Friday, August 26, 2011
Dear Family,
I am trying to write a
quick note so I can get this in the mail. Where does the time go? It seems like it is flying by. We have just passed our 6 month mark and that
means we only have a year left. There
is so much to do and see I hope we will get some things accomplished.
Last Sunday, I invited over three couples for dinner at our
house. We had Diane and Allen Asplund,
the Leonards from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He
was a child’s dentist after he got out of the military where he was
dentist. The Davies, who are the
Executive Secretary to the Area President and who picked us up at the airport
when we first arrived and had us stay in the apartment in their building for a
few days until we moved over here to Bad Vilbel. We all had a great visit and it was fun
getting to know people a little better.
I fixed cordon bleu, which you buy in the store frozen for 4 of them and
it only costs at 2.59 Eur, which is really reasonable and easy because you just
pop them in the oven for 25 minutes and they are done. I tried to make scalloped potatoes in the
crockpot and everyone seemed to like them.
We had sliced Baguettes (like French bread, just smaller around), frozen
vegetables, a tossed salad that Sister Asplund bought and ice cream for
dessert. We didn’t visit real long
because we had a fireside with a member of the Area Presidency at 7:00 and one
of the sisters had to go put together the refreshments at 5:30 p.m. but it was
still very nice.
I am planning on having two couples and a single senior
missionary sister, who is leaving in a couple of weeks over this Sunday for
dinner after church and then we will go
for a walk by the river and park if the weather permits. The two couples are new. One are the Wells from
Provo, was an Psychology professor and originally from St. George and he still
has a lot of family in St. George. The
other couple are the Bradley’s and they are from Holiday (how do you spell
that? I am brain dead.) He is a lawyer and they are not missionaries
but service representatives. They are
invited to all our activities and meetings though. It will be interesting to find out what that
means and I don’t know how long they are here except I know they signed some
kind of a contract. His wife doesn’t
have an assignment so she is making quilts and cooking and finding things to
do.
We had Zone Conference a week ago and that was really
good. It is always nice to get together
with the other couples and be uplifted and laugh also. We learned about a lot of them and their
assignments here which was really interesting.
Marv and I had to tell about our assignments and how we give
service. That was really hard for
me. Marv did a great job and I am glad
I really had to think about what benefit I am giving. It was interesting to understand what
Humanitarian projects there are throughout Europe and what the Public Affairs
people have worked on. They can’t tell
you what they are working on now only after it is done.
Last Saturday, the Asplund’s came over and we met up with
the Peterson’s from Lehi and walked around our town and park. It was the start of a Festival here and they
were getting their booths set up in the park.
I bought a tablecloth and some small square tablecloths for the table
also. We ate a hamburger at the Down
Under Australian Restaurant and it actually was very good. Marv and I ordered the kids meal and it was
plenty. It was a hamburger and
fries. The hamburger was the normal size
hamburger but we saw the other hamburgers and they were HUGE. We of course had our Cola Light and it was
hot for once outside and I could have had two of them easily.
Afterwards we walked around a little more
and then we watched a parade. It was
fun. I have now seen my first German
parade. There were about three bands
and they weren’t kids bands but adults dressed in costumes. There were huge tractors pulling big wagons
(I’m guessing like hay wagons) with people inside most of the time having a
good time and drinking beer. During the
parade, they gave away flowers, apples, apple juice and we think beer, (we
didn’t take any – in case you are wondering), cookies, key chains, and of
course candy. We really did enjoy
watching it. The floats have a long
ways to be like the floats back home even the small town floats at home are
much better but it was still fun to see.
I was clapping for the floats and realized that the Germans don’t
clap. Oh well, maybe I can start
something new. We hurried and got home
and had to leave for our Ward party.
I had made peanut butter brownies with my precious chocolate
chips in them and they failed. They were
getting too done on top and not done enough in the middle. I have to hurry and find something else I
could take so I took some packaged fancy looking cookies with chocolate on
them. I felt so dumb but what do you do
when you are trying to learn how to cook.
I think part of the problem is they don’t have real brown sugar over
here either. Oh well, it was still fun. They had over 100 people show up for the
ward party. It was mainly different
salads and dessert but it was fine. It
was pretty noisy in the gym because everyone was talking and they had it set up
so that you moved around trying to get to know all the new families that have
moved into the ward. We got home about
8:30 p.m. and I had to finish putting the finishing touches on my Relief
Society lesson.
On Sunday, I taught President Utchdorf’s talk On the Road to
Damascus. It was a really good talk and
I was glad I got to teach it because I learned so much and it was exactly what
I needed to learn at this stage. The
sisters were wonderful with sharing some of their experiences that really added
to the lesson. I think it went well and
I felt the Lord was really helping me.
I am glad that they ask us to teach once in a while because I need that spiritual
uplift in my life even more. We do have
a devotional in my office every day and that is really good.
Well I guess I had best get this in the mail. I love all of you and hope that life is
treating you good. We are doing good
and I am happy to be here serving at this time.
Marv is awesome and he is the best companion anyone would or could ask
for. We think about you and love
you.
Love ya,
Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma (Vickie for MaKayla), Marv
and Vickie for the rest of you
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