First Driving Week and Bad Homburg

If you are in a rush, you can always skip down to the pictures.  If you are not in a rush and want more detail, you can go to Nancy's weekly email.  If you are not on Nancy's email list but want to be, let us know and we will put you on the list.

This week was our first driving week.  The office building where we work is called the Phoenix Haus and is about a 10 minute drive from our apartment.  Don and Ralene Bills (Area Humanitarian Specialists) drove us to work for the first couple of days during the first week we were here.  Then, on Monday, we followed them to work in our own car.  From then on, we have just been driving ourselves, and it is great. 

We continue to get training on different aspects of our job.  We spent a couple of days in meetings with Clive Jolliff, who is the Just Serve specialist in the UK.  Part of what we will be doing is increasing awareness and implementation of the Just Serve program in Europe.  He did it in the UK, so was giving us some pointers on how we might proceed.  We also got some continued training from Lot and Helen Smith who have on-boarded us.  We will take their responsibility to onboard missionaries from now on.  Celia, the administrative secretary in the office continues to be a big help, and we met with Ether who is really the person we will report to.  So, it has been a good full week of training.

We usually get back to our apartment around 4:00.  Tuesday night we played pickle ball and had a fun time.  We walked around town a couple of nights to begin to get settled into the neighborhood.  We discovered an "Aldi's" supermarket, and will start shopping there.  

On Saturday, we drove to Bad Homburg to spend the day as tourists.  We feel good about our little successes.  For example, we drove there, found a parking garage, did some shopping, had lunch, and walked around the very german outdoor mall.  These things sound simple, but they were great confidence builders for us because we did them all by ourselves with our very minimal German.   

Bad Homburg is a beautiful town.  It has more millionaires than any other town in Germany (there is actually a contest about this), and they like their town nice.  There is a castle in Bad Homburg which we drove by several times as we circled the block looking for parking, but we did not visit the castle on this trip.  We will go back in spring or summer to specifically spend a day visiting the castle.  

Other than being in Germany, it might sound like we were shopping in America.  We went to Woolworth's, H&M, and then had lunch at Pizza Hut, then, we got home in time to go shopping at Aldi's.  But remember - it's all in German.  

Here's one kind of funny story.  To get into the nicer stores, you need proof of COVID vaccination and a separate ID (passport).  When we went to H&M, I had our COVID cards and my passport picture, but Nancy had left her passport and other identification in her purse in the car.  The lady at the store entrance checking cards was nice but flummoxed.  It was fun to watch her and mom try to communicate.  Finally, the girl said in broken English, if mom had ANYTHING with her name on it.  Mom, promptly and confidently pointed to her missionary name tag.  And the girl said, "good enough" and let us in.

Now, today is Sunday.  We will watch church online because our ward has been divided into two halves and we only go every other Sunday.  This is because of COVID.  In an effort to get to know people, we invited Michael and Melanie Anderson for dinner tonight.  They are the Area Church Communications Specialists.  I hope they are our first of many visitors for dinner.  The kitchen appliances are a little different from America, but Nancy is adjusting and doing awesome.

Here are some pictures from Saturday and Bad Homburg:

Our first parking garage experience.  We were lucky there was a nice german man who helped us figure out how to use the pay machine, or we might still be there.

There are flower shops everywhere, and many women carrying flower bunches as they shopped.  Mom got some to put on our table at home.

You can tell from Nancy's posture that she is cold.  She loved it when she found a sunny spot to stop in.

Shopping and exploring in Bad Homburg.  There were two girls behind us playing the violin and flute.  It added a lot to the ambiance of the place.

Of course, at H&M we find a sweatshirt that says "Salt Lake City" on it.  Go figure.

They won't serve tap water at the restaurants, so you have to buy your water.  The most popular drink in Germany is mineral water.  Or you can get "Stihl" water which has no carbonation.  That's what Nancy likes to get.  It doesn't matter if you get water or pop, it all costs the same. 

That's a bad picture of me, but the focus should be on the fresh fruit stand behind me.