another couple going to our mission in Germany. She will be  a mission nurse and  he served a mission in Hamburg back at the end of the 1960's.

Today we are learning how to teach. The focus of this week is to be "Preach My Gospel" missionaries. We have some wonderful returned missionaries who are helping us and guiding our learning. Our Elder returned from serving in Denmark.

It is really cold here. It was 10° this morning. Since there are so many of us, we are among those where are being housed in the Marriott hotel in town. It is pretty plush for missionary accommodations.

Tonight we are going to have a devotional with a general authority. I should be a great experience.