John & Leesa Dupree--Alpine German-speaking Mission

      Leesa and I are hitting our stride here in Freiburg. We've found our way around, gotten acquainted with the Church members fairly well, and put on a lot of meals for folks, and Leesa has been getting a lot of knitting done. One of her key projects is the knitting of small washcloths in the shape of hearts, and giving them as small gifts. (Heart in progress)     In addition, she's come up with the idea of making gifts of them, along with chocolate bars, to our friends here on their birthdays. Which brings us to the next subject, going out to the birthday folks where they live. The Freiburg ward takes in a lot of territory (rough estimate: 400-500 square kilometers), and a lot of the members live in pretty rural areas.      Our first foray into presenting the birthday gifts took us out of town a fair piece, and along the way, we were rewarded with some absolutely gorgeous views of the Black Forest. (East of Freiburg in St. Märgen)   ...

      The last post focused on the finding of a rich trove of family names, and now it's time to follow up. A few days after meeting with my second cousin Frank Küchlin from Wolfenweiler, a mere five miles from us here in Freiburg, I went to the Rathaus (city hall) of the combined townships of Schallstadt and Wolfenweiler, and found a copy of the book Frank had shown us. I couldn't hand over the €39 ($41) fast enough, and now I had my own copy.     I went through my Grampa Kuechlin's line all the way back to about 1600. The Küchlins had lived in Wolfenweiler for 400 years, and because of Frank and others, still do. The family names in the book are pretty much represented on the genealogical website familysearch.org, but I noticed some important omissions. My Grampa's grandfather, Matthias (ma-TEE-us), had ten children listed on FamilySearch, but my new book showed eleven. Matthias and his wife, Elisabeth Beissmann, had had a son, Matthias Martin Küchlin, who was...

      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 aft...

       Leesa and I had been anticipating this opportunity for weeks, ever since exchanging emails with an Elder in the mission office before we'd left home. David Tew (along with his wife Judy) had been a huge help to us in getting prepared. I had spoken with David over the phone (working around a 9-hour time difference) when I asked him to be on the lookout for a package from Seidensticker Shirts.     Back in the 70s, Seidensticker shirts were much coveted by the Elders. They're an expensive shirt, but the collars stay sharp and clean, the material crisp, and they wear like iron. I'd ordered a number of them, to be delivered to the office, and David said he'd keep an eye peeled. We got to talking about other subjects, and he advised us to get a Charles Schwab checking account.      You can use a Schwab debit card all over the world, and they handle currency exchange rates and eliminate international ATM and purchase fees. Now, I don't want t...

      A long time ago, I took up cooking as a hobby, gradually acquiring recipes and technical expertise, and I began sharing meals with the missionaries and with friends. The joy of this kind of social entertainment came into sharp and clear focus rather gradually, and received a big boost in October of 1977, whilst I was a young and single missionary in Switzerland. I had just spent 17 months in the Germany Frankfurt mission, the one to which I was originally called. However, circumstances played out such that I was transferred, with nine other Frankfurt elders, to the Switzerland Zürich mission.     Less than two weeks in the Land of the Swiss, my companion and I were invited for dinner to the home of Werner and Nelly Riesen. At the time, he was the young Elders Quorum president in the Winterthur ward. He and Nelly had just welcomed their first child, Claudia, into their home barely two months previously. Usually, if you are invited to a Fondue dinner in a Sw...

      One of the fun aspects (and there are many of those) of our mission is our new responsibility to feed about 15 Junge Erwachsenen (Young Adults) who take part in weekly Church Institute classes on Wednesday evenings. Last week I chronicled their first experience with Chicago-style Stuffed Pizza, and this week, we came up with an all-American dinnertime standard, Sloppy Joes, with (KFC knockoff recipe) cole slaw. These college-age German youth come to the Church building on Wednesday evenings, receive instruction for about 75 minutes, then thunder down to the kitchen/game room for some eats. We really enjoy the opportunity to feed these kids, and at this early stage, it's a bit of a challenge to find the proper ingredients to essentially American dishes.     Tonight was something of a going-away party for Ashley Alves (girl in back hoisting a Sloppy Joe, with glasses and cornrows), who will soon be going off to University. She has been a terrific leader for ...