WE GO TO GERMANY FOR STEFFI'S WEDDING

Dear Family,

We had the best short trip to Germany. Steffi Meyne one of our sister Missionaries (from Prussia) sent me a note on Face Book that she had a wedding date in October and I thought that is the best reason to take our frequent flyer miles and go back to Germany for the first time in five years.

Stefffi was one of our great sister missionaries who was a very hard worker, disciplined, effective, great trainer and a love of the Gospel that ran very deep. She reminded a bit of my Mom who also joined the church as a young lady in Zurich Switzerland and who gave up home, country and tradition to come to the states to pursue her gemology work. Her conversion was total body and she loved the church with all her heart and spoke of it daily. We kept in touch with Steffi and were thrilled with the news.

The trip over to Berlin was easy even back in economy. When we got to the airport, there was Steffi who came to pick us up two nights before her wedding. We visited and she drove us to the hotel. There is a picture of Steffie loading us up. So great to see her again!

When Katje's mother, Marita Muench heard that we were coming, she invited us to come to Cottbus on Friday to give a Fireside on Joseph Smiths boyhood operation (the first story we have of Joseph Smith) in her ward and of course in German. I was very worried about this since it has been five years since I spoke any leg nth in German. We drove down to Cottbus on Friday in a neat little Ford four door with a peppy diesel engine and six gears ahead. I brought my Garmin GPS with an Alpine SD map card with me and it took us to the door. We had lunch with Her and the Seidels. She took us through the Spreewald where there were armies of people out gathering wild mushrooms.

Here is a picture of Mom and Marita who took us all around Cottbus, The fireside went OK. I had my fireside talk already translated in German and got someone to read off the legnthier slides. It went for about 45 minutes and I was able to answer questions.

We then drove to Hoyerswerda and stayed over night in Marita's apartment where Katje also grew up. We went to a Baeckerei for breakfast and the first bite of a Brotchen with dried meats and cheese brought back a flood of memories. Marita drove us to Dresden. She has a rather heavy foot on the accelerator and at time we were doing 110 mph.
She knew each blitzer on the way to Dresden but it was great help to have her drive.
We met with our AP Attila Heller, his wife, three kids and his father at the Frauenkirche. Dresden was leveled during the war but the Frauenkirche was built up again. It was so good to see the Hellers. We used to call him Schneller Heller; he would wait till I dozed off in the car and then pick up speed on the Autobahn. We worked together several months driving and having meetings all over the mission. Here is a picture of Papa Heller, Attila, his wife and three kids. We visited for two hours, did a horse carriage ride around the Altstadt of Dresden, went into the Frauenkirche to see its renovations. Visited, talked and just enjoyed to be with them again.


We then drove to Freiberg to meet Dario, Patricia Dzierzon and their four kids.. all boys..twins with red hair. We had one of Dario's famous Topfs and visited again. Both Dario and Patricia were our missionaries and Dario was my AP for a long time as well. They have a spacious apartment in a home owned by their family for many years. The house was built in the 1600's. Here is a picture of their street. Quick lunch and then it was over to the Temple in Freiberg; this was the first temple behind the iron curtain.

We got there for the 2:30 PM wedding and there was Steffi and her fiance, Robert Hammer. He is from a German family who have been members of the church for several generations and he once had filled a mission in California. Here is a picture of Mom, Mary Cox (also one of our missionaries who is getting a PhD at Oxford and writing her thesis in Berlin), Robert and Steffi and me in front of the temple.

The temple is of medium size, bigger than the one in Detroit. They had friends and family and I counted 26 in the room. The men stood but I had a special seat as Steffi asked me to be a witness and that was a great honor. There was a great spirit there and the Temple President, Pres. Apel performed the ceremony and it was great. Lots of pictures and then it was time to drive back to Berlin (two hours) for the wedding reception at the Tiergarten ward. Dario and Patricia rode with us back to Berlin with Dario at the wheel.


Here is a picture of Steffi and Robert doing the traditional wedding waltz. There were tons of great German finger food and a huge cake.
I visited with the Bishop of the ward and all were so very happy for Steffi and Robert. Then we got back in the car and drove two hours back to Freiberg with Mom spelling off Dario at the end. We stayed at Dario's parents home in Freiberg and got back 1 AM.

The next day was Sunday and we went to the Freiberg ward. It is a great ward and Mom and I both recognized that the members liked each other and there was such a great spirit there. It is also a strong ward with the Stake President, stake Patriarch, Temple President and Temple missionaries are members. They had the largest High Priest Quorum that I have ever seen there. Many were distinguished in their own right. The meeting were great; it was Fast Day and I got up towards the end and by then mhy German was pretty good. We loved it there.

We spent the day with Dario and Patricia and it was great. Here is a picture of them with three of their four boys. On the day this was taken, the oldest was in Vorschule. The next morning, we took a little trip to a little town near the Erzgebirge where they make all those fabulous Christmas decorations. They had the smoking men, Pyramids and nutcrackers that were life size. Cheryl would have gone nuts there.




Here is a picture of the full size nutcrackers guarding the way in. I had to control myself a lot. There was this fat little Raeuchermann with a great beard that was a Forester but they wanted 280 Euro and that cooled the enthusiasm. It was so neat to be there and it was like being in the Mother Lode of all Christmas stuff. We saw how they painstakingly put everything together.

After a super lunch there, we drove back to Berlin. We left early the next morning; the airport in Berlin was socked in so our flight to London was delayed and we missed the connection to the states. British Air was kind and put us on a flight to Chicago going Business class that was very good. We made it home and got our bags a couple days later.

It was such a great short trip and we met dear friends again and were part of Steffi's wedding which was the highlight of the trip. Going over there could be habit forming.

Alles Gute und Alles Liebe, Mom and Dad