Edinburgh, Scotland Only Different

I haven't really covered all we have worked on during our 20 month mission. Time being one constraint, also knowledge about blogs, etc. However the work has been exciting and varying in nature. One day accompanying our National Director (and his wife) of Public Affairs in Denmark spoken of in an earlier blog, seminars and training sessions in various parts of the UK and Ireland and sometimes office work and mailings. The group picture here is a recent seminar in Frankfurt with 21 different countries represented out of 40+. Wonderful people all "salt of the earth".

Now that our time is drawing to a close I realize how fast time flies and thought I would put one of the stories my husband and I covered and which he had published in our online Church News.
This was a very exciting day! We only had 1 hour before we knew where we'd be headed. We were packed for four days...to go either to Ireland for training, or to London for an exhibit and ended up heading out for Edinburgh instead for this historic visit of Elder Bednar to visit 3 MSPs (Ministers of Scottish Parliament) to discuss families and the impact of society and what we could do as a Church to help strengthen families.

(The other trips are on hold till another day.) In fact we are headed to Ireland later this month to Limerick which is south and an area we haven't seen yet. We have seen Dublin, Belfast and northern Ireland on an earlier training session. FUN!

So this is John's third published story...even though it's just online. It is still fulfilling and I thought we would share. Well, in trying to download the article there was an error. So if you'd like check it out at: deseretnews.com, then on the toolbar hit LDSNews/Church News. There should then be an oval in the upper right area to type Bednar Parliament and it should pop up??? Cool!!! Sounds hard, huh? I may just try and send it through a regular email attachment.

A Day In The Life Of...

While this is not a "typical" day at work, we do often have meetings. Some larger and some smaller. This particular meeting occurs once a year for an evening and 2 days. This one was in Frankfurt, Germany.

Ralf Gruenke is one of our Associate Directors in Frankfurt. He happens to be married to his sweetheart whose parents are Sandy and Gene Winder from our old Stake in La Quinta! Small world!!! (He used to work at the photography department in the old WalMart there! But he is excellent in his job in Public Affairs.)

We begin with a "spiritual feast" attending a Temple session. The first few pictures show groups of people waiting outside until it's our time to enter. It was nice serving with friends we met a year ago.

Two Italians passing time, Francesco and Tullio.

Dinis (Portugal) and Lief (Sweden)

L to R: Marcin (Poland), E/S Oaks...from Provo!, Dora (Slovenia), Maryann (Wyoming)

Listening and pondering...

Elder Causse...an Area Presidency over Public Affairs

Marianne (Netherlands)
L to R: well, of course...Dinis (Portugal) and Serge (Belgium)
18 nations were present: These were our National Directors of Public Affairs from: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. All speak English as a second language and all have full time jobs besides this calling. That means they have to think and work in two languages. Most speak more than 2.

We will miss them all next year, for sure.

Denmark

Thorvaldsen's "The Christus"

Model for the statue in the Salt Lake City visitor's center.

The Little Mermaid

Copenhagen, of course, is home to the Little Mermaid, who is still on her rock; but shortly will be traveling to Japan for a length of time. She is much smaller and less noticeable than we expected.
Copenhagen

The best of Copenhagen for us was the Church which has the original Thorvaldsen "Christus" statue AND one of each of the 12 Apostles. All beautifully set up each side of the Church leading the The Christus. I don't even remember how old the statues are. The church had free entry and the statues could be approached and touched. Everyone was free to take pictures too. Perhaps The Christus had a small wrought iron fencing around it...I don't remember. Just the effect of looking up into the gentle face of the Saviour with his arms outstretched to all the world. This was a spiritual high! We didn't even care to see the palace! The other next loved place was Odense...the home and birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Well preserved and presented AND visited! Our Danish friends tried to tell us the real story, so as not to get the "wrong" story; but I am still taken by Danny Kaye's portrayal of the "romantic, fairy tale" side of his life.

I don't know what happened to my Andersen home photo??? Oh well...

Hooray!!!! Here's our 385 volunteers for Mormon Helping Hands!

Tried as I might I could not get the Festinord pictures to download...5 times was more than a strike out! So I am glad they came up here.

FESTINORD 09

FESTINORD...means Party in the North...and that's exactly what the youth aged 18-31 had 31 July in Denmark. In all, 21 countries were represented.
The youth had a full weekend of activity as the pictures will show only for a few hours one day. They had dances, mostly chatted, played games, and made plans for next year! This day they donned the typical yellow vests (along with orange jackets from the Roads Division) and picked up litter on the highways. It got lots of media coverage.

John was able to put an article online Church News. Our friends who oversee the country Public Affairs (known as NDPAs or National Directors of Public Affairs) are Jesper and Mette. They were gung ho! The papers and TVs ran stories about these 500 youth who got together...not for sex and alcohol...but truly to make a difference in the community. They had 11 newspapers and 2 TV programs to the best of my remembrance.

The kids were all great. One fellow was on crutches but he clambored onto the bus just the same. They were all so helpful. They had to make their own lunch beforehand or miss out until dinner. The dining hall was organized chaos. And I used to have my hands full with 5 children. Whew!

It was grey skies. In fact it opened up and poured for awhile. One group of kids ran for shelter in what they thought was a barn; only to find it was someone's home. They were welcomed inside. This was not a light rain. Another group sought shelter in a nearby store till the rain stopped; but each person bought something to make it worth while crowding the store.

I can't remember how many pounds of litter they gathered. John and I wondered because it is so clean in Denmark anyway. We had already remarked on how clean the by ways seemed. But officials were impressed that the youth were on their hands and knees getting the little stuff...cigarette butts and such. It was exciting being a part of this great day.

How Time Flies

This summer has passed so quickly. Most of you know that we are coming home at the end of November. The closer it gets the more work there is to do! We have lots on the calendar; even though much of it was done in the last two months since my last blog. Here are some highlights...

We have been fortunate to be in 10 different countries and even attended four different Temple sessions at different Temples in the last 8 weeks: Copenhagen (Denmark), Stockholm (Sweden), Frankfurt (Germany) and Preston (England). The countries are: Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium and a tiny bit of The Netherlands.
It helped that we drove. You can see how much John loved the Autobahn! But remember this is kilometers/hour NOT miles per hour. Still, at times he topped over 100 miles per hour...and cars were passing us going MUCH faster! We were in Denmark the first of August for a Helping Hands event and were encouraged to visit Sweden also. We enjoyed both countries and the spaciousness there. Denmark, of course, was grand! I will tell you why on the next post.

Later we had a seminar in Germany and were encouraged to take the week visiting the other countries, again by car, seeing: Munich, Dachau, Salzburg (Neuschwanstein, Mozart's home, and Sound of Music locations, & Eagle's Nest...Hitler's home), Oberammergau, Innsbruck, Geneva, Bern, Brugge, Brussels, Koln, and Frankfurt. So here is Neuschwanstein up on the hill behind us.

The home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Salzburg! I was so excited!
This is where he was born and lived as a young child...so these are the steps he climbed.
The kitchen his mother made meals in...or the servants did????
Can you believe. This is where Maria von Trapp's was an initiate. The convent where she came in so late! I had forgotten that Sound of Music was filmed here...and of course lived here. I was fortunate to see Maria (and meet her) as a guest speaker at BYU one year.

Our oldest son served his mission in France and the French speaking mission in Geneva...I have ALWAYS wanted to come and see the lake. It did not disappoint.
What do you do in Belgium? Eat a Belgian waffle of course. We split this one; it was HUGE! And that's REAL Belgian chocolate on top with those bananas!
The canal cruise was exquisite. Some buildings were 400 years old and still being used!
A friend in front of the Frankfurt Temple. More on this trip later on...

We probably saw Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps...but didn't get down to the Matterhorn. We weren't very impressed with the municipalities of Lichtenstein and Luxembourg...except for the older buildings. And really didn't spend much time there to soak in the atmosphere.

A Place of Honor

On the 21st of June, our son participated in Seattle for Cancer Awareness with Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG Challenge. Due to the fact that I battled breast cancer a couple of years ago he honored me along with 100s of others who have gone through treatments. Our son raised almost $6,000 for the cause AND went through a grueling bicycle course with others: some racing 45 miles, some 70 miles and some 100 miles! The practices alone took sacrifice, time and energy...I can only imagine!

Not only did our son race on that day...but practices and training were accompanied by his sons also! It was a family affair! I learned that he also belongs to a cycling team who with friends, supported and coached him. This was not his first event. He has participated in several tri-athalons in Hawaii and Issaquah, Washington and he just completed the Seattle-Portland Race also!!!
WAY TO GO!!!

It Really Rains on the Plain in Spain!

There it is! The real rain on the plain in Spain!!!
The bullet train to Madrid topped 180 mph!

It was supposed to be a sunny trip...but we kept dodging the clouds as they followed us from Barcelona to Madrid and back again. But it caught up with us just before we left....and England WAS sunny! This was a cool day. High was 15 degrees centigrade...about 60. We walked all around Madrid this day.

Grey in Barcelona. It made a fun sort of travel day; we escaped the rain pretty much all day.
Our first day in Spain and this was what we found...It was so colorful I HAD to get a picture of KFC en Espanol! It tasted just the same as at home! But what we really wanted was some good Mexican food which we finally found in Madrid. That WAS good too!
Here is the Madrid Temple...under grey skies. But the temple rooms were breathtaking inside. We met some wonderful workers there and had a great day. The temple was chosen to be in this spot; the mayor and some government VIPs fought against it. The crime rate in the area was high and the spot was entirely out of the city. But Pres. Hinckley prevailed. Since the temple was built the metro system built trains there and you can go from downtown to the temple in about 15 minutes within a couple of blocks! The crime rate subsided and apartments were built all around!
A beautiful crystal glass palace or arborteum built within a lovely large park in Madrid. The rain finally caught up with us that night. It was great going to Church in Barcelona, even with the meeting being in Spanish and not knowing very many words it was great feeling the spirit and watching the cute children...well everybody! There were several visitors also!