Sunday, September 27, 2015

Spain Self-Reliance seminar & Temple Visit

As we arrived in Spain, we had lunch with our SRS manager, PAco, and then proceeded to hold meetings with the three stake presidents in Madrid.  It is a very positive way to leverage our visits, to hold meetings that might otherwise be difficult to organize.  In each of these cases we were able to spend a full hour discussing the self-reliance initiative in their stakes.  I believe that each of them came away with a better understanding of the doctrine and the benefit for their stake members.  Consequently, we anticipate this will increase their ability to bless the lives of their members.

After settling into a small apartment/hotel close to the temple grounds, we were able to have a wonderful evening sharing a dinner with PAco and his wife, Suzy.  They are a delightful couple that are very committed to the gospel.  It is wonderful to share stories and spiritual experiences.  In Spain, lunch starts at 2:00 pm and dinner is typically at 9:00 pm.   A little late for our customs, but when in Spain . . .

The next morning we were able to participate in an endowment session in the Madrid, Spain temple.  Personally, I was able to receive this endowment for my sixth great grandfather.  This finishes up some considerable temple work for this great grandfather, his wife and his children.  These were my first significant family history discoveries a couple years ago.  I am now excited to be able to finish up the sealing of this family together in a family sealing session when we return to Utah in November.  Going to the temple is so uplifting in the middle of a lot of activity in our lives.  Although we had done initiatory work and baptisms during our recent visit to Utah, it has been about a month since we have done an endowment session.  I was surprised how much I missed it.  With no temples open in Germany at this time, we need to take advantage of the opportunities when we are close to temples!  Since we held our meetings on the "temple square"  I was able to share photos during the day and in the evening.




After the temple session, we had some time to get caught up on emails, etc. and then we began setting up for the Seminar that was to begin that evening.  All of the Stake Self-Reliance Specialists for the stakes and districts in Spain were invited to a  Friday night and Saturday all day training session.  This was the primary purpose of our visit, to assist and to learn from this experience.  

Our first experience was to assist in setting up the tables, organizing the materials and setting out the snacks.  PAco, Debbie and I and one of his wonderful volunteers spent a few hours and when it was time to begin at 6:00 pm, we were ready.

The training began with a message from the Area 70 who also shared a summary message at the end of the training on Saturday.  We were pleased with the attendance, more than 20 stake specialists or members of the stake committees in Spain were in attendance.  Many had traveled four or five hours to get there.  

We focused our agenda around the new Leader Guide and then drilled down in more detail.  Several of the discussions were led by some of the specialists.  Some were very seasoned and dynamic, others were newly called and at the beginning of the learning curve. Debbie and I each had opportunity to lead some discussions with the help of able translators.  Each discussion including the learn, ponder and commit process that is used in the self-reliance materials.  Overall, we were very pleased with the experience.  As the Area 70 said in his closing remarks, Spain should see a significant increase in helping members become self-reliant from this day forward.  





We were especially impressed in the quality of the specialists.  This is our great blessing, to get to know such capable and humble members of the Church wherever we go.  That is how the Lord works, through each of us as we seek his guidance in our lives and in our responsibilities.  We know that he will always do his part if we but seek his help and put forth our efforts.  We have seen it happen over and over in our mission so far.  It is so clear that this is his work and we are so thankful to be able to be part of it!

Finally we were able to catch a late flight out of Spain and arrive home before midnight.  We are looking forward to staying in Germany for the next week!

Mostly business in Paris . . .

Our hotel in Paris was within walking distance from the Church meetinghouse where the self-reliance activities occur.  Each morning we walked to our work and walked back home at night.  This gave us a  completely different perspective of Paris than the normal tourist.  We had been to Paris 15 years ago, so we didn't feel a need to see the tourist spots anyway, plus there really wasn't much down time.  Below is a photo of the Church meeting house which is also shared with other tenants, including some apartments on the top floor.


From this building we were able to hold our bi-weekly video conference with our European managers and get acquainted with the building and spend more time with our manager, Momo.  We then took a trip in the afternoon to visit the site of the Paris temple which is under construction.   The first photo was taken through an opening in the fence in front of the temple.  This temple will not have a spire or an Angel Moroni due to local ordinances.  The next photo is from a side view where you can see the full size of the temple and the work that is occurring on the marble facing of the temple.





As Debbie said during the week, even though we did not see all of the normal tourist sites, we were able to see the most important building in France.  This temple should be ready for dedication by the end of 2016, so we should be able to be back to participate in the temple before the end of our mission.  The temple is on the west side of Paris, near Versaille.  As we drove back from the temple site, we drove along the Seine River and were able to see Paris from a car, which is somewhat complicated due to incredible traffic challenges.  However, the photos below are some that we took from the car, including some wonderful views of the Eiffel Tower.




We finished the evening back at the Church house where young adults were meeting for an activity.  We took the opportunity to visit with several of them to better understand the opportunities for education and work in France. This was most helpful for my understanding.  We finally finished the evening with a nice meal at a French restaurant (imagine that).



 

On Tuesday we joined with a stake president from Lyon, France by video conference and understood better the self-reliance progress and challenges in his stake and then held meetings with our manager and the full-time missionaries.  We finished by participating in a My Job Search self-reliance group until 8:00 pm.  We finished our night off with some gourmet ice cream in a location near to our hotel.





Finally, on Wednesday we held another video conference with a self-reliance specialist from Nice, France.  She was amazing! We would love to have more like "Dorothy" in all of the stake of the Church.



We then took to the subway to meet a stake presidency counselor for lunch.  He is the counselor responsible for the Stake Self-Reliance Committee.   En route to the meeting, we experienced the tight fits in the subway and this was during the middle of the day:


After the lunch, on our return, we took a few minutes to stop at the Louvre.  We did not enter into the museum but were able to enjoy the site as you can see in the following photos.  You can tell that Debbie loved the subway.


Upon our return, we had another video conference with a branch president in the Lausanne, Switzerland stake, held a phone conference with PEF HQ and finished with a wonderful meeting with the Area 70 over the French speaking stakes.  We shared our impressions from our trip and discussed some of his ideas to emphasize self-reliance with Priesthood leaders in his stewardship.

On the way back to our hotel, we saw some mimes that were incredible, they did not move the entire time that we watched them. I was able to stand and be one of them.  We then had another artistic ice cream treat and finished our evening with quiche lorraine.  The next morning we awakened early to go to the airport and continue our trip in Madrid, Spain.










Our first train experience in Europe . . . to Liège, Belgium

We just finished a very busy week visiting with two of our Self-Reliance Service managers in their regions.  It all started 8 days ago as we took our first train ride in Europe.  We boarded a train in Frankfurt to head to Liège, Belgium, 310 kilometers away.  The trip took just over two hours, including 3 stops along the way.  Below is a photo of part of our car on the train, which had over thirty cars on it.


We were met by our SRS manager at the train depot and arrived at a nice little bed and breakfast where we spent the night.  This was a step back into the past for a hotel, which was charming and very sufficient.


On Sunday morning we went to the Church house, where we met with the Stake Presidency, the High Council, the Stake Relief Society President and the Bishops of the stake.  We had a small sacrament meeting with them and attended while they covered other stake business. Then they gave us one and a half hours to discuss the Self-Reliance initiative.  This was led by our Self-Reliance manager and the full-time missionary couple, but Debbie and I were able to share a few ideas and our testimonies.  The meeting was held in French.  We had a high councilor that sat by us and translated.  For once, I was at the disadvantage in the language arena, at least Debbie understood a bit of what was going on.  We were very pleased with the time given and the positive response that we received from the priesthood leaders.  This stake had not participated in the Self-Reliance initiative until this point, but we believe that they are now on their way.


Once again, we wanted to keep the Sabbath.  We were pleased that the missionary couple and our manager had the same idea.  They had some food for us to eat at the Church after the meetings and then we drove for four hours to Paris, France, where we would be for the next 4 nights.  This always allows us time for a lot of conversations, getting to know our manager and discussing a wide variety of topics, from personal to "business".  These may be the most important moments that we have and it is always beneficial to follow a scheduled meeting so that we can talk about the successes and challenges.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Getting Settled Again . . .

We arrived safely in Germany again this week!  As we share our blog, we want all to know that our intent is not to glorify our mission.  However, we do want to share fun, informational and especially inspirational experiences.  We are amazed at the opportunities that we have and the amazing things that occur, giving total credit to our Heavenly Father.  We know that we are his servants, trying to do his will.  He watches over us and watches over our family, in our absence.  We also know that if we dedicate ourselves to his service, miracles will happen in our lives and in the lives of those we work with.  He is all powerful and this is his work!

Our first photo is of the work of love that Debbie finished during our short trip to he U.S.   She was able to get a fairly current photo printed out for each of our grandchildren, all 35 of them.  This included updated photos of many of them during our trip and a senior picture from our oldest grandchild, Sabrina, which she sent to us from Texas.  Yesterday Debbie was able to put all of the photos on the wall of our office in Germany.  This photo gives an impression of these wonderful children that make the next generation of our posterity.  As we count them, we realized that we have 17 grandchildren from the children that Debbie brought into our marriage and 18 grandchildren from the children that Tom brought into our marriage.


Monday we drove from Pennsylvania to New York City to catch our plane at the JFK airport.  During the trip we tried to stop at a Walmart to print out the most current photos (above) that we had updated in the last few days of our trip.  Not as easy as that sounds.  The first Walmart we visited (already in New Jersey) had a Photo Center, but all the electronics were not functioning, so we were not able to print photos.  So we got back on the freeway and kept looking for other Walmarts close to our freeway drive.  Soon before we arrived at New York City we found another Walmart only to discover that they had sent all of their photo equipment to a neighboring Walmart.  Finally at our third Walmart, we were able to print our remaining 7 photos for "the wall".

Since we had a little extra time, we chose to drive past "ground zero" in New York City.  It is always an experience to drive in Manhattan.  As we  approached the site, we were able to have a wonderful view of the new One World Trade Center building that is now the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere and the 5th tallest in the world.  To the top of the spire, it is 1,776 feet high, to match the founding of our country in 1776.  It was also fitting, since this was just 3 days after the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attack in 2001. Even though we were not able to park and get out of the car (almost impossible in New York City), we were able to take a few photos from our car, that we share below:


After quite a bit of traffic experience, we were able to return our rental car and arrive at the airport in time.  We did sit on the plane for almost two hours while they fixed the door to the luggage compartment, but were able to arrive safely in Germany the next morning at about 11:30 am.

Before we went to bed that evening, back into our 8 hours ahead of Utah time zone, we were able to put new touches on our apartment which included some couch pillows and other items that Debbie had picked up in the States and I was able to install some grip strips on the bottom of our bath tub that we also brought with us.  We were also able to get caught up on some emails for our assignment.

The next morning we met our new boss, Thomas George King, who started while we were away and then participate in a farewell for our previous boss, John Mulligan, who was retiring on that day.  Even before the retirement social, we received an announcement that Brother King would be the Area Self-Reliance manager, separate from the Area Welfare Manager responsibilities that Brother Mulligan had shared.  This was decided with the Presiding Bishopric the previous day so that the Europe Area can be better situated to assist the large number of refugees that are arriving daily.  This will include significant short term humanitarian efforts (Area Welfare Manager) and long term self-reliance assistance (Are Self-Reliance Manager).

With this change, we are pleased to have Brother King 100% dedicated to the self-reliance effort.  As we worked with him for the past three days, we are delighted to to get to know him and to help him in his transition to his new responsibilities.  He is Australian, but has lived in England for the past several years and is new to Germany, just as we are.  So many things we will learn together and others we can share from our experiences in Self-Reliance throughout the world.  We are very optimistic about the future of Self-Reliance in Europe and of moving forward in this very important relationship.

Also, on Thursday, the announcement was made in Salt Lake City that the Self-Reliance initiative is now made available to the U.S. and Canada and the transition of over 80 existing employment center employees in the U.S. began.  These are exciting times to be a Self-Reliance missionary and to be involved in this wonderful work.  

On Friday, we had the privilege to meet, by video conference, with two new missionary couples that are serving in Manchester, England and in Rome, Italy.  The first couple is from the U.S. and the other is native to Italy.  In fact they are the parents of our Self-Reliance Manager in Italy.  Both couples are delightful and fully engaged in this great work.   We have also received notice of new couples assigned to Portugal and Scotland, who will be arriving by the end of the year.  In addition to the 11 managers that we work with, that will make about 8 full-time missionary couples (besides us) who are working with the Self-Reliance initiative.

Finally to finish off our week, we were looking for a restaurant near our home to go to for our Friday night date.  We saw an on-line review that was very positive about a Chinese Restaurant close to our apartment (about 1.2 miles away).  As we arrived at the location, we found that the restaurant had been closed, but found another restaurant across the street.  We decided to give it a chance and had a wonderful experience.  It was not very busy but was a quiet atmosphere with excellent service.  As we were enjoying our meal our song, "Endless Love", starting playing in the background music.  It was a special moment that really topped off an eventful week in a wonderful way.  We are very happy to be back.

Today (Saturday), we are off for our first travel by train in Europe.  We are going to Belgium to participate in some meetings with a Stake Self-Reliance Committee tomorrow.  From there we will go with our French manager and missionary couple to Paris and visit with stakes committees and Self-Reliance groups in the Paris area and throughout France.  On Thursday we will fly to Madrid, Spain where we will participate in a training session of Stake Specialists from all over Spain on Friday and Saturday.  Saturday night we will travel back home to Frankfurt, Germany.  

Another exciting week ahead of us, it is certainly good to be back "home".





Sunday, September 13, 2015

Who said a change is as good as a rest?

We are just finishing up our little break in the U.S.  Remember, this is so that we don't overstay our tourist visa in Germany before our mission officially begins.  We scheduled some time back in the U.S to correspond with some planned family reunions and a visit to Pennsylvania for the baptism of our grandson.  All this was accomplished and much more.  Now we are ready to return to Germany.

We returned to Germany from Cape Verde on August 26 and promptly moved to our new apartment, which should be our home for the next two years.  The next morning, on August 27, we left for the U.S., arriving in time to host a family reunion of my cousins and their families on August 29.

I believe that we had each of my cousins (or a close family member) that are in the state of Utah in attendance.  We also had the two remaining aunts from the previous generations, my mother and my aunt LaJuana.  We do this every two or three years.  It was certainly good to get together and we especially made an important connection with my cousin Gloria, who knows so much more than we do about our Germany relatives.  We began plans for her to visit us while we are in Germany and we will work together on a short family history trip to the home of our grandmother in Nuremberg.

The following weekend we had our annual Rueckert Reunion with my mother, my brothers, and their families at the Heber Valley Girls Camp Cabins.  This has been a special time for many of our grandchildren and this year we were able again to hike to the lake and spend an hour in canoes, paddle boats, etc.  Good memories were had by all.  We had a special opportunity to have two of Camila's children, Kaisha and Cherish, with us.  They were so well behaved, they are adapting to their new situation very well.  Caide and Isake were not able to come, since they are now playing youth football.  We also had Ammon's girl friend, Flor, with her two children with us.  These newcomers did very well with their other cousins and had a great time together.  Although not all of our children were able to participate, we still had nearly thirty of our posterity with us.













During this trip we were able to follow-up with Camila and her family.  Her
children are receiving excellent care from their aunt Caren, Eddie's sister.  We spent quite a bit of time with Caren during this visit.  We are impressed with her efforts and love for these four grandchildren.  We felt that love and also the great challenges that she has as she tries to bring more structure and love into their lives. We were also able to visit a few times with Camila, who is currently receiving treatment in the University Neuropsychiatric Institute.  She is recovering from years of challenges prior to the death of her husband Eddie at the end of June.  We were able to help identify some options for her continuing care after she leaves the UNI.

During and in between reunions, we were able to have many individual visits with our children and several meaningful conversations, including some good spirituality checks.  We were able to attend a sacrament meeting where Ammon gave an incredible talk about his journey back to the Lord.  We had a wonderful opportunity to perform almost 30 baptisms for our family names with our grandchildren, Braden and Katelyn, in the Salt Lake Temple.  Moroni succeeded in gaining joint custody with his daughter Tiare and Moroni, Leenee and Tiare were able to visit us in our home.  We also had visits from Jared and Pollyanna and their families.  Each of these three families were not able to be at the cabins but still were able to spend time with us.

Finally, we were able to come to Pennsylvania to visit with Melanie and her family and attend the baptism and confirmation for their son Thomas.  This included meeting our grandson Timothy (born last March) for the first time.  After spending most of Friday with them, we were able to go to the newly completed Priesthood Restoration site near the Susquehanna River on Saturday.  This brand new visitors center and restored buildings will be dedicated by President Russell M. Nelson next Saturday.  It is always good to be on sacred ground especially with our daughter and her 6 wonderful sons (James was working on Saturday).  Thomas's baptism occurred that very night with his confirmation the following day in their little branch.  We love this special family who have been through so many trials, but have maintained incredible faith.  They are an example to all of us and the fruits of their labors is seen in their well behaved and faithful sons.







Tomorrow we will be heading back to Germany.  We managed to spend a few days in the Self-
Reliance offices in Salt Lake, hold some video conference meetings with our managers and participate in our Area Self-Reliance Committee by Video Conference at midnight our time (8 am in Germany) while we were in the U.S.  We are anxious to get back to our full time responsibilities, but will miss our wonderful family who show us so much love.

Monday, September 7, 2015

We also help the Self-Reliance initiative . . .

I recognize that many of our blogs so far make it appear that we are simply turning into tourists, visiting amazing places and enjoying the experience.  In reality, the above is true, but it is only a small part of our mission experience.  Most of the time we are working closely with our Self-Reliance Services Managers throughout Europe, sharing best practices and teaching the doctrine and principles of self-reliance.  As we visit the different regions or countries, we ask to participate in the different aspects of the work, so we can learn from their challenges and at times we have something to offer that may even help with the challenges that they have.  Mostly we love working with these managers who treat us so kindly and teach us so much..

To be truly successful, the Self-Reliance initiative must be Priesthood Led, that is it must be a tool that priesthood leaders use so they can help their members become self-reliant.  The number one priority of our SRS managers is to support the priesthood leaders in their region.  Often during our visits we are able to meet with Stake and District Presidents or at times even with Area Seventies.  At these times, we (including our SRS managers) work to help them to understand how the Self-Reliance initiative can help them in their priesthood stewardship of helping create a Zion society within the Church.  This is where the members dwell in righteousness, are of one heart and one mind and have no poor among them (Moses 7:18).

While in Frankfurt or in Utah, we spend a significant amount of time holding video conferences with the managers, in our joint management councils or individually.  During these meetings, we share principles, policies, tools, experiences and success stories.  Hopefully, this helps each of us to have better ideas to help implement this initiative with all of the stakes and district in Europe.  We have 163 stakes and districts and so far, less than half of them have successfully implemented this initiative.  We have tried to identify specific steps that should be taken by each of them and then encourage and train them to accomplish each step.  Step by step we are making progress.

In my feeble efforts to explain this process, let me share a few slides of a presentation that I recently shared with our Area Self-Reliance committee, showing success stories in some of the key processes. Many of these experiences were part of our recent visits: