" 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:-(

Love is in the Air

I really love the month of February. Maybe it has something to do with my last name ❤️ How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

On February 7th, our daughter Elizabeth's and son-in-law Kurt's triplets, Kai, Chase and Kate Hanson, were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sadly, we were unable to be in attendance but were able to send a little video talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost that was shown at their baptism. We love them dearly♥

Valentine's Day was sort of like Christmas was....... mostly unobserved in the traditional way. There were no flowers, no candy, no cards and no romantic dinner out on the town. Since M and I are somewhat joined at the hip these days, there is no way to go out alone and purchase little tokens of love and appreciation, although I did wake up to this on my iPad the morning of:-)

From my forever sweetheart

However, just like Christmas, I think it will prove to be the best Valentine's Day ever! It was the baptism day of two wonderful people that we love very much- Precious and Mohammad.We have been privileged to help teach Precious and she has been like a flower opening up to the light of the gospel. When the elders first started teaching her, she and her husband were on two different wave lengths as far as religion was concerned and she was not supportive of his beliefs. He joined the church about 20 years ago but had been inactive until recently. He told her that he had always retained a belief in Jesus Christ and in the restored gospel and now wanted to return to church. Soon after we were invited by the elders to join them in teaching her and we have seen such a wonderful change come over her and them as a couple. They are so happy together and couldn't wait for her baptism and then trip a year from now to the Frankfurt Temple to be sealed together for time and all eternity. I have observed that for the two of them there exists no "Great and Spacious Building" to pull them away from the gospel path (I Nephi 8). They have pure and simple testimony of their Savior and Redeemer and they only desire to keep the commandments so that they can show their love to Him and their Father in Heaven. Pure faith and testimony are the most important things to them in this life.

Precious and Brother Adamu on her baptism day

 Mohammad is a young man from Afghanistan. Like so many, he left his country in search of work opportunities and safety. The rest of his family is still in Afghanistan. We have seen the same change come over him. Where there was darkness and not much hope, there is now light and happiness and hope for his future. I feel so sad for the many people that come here to work and have to leave their families behind. I can't even imagine having to do that. Learning that they have a Father in Heaven that loves them and is always there for them helps ease their loneliness. We have been teaching him English, which has proved to be a very interesting experience, to say the least. I speak very little German, which he speaks, and he speaks no English. Communication takes place mostly in sign language;-) Jane Moffitt (who teaches ESL), where are you when I most need you?

Mohammad, Precious, Brother Adamu and the two elders that taught them.

February is a big birthday month in our family. We wish very Happy Birthdays to our sweet granddaughter, Halle Miller, who turned 12 on February 12th and  left Primary to enter Young Women, to one of our four favorite sons-in-law, Jake Beaman who turned an undisclosed age on February 21st and received a most amazing birthday gift (about which I will talk a bit later), to our handsome and sporty grandson, Hinckley Miller, who turned 14 on February 23rd and is now a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, and to my dear mother, Doris Powelson Sonners, born on February 26th. Although she is no longer living here on the earth I feel her presence often in my life and try to be as valiant a disciple of Jesus Christ as she was♥

Mother as a sweet young girl♥

My mother and her eternal Valentine

On February 19th, about midnight Nurnberg time, a brand new love entered our lives. Little Dylan Beaman was born to our daughter Erin and husband Jake. He weighed in at a hefty 9 pounds and was 19 1/2" long. Missing his birth was one of the most difficult things we've had to face thus far on our mission. How I wish we could have been there! He will be over a year old before we get to see him. We are so grateful for Facetime, Skype, Dropbox and the internet that help keep us somewhat connected and able to see the faces and hear the voices of those we hold dear♥

 On February 28th we have the upcoming baptism of another young man for whom we feel a great deal of love, Chris. He is an amazing young man. He has been meeting with the missionaries on and off for the last six months, but didn't really want to give up partying with his friends or change his lifestyle. Life was for fun.When we first met him we didn't hold out much hope for him really wanting to change his ways, but he had such an engaging and endearing quality about him that we couldn't help but love him. He started coming back to Institute after we got here and that's how we got to know him. I'm not quite sure when or how he decided to change his life, but he did. He is no longer the person he was previously. The gospel of Jesus Christ can do that, and every time we see it happen it is like witnessing a miracle. He was lovable and gregarious before but now he just radiates light and happiness. He is a nursing student with a very busy and rigorous schedule but he comes to all of his meetings, has taken his eyebrow stud out and even talks about wanting to serve a mission. He wants to serve in any way he can♥

I love the availability of beautiful flowers here in Germany. For instance, at any market one can buy a beautiful  bouquet of live flowers for only a couple of Euro. The tulips and orchids are my favorites. We received these beautiful orchids from a friend here for our anniversary on December 22nd, and they are still beautifully blooming two months later. We always have a vase of tulips on our dining table brightening up our somewhat gloomy apartment. These are a little over the hill but still bring a smile to my face.

Orchids in winter

Beautiful Tulpen

We were visiting the Feucht Ward last week. My husband is the High Counselor assigned to that ward. I was absolutely mesmerized by this little girl sitting in front of us knitting. She had five or six needles going at once as she was knitting these socks! She is only 10 years old. After the meeting I asked her mother about how she learned to do this. She said that she has knitting classes at the school she attends. All the boys and girls learn to knit from first grade on. She has been knitting for four years! This picture is especially for our granddaughter Ava, who wants to learn how to knit so much. Every time I come to visit her she asks me to show her how. She tells me her stitches won't stay on the needles; a result I'm sure of my inadequate instruction :-(

Notice all the needles and different colors of yarn.

A sweet event happens in our ward building about once a month. A very nice man in the ward, not a member of the Church by the way, comes to the building and gives free haircuts to all the missionaries and anyone else who happens to come by. Elder Hart decided to take him up on his offer. He does a much better job that I do. The elders wanted to take a picture of him so I let them have my camera. I couldn't figure out why they were taking so many pictures of him. Turns out they weren't. Debbie, you gave some advice the other day to never let the Young Women borrow your iPhone because they will take endless selfies. Apparently young men will do the same thing. This is just one of 20 pictures they took. Silly boys.

 Of course, our life here is not all ♥s, rainbows, flowers and sunshine. Into every life a little rain must fall, right? Still on my list of all things awful are dealing with the garbage, dealing with the Visa Office, trying to find parking, trying to learn and understand German and trying to get our apartment updated, dejunked and remodeled. The last one sounds fun, huh? If I were at home, it would be. However....... there is the language barrier that makes it almost impossible to communicate. We have been working with one of the native German counselors in the Frankfurt Mission Presidency. He is the dearest of men and I adore him, but I know he is probably wondering every day how he got the misfortune of having to deal with these Americans that speak such limited German. He has spent hours with us. Unfortunately he lives way north of us in Frankfurt so most of our communication has to be by email. Here is what one of his last letters to us looks like. I get a headache and my eyes start to cross just looking at it. He wants us to make all these decisions about what we want in our new kitchen but I don't know the price perimeters, how to find anything that he wants us to look at, or really even know what he wants us to decide. I keep telling him I would be very happy with whatever he picks out, and I would! Anything new and clean and bright and shiny would be wonderful, but I don't think he believes me. I gave a few opinions on some colors and cabinets and fixtures and other things I liked the one time we went with him to Ikea to look and my tastes were apparently far above our budget. I had no way of knowing what the budget was or how much things cost and didn't mean to seem so exorbitant in my tastes. "All white", I said to him yesterday. Everything in white would be fine with me, hoping that that would put an end to things, but no, he said, that would be too boring. Ach, du meine Gute! So today, M and I have to make another trip to Ikea to pick out countertops and drawer pulls and handles. I am praying that this will put an end to the decisions. I copied this onto Google Translate and got my laughs for the month with the translation they provided.

We still don't have our Visas :-(   We have made four trips to the Visa Office, each time with more paperwork to fill out. Of course, with each new round of requirements comes hours of trying to translate exactly they want. We finally had to call the Mission Office with our lack of results and they said they would get the church legal department on the case. It really shouldn't be this difficult to get a Visa. I am so glad it is out of our hands now.

We love being here and serving the Lord, even with all our frustrations. Soon they will all be figured out and taken care of and we can focus more on what we want to really accomplish here.
We love you all and appreciate so much your love and support.

Elder and Sister Hart♥

Ein gutes neues Jahr

We have been on our mission for one month already! I can't believe it. Time certainly does fly on wings of lightning. It seems like we have spent a lot of our time here so far taking care of all the "nuts and bolts". They are all things we need to do but aren't very exciting; getting the internet hooked up in our apartment, getting our i-phone set up (still haven't been able to get that accomplished), turn in our Visa papers, get a German bank account, arrange to have some things fixed in our apartment that don't work or need to be replaced (still working on those) and STILL trying to figure out how to dispose of things here. Over the years of Senior Couples living here, the apartment has accumulated a lot of miscellaneous stuff/junk. I'm sure it's all still here because no one can figure out how to get rid of it. I am determined to be the one that does it. Those of you that know me well know that I cannot abide stuff. I am the opposite of a pack rat.

Today Michael and I went on a "split" with the elders. We find ourselves in an interesting situation as of last week. One of our four Nurnberg elders was recently called to be an AP (Assistant to the President) and will be serving at the mission home in Frankfurt. He also happened to be the District Leader. So for two weeks, until they call another DL, there will be three elders trying to cover two different areas. As most of you know missionaries serve in twosomes. One cannot go anywhere alone. So Elder Hart and I have been trying to help them keep their separate appointments by going on "splits" with them. Today M went with Elder Hopson to an appointment he had set up and I went with Elders Kitchen and Murray to visit a member and her daughter that have been away from the church for a long time.( I couldn't drive them so I had to take public transportation with them to this appointment. It was my first experience traveling on the U-Bahn and the bus. We had to make two transfers. I was so glad that I didn't have to figure out how to do this all on my own)! Neither of them spoke English so it was a little difficult for me to understand all that was spoken:-( The mother, who is about my age, had had her feelings hurt many years ago by some members of our ward and so didn't want to return to church. This made me so sad. I wished that I could tell her that the gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect but that people aren't. The elders shared some scriptures with them about the power of prayer and how important it is for us to have the spirit of the Lord with us in our lives to help us in all things. She invited us to come again and me to bring my husband with me next time. We readily agreed. They served us a delicious casserole. It had chicken rolls stuffed with mozzarella cheese and wrapped with bacon in it, along with potatoes and cabbage and more cheese on top. It was a huge casserole and I could only eat one serving. The poor elders loved it also but felt like they had to eat the second and third and fourth helpings that were offered to them. They were pretty sick on the way home.
We have had so many wonderful experiences this past week and met so many amazing people with the most incredible life stories. I can't remember if I mentioned that M has been called to serve on the High Council. Part of his assignment is to visit different wards in the Stake and to find the YSAs in each ward. The first week we attended the Erlangen Ward we met a young married couple that had just escaped from Ukraine one week previous to our visit. He is a returned missionary from Ukraine who served a mission in Russia and she is a Ukraine who served a Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission. They have two adorable little daughters. They said that since the war with Russia Ukraine has been almost totally destroyed and invaded by terrorists. They lived there in fear for their lives and the lives of their children every day. It was a miracle that they were able to get out. They were on their way to a refugee camp in Germany when they decided to attend the Frankfurt Temple where they had been sealed 10 years ago, to try and find a little peace and spiritual direction for their lives. In the parking lot there they met a widow from Erlangen and shared their story with her. She insisted that they come and live in her house while they tried to find a job and secure a work permit and German Visa. The husband speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English but no German, so a member of the High Council in their ward has been taking him around trying to find some German contacts to get his business going here. The ward has pretty much adopted them and they feel so blessed and happy to be here. We attended this ward again yesterday, a couple of weeks later for a baptism and was able to see how things were going for them. Their Visas expired a week ago and they were told that they would have to return to Ukraine to get it renewed. They felt that if they were to return there they would most likely likely not be able to get out again. The other option was to live in the refugee camp in Germany. Apparently it is very dangerous there. He has since been able to get a job and a work permit. and the good High Councilman is trying to get through to some German bureaucrats to help them with their Visa problems. They still live in gear that they will be deported or have to go to the refugee camp but I think they have been blessed with so many miracles up to now that the Lord has them in the palm of His hand and somehow the way will be made clear for them to remain here and work.

Last week we were able to attend a Zone Training meeting with these wonderful young missionaries. There were 36 of them! The meeting was conducted by the Zone Leader, who did an amazing job. The missionaries taught each other. We felt like we were in General Conference. The talks were all so inspiring and spiritual. Where else could you find 36 youth between the ages of 18-24 teaching each other and behaving in such a remarkable manner?

That night we had our first regular Institute meeting. We made pulled pork sandwiches, green salad and apple crisp for dessert. We had a great turnout; nine YSAs , four missionaries, the Institute teacher and us.

Yesterday we were able to attend the baptism of Lisa (center). She has been attending our Institute since just before Christmas. It was one of the most beautiful and spiritual baptisms we have ever attended. A truly remarkable young woman.

                  

Earlier that morning we experienced an interesting phenomenon; Transfer calls! Apparently these take place every eight (?) weeks. A group call is placed and transfers are announced for the entire mission. We prepared some breakfast burritos for them to lighten the mood. Luckily we only lost one of our missionaries. A favorite sister missionary; Sister Wahlquist. She has been such a great help to us in getting to know our way around all thing German. I don't think we would have made it without her.

So, in closing and in keeping things real, we had a funny experience last night. M saw some frozen French fries in a bag at one of the German markets yesterday. We do love our French fries so were so excited to try them. Only one problem, the cooking instructions are all in incomprehensible German. We had been using Google Translate earlier in the day to try and decipher some letters from our bank here. It took us hours to look up all the words but we finally got most of it. (We hope). So... I decided to use it again to find out how to cook these darn fries. It takes so long to enter every single loooong German word, so I decided to try using the microphone option, which allows one to simply read a text in German. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how to pronounce German. I don't really understand it all that well, but I can speak it. The translation told me to arrange them in the cemeteries on a single sheet of graph paper. Hmmm..... I guess I need to reassess my ability to speak good German:-(

I love you all♥
Sister Hart

The Best Christmas Ever

This has been a very different December for us. No gift buying or exchanging of presents, no family gatherings, no birthday celebration, no anniversary celebration, and yet, we can truthfully say that it has been the Best Christmas Season Ever! We have been able to totally focus on the greatest gift the world has ever received; the birth and life of the Savior and we have been able to celebrate this in the most wonderful of ways. One of my favorite ways was to go caroling several times. The first time Michael and I and six of the most wonderful young missionaries we have ever had the privilege of knowing went caroling to some members. Two of them reside in rest homes. This rest home was beautiful and bright and festively decorated.The rooms were very lovely but the inhabitants were alone and lonely. As we sang we saw their faces light up, especially as we sang Silent Night in very sweet four part harmony. After we left them, the missionaries told us that that was the happiest they had ever seen them. We were asked at one point by another resident there to come downstairs to a commons area and sing for more people that were gathered there. We experienced the same result. All this while walking down old cobble stoned streets lined with beautiful old buildings, crossing a beautiful river over an quaint little bridge and passing huge towering cathedrals and churches. It was like walking through a picture postcard.We then walked over to some other members' apartments and sang for them. At one we sang in a little alcove on the street and attracted several passers-by that stopped to enjoy the beautiful carols. To me, this felt like the essence of Christmas- singing beautiful songs that proclaim the love our Heavenly Father has for all of His children that He manifested by sending His Son to the earth to bring us all light and truth and the way back home. Two nights ago we went caroling again in the Christkindlesmarkt. Many people stopped to listen and we were able to hand out lots of "Er ist das Geschenk" or "He is the Gift" cards, some Joy to the World DVDs and invitations to come to our ward Christmas Devotional on December 24. One lady that said she would come, actually did. The only problem was that she got the wrong time. The devotional was at 3 PM and she showed up at 5 PM. Unfortunately for her, Michael and I were the only ones in the building at that time. Everyone else had already gone home. Our building here is three stories. The administrative offices are on the top floor, the chapel and main street entrance are on the main floor and the Institute rooms and our office are on the bottom level.So we were downstairs calling home and catching up on our blog and emails when the bell to the front door rang. We looked at each other and tried to decide what to do. We speak very little German and were here all alone. I was all for ignoring it but Elder Hart rushed upstairs to answer the door. After a few minutes he came running back to our little office and asked me to quick come upstairs as he needs me to translate for him. What??? Me???? Really??? Reluctantly I headed upstairs to find this sweet little German lady standing in the entry. She spoke NO English so we had to try and communicate in German. All I could really understand was that she had come to attend a church service at 5 pm. I tried to tell her that it had been held at 3 pm and that it was all over. It was like she didn't believe me. Maybe it was my atrocious German that she really couldn't believe. I don't know. I was able to tell her that there would be another church service here on Sunday at 9:30 AM that we would love to have her attend. She just sat there looking at me. I didn't know what else to say.  Eventually I was able to ask her to write down her name and number and promised her (I think) that we would have a German speaking missionary contact her. She finally seemed satisfied with that. We got her info and bid her a fond farewell. It is SO frustrating to not be able to speak German so we have made plans to spend much more time studying it.

This is a picture of half of our caroling group. I think Michael and three other elders were off speaking with some church members that we saw at the Markt.
Many have asked for pictures so I will just randomly post some that I think you all might enjoy.

The famous Gold Tower. Legend goes that if you spin the brass ring attached to the front of it your wish will come true. These are all taken in the old city of Nurnberg where the Christkindlesmarkt is held. Most of it was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt afterwards to look like it used to.

Christkindlesmarkt. The Gold Tower in the background.

Eating my favorite food there. Bratwurst and Nurnbergers.

What to choose...... I'll take two of the gingerbread ponies, please.

Me at the Gold Tower, channeling Sister Sarah (from Guys and Dolls, if you missed the reference). This was our meeting place for an evening of caroling with the young elders and sisters.

Lots of beautiful Christmas decorations to buy. I didn't buy any as we won't have any way to get them home:-( Notice the cobble stone streets. Very charming to look at but murder on your feet after about 45 minutes of walking on them.

Some more of our caroling group. The elders just met one of their trainers/companions that had returned home from his mission, but just happened to be back visiting at the exact same time we were at the Christkindlesmarkt. They were in 7th Heaven. Can you guess which one is the "returnee"?

For our Zone Meeting a couple of days ago we acted out the Nativity. Some of the costumes were a little um...sketchy.

Our Christmas Eve celebration....PB&J for me, fried egg sandwich for Elder Hart. Just so you don't feel too sorry for us, we did get invited to a member's home but declined as we wanted to spend our evening calling our children from the church.

The day after Christmas we prepared a breakfast at the church for the JAEs in our ward.

A lovely river we cross every time we go into the Old City,

Last night we went out to dinner with our missionaries and an investigator who is scheduled to be baptized January 7. We went to an Indian Restaurant where we were able to introduce a whole new generation to the delights of Indian food. They all loved it!

Flat Stanley accompanied us everywhere we went. This is a famous cathedral in the Old City.

We cross over this beautiful little river every time we go into the Old City. Picture Postcard perfect.

It snowed today for the first time since we have been in Germany. This is the garden right outside our living room window.

A beautiful Nurnberg sunset.

Just singin' and dancin' in the rain.

So many Brots, so little time......

Sorry everything is so jumbled up, but that's kind of how we roll these days. I've been trying for days to update this blog but things just seem to conspire against me doing it. It's late but we're alone at the church so I just went for it. We love you all♥
Elder and Sister Hart

Feeling so blessed

We just finished our week and a half at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah and words cannot describe how wonderful it was to be there. We were there with 1300 other missionaries, "Junior" and "Senior", as we are called:-) At one of our devotionals we took a minute to look out into the audience from the bottom floor up into the bleachers filled with missionaries going into every corner of the world and then contemplated the fact that every single one of us was filled with the same desire; to invite others to come unto Christ. We all deeply love Him and desire to share that love with everyone. His gospel is for all.
To say that our trip to Germany was stressful would be an understatement. There were so many hurdles. We needed to be at the entrance of the MTC to be picked up at 5:30 AM with our suitcases all packed and weighed and dropped off the night before. I think we got about four hours of sleep that night. But... We made it. We were shuttled up to the SLC Airport and arrived with plenty of time to spare. Our suitcases all passed muster. Thst was a big stresser. Our flight to Doetroit was fine, only 3 1/2 hours with a three hour layover. The flight to Germany was another thing entirely. I now know why several people suggested taking a Valium or some other kind of relaxer to cut down the stress level. We should have taken their advice. It was an eight hour flight due to arrive at 1:00 AM our time. Our Delta airplane was configured with two seats on the left, three in the middle and two on the right. We were in the two seats on the left. There was about one inch of legroom between our knees and the seats in front of us.We knew we needed to get some sleep as we were going to be picked up at airport by our mission president and his wife at 9:30 AM German time (1:00 AM our time!) and driven to the mission home in Frankfurt to receive our assignment and orientations of all kinds. All this on about four hours of sleep in the last two days😳 Anyway, I think one of the flight attendants noticed that I was about ready to crawl out of my skin and invited me to go to the back of the plane where there was an empty two seater. I gladly took her up on it. As I walked down the aisle I saw all these people stretched out on the three seater sections sound asleep. I must admit I was a bit envious. Unfortunately neither of us was able to sleep.
We finally landed and were able to be reunited with all of our suitcases intact. We figured out how to procure a luggage tote (no easy feat) for our four 50 pound suitcases, two packed to capacity carry-ons, one giant purse and one very heavy man purse. We cleared Customs with no sweat and made it out to the main terminal where we to be picked up by Presdent and Sister Stoddard.  Our drive to the mission home gave us great heart palpitations! The city is huge and the streets are like mazes. We were so happy to be passengers instead of drivers.
Upon our arrival we got got our mission assignment. We will be in Nürnberg working with the Young Single Adults and Institute support in all eight of the cities in our district, probably a Stake assignment for Michael, and anything the Bishop would like us to help out with in his ward. Looks like I will be doing quite a bit of cooking. I cook a dinner for the Nürnberg Institute once a week and take dinner twice a month to two other Institutes that we visit. We will also attend and support the singles FHE group here in Nürnberg. 
After our meeting and orientation with Pres. Stoddard we were given the keys to our mission car where we were to drive to Mainz for two days of a Senior Couples Conference. Yikes😳 Remember I mentioned the maze like streets? Unbelievable. We did receive a portable GPS for our car and don't know how we would get around without it. Even Michael, with his built in navigational sense, cannot figure out where N,  S, E and W are😁 We arrived at the B & B Hotel the afternoon before the Conference began and we're finally able to take about a two hour nap. No bed has ever felt better. There were two other couples that arrived early and the called and asked if we wanted to go to the Mainz Christmas Market. But of course! I don't even have enough words to describe how wonderful these are. Let's just say that if you love Christmas decorations you would be in hig heaven. Plus they have marvelous food. I had my first famed Bratwurst. To say it was delicious would be an understatement. It was one of the best foods I have ever had in my life😋It was on a delicious roll with a delicious mustard.
I'm going to post this even though I haven't caught up with where we are because we have to leave the church, the only place we have Internet access so far. We want to get wifi in our apartment but apparently it's quite a lengthy process😕
We love being here and the people we have met here so far are marvelous! We love the gospel.