" Bulky Refuse" by any other name is a....... "Sword Grinder" ?

As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, one of our biggest challenges living in Germany has been learning how to dispose of various types of trash, refuse and other unwanted items. The Germans are very into recycling and take it quite seriously.There are 8 different recycling categories. These do not include the four subcategories of plastic bottles. Two you take to the market for a return,  (one type goes in one machine and another goes in another machine), then there are the type that you recycle in your yellow kitchen trash and one type you throw away in your dark grey trash that doesn't get recycled. And we mustn't forget the glass. It must be recycled according to colors; white/clear, green and brown.

We have pretty well mastered the five that we must use to recycle our daily trash. Each has its own colored bin and/or bag. Luckily we have a storage room of sorts that we can keep three of these bags in. The others can be found in our tiny kitchen under the sink and under the table that doubles as a counter top. I feel like I write about this issue a lot. Sorry. I am one part intrigued and one part irritated about this whole "Garbage Circus", as my sister-in-law serving in the German speaking mission just south of us has dubbed it.

We inherited quite a bit of "stuff" when we moved into our apartment. At first I couldn't figure out why the previous occupants of our apartment had not bothered to dispose of any of it. Now I know why. They just didn't know how to get rid of it! Being slightly OCD person I feel compelled to deal with it.We are on an almost first name basis with the good folks at our neighborhood Red Cross. We have donated many items.We have made it part of our mission to get rid of all of it so that the next couple to move into our apartment won't have to deal with it. We have made great strides and now have only one major item left to dispose of- a very large, very orange, very dirty, made in the 70's Ikea couch. What to do with it.

Several people have told us that Germany has periodic "bulky refuse" pickups. One can take one's bulky items, such as unwanted furniture and the city will pick it up curbside and take it away. Great. The only problem is no one really seems to know when they are. We could call the city to find out but couldn't get past trying to obtain that information with our very sketchy German. We found out what this pickup is called in German and practiced how to ask our Hausmeister if he knew when our apartment's next pickup date and time would be. I got no further than saying this German name when he told me there was no such word in German. I repeated it several more times and got the same reaction. I think he told me he would give us some German lessons later on.

Well, I went marching upstairs and looked on the Recycling document that we had found in a little red info book in our apartment to check on the name. It was only slightly different from the word I had said....... A few days later Michael ran into our wonderfully sweet and helpful Hausmeister and asked him about the pickup again, using the correct name. He laughed and laughed. It turns out the reason he was so confused was that the word I had used was "Speermulle". He kind of acted out what the German word for Speer means- a spear, and the German word "mahl", (which is how he heard me pronounce "mulle") which means to sharpen or grind. He thought we were looking for a spear grinder and just couldn't make sense of that. The correct word is "Sperrmull"; picky, picky. Ach du meine gute! He told M he would try and find out when our next neighborhood pickup date would be and let us know.

As it turns out, we will not need to wait for this pickup as there is a new Young Single Adult convert in our ward in desperate need of a new couch. Apparently the one he has now has springs popping up through the cushions, is ripped and torn in places and... he loves the color orange:-) All's well that ends well.

What a great month and a half it has been here in Nurnberg, Germany. So many wonderful things have happened.

                       We were able to attend the wedding of two wonderful people, Yavus and Sylvia. They were two investigators that needed to get married before they got baptized. They are both blind but gifted in so many other areas and full of great faith. In the husband's toast to his wife he said that he was not troubled by being blind because if he hadn't been he would not have been able to meet his wife.♥ (sniff, sniff)

We still find time to go out on Friday night dates. There are a multitude of wonderful Thai restaurants right in our own neighborhood. This is Elder Hart's first "selfie". For those of you who know him well, this is quite remarkable.

One of our favorite people, Chris, age 22, entered the waters of baptism. It was such a spiritual occasion and we were so happy that many of our ward members came to support him. The change in him has been nothing short of miraculous. He has been such a great support to our Institute. He is friendly to everyone. We have asked him to give short talks and testimonies in various meetings since his baptism and he has happily done so. His progress in learning the gospel and applying it to his life has been astounding. We adore this young man. He says he is planning on serving a mission when he completes his nurse's training.

Some of our wonderful ward members at Chris's baptism.

We just love our Institute. It is certainly growing. Our wonderful, hard working missionaries have been able to bring 3 young people into the waters of baptism and we have two more scheduled. There are also many investigators that we just love. It gives us great joy to see the good and happy changes it has brought into each of their lives as they have come to know the

Savior and of His great love for each of them. It is truly one of the happiest places on earth♥ I must admit however, that it is a challenge for me to cook enough for our Institute dinners each week. A couple of weeks ago I made a soup that required 16 cans of various beans, tomatoes and other vegetables!  Even more challenging is finding room in our little trash sacks to put all the empty cans!

Aren't they cute? Our little International Institute. I love it♥

We have the best District Meetings. After our last one we celebrated one of the elder's birthdays by walking over to the Altstadt for a Italian lunch. We took our lunches outside to eat as it was a very rare sunshiny day. We felt like little moles that hadn't been out in the sun in days and had to keep blinking as we soaked up the bright sun rays. Unfortunately it only lasted for a day or two.We are at present back to dark/ cloudy/rainy/snowy/ hail-y/ blustery weather. This often happens all in the course of one day or even one hour. It is crazy here!

On one of our walks across the Altstadt in Nurnberg we happened across this bridge that had hundreds of locks on it. Apparently the tradition of putting locks on this bridge after you were married originated on some bridge in Paris and the Nurnbergers loved it so much that they started doing it. It's supposed to guarantee your marriage. It locks it in. I wonder if there are any statistics supporting the reality of this.

Our missionaries are so sweet. We were given these left over and very fancily folded napkins from the above mentioned wedding to use for our weekly Institute dinner. Some of them had come undone and others needed to be folded for the first time. So I put the elders to work. They just cracked me up. This is quite certainly something they never imagined they would be doing on their missions.

One of our favorite missionaries, a very hard working Zone Leader, will be going home in a week and we will all miss him. He has been such a fantastic missionary and has served so faithfully. One of our investigators made him a beautiful birthday cake and everyone enjoyed wishing him well. We will miss you Elder Hobson♥

As many of you know, Elder Hart loves stars and solar systems and all things astral. This solar eclipse on March 20 totally captivated him. He had to go out with his little homemade eclipse viewer to view it. It really does work.

A couple of weeks ago we met two other Senior Couples in our area for P Day in the beautiful old city of Kelheim. There we embarked on a river boat cruise up the beautiful blue Danube River. It was indeed beautiful but definitely not blue.
(I think I am looking for my lost marbles)

Getting ready to cruise.

Floating by a charming little German dorf.

Getting ready to enter the gorge.

Our destination was this abbey situated on a bend in the Danube River, through the so-called "Weltenburg Narrows" or the "Danube Gorge". The monastery was founded by Irish or Scottish monks in about 620 and is held to be the oldest monastery in Bavaria.The outside is very unassuming but when you open a plain rustic brown door just to the right of where we are standing, voila!

To wind up this long rambling post I would like to wish a few Happy Birthdays to some very dear family members whose birthdays we won't be able to help celebrate. On April 4th our sweet and funny grandson Tommy will turn 8! We are so sad we have to miss another baptism. Hope it's a very special and memorable day for you,Thomas. We love you very much♥

 

  Happy Birthday on April 6th to our amazing son, Daniel, seated here with some of his adoring fans.

 

Happy Birthday on April 19 to my much better half,  Elder Michael Allan Hart♥

Happy Birthday on April 23 to our wonderful and spunky daughter, Susannah Lee.

Happy Birthday on April 24 to our sweet and loving daughter, Heather Maren.

Happy 10th Birthday on April 25 to our fun and adorable grand daughter, Whitley Taylor.

                                                              HeLives.mormon.org

And this is why we are doing what we are doing. We love our Savior so much and are so grateful for His life, example, teachings and atoning sacrifice for each of us. We would love for each of you to view this link on HeLives.mormon.org

We love each one of you and are so appreciative of your lives and your support♥

Elder and Sister Hart

P.S. If anyone can tell me how to get rid of these annoying side panels from ShabbyBlogs.com, could you please let me know? I can't get rid of them:-(