Mosel River Valley and Burg Eltz

May 15, 2022

Remember to read Nancy's email for more detail and better writing. She is a great missionary and I'm blessed to learn from her every day. If you only want the pictures . . . skip to the bottom.

Time is flying. Work in the ERC (Emergency Response Committee) is slowing down a lot. Many Ukrainians are going back to Ukraine. We talked to one couple who is on the border and they told us that there was a five mile line of cars heading back across the border to Ukraine, and just a trickle coming out. People want to go back to their homes, fathers, and sons. Things are organized now, and running smoothly. The 16 couples are beginning to go home. So, the next phase in the ERC is the evaluation process. We need to reflect on lessons learned and how we can improve things for the next crisis. This will include interviewing a lot of the players to get insights from different perspectives and putting them all together. We will help a little, but hopefully, the Murri's will do the bulk of that so we can get back to our regular assignments.

Because things have been slowing in the ERC, we have more time to focus on our Welfare/Self-reliance couples. We have set up a schedule where we have a virtual visit with each couple once a month. We met with several couples this week, and will meet with the rest next week. These visits have been well received and helpful. Based on what we've learned, we will set up a training meeting with Salt Lake to help our missionaries with questions about the CRM system. This is a software program our missionaries use to keep track of their activity. From our visits with them, we discovered that there are many questions about the program, so we will set up a training. Along with valuable information like this, we just have fun talking and visiting. We all laugh a lot. We now have Welfare/Self-reliant couples in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Along with our monthly 2 on 2 meetings with each couple we also meet once a month as a group. We call it our Monthly Gathering. We held this gathering on Thursday and had some training from the Public Relations/Communications department of the church. We asked them to do a training for us so we could learn some things about how to write about our experiences. Our missionaries do amazing things, and are content to quietly do them without any fanfare. But writing about what they are doing is a good way to share ideas and best practices to help us all serve better.

On Wednesday night, we went to Elder Cziesla's home for abenbrot (light dinner). Scott and Libby Murri came with us. It was about a 45 minute drive south of Frankfurt. The visit was fun and relaxing.

On the weekend we went to the Mosel River Valley with Scott and Libby. We spent the night in Cochem which is now one of my favorite places in Germany. We also hiked to the Burg Eltz Castle, had lunch at a Cafe' along side the river, and made a quick stop in Koblenz where we did some shopping. The guide books say that the Mosel River Valley is what people want the Rhine River Valley to be like. It has fewer tourists with the same kind of charm and beauty. although I feel like I saw plenty of tourists. The place we stayed in was delightful. It was about 3 miles outside of Cochem.

Enjoy the pictures:

Burg Eltz Castle

Nancy in Burg Eltz. It really reminded us of the Disney Land castle.

The owner of the Inn we stayed in. The pictures in the back were of his family. they've lived here for three generations and have always worked in the wineries. Grape vineyards covered the hills all around.

A small church behind the Cafe where we had lunch by the river.

Cochem with the castle in the backgroun (not Burg Eltz). We had ice cream and walked.

Burg Eltz.

This shows the different water levels in the Mosel River Valley through the years. It looks like there has been some serious flooding through the years.

Nancy being the scribe in the office. She has the best writing, so she always gets to scribe.

The charcuterie board at Elder Cziesla's house.

Our evening walk in Cochem.

Scott Murri and me in Cochem.

Lots of river cruise ships on the Mosel.

The inn where we stayed.

The backyard of the inn. We found two tortoises in the yard. It reminded me of the days when my dad would bring home tortoises from his Marine Corps summer camps.