Autumn in the Black Forest

     It has been six weeks since our last post, and while in that time we've been trying to do our jobs, there has been time for an outing and fun with the missionaries and members in the Freiburg ward.

    After August (universal time for vacations in Europe), we started in again feeding the Young Adults every Wednesday after their Institute class. Now that everybody's back to work, we have a much better turnout, usually about 15 or so.

(from L to R, Joshua Winterhalder, brothers Corvin, Lucian, & Victor Voßler, Louise (Corvin's bride of but five weeks), David Merkle, and Anthony Gastañadui-Gutierrez, who is from Peru)

(Sister Rachel Weber, Bethan Hoggan, Louise and Corvin Voßler, Sister Makenna Kunz, Anthony, and Elder Chang)

    On our way out to a small village east of Freiburg to visit a member having a birthday, we stopped by our favorite fruit stand to pick up a couple of pumpkins for Young Adult carving that night. Leesa and I were amazed at the talent shown by the group with both of these big guys. Cursed with a big lack of artistic talent myself, I was in it for the seeds, however. I scooped out all the guts and seeds, took them home and put them in a salt brine for a couple of days, then slow-roasted them in the oven. Good stuff!

    I reported on this blog back in May of the Senior Couples' Conference, then held in Iseltwald, Switzerland. Turns out they are biannual, with a Fall Conference held in Weyregg, Austria, which is about an hour east of Salzburg.

(David Tew, us, and the Cooks, newly come to the mission)

    As you can see, some of us wore our Bavarian costumes. A few months ago, when we were in Berchtesgaden, I picked up an Edelweiss pin, thinking it'd look good on my lederhosen suspenders. I then got the idea to spread them around, so I ordered two dozen more. Anybody who has the intestinal fortitude to wear their costumes (dirndl or lederhosen) to a missionary conference will be given a commemorative Edelweiss pin and inducted into the Noble Order of the Edelweiss. Traditionally, everybody who has a costume will wear it to the Christmas zone conference. I expect to pass out a number of the pins then and there.

    Toward the end of October, we wanted to pay my cousin Frank Küchlin a visit at his biergarten/restaurant Böttchehof, not far away in Schallstadt/Wolfenweiler, the Küchlins ancestral home. He ran a series of special dinners (every Friday evening in October) of a meal called Tresterwurst, or bratwurst steamed in his homemade wine. 

    Frank found us a table right next to the distillery, and we made our appearance in, once again, dirndl and lederhosen. The wurst was good, although we got there a bit late, and they were out of potato salad.

    Turnover among missionaries in the Freiburg district has been a bittersweet constant, as we find joy in getting to know new sisters and Elders, and then watching them get transferred out.

(front to rear, In-Chol Chang, Bryson Schwartz, Mitchell Maddix, Matthew Eliason, Makenna Kunz)

(Makenna Kunz, Payte Reynolds, and Leesa)

(with Mitchell Maddix)

    A short profile of the missionaries in our district is in order. Our Zone Leader is Elder In-Chol Chang, of Korean heritage but who was born and raised here in Germany, and of course speaks better German than any or all of us. 

    Recently transferred was District Leader Bryson Schwartz, who had Elder Chang as a companion. Elder Schwartz is always ready to sit down to a meal with us, which endeared him to me no end. Great sense of humor and dedicated to the work, as are all the young folks who come to Freiburg.

    We have district meeting every Monday at 10:30, unless there is a Zone Conference or Zone meeting in Zürich. 

    Sister Payte Reynolds also just left us for a tour in Burgdorf, Switzerland, which is about 20 km from the Temple in Zollikofen, just north of Bern, the capital. Payte is a cowgirl from Colorado, and we took to her immediately. Having five daughters of our own might have helped us in that regard. She's a tough, hardworking sister, passionate about the work, and LOVES red meat. We had her birthday dinner awhile back, and for her, it was all about the steak and potatoes. Plus cheesecake. 

    What can we say about Mitch Maddix? He was posted in the border town of Bad Säckingen, and was left there from the greeniehood until just a couple of weeks ago. He and his companion would come up to Freiburg every Monday, and he is a lot of fun. He had a couple of growing pains with the town, but like nearly all missionaries, grew to love it. We both have similar fathers, personality-wise, and so we were able to relate to each other on a number of levels. 

    Coming up: Thanksgiving dinner! Cooking for and feeding the missionaries is one of my life's true joys, and the chance to take full control of a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings is an opportunity to grab and throttle it for all I'm worth. I am proud to say that Leesa has never cooked a Thanksgiving Day meal, although in the early years she did make Pumpkin cheesecake a few times, until our kids staged an insurrection. They want Swiss Apple pie now.

    I reckon this blog entry is starting to drag on, but as Abraham Lincoln said, "Once I get started, I get too lazy to stop." Back in 1977, I was in the Winterthur district in Switzerland, and we had six missionaries, two sisters and four Elders. We decided to do a big Thanksgiving dinner, and we did. Not having Amazon.de then, we had to scrounge to find turkey, pumpkin, cranberry sauce, etc. But we finally brought it together, and it was a great experience. We were close, and so now I want to provide our missionaries with that kind of warm experience. Next blog entry will include plenty of pictures.

    Finally, our apartment house has 28 units, and down by the entryway is a kind of trash-to-treasures dumping ground for residents. Somebody in the building doesn't want a particular thing anymore, and if it's not used up, it might get put in this area for anybody to claim.

    A few weeks ago, Leesa saw this large teddy bear looking neglected, and she snapped it up. I liked the acquisition, and started thinking of ways to personalize it. So I went (where else?) to Amazon.de and looked for a child's pair of faux lederhosen, this after Leesa's search in the downtown shops proved fruitless. So for a few Euros I found this cute little flannel outfit, and in a separate search, found the cute litte hat. One of the local sisters, a Swiss native named Denise Berg, has given us nicknames, Sister Strickliesel (Sister Knitter), and Elder Teddy Bear, due to my penchant for hugging everybody. So the name seemed appropriate. We're gonna take him home with us.