October's Outings

October began with a late night at Schloss Eggenberg which they open every so often to the public for free admittance to the grounds. You have to pay for a tour inside with candles. Kind of spooky and a good start for the Halloween month.

 October was a month of conferences. We loved being able to see most of the General Conference Sessions. We had a different schedule because of being 8 hours ahead of Salt Lake but we were so grateful for the opportunity to come together to view it at the church. We are in the English room, the German translation was held in the chapel. We had a couple of investigators here with us and they loved conference.

 We had a nice potluck lunch for our YSAs and missionaries in between the sessions.

 

 We took a P-day to drive to Klagenfurt where our friends the Wades are serving. They gave us a little tour of their city. It was great to be with them.

 This interesting sculpture is in the town square. It is the famous Lindworm or dragon. Notice the dragon slayer about to kill him. Such a nice fountain don't you think? Dates back centuries. Live action below!

 We thought this was an interesting fountain also. Here it is in real life:

                                 
                           
                             

 This is their fortress "Burg Hochosterwitz" that could never be conquered. It was impossible for enemies to get inside, due to 14 protected gates, with draw bridges, etc. We loved going there.

 Great pic of Elder Tew manning the cannon to protect us all!

 I wanted to buy one of these metal knights on the top shelf but they were so heavy that I worried about the weight flying home so I took this pic instead.

 Klagenfurt- Wörther See (lake) with live action below with the Wades:

 This statue is in the courtyard of the Albert Schweitzer Klinik. Looks just like him.

 We came to the Klinik to visit our dear friend Bro. Peter Hanselmayer who was having therapy for his Parkinsons disease. He is a faithful 50 year member of our church, who will be 80 soon.

 In front of our apartment building, with those gorgeous red fall leaves on our vine that is on our fence, and climbing! I love this time of year.

 Going to Salzburg to Zone Conference. Austria is the land of tunnels.

  We went The evening before to attend the 3 stake Jubilee Ball in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Salzburg Stake. There are five Senor Missionary Couples including President and Sister Kohler at the end of the table. 

 It was a wonderful Friday evening. See the nice decorations and cute face below:

They asked us to do a little floorshow at the break, so we brushed up on our BYU social dance moves, dressed up, and put on our masks to conceal our identity. How do you think we did? (j/k)

Our breakfast (typical Austrian) the next morning at the Hotel. Notice the green colored boiled eggs (they usually color them when they are hard-boiled, so you know they aren't raw- they must not know the spinning the egg test!). At Easter you see many bright, beautiful colored h.-b. eggs in the stores.

 Zone Conference was great! Pres. Kohler now combines 2 Zones so he doesn't have to travel so much in his busy schedule. That means we will no longer go to Vienna but drive the 3 hours to Salzburg. We don't mind, though, because all the scenery is so beautiful.

 President's presentations were so inspiring. 

 We have the best District. We love these missionaries!!

 As we were about to leave, we noticed that one of the missionaries had put this rose on our car. Ahhhhh!

 Graz pic (dead giveaway with the Schlossberg clock tower in the background on right).

 We walked past these street Opera performers. They were fabulous as you will hear:

 Another Conference. This one is our Senior Missionary Conference in Munich, Germany that we have been looking so forward to on Oct 16-18th. Loved it all.

 All attending including the Kohler kids, (Tanner and Erika)  and the two APs for the first day. We had a nice testimony meeting in the evening for a couple hours, and we were able to share also.

 We got to hear Elder and Sister Fox play their Alphorns again.

 A walking tour around the town square was great.

 Climbing up all 300 plus stairs in the tower of the oldest church in Munich was interesting.

 It was a great view though even if the day had some fog and rain showers.

 This guy has an interesting story. Apparently he was a goldsmith who was paid to make a gold chain for the King. When it was finished, he laid it on a the table, locked up the shop, just leaving the window upstairs open, and left for a few minutes for lunch. When he returned, the chain was gone. He told the king what happened, but the king accused him of selling or not making it and had him beheaded. Twelve years later the shop burned down and up in the rafters they found a birds nest with all kinds of sparkling objects in it. There was the gold chain! Magpies are attracted by shiny things, so one flew in and took the King's chain! Since nothing could be done to give the man's life back, the King had this monument built to pay tribute and honor him.

 The tomb of King Ludwig II, builder of many famous castles in Germany.

 President Kohler spoke to us and then Sister Kohler told us about the Mission Home and gave us all a tour. The home was built by the church about 57 years ago, and a journal is kept by all the Mission Presidents, telling of special experiences with visiting authorities, even President Monson!

 We also walked from the Mission Home to the Mission offices where we made our sack lunch to take with us on the drive home.

 Like I said before, I love this time of year.

 Some of our FHE peeps.  Ben (with his coat on his head) is meeting with the Elders and hopefully will be ready for baptism soon.

 Lunch after District Meeting. Sister Threlkeld showed her skills at frying chicken. Yumm.

 We attended a concert of the Haydn group of the Vienna Boys Choir. This is their new concert hall in Vienna. MuTh stands for Music/Theater.

 Our tickets and CD we bought.  It was also our Stake Conference this weekend but I got sick and could not attend so we had to return to Graz.  Bummer!

 Transfers!! Sister Threlkeld was transfered out and we received our new Golden Sister Bishop. She and Sister Pentz will make a great team. We are excited to get to know her better. She is fresh from the MTC. Both sisters are from Colorado Springs, CO and live in the same stake!

 Our four great Graz Missionaries. Elder Mitchell, Sister Pentz, Sister Bishop, and Elder Plumb.

 A few Halloween things adorn the front of the store but it is not celebrated too widely here.  Happy Halloween everyone!!

 I will leave you with this monthly update pic we received of our two newest grandbabies in "the picture chair". Jack David Sauter and Elliott Adam Tew. They are such good buddies already, just one month apart in age and 5 minutes drive in location. Soooo cute.

And two more little faces we see when we skype with Lindsey's two little girls, Myah and Reagan.  Myah is saying good night Gramma and Grampa because it is always our bedtime and their afternoon when we talk.

September Specials

 A birthday for Sister Tew! We celebrated after District Meeting with a french toast breakfast.

 This was the day of my birthday at FHE. Baldur (very left) made a fabulous German Chocolate cake.

Live action of the FHE birthday celebration with some of our peeps!

 As we were driving  in the small village of Thal (where Arnold Schwarzenegger is from), we saw this most interesting church and went inside. I had to post it for you to see.

 This is the chapel looking from the back toward the front. We think it is Catholic but not sure.

 It is built to look like being under the sea. The seats are molded and hard, so the tiny cushion helps just a bit. I was fascinated by the unique design & decor, and even put my two euros in the box for a cool sea shell souvenir.

An interesting bush outside the church- like an Austrian flag!

And another unique one!

 Hayli Egbert is our new YSA from Arizona. She is here for 11 months to study business and enjoy Austria. She emailed Bishop Lex before she came, so we got in contact with her to meet her at the train and help her get oriented, especially with our YSA group. This month she is taking classes from the University to learn some German, but when her other classes start in October, she will take them all in English. Alot of American students come here for that reason. She is great and we love her very much already!

 Bro. and Sis. Pail hosted a BBQ in their beautiful yard which was fun and a great intro for Hayli. Afterwards, some of us hung around for a while  playing Five Crowns on their covered patio.

 Ok, So this was a fun excursion to try to find a lost member at this address. Pretty scary, I expected a zombie or something to jump out at us at any moment. It was even raining to make the mud worse. Turns out that he moved to the city to forget all the junk that he has accumulated. We left a note for him and he actually called us back that day when he came here. He wants us to visit him in town!

 All of us Sisters after Zone Training in Vienna.

 We had some time after Zone Training to meet with Aigerim and take her and our Graz Sisters to lunch. Aigerim is working towards baptism soon. What a great young woman from Kazakhstan. I posted in an earlier posting about her and told you that she is in Vienna to study Bio Chemistry.

 This is the beginning of a party called a Polterabend at our church for Phillip and Lilly who were getting married the next week. They do all kinds of fun things to celebrate an upcoming marriage. 

 As you can see... this is one of them. Sister Heika Lex has lots of ideas. Don't know how thrilled Phillip was though.

 The idea was that everyone had a pole with a cloud tied to the end with a string and Lilly had to cut them off and read the good advice on the back. Live action below:                                                                        
                                                                                                                         

 Everyone loves Heika for her hard work and fun loving spirit.

 We helped out in the kitchen. Elder Tew is trying to make a funny face for the pic but looks rather interesting don't you think?

 All of these band members are in our JAE group and used to perform alot until they all got so busy with school, work, etc. that they don't really have the time now. They are really good. They played for Phillip (who used to sing with them) and people were having a good time dancing.

 At transfers, we received 19 year old Sister Pentz (tall) as comp to Sister Threlkeld and Elder Mitchell (right) as comp to Elder Plumb. It is exciting to have a fresh golden straight from the MTC come to us. What a fabulous, positive, enthusiastic 18 yr. old Elder from Seatle, WA. We are enjoying these new missionaries that joined us here in Graz.

 Elder Tew is having a good discussion with our new investigator Ben after Institute. Ben is an amazing young man of 27 who was born in Nigeria. He moved here a few months ago and is working as a barber. He attended our church a few times in other places and looked up the church here and just came. (Another Lisa story) He is being taught by the Elders and is looking at Oct. 19th to be baptized. The Lord has guided another wonderful soul to His church! 

 These are all the Elders in our District now. Bruck an der Mur received 2 more, making 4 there now. So here they are after our last District Meeting with two study chairs, 2 boxes of  B of Ms that they needed, a fan, and their other stuff. They took them with them on the train and it was quite a sight! Watch the parade below:

                                    

 Hummm interesting... So the grocery store that we shop at just upgraded and put three new cigarette machines outside their doors. The price went up a bit but that doesn't seem to stop anyone of any age from putting their 4,4 euros (about $6) in for a pack of 20. The devil must be laughing alot- that he was able to influence people to make and market a product that is so nasty, smelly, addictive, annoying, unhealthy and hazardous to everyones health, and even get people to pay money for it! Many people of all ages smoke here, and it can be a stumbling block for some investigators.

 This is what we found in the front yard of a Catholic Church.  It is a metal statue of a priest with an interesting pet. Notice the fangs on that thing!  We drove here to meet our RS Pres. and her husband to follow them in our car to visit a couple, who live far out in the country, who are members that don't come to church. We see lots of interesting things as we visit people.

 Here is another one of them. Actually this nice, friendly dog belongs to the Struckl couple that we visited. It was so funny to see him try to come and play with us through the cat door. Watch him below:  

 We were laughing at the dog as we talked to them on their grapevine covered patio. Bro. Zorn and Elder Tew were able to give them both a blessing. It was beautiful day. She came to church Sunday!

 It is pumpkin season!! And that means more pumpkin seed oil or Kurbuskernöl. Steiermark is famous for this dark Kernöl which is a staple for salad and more.

 When we passed this field, we were able to see the different stages of the pumpkin harvest. The middle of the photo are the plants before the machine comes to put the pumpkins in rows as you see at the top. Somehow the seeds are taken out and the remains that you see in the front of the picture, will be tilled under to fertiize the soil for next year.

 As we were driving back from visiting the Struckls, we had to turn around as we passed this cute place by. What a find!! So many different kinds of pumpkins and such fun looking ones. And the Kern öl is the best out in the country they say.

 We made our purchase!

 And here are our pumpkins- safe at home! And of course a liter bottle of Kern öl. They mix this oil with a vinegar and either salt or sugur depending the taste they want and this is the dressing for the leafy salads. We had to buy some to use for our Institute dinners, so they wouldn't "run us out of town" for not using their famous provincial salad dressing!

 Our bird pumpkin family. These are not painted at all- they grow this way. Heavenly Father is a great artist, don't you think?!?

 Elder Tew is playing his harmonica that our friend Pam sent him. (Thanks Pam) We are watching Raphael so his parents could go on a motorcycle ride. The playing  was putting Raphael to sleep and the funny thing is that Rick put himself to sleep while playing it.

The Beins are  wonderful and we hope they will be an eternal family in the near future!

 I am feeding Raphael his lunch.

 Just thought I would update you on the peacocks at Schloss Eggenberg. We just found out that at this time of year after mating season is over, the males loose their beautiful tale feathers and start to grow new ones for the next year's mating season. We thought these were the young birds, but no, they are the adult males without their plumage. Works out nicely for Schloss Eggenberg though, because they sell the tail feathers in the gift shop for 3 euros a piece. 

And  the last pic of the day!!  Sister Threlkeld, Sister Pentz, Sister Tew and Elder Tew all dressed up for church yesterday in our Trachten(traditional) clothes. (we planned it)