December brought my first series of Missionary Zone Conferences, one in Dortmund, one in Nuremberg and one in Offenbach. Because we were fortunate enough to have our Area Seventy priesthood leader to speak at each meeting, we had to have them on consecutive days. That's about ten hours on the road and almost 1000 kilometers on the car. Lowell's excellent driving skills on the Autobahn got us through three days of bad weather and some white knuckle episodes. I prepared my first Power Point presentation of 45min.and 35 slides on "Winter Safety", "Preventing Illness" and "How to Fight the Flu Bugs at Home." I learned so much (too many slides, too little time) and yet I enjoyed having such great association with our 260 young and senior missionaries. Above, we are putting together some little "fight infection" gift packets for all the missionaries. Helping me are Sister Riggs, wife of Lowell's partner- associate in the legal office, and Sisters Ryser and Greenwood who are the wives of our excellent Area Medical Advisors.
As we drove into the parking lot at Dortmund, missionaries were gathering from all over by foot, car and train.
This missionary dashed in front of my camera just as I was taking a picture of President and Sister Stoddard. They are a marvelous pair and and work tirelessly for this very busy mission.
My very first Zone Conference presentation.
There's nothing like a whole room of elders and sisters standing up and enthusiastically singing, "Called to Serve".
This is a beautiful example of almost 88,000 missionaries serving all over the world to bring people unto Christ. They're an inspiration AND full of fun!
Sandwiched in between many calls, activities and meetings, I was able to cut out and decorate my traditional gingerbread men to share with the stake young single adults, the others seniors and our office.
A beautiful December temple night powerfully enhanced the meaning of the season. Sharing the outing with us are the Riggs from Knoxville, Tennessee.
The Area Office was closed for 5 days which was a break from the long hours in the office. We celebrated the night before Christmas Eve by eating dinner at this cute German restaurant only blocks from our apartment. Every table was reserved, but we went so early in the evening that they allowed us to stay and enjoy their delicious food. The Germans typically like to eat later and start flowing in about 7pm.
I don't think I've seen Elder Castleton this relaxed since we first arrived! A break is always nice.
I include these pictures because I know my family members are such foodies and love to see what this foreign food looks like. I ordered this delicious roasted pork meal with typical German noodles.
Lowell ordered a country favorite of Schnitzel and fried potatoes..
In the afternoon of Christmas Eve Lowell and I headed for the "Christmas City" of Germany, Altstad Rothenburg, about an hour and forty five minutes from Frankfurt. We were warned that everything would be closed down and it might even be hard to find places to eat. These warnings came weeks after we had made our three day reservations which our hotel would not let us cancel. So we went not knowing what to expect. Our lodging was amazingly quaint and very reasonably priced because the town almost closes down during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.When we arrived, the hotel employee was locking the front door and said, "Oh you just made it. I was about ready to leave." You see Lowell signing in above after which the employee locked everything up, handed us the outside guest key, told us to call him if we needed anything and then left for his holiday party! Interesting and very trusting too. By morning there was a friendly hotel crew there to serve us a delicious breakfast.
This is our 4th floor landing looking down. The light fixture was made of a variety of kitchen utensils and implements. Great idea and very modern-esque.
Because we arrived so late, the only place to eat that still had room was a Chinese Restaurant down one of the little side streets. Surprisingly, it was beautiful inside and was owned and run by a family from Hong Kong who had been in Germany about 20 years. Whoever would have thought! The food was delicious with salad,soup, and sizzling hot platters of duck and pork and a dessert thrown in.
When we were out walking along the street near where we ate, we could hear the most beautiful choir singing in the distance. We followed it and saw this beautiful Lutheran Church around the corner. We ducked in out of the very cold night and found ourselves in the cathedral with hundreds of other people. We found a great place to stand and couldn't believe our luck to be able to listen to this full voice choir and brass choir play such beautiful music on Christmas Eve. They were situated in the large loft far above us with the immense pipe organ that was accompanying. I have never heard anything that powerful in person before, except the Tabernacle Choir in the conference center.
What a Christmas gift!
Merry Christmas Day! This pic was taken at breakfast before we spent the the rest of the day exploring out in the very cold weather.Brrrrrrrrr! I did hear there were some wonderful bakeries where you could warm up with hot cocoa and some kind of a guilty pleasure German pastry. It was all true!
Lovely little dining room that was closed till New Year's.
This is Rothenburg's very famous Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas Store and Museum that people travel miles and countries to see. Unfortunately, the store end was closed but you can believe I'll be back! The hand painted nut crackers above sell from 100-400 Euros each. Add thirty percent more and that will give you the dollar value.
The museum was huge inside and contained a wonderful collection of traditional German antique Christmas items of every kind crafted or collected by this generations-old company.
These antique Christmas tree stands were some of my favorite things.
These exquisitely folded paper Creches were also favorites. In modern Germany you don't see the celebration of Christ very often.
This is their traditional "Wish Tree". You write on a little ornament card and add it to the tree. Sorry, my wish is a secret!
How could I not take a picture?
This is the same church we visited to listened to the Christmas Eve concert.
The next series of pictures were taken in the Reichstad Museum, a former nunnery built in the 1200's, that displayed not only religious secular artifacts but featured a wonderful art gallery and a children's room of antique furniture and toys.
These carved stone figures that were originally on the outside of the building represent the seven virtues and seven vices of man.
These four canvases are part of a large 12 panel depiction of the Passion of Jesus Christ, painted by a Rothenburg artist and Franciscan monk, Martinus Schwartz of the 15th Century. They were quite stunning and a very ambitious undertaking.
This toy museum especially held my attention because of all the doll house scenes, puppet theaters and young boys army men.
I love blue and white anything and these porcelain beer steins made me envious.
Some how this bed doesn't seem too inviting.
Cobblestones and horse drawn carriages........pretty charming!
This is the City Hall building in the main plaza where the famous Christmas Market was held. It closed the day before we got there. Please notice the very tall and narrow white tower behind. Lowell and I climbed to the very top which Lowell couldn't have done a year ago. So proud of him!
On the way to the top. The stairs kept getting smaller and smaller. The escape hatch to get outside was barely big enough to crawl through. They only allowed a few people on the ledge of the tower at a time. It was very tight up there but what a magnificent view!
You can see for miles.
Almost takes your breath away!
Another view of our tower. I love the little windows on the roof. This is a very common architectural feature in Germany.
One of the very few Creche scenes we saw in Rothenburg.
Our cozy little sloped-roofed hotel room.
Saturday morning we awakened to a snow storm and knew we needed to head back to Frankfurt. It was expected to get worse as the day went on.
Those predictions were more than true. Because of the very cold temperature and the snow, the roads were like sheets of ice. It took us 6 hours to travel the same distance we came in 1 3/4 hrs two days earlier. It's good Lowell had a good book for me to read to him on his phone. It really didn't seem that long.
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