Fantastic February!!

 The title of this post is Fantastic or Fabelhaft in German and so far February has been just that. At the beginning of the month we received a couple of good snow storms so this pic is for our little grandkids. The pigs are looking out the window at the falling snow just like they do.

 We celebrated Klaus's birthday at our apartment with dinner, a spiritual thought, and playing a fun game. It was a good time for us all.

 These next pics are of some of our YSAs. On the left is Caleb Sajin  the Bishop's son who just returned from his mission in Romania and is our new YSA representative. Sitting next to him is our fun Bernhard Kober our Ward Mission Leader.

 George and Ben both from Nigeria and both investigator friends.

 Sister Poll, Sophia (this was her last night with us before she went back home to Sweden), Hayli, and Sister Bishop.

 Dominique (who has been working in Italy) and Helga Bein who is one of our new Sunday School teachers for the YSAs and a good friend to us all.

 Bishop Thomas Lex with Clara and Stephan who just got engaged a couple weeks ago and will get married in July!

 This is Morgan Cooley who just arrived from Idaho to study here in Graz for one semester. She is lots of fun.

 This is on our drive up to Vienna for a meeting and interviews with Pres. Kohler.

 The trees were all frosted and beautiful.

 I just can't help myself to take pics out the window.

 After our meetings we met up with Amrei, Lukas at their apartment and their friend Anna. We had a great discussion about the Gospel. Lukas made us yummy apple strudel. 

 Anna, Amrei and Lukas. They all want to know more!!!!

 Isn't this the cutest house ever?? Sorry about the glare but I took this picture from a picture in Amrei's photo album. This house is her Aunt's house in Sweden.(Ava Muhlberger's sister) They all went there for Christmas. Kinda wish we could have gone, ha ha. I just want to see more of this darling house and know better the people who live inside.

 Elder and Sister Tew in our Trachten suits.

 We took more pics out the window during our drive up to Munich, Germany for Mission Tour with the Kohlers and Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy. We drove up with Elder and Sister Wade who serve in Klagunfurt. We zoomed up on this fortress  on the hill.

 A couple pics of the beautiful Alps.

 This is our view out our hotel window in Munich.

 The Wades and the Tews

 We had to stop in for a treat at the bakery. Lots of different kinds of Krapfen.

 Inside St. Peter's Church. 

 This view is the backside and courtyard of the amazing Munich City Hall.

 Another picture there in the courtyard.

 This elevator in our hotel says it can hold 5 people but I DON'T THINK SO. Could they make elevators any smaller? This is how most of them are in Europe to conserve space.

 Most of the missionaries in our mission were here for this conference and going down the stairs to lunch to the cultural hall after our morning meeting was fun. Sister Kohler spoke to us on Obedience and President Kohler talked to us about "Consistant Persistance in Faith and Dilligence" It was wonderful and very uplifting. 

 After lunch President Kohler had us all stand to sing "Called to Serve" in German to thank the nice ladies that provided lunch for all the missionaries. 

 How glorious to be a part of this fantastic group of missionaries here in the Alpenländische Mission (Alpine German Speaking Mission) We are so blessed with hearts full. Later Elder Kearon gave a wonderful presentation on how to be better missionaries. We choose to be obedient, we choose to be happy. Always start our day with Power of Prayer!!

 The Kohlers after a long but amazing day!! We are so blessed to have them here.

 Our friends the Smiths serving in Salzburg, the Tews serving in Graz with Elder Plumb who served  with both of us couples. 

 That night several of us senior couples went out for burgers. The McCormacks found this place because it reminds them of home. Yummm.

 On the way out of Munich I had to snap this amazing building.

We arrived back in Graz for our ward Fasching Costume Party a little late after our Munich trip. Alot of the people had already left but I managed to get a few pics.

This is Jörg Hoffman and his daughter Anna-Lena.

Superman and Lois Lane finally showed up.

Elder Wasden grew up in Laie, Hawaii (his dad teaches at BYU Hawaii) so it was fitting that he wrap his companions bed sheet around his rolled up pants and come in his native dress!?  Elder Mitchell's mom sent him the batman gear. So this is what Batman looks like as a missionary!!

Superbaby and Superman!

Little Livia 

The next day, Saturday Feb 14th, was the Baptism of John B. Since the small Branch of Brück an der Mur does not have a baptism font, they come to our Graz Church and we get to participate with them. This is Elder Oviatt, John, and Elder Pyle.  

Since it was Valentines Day, Elder Tew took me up to Schlossberg to walk around and see the views that we love of Graz.

Then to a delicious dinner at the Sacher Resturant just down from the City Hall. He didn't have reservations and all of the tables were reserved but somehow this one was open right at that moment. Another tender mercy!

We met such a great faithful member of the church from Brück at John's baptism and on Sunday for his Confirmation. Sister Cseh (her husband was Hungarian and pronounced Chee) She and I imediately became good friends. And... her English is great. She has such a strong spirit about her and I loved being with this 85 year old Angel.

Stephan is the next candidate for Baptism hopefully in March. He first came to the church because he was interested in doing family history and the now Brück Elders are teaching him the lessons.

I think the whole season of Fasching is about eating Krapfen. They are jelly or cream filled pastries. And when Fasching is over, so are the Krapfen. This is the Branch President of the Brück an der Mur Branch- Pres. Scheuch. All of the leadership in this Branch is from our Graz ward and they travel the 45 minutes to Bruck to serve. Also some of our members go there to give support. Alot of the Graz ward have taken a turn for at least 2-3 years at a time to serve there.

Brother Schatz now serves as a counselor in our ward Bishopric but before that he was the Branch President of Brück for 10 years. He loves to take us missionaries on hikes through the forests, and for lunch after to his favorite restaurants. His wife passed away 11 years ago.

It was our P-day and beautiful weather. What a fun group!

We took the street car to get back to where we parked our car.

Tuesday Feb. 17th was the Fasching Holiday and parade downtown Graz. We got there too late from our District Meeting for the parade but we did see some interesting characters. Can you find a balloon that you like?

Everyone loves to dress up in costumes. We found this group line dancing in the street.

They also love their picture taken in costume. Oh dear! 

January Joys!!

 To begin this post, I thought I would show a pic of  Family Home Evening. We have been getting alot more people attending and it helps to have our young missionaries there as well.

 Elder Tew teaches the Institute class every Wednesday.

 Before Sister Pentz was transferred to Switzerland, Bernhard  our Ward Mission Leader had us all over for Pasta at his apartment.

 One of our assignments is to check all of the four missionary apartments in our District every transfer. We check to make sure everything is in working order, if they need anything, if the apartment is clean, etc. Here are our great Graz Elders Mitchell and Wasden greeting us with towels over their arms like waiters. 

 So... Elder Mitchell let us know that for some reason all of the previous Elders had been storing their empty jars in a cupboard and it was filled and spilling over. Meine Gute!! We disposed of them all!! Now these Elders have more space!

 After our Leoben apartment check, we stopped in a little town called Frohnleiten to look around.

Town square in the evening.

 Very quiet and very interesting. We loved it!

 At District meeting we celebrated Elder Mitchel's birthday and also Sister Pentz who's b-day is in February but she is leaving us.

 District Picture.

 We had four investigator friends at this FHE

 It is always hilarious when Ben comes. He brings alot of energy.

 Sister Bishop, Sophia from Sweden, and Sister Pentz. 

 We just received the family Walters to Home teach and Visit teach. They live quite a distance away and Sister Walter and her two youngest daughters were excited for us to come. Sister Walters is an American and her husband is Austrian. This is Melanie who was baptized a few months ago and is quite entertaining. She tried on all three of her new "Frozen" dresses for us and danced around to show them off. In Austria the name of the movie "Frozen" is "The Ice Princess". Melanie sang us the "Let it Go" song just like our own granddaughters sing it. It was fun!

 Our cute friend got BAPTIZED on Saturday January 17 in Vienna. This is the beautiful baptism font in the Stake Center.

 Eight Missionaries with her.

 Elder and Sister Parker treated us all to Pizza afterwards.

 Sister Bishop and her new companion Sister Poll from Mt. Green Utah.

 Our friends Elder and Sister Smith came to Graz so we could show them our beautiful city. They serve in Salzburg which is about 3 hours drive from us.

 One of the first things we did was to go up on Schlossberg and who did we find there? Our young missionaries were there for a P-day excursion. Who knew? 

 We went to visit some old friends at the Armory.

 This time we had a guided tour and found out that all of the 32,000 pieces housed here (enough to outfit 5,000 men) were ready to be used, but never were. A few pieces have dents in them, from testing the armor for strength. They are on display in the original 600 year old building, on 4 floors!

 We also found out that this horse armor was used in parades only.

 A couple of unusual characters!  The spears in the background were actually about 19 feet long originally but had to be cut off to display.

 Our guide let us hold these sword replicas.

 Another FHE with three investigator friends. Ramin from Afghanistan, George from Nigeria (both in front) and our newest Alice from Syria (She is in the striped sweater in middle). Alice is 22 and came here to Austria with her family to escape Syria. They are Christians which is unusual for that country. An older adult member of our ward met her and invited her to come to our JAE group. She speaks some German but no English. We all want her to feel loved here. Ramin has quite a story also. The Smiths actually took this picture for us and they enjoyed our group.

 We took our friends to see the Kalvarienberg Church with its interesting statues depicting the last days of the Savior's life. This church and the surrounding areas with various displays of Christ's sufferings, are built into and on top of a huge rock mount.

You can see...

                                                                    why it is called...

                                                               Mount Calvary Church!

 We ended our two days with the Smiths with dinner at the "Häuserl im Wald"(Cottage in the Forest) resturant. Here is our dessert called the Salzburger Nockerl, a sweet egg souffle'. We thought it fitting since they live in the city of Salzburg, that we should order this dessert.

 This is the cutest couple!! Lukas and Amrei from Vienna. She is the one who took us on a walking tour of inner city Vienna when our Bryan and Lindsey were here.

 Amrei is the neice of our dear Eva Muhlberger and we have become such good friends to them all. Lukas and Amrei will be married in September and it appears that they are becoming interested in knowing more about our Church. We love talking to them and the Sister missionaries in Vienna are planning to visit them. Also, in a year or so, Lukas and Amrei want to come to Utah and visit us! We hope they will be able to do that. They are really great and we love them very much!

Rick took this pic of me to check out a different setting for our camera, so I will leave you with this and say Auf Wiedersehen, till next time.