Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

I did not drive for the first three months of our mission. The driving in Nurnberg is insanely complicated-this from a former Southern California girl used to driving the fast and furious freeways there.  Nurnberg dates back to medieval times. The Old City (Altstadt), where we live, is lovely and charming. It is replete with beautiful cathedrals, bridges over the Pegnitz River running through it, cobblestone streets and a castle. It is surrounded by massive stone walls, lookout towers and a moat. In the last few hundred years, as the city began to grow beyond its medieval roots, streets sprawled in all directions like spokes on a wheel, albeit very crooked spokes. These in turn were connected by wandering paths, streets, alleys and semi-thoroughfares.

There seems to me that there is no master plan here. Elder Hart, however, who has done nearly all our driving, says that he is beginning to see one. I'll just have to take his word for it. He usually has a pretty good inner sense of where we are and where we need to go. He’ll say, “It seems like we need to be more over in that direction”, and so, off we go in that direction.  Me, I rely on our voice-activated GPS, “Emily from England”, I call her. She uses very proper British English but mangles the German street names worse that we do;-)

There are stretches on some streets that may have 8 lanes going one direction. These lanes are shared not only by automobiles, but also by electric trains and city and tour buses. Lanes can disappear alarmingly. Left and right turn-only lanes appear out of nowhere, and if you are not aware that they are coming you'll get locked into a turn you had no intention of making. The Strassenbahn or train tracks are often in the same lanes the cars drive on. At times a train may be headed right at you, but then turn left or right just before a head-on collision. Think Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Disneyland. Or you both may be going in the same direction, separated by a foot or two; so close that you could give a passenger on the train a pass along card. Also, there seems to be no law against parking your car or delivery truck in a traffic lane to unload cargo or just run into a store for a few minutes. In seconds traffic backs up as drivers merge to go around said vehicle. Ditto with parking on sidewalks, or half-on/half-off the sidewalk. And always there are hundredsof pedestrians and bike riders whose right of way trump drivers-to add to the anxiety.

Those before-mentioned eight lanes at an intersection may include two straight ahead lanes, a u-turn left and a couple sort-of lefts, a sort-of right, a hard right and one that wanders into an alley, and you better know which direction you want to go. You gotta think fast. If you blow it, Emily will calmly inform you that she is “recalculating”. Always cool in a tight spot, she never panics.

Somehow, it all works. German drivers are nearly always polite and seem to have a sense that we all have to get along. They are willing to let you merge, change lanes and maneuver around and through situations that would flummox any driver in the states. Of course, if you don’t merge, change lanes or zip around "schnell" you'll get honked at. As soon as a traffic signal turns from red to amber (they do that here) you better have your foot off the brake and on the gas.

My first solo voyage was to a visiting teaching appointment in a neighboring city. I set the address on the GPS and gave myself plenty of time for Emily to recalculate a few times. Within a couple blocks she was already recalculating. I had been praying silently in the car that I would be able to get to my appointment safely and so wasn’t really paying attention and made a wrong turn. God assumes you are paying attention.

Emily told me to make a U-turn as soon as I could. I found a street to turn left onto that I thought would be perfect to make a little u-turn on and was waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so I could make my turn. The person behind me however, leaned on his horn, so I knew I must be doing something wrong and kept on driving.  I found another street to turn left onto, with no oncoming traffic. Sweet! I turned left and immediately horns started honking again. I had turned onto a one way street! What to do? I made a frantic three point turn. Unfortunately several cars had stacked up   behind me and I found myself too far forward to be able to see the traffic light. Not to worry though. I knew that the cars behind me would honk as soon as the light turned green…which they did. I calmly turned right; now headed back in the correct direction.

I vowed that I would think of nothing else but Emily from then on. I made several tricky turns correctly and was getting my confidence back when she told me to turn left onto a street called Frankenschnellweg. (The name itself inspires fear, right?) So I did, and the same thing happened! Horns started honking at me again and I realized I was turning onto another one way street, and it was with same results. Luckily, it was a five lane street and there were only cars in the three right turning lanes and none in the two left turning ones, which is the direction I needed to go. Fortunately the light was red so I had time to make another three point turn and  facing the correct way. I was able to drive the rest of the way to my appointment without incident, so I guess my prayer was answered.  Disneyland’s Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride has nothing on mine!

What's going on besides driving?- lots of great things. One of the highlights was watching our Church's Worldwide General Conference. Between the Sunday AM and PM sessions two sweet sisters in our ward prepared a lovely lunch for all the missionaries. What a joy to be able to see our beloved Prophet, Thomas S. Monson and all the other General Authorities and general officers. I feel so uplifted and rejuvenated by their words and counsel.

English speakers and missionaries watching General Conference

Yummy dinner made by Sister Ochs and Sister Preiss

A couple of days later we were able to join our Stake Youth at the Frankfurt Temple for a combined Youth Conference and Temple Trip. It’s really wonderful how it works here. The youth all stay in temple housing right on the grounds of the temple for their 4 day conference, as did we and all the other youth leaders. There is also a Stake Center on the grounds where all the meals were prepared and eaten, and where most of the activities, games, sports, musical events, and meetings were held. The highlight of course was doing the temple baptisms. I was able to attend several sessions while Elder Hart assisted with the baptisms and confirmations. It was kind of strange watching an English film with German voices translated back into English on my head phones. After the first time with headphones I opted to listen to it in German. I know the dialog so well that I can pretty much understand everything.

View of Frankfurt Temple on left and Visitor's Center on right

View of temple on right and overnight dorms on left

We drove home, slept in our own bed one night, then repacked our bags and drove about an hour to a beautiful castle in Colmberg, where we held our Senior Couple’s Conference. We always enjoy these Senior Conferences because it gives us a chance to visit with people our age doing some of the same things we are doing and that can understand all our challenges. We compare notes and give each other help, encouragement and tips on everything from garbage sorting to driving to shopping to how to use our time effectively.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch there and had a tour of the castle followed by a wonderful meeting with our fellow missionaries and President Stoddard and his wife. The castle is now privately owned and operated by a German family who bought the castle a couple of generations ago. Who knew you could buy a castle?

That evening we all drove to the old medieval city of Rothenburg where we enjoyed a traditional German dinner and then went on a Night Watchman’s Tour of the city. It was a fascinating glimpse into life as it was lived in medieval Rothenburg. Not much has changed in the way the city looks, if you can believe it. By the time we finished our tour it was dark and Elder Hart and I could not find our way back to our car. Luckily some friends in our group told us to hop in their car and they would drive us up and down the streets looking for our car. What a sight six overage, slightly overweight missionaries must have made, stuffed as we were into a tiny little German car hanging out the windows trying to spot our car! We were able to finally find it and headed back to the castle.

The next morning, after a delicious breakfast-and Germans know how to do breakfast-we drove to the ward building in the nearby city of Ansbach, where we met again for a continuation of our Conference. After lunch we drove to the Altstadt of Ansbach, where we had a delightful tour. Afterwards we drove quickly back to Nurnberg just in time to attend the baptism of a young American soldier from Ansbach. It was a great way to end the week.

Dining area in Castle Colmberg.

View from our bedroom window in the Colmberg Castle

Me, welcoming all to our lovely Castle in the Clouds in Colmberg

Venison for dinner? Here they are.

While on a tour of the Colmberg Castle Elder Hart got to play this very old organ in the chapel. He played and we sang I Am a Child of God.

Elder Hart is often oblivious to his immediate surroundings.

From the inside of the castle looking out.

Another view from Colmberg Castle.

If you choose to have wild boar for dinner at the castle, these are some of the little guys you might find on your plate.

Still oblivious.

Tiny little stairs inside leading up to the lookout views. No thanks.

Getting ready for our Nightwatchman's Tour of the beautiful medieval town of Rothenberg.

Nightwatchman's Tour

The very scary entrance to the city of Rothenberg. Don't enter if you're up to no good.

Standing with stone angels outside an ancient crypt.I always feel like I am in the midst of real angels here in Germany:-)

I'm puzzled too. "Why am I wearing all this armor"?

There is lot of interesting art just outside the Altstadt of Ansbach. Looks like a cross between a horse and a pistol to me. I have no idea what it's supposed to represent.That's a bride across the street.

The City Hall of old Ansbach.

Christ and three Apostles in a little niche of a church in old Ansbach.

Some interesting windows in old Rothenberg.

More interesting art in Ansbach.It represents something about lots of beer and flowing traffic.

We were in Ansbach around Easter time.The Germans have this thing about Easter eggs. They are everywhere in Bavaria during this time of year.

Castle Colmberg also had lots of Easter eggs, and bunny people, on display.

Driving from Colmberg to Ansbach we saw this sign. Can you figure it out?

On April 19, I had to (got to?) give a talk in the Feucht Ward. Elder Hart is the High Councilor assigned to this ward, so every third Sunday one or the other of us has the opportunity to speak in their Sacrament Meeting. I went up to the stand but before I could get to the microphone the Bishop stood up and asked me if it was my birthday. I thought for a minute and said “no”. He said he saw it on Facebook. He then looked back in the audience to where Elder Hart was sitting and asked him if it was his birthday. He nodded that yes, it was. It hit me like a thunderbolt! It was his birthday, and I had forgotten it! In front of everyone! I didn’t hear the end of that for a long time.

On April 23 we drove three of our ward missionaries up to Frankfurt for an all-day Germany Frankfurt Mission Conference with Elder David A. Bednar and  Elders Tiexera and Allen of the Seventy. We found out that our mission will be one 15 in Western Europe to use iPads in our missionary work. All the missionaries will have access to the internet on their iPads and be able to use all the tools, scriptures, pictures, videos, talks, messages and other Church materials to help in their teaching, planning, learning and communications with members and investigators. It was a glorious and memorable day and we all learned so much. Not sure when we will actually get them but it will be soon.

Road trip, oh yeah!

On April 25 I was asked to present one of the mini classes for the Stake Relief Society Women’s Conference in Erlangen. I am very happy to report that I drove myself there, and back home, without any further “incidents”.

On May 2, Sister Koch was baptized. She is one of the most delightful people that we have met here.

Isn't she adorable?

 We drove up to Wurzberg this evening to join with the JAEs there for their Institute night.  They have a wonderful group of kids. The Senior Couple, Elder and Sister Ricks prepared a wonderful Cinco de Mayo dinner with homemade tortillas and Tres Leches Cake for dessert. We had so much fun.

They were rehearsing for a song they will be singing in Sacrament Meeting soon. I got to help them a bit. I recruited some of the girls to come and join the Stake Missionary Choir for Stake Conference. As you can imagine, there are are quite a few more Elders than there are Sisters.

Hand rolling their tortillas

      Waiting in line to fry their tortillas

What a great lesson. In Deutsch, of course. I even understood some of it:-)

On May 10 we had our first Stake Conference since we have been here. They held in it a town hall to accommodate all the members of the Stake. I was able to direct a Stake Missionary Choir with all our young Elders, Sisters and  the Seniors. We sang a beautiful arrangement of ...what else? “Called To Serve” It was such a joy. We love all of our missionaries so much. There was a change in the Stake Presidency. We loved our former Stake President and will love our new one: President Levi Schwartz. He was the Frankfurt Germany Mission President up until 10 months ago, so you can imagine how missionary-minded he is and how much he loves the JAEs (YSAs). He is so supportive of our program and wants to do everything he can to help it grow and be successful. After Stake Conference we invited all the Stake JAEs to Nurnberg for a luncheon. We had members from the Coburg, Wurzburg, Bamberg, Erlangen and Nurnberg wards attend. These wards are so far apart that they hardly ever get to meet together so it was a wonderful opportunity to get so many together.

All ready for the luncheon tomorrow.

Many of you have asked for more pictures. So here are some random ones. Actually all of my pictures are random as I really don't know what I'm doing as far as posting them on my blog. They seem to have a mind of their own and go where they want to go:-(  For those of you who enjoy order, I apologize.

I love the windows here in Germany. They are quite versatile. One can get as much fresh air into one's room as desired. The roller shades are on the outside of the windows.

I find the grocery cart system here to be fascinating. The USA should adopt this. We might have fewer stolen carts. You deposit a one Euro coin in the little slot, which releases it from the carts front of it. When you return your cart, you insert the hanging chain that has a key attached to it from the cart in front of you into your cart and it locks the cart and pops your coin out. Ingenious!

I am standing in front of our apartment. We go up a flight of stairs and live on the first floor. The stairway behind me with all the foliage in front leads up to our private little garden. Our front room windows overlook it.

We have a lovely park across the road from us.

The park is just on the left of the parked cars.

The above pictures are from a walk we took this morning, starting at the park across our street. There are fitness courses and stations all along the way. The paths are full of walkers and runners and bikers. The Germans take their exercise very seriously. I can barely take in all the beauty that is Nurnberg.

 The Senior Couple from Gravenwaehr,  just bought us these coveted and not-to-be-found in Germany items for us on the US Army Base there. I am beyond thrilled!

We have gotten three parking tickets so far. This sign is one more attempt to remind us to move the car off the sidewalk before 9:00 AM. We often have to park there at night because there is no room on the parking side! What's a person to do? Especially those with poor memories.

Have I mentioned how much we love our mission? In an interview with President Stoddard yesterday, he asked us if we were happy. We are so happy to be where we are, doing what we are doing and doing it with people that we have grown to love so much. It is challenging and difficult at times but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We send our sincere love to all of our family members and friends who have been so supportive. Your prayers and well wishes mean so much to us. We miss you more that we can say.

If anyone would like to learn more about our Church, just go to mormon.org. Great website! You'll love it!

Love to all,
Elder and Sister Hart