Saturday was a big day for us, but then again, I should back up a little and say that the previous Sunday, we had an American family in our ward over for a Chicago Pizza lunch. Tyler and Oliva Moore live in the Freiburg ward, where Tyler serves in the Elders' Quorum presidency. Stupid me, I forgot to take pictures, which is truly a glaring omission in a record like this.
They have five sons, the youngest of whom is about 8. In order, there are Viggo, who was not present, then Johann, Magnus, Robert, and Aksel. All of them REALLY enjoyed a taste of the states, and you should have seen their eyes when I told them that we have REAL Ranch dressing for the salad. For some reason, Ranch just hasn't caught on over here, but on (where else?) Amazon, I found a seller in Irvine, CA who ships six four-package boxes over here. For a price, but hey, that's America, and I'll support it. So we had pizza and salad, plus one of my homemade peach pies, and the afternoon went off pretty amicably.
That is, until Tyler asked me to teach Elders Quorum the following Sunday. So I accepted the assignment, and tried to get a good lesson together during the week, but I kept on getting distracted, or wasn't able to come up with much. Time wound down, and I decided to do or die yesterday, Saturday afternoon and evening. Plenty of time.
So yesterday morning, Saturday, Leesa and I drove about five miles out to Schallstadt/Wolfenweiler to meet with Frank Küchlin, a distant cousin of mine (my mom's maiden name was Kuechlin). We'd made an appointment with him, because he has a complete family history book of the local district, and the Küchlins figure prominently therein.
(Frank Küchlin and me)
The book he showed us has dozens upon dozens of Küchlins in it, and apparently they lived and died in Wolfenweiler for four hundred years. Ironic fact: turns out the family business is a hooch distillery, mostly whiskey, as well as a few other libations. When we told him our religion and our relationship to alcohol, he was pretty taken aback, but still very friendly.
I took a lot of pictures of the book, and was able to get a lead on where to get my own copy, which I will try to secure in the coming week. We compared notes to what I find online (familysearch.org), and the data pretty much matches up. The big difference is the book lists all the children of the marriages, a huge improvement on the data on familysearch, so I want that book.
All in all, it was a very friendly and productive meeting, and we came home happy. So then I was all set to eat a bit of lunch and get to work on my lesson. Until we remembered that we had an appointment that evening. At 6:00. In Switzerland, a two-hour drive away, in the town of Frauenfeld.
A couple of weeks ago, we went down to Frauenfeld to re-create our original Fondue Chinoise dinner with Werner Riesen, the man who inspired me to cook really good stuff for family, friends, and missionaries.
We had a wonderful time, and happened to go by the Frauenfeld chapel on the way to Werner's house. We found the Frauenfeld Elders, Peters (from Hannover) and Suominen (from Finland) in the chapel. Elder Suominen was playing some absolutely GORGEOUS music at the grand piano in the chapel, and we found that they were putting on a concert on the 24th of June. I took a picture of a flyer, and off we went to Werner's for lunch.
Werner is 82, and last year fell and injured himself. He's been working hard in physical therapy training to get around again, but mostly hasn't been able to get to church. He's much better now, and we offered to return to Frauenfeld for the concert and to get him to the chapel.
All this we remembered just yesterday, and there went my lesson preparation time, as we likely wouldn't get back until after 10 p.m. Well, we kept our appointment with Werner, and it turns out he was pretty much champing at the bit. I was expecting to drive up to his house, while he slowly made his way to the car, carefully as befitting a healing senior. None of that for him.
We turned into his alley, and there he was in the middle of the road, ready to jump in and go. So we made our way to the chapel and got there in plenty of time before the concert started. Turns out there were a lot more surprises waiting for us at the chapel. First off, the place was crawling with Elders from around the zone. One Elder from Bologna, another from Hamburg, still another from Berlin, and a very quiet young man from Draper, Utah.
Then I heard a familiar voice talking with my wife, Brother Kuno Müller. When I was in Frauenfeld on my original mission back in the 70s, he was a Ward Mission Leader, and a dear soul. He and his wife had five children, and they were a handful, but very sweet. Kuno owned a dry cleaning store, and he used to do the Elders' laundry for free. We owed him a lot, so it was just a treat to make his acquaintance again. He has a delightful Swiss German singsong lilt to his voice which I could never forget, and when I heard it, my voice came out practically an accusation: "Kuno Müller!"
(Outside the chapel with Werner, Kuno and his bride)
The concert finally began, and Elder Suominen is a rare talent. The performance was transporting, and it felt wonderful to give him much-deserved applause after each piece. He's going home to Finland this coming week, along with about 16 other missionaries. Summertime is a bit of a lean time for new "greenie" missionaries coming out, so some areas will need to be combined with other areas. We'll get a strong influx of new missionaries in the Fall.
The only thing left to report is that I woke up about 3 a.m., knowing I had a job to do. This is one thing I've inherited from my Grampa Kuechlin, at least in part. He had the gift of being able to add two separate columns of figures simultaneously, which I can't do, but the other gift was the ability to set his own internal alarm clock. He had all-night jobs when he was young, and could catnap for ten minutes and wake himself up exactly when he wanted to. I can do that for the most part, unless I'm really tired, then my body takes over and keeps on sleeping.
But this morning I told myself I wanted to wake up at three, and so it was. I was able to cobble a lesson together and get the job done.
Our mission president and his wife, Scott and Jodi Naatjes, are going home this Friday, and they will be missed terribly. They are so very loved here in the Alpine German-speaking Mission, and we all await our new president, Elder Bates, a school administrator from Salt Lake City.
Lastly, I checked on my lederhosen order this last Tuesday, and it looks like they'll come in about two weeks. Let the countdown begin! Until next time, we love you!
John & Leesa
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