Great Finds in Local Places

Not all weeks are full of great miracles and places to visit.  Sometimes we go to the office each day to work and go home to our daily routine.  This week, we never even drove our car except to a nearby restaurant on Friday night.  However, we still see opportunities to serve and many blessings in our lives, right here in Frankfurt.

Sister Rueckert teaching the Young Women how to make her famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

We love the Sabbath Day!  It is the highlight of each week.  We love the chance to worship, serve and study.  We testify that the Lord asked us to honor the Sabbath for "our sakes".  When we learn to do that, the blessings of heaven are open to us.  We also believe that sometimes it is a day of rest.  I caught Sister Rueckert meditating on her scriptures this past week.

A day of rest

Just like in the U.S., Monday was the 24th of July.  However, here it was not a holiday but a normal workday.  We had plenty to do, so we worked.  However that evening we thought we should also celebrate.  After returning home, I went down to our store which is one of the great blessings of our mission, and bought the fixings for our own barbecue.

With purchased hard boiled eggs ( a German specialty), Sister Rueckert made deviled eggs.  We then fried up some hamburger patties and had our own hamburgers with all the fixings.  We also found some corn on the cob and some watermelon.  Sister Rueckert got out some paper plates to give us more of a barbecue feeling.

Table set with our 24th of July Barbecue

A nostalgic and tasty meal

After our Pioneer Day dinner we watched the concluding video of The Work and the Glory.  We have loved studying the history of the Church this year with the Sunday School curriculum.  We are so mindful of their extreme sacrifices of the early Saints to help establish the Kingdom of God on the earth in these latter days.  We are amazed how much was restored in just a few years.  We can only imagine how difficult it was to get the Church organized and functioning while growing so rapidly.  Thank goodness that the Lord is in charge.  He sorts all of that out, puts things in perspective and provides needed revelation for all of his saints, including those of us who came 150 years later.

It has been a cool week, temperature wise.  On Tuesday July 25th, the high was 60 degree Fahrenheit.  We have had a lot of rain, but we aren't complaining.  It beats the heat in this humidity.

Tuesday was our monthly meeting with missionary couples.  Two more couples are going home in the next month, Elder and Sister Simoncini (Italy) and Elder and Sister Vernon (London).  Their replacements are not yet here, so our numbers are getting fewer.  Some of the other couples had conflicts this month.  Our numbers will increase greatly over the next few months.

Sister Simoncini on the upper left sharing her testimony with us.  Elder Vernon is on the middle right.

Wednesday, after our Book of Mormon class taught by Elder Garrett, we (Thomas King and us) spent the rest of the day in a video conference with our SLC SR interface, Jorge Alvarado.  We used this as a preparation conference for the new general authority leaders that will begin their new assignments on August 1.  That includes Elder Mervyn Arnold who will be our first contact in Self-Reliance in SLC and Elder Maximillio De Feo who will join our Europe Area Presidency and will be the chairman of our Area Self-Reliance Committee.  After this joint planning meeting, we spent the rest of the week, preparing the preliminary draft of our August Area Committee presentation. We needed to send that to SLC to give Elder Arnold an update of where Europe is in the Self-Reliance Initiative.

Wednesday evening, Sister Rueckert taught the young women of our ward how to make her famous chocolate chip cookies.  This was a chance for service.  She also brought a few cookies home to share with her husband, which was an additional blessing.

Thursday and Friday we worked hard in reviewing the self-reliance status of each of the stakes in Europe and summarizing results to be presented.  I enjoy analysis and presentation.  Much of my career was spent doing this, so it is a pleasant task.

While analyzing results I came to a pleasant realization.  We have generally assumed that only 60% of our self-reliance activities get registered on-line by local SR facilitators.  As I looked back to the early part of the year, I found that the on-line registration has mostly caught up with the manual reporting.  What this means is that the data in the database, although not 100% complete, is much closer than we had expected.  This is the purpose of analysis, not only to present, but more importantly to learn.

Thursday night we enjoyed a Chicken salad.  This is a normal meal for us, but it was more special because the pepper and tomatoes we used were grown on our own balcony.  There is always a special joy to eat the food that you have been able to produce.

Chicken salad with home grown peppers and tomatoes

The number one priority of the Area Presidency is to help unemployed leaders in Southern Spain to get jobs.  We have put great effort into this this year, with some improved results.  However, they still fall short of what we want to accomplish.  Too many leaders are still unemployed or underemployed. Part of our current plan is an even more intensive effort in the Granada Spain stake.  We will begin a pilot with this stake next month.  On Friday night we had a first training meeting with the Stake President, high councilor and stake specialist.  This included us, our Spain manager, our Area manager, our Director of Temporal Affairs and a few individuals from SLC.  So this became part of our date night this week.

When we have a week at home like this week, we have a chance to more consistent  in our exercise and eating habits and in our study of German.  When we do, we make more progress.

For just a minute I want to share our current diet that is bearing great fruit.  Last March we heard from our German teacher about a diet that she was doing that was working.  She simply fasts three times a week.  That means three days of the week, she eats nothing until dinner, but does drink water. We decided to give it a try and have been doing it for almost 4 months.  When we travel it gets more complicated and we fast a bit less.  When we are home, we get better results.  In the first 15 months of our mission, we added quite a few pounds.  Now in the last 4 months, we have lost more than we had added and are now under our pre-mission weight and continue to lose pounds.

Most diets require a lot of extra effort and costs to prepare special foods, etc.  This one goes the other direction.  We don't have to buy as much food or spend as much time in food preparation or doing the dishes.  We are feeling liberated from many of our daily tasks and finding more time to study, etc.  When we eat, we try to be careful but are still able to eat normal foods and also some desserts  Our bodies appear to have adapted well to this new approach and we are feeling good.

This week we also have been preparing for a family history week next week.  We will be spending the week visiting parishes and archives for Debbie's ancestors.  A big part of our current strategy is to do what needs to be done here and leave what can be done after our mission for then. This means mostly we are data gathering in the best quantities possible.

As part of this strategy, I found that some of the records we are seeing are available on microfilm in the Family History library in SLC.  So we decided to order a few of the films to make sure that our assumptions were correct.  This week  some of them arrived at our Family History center  in Frankfurt.  We also discovered that some genealogical books about the Erfurt area (where Sister Rueckert's father was born) are available in two locations.  One is at the Family History Center in SLC and the other is in the National Bibliothek (library) in Frankfurt or Leipzig.  So we ordered a few of these books to review on our date night on Friday so that we would understand what is otherwise available.  When the Video Conference with the Granada stake got scheduled on Friday night, we switched our plans from Friday night to Saturday afternoon.

So our Saturday activities were Family History oriented right here in Frankfurt.  We walked to our Church and accessed the new microfilms that had arrived and I took the train for two stops to the National Bibliothek to review some of the books that they had.

Sister Rueckert taking pictures of microfilm in our local chapel

A record from 1739 with the Möller name

Reference to my Great Great Grandfather's birth in Alsace Lorraine, France (alphabetical index).  Can't yet find the record on a microfilm, but at least we know where to look.

Reference to the Church where the alphabetical index referred to

 We find this work with microfilms very tedious and difficult.  We can often identify some names, but the rest of the information is almost illegible or only able to be read after much time, zooming in and study.  We know this is part of the price that we must often pay to find important information about our ancestors.  Both of these examples above were on films that we had seen in recent visits to Magdeburg and Strasbourg.  So even though our progress was limited, we confirmed that we don't need to spend time looking at films that we can review when we return from our missions.

In the afternoon, Sister Rueckert was invited to a baby shower for Constanza, our administrative assistant. I went to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek on my own to see the books that we had reserved.  It was a quick trip on the train and much easier than driving and parking.

Train station sign with the building behind

Street view of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Official sign of the library

When I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find these books below waiting for me.  They are books with many of the details of Church Books in the Erfurt area.  They don't have this for Gispersleben, the home of many of the ancestors, but they are of the neighboring area and should have some of our ancestors going back.

There are over 20 books like this prepared once again by an individual who probably didn't have any idea why he was doing this.  We know that the Lord was inspiring this work to be done to facilitate family history for us and so many others.  Much of this information is available on microfilm but so hard to access and read.  Here the results are summarized by names and with specific reference to the Church Books where more information is available.

One of several pages full of Möllers, with birth years and references to Church books

These particular books are mostly from the 1600s and 1700s and I have not found any ancestors to tie directly in, but we believe that eventually this will greatly help our research in a very readable format.  These books are also available in the Family History Library, so we don't need to capture all of it now.  While also at the library, I had reserved a book of the history of Gispersleben.  This was very interesting to learn about the very town where Sister Rueckert's ancestors lived.  I took a few photos of some of the pages.  We hope to be able to tie some of it to the house that we have visited during our visits to Erfurt.

History of Gispersleben, going back to 1142 AD

When I returned from the library, Sister Rueckert was still at the baby shower.  A few photos that I took in my short visit:

Sister Rueckert with Sister King, wife of our Area Manager

Wider view of the shower, Constanza is on the left of the group standing

Sister Rueckert won this prize for being the fastest to identify potential baby names for each letter of the alphabet

After Sister Rueckert returned home, we went downstairs for a group missionary dinner.  11 senior missionaries decided to go to a restaurant downtown together on the train.  This was a good Thai restaurant that came highly recommended.  We love socializing with other senior missionaries.  It was a fun way to finish our day and our week in Frankfurt.

Five elders trying to figure how to buy two group tickets on the train

All the missionaries standing in the train on the way home

We did stop for Ice Cream on the way home at the world famous Christina's Eis.  As we walked from the train to the ice cream parlor, we saw this history of the Mormon Church in the window of a book store.

Pioneers Then and Now

Our week ended with our 3rd annual Pioneer Day 5 K walk/run.  It was a great success and helped us have a little more appreciation for the 1,718 K trek that the pioneers experienced 170 years ago.  In contrast, ours took less than an hour, theirs took 110 days.

Participants in our annual Pioneer 5K walk/run

Our week began in Innsbruck, Austria where we spent the previous weekend.  The photo below shows the cloudless view from our hotel.  The challenges that we had with clouds and rain were now history as we left for home.

View from our hotel on the other side of the street

We left early in the morning so that we could go home through Liechtenstein.  This is a small country in between Austria and Switzerland.  We didn't do anything other than fill up with gas. However, it did add one more country to the list of those we have now visited.  The scenery around Liechtenstein is very similar to Austria.

Entry into the country of Liechtenstein

Our trip to Liechtenstein should have taken around two hours.  It took a little longer because the Arlberg Tunnel was closed for maintenance.  This tunnel is 13,976 meters long (over 8 miles), the longest in Austria. We did okay going over the mountain instead of through it, but it took us an additional 45 minutes.  It only took us a little over 4 hours for the stretch from Liechtenstein to Frankfurt.  

Traveling in Germany is amazing.  The roads are almost always straight, with minimal incline or decline.  Where there are valleys, they build a bridge.  When there is a mountain, they build a tunnel.  The following photos are of just one of the smaller tunnels and bridges that we encountered.  However, they are representative of the amazing road system in Germany.

Tunnel through a small hill in Germany

Driving in a tunnel for a long time

Bridge built over a valley.  No water involved, just avoiding the ups and downs of a valley

Perhaps the biggest challenge on the highways is the constantly changing speed limits  We go from Autobahn speeds (unlimited) to slow downs for tunnels, construction zones or for reasons beyond our understanding.  One of our senior missionaries shared this in a  cartoon that he created.  With his permission I include the cartoon here:

We arrived back home in time to go into the office and make last minute preparations for our monthly senior missionary devotional.  This month we were privileged to have Armin Cziesla speak to us about the conditions in Germany at the end of World War II.  He is the father of our Stake President and one of the German Pioneers of the post World War II era.

Armin was 7 years old in 1944 when the war was winding down.  His mother, who was a member of the Church since 1926 chose to move her family out of East Prussia (currently Poland) to Western Germany.  They wanted to be where the U.S. troops were dominating and not where the Soviet troops were already occupying. The Soviets were already controlling the passage through this territory, so it took creative efforts to be able to relocate.

During this time and throughout the war, Armin's father was in the German army stationed in Norway.  His wife constantly communicated with him during their ordeal, so he knew where his family was.  Armin told us many stories of how his mother would sing Church hymns to him and his older sister and pray with them to ask for the blessings of heaven.  He told of the many ordeals that they endured to get around the Soviet troops.  It took them almost three months, with little to eat and only what they could carry with them.  When they finally arrived in Northern Germany, they stayed with a farmer, in his barn.  After some time there, their father found them in that very barn.

Only ten years later, in 1956, did Armin happen to see a building with the name of our Church on it.  He recognized it from what his mother had told hime so many years before.  Once they were reunited with the Church, Armin, his sister, and his father all were baptized.  He told of other faith promoting experiences of his wife, who also joined the Church above the objections of her parents.  Armin ended up serving a full-time mission in 1962 and later served as a patriarch and the president of the Frankfurt Temple.

We were extremely blessed by the sharing of his experiences and his testimony.  There are not many eye witnesses to the challenges of World War II left.  What a blessing to all of us to listen to his words.

Armin Cziesla, German Pioneer

On Tuesday we held our July/August team meeting with our SRS Managers.  Our main topic was that of reporting to Stake Presidents and Area 70s.  The opinions of our managers are always diverse and they are not bashful in sharing their thoughts.  After hearing the different thoughts, we spent time to put together a survey of thoughts on reporting moving forward.  So far, the responses continue to show diversity.  Our manager, Tom King, will try to sort all of this out and see the best solution for reporting going forward.

We continued to meet individually with several missionary couples this week, worked on our operating budgets (due next week) and continued efforts to help find more unemployed leaders jobs in Southern Spain.  This has now included the best thinking of the SLC team to find better solutions in the coming months.  

On Tuesday night we had our last German session with Sister Peterson in Provo. We have decided that we will continue to work on our German skills.  We hope to return to Germany on a family history trip after our mission.  It also feels good as we understand more and more.  We believe that it is good for our minds to keep learning new things.

Sister Rueckert has an assignment to teach the young women how to make her famous Chocolate Chip cookies next week.  She has been practicing with the oven in the Area Office so that she will be familiar with the setting.  On Friday, she spent some time practicing and then shared three plates of cookies with the employees and missionaries on our floor (and some on other floors).  Each time a plate of cookies went out, they disappeared almost instantly. This photo is of the remaining crumb on the last plate we set out.

Friday was also the two year mark since we moved to Frankfurt to begin this wonderful experience.

During the week we were also making final plans for our annual 5K race for senior missionaries.  With a new mission president, the young missionaries were not invited.  Employees only received an invite earlier in the week.  However we were prepared for better or for worse.  The photo below is of the trophy that Sister Rueckert prepared.  It is made of a hand made pottery that we had received, adorned in bright aluminum foil.

  I had been training on this course for some time and had run the course on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  My fastest time was 26 minutes and 40 seconds.  We arranged for course guides to avoid anyone getting lost.  We set out the markers and bought oranges and water for the finish line.

On Saturday morning the time for the event finally arrived.   It had rained throughout the night before but had stopped in time for the race, giving us perfect weather conditions (no rain and about 70 degrees Fahrenheit).  Over 20 senior missionaries and 3 employees participated. 

We felt like the event was a success.  We received positive feedback from many of the missionaries. Elder Healy took a wrong turn and he was guided back on the course by Elder Stay, our bicycle guide.  Photos below are from this even:

Pre race instructions and a tribute to our pioneer forefathers

Photos together at the starting line

The race begins, Elder Rueckert off to an early lead.

Elder Garrett (in the middle) making his move

Others walking at varying speeds

Elder Garrett and I ran side by side for more than half of the race, but he was running at a faster pace than I was prepared for and so I dropped back.  I finished at 25 minutes and 50 seconds and in 2nd place.  This was still almost one minute faster than I had run during the week.  As an official measurement, the course was measured at 2.83 miles, a little short of an official 5 K.

Elder Rueckert finishing all alone in 2nd place, a minute and 20 seconds behind Elder Garrett

Gold, Silver and Bronze.  Coraline took third place and 1st among employees.

Sister Rueckert handing out the 1st place trophy

 Each of the first three finishers also received a jar of our home made strawberry jam.  I had to finish in the top three so that we could have some jam back for our enjoyment.

The day ended up with intermittent light rains  In the afternoon we captured this beautiful rainbow from our balcony.  It reminds us always of the watchful care of our Heavenly Father.

Just a little gardening update.  We are now harvesting tomatoes and peppers.  The photos below are of one of our tomato plants on our balcony and one of our pepper plants.

Tomato plant on the floor of our balcony.

Unique green peppers growing,  We fear that they be the hot variety.

Today, on Sunday, we enjoyed our sabbath meetings.  We love our ward and our ward members.  We receive much inspiration from them.  Today we started our Portuguese Sunday School My Foundation Only Self-Reliance course.  There were only 4 of us in total, but the spirit was strong and the time uplifting.  We also received notice from a member who has finished the finance self-reliance course in our ward.  She has a brother-in-law in Munich who wants to participate in the same opportunities.  This word of mouth will continue to help this work move faster throughout Europe.   Our new missionary couple for Germany will have plenty opportunities to help.  We also have several missionaries returning in the ward, beginning this week.  They appear to be perfect candidates for some of our self-reliance groups.  Much to do, without going too far!

Climb Every Mountain

This was a week with Tom's brother Rob and his family,  a little family history in Germany and some self-reliance work with special friends in Austria.  In between, we felt like we climbed every mountain in Salzburg Austria, Füssen Germany and Innsbruck Austria.  We have been uplifted by the beautiful Alps wherever we have  gone.

Near the top of the Alps outside of Innsbruck, Austria

On Monday and Tuesday morning we met with several missionary couples, including an emotional farewell to Elder and Sister Simoncini in Italy.  We also prepared for our upcoming trip to southern Germany and Austria.

Six months ago, my brother Rob told us that he planned on visiting Germany and would like to visit us as part of his annual vacation with his family.  The date was set for July 11 and the plan was to initiate the trip with a visit to the “Rueckert Sites” in Bavaria.  After that, Rob and his family would continue traveling through Germany and into Austria, following the “Romantic Road”.  We went ahead and circled the date on our calendars and decided that we would also travel through southern Germany into Austria. and coordinate our travel with Rob where we could.   With this idea, our plan for this week evolved.  The timing was good, as many Europeans are on Holiday during July and August and our Self-Reliance Activities are much less.

As we contemplated this trip we tried to include a few things that we had wanted to do, but had not yet had the opportunity.  This included:

• Sister Rueckert’s number one tourist wish was to do the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, Austria.
• We had both wanted to visit the Alps up close and personal.
• We also knew that anyone that ever visits Germany has to visit the Neuschwanstein (Disneyland) Castle.
• We were also aware of a special family that I had known in Brazil who had moved to Innsbruck, Austria.  This was the family who had brought our son Abraham and his biological sisters into their home 27 years ago.  We ended up adopting Abraham and they adopted his sisters. 
• Of course, we also had a little more family history to do. 

My brother Rob arrived in Frankfurt on Tuesday morning, July 11, as planned.  They came to our apartment and we organized our plans for the week.  We then had lunch together before beginning our trip.  After lunch at a local Italian restaurant, we left for the “Rueckert Sites”.  We started with the last home of our grandfather before he immigrated to the U.S., the home in Steinach an der Ens. This is where he learned the gospel from his brother.  The owner of the home, Christian, has been so good to let us take people through his house.  Once again he was gracious and we visited his home with Rob and his family.  Kate went with us in our car for lunch and Emi and Josh traveled with us to Christian’s home.  This gave us a chance to get to know our nieces and nephew a little better.

With Rob and his kids in front of the Steinach house

Rob, Sarah, Josh and Kate in the original cellar of the Steinach house

All of us in the living room where our Grandfather heard the gospel for the first time

After visiting the home in Steinach, we visited the school and Church in Steinach.  We then went to their prior home in Hochbach (Hochbacher Strasse 4), where my grandfather was born and to the house in Bergstshofen (Buchheimer Weg 1) where my grandfather’s mother was born.

Rob and his family under the Hochboch sign, the city where our grandfather was born

Looking at the Hochboch house

Rob in front of the Bergtshofen house, which is currently vacant

 Throughout this little trip we shared family history stories to better understand the significance of each site.  By almost 6:00 pm, Rob and his family continued onto their hotel in Rothenburg and we went to visit our dear friends Werner and Dorotha Rückert.   This was our first visit to Werner and Dorota since we have been able to identify common ancestors in two of their family lines.   We shared updated Family Fan Charts and documentation to support our findings.  As always, Dorota fed us wonderful German pastries.  This is our 5^th visit with Werner and Dorota and each time they have been warmer.  We feel like we have a dear friendship with them.

Werner and Dorota Rückert on their 25th wedding anniversary

As we discussed our family heritage we explained why we place so much importance on our family history.  This gave us a chance to share a little of our testimonies about families and about our Church. As we discussed the concept of eternal marriage, they advised us that this very day was their 25^th wedding anniversary.  We declined drinking some wine with them but wished them well on this special day.  Our discussions are always mixed in English and German.  We asked them if we could invite some missionaries that speak better German to visit with them and answer their questions better than we could.  They accepted!  We pray fervently that they will be able to have open hearts to ponder the message that the missionaries will bring.

We had arranged to spend the night at a local hotel in Ulsenheim that is owned by the Meyer family, the brother of our friend Günter Meyer.  When we got there we met his brother and sister in law.  His nephew also works there.  We shared our family history with them, letting them know that they are related to us.  Günter’s mother was an Endress.  Four generations back they came ffom the same family as the mother in the Bergtshofen home.  The next morning they showed us the house that my 2^nd great grandmother had lived in, which was just a block from the hotel where we stayed.  This is a part of our family history that was new to us.  We were delighted to make new discoveries.

Fränkische Suppe, deliciously served at the Meyer hotel (Scwarzen Adler)

Irma Elizabeth Endress (maiden name) with her son and grandson.  She married Hermann Meyer.

The home in Ulsenheim where my second great grandmother Endress was born.  Her brother was the great grandfather of Irma Endress shown above.   

Ulsenheim is where many of my ancestors are from.  We also have many familienregisters available for Ulsenheim, so it is the location for much future temple work.

We then went to the parish in Illisheim to look for ancestors of Werner Rückert’s mother and Barabara Meyer’s father.  We were successful in finding a few more generations back.  Each of these  were their relatives, so the family names that we find are also our relatives.

The following is an example, the wedding record of Werner Rückert’s mother‘s parents.   We accomplished the same for Barabara Meyer.  We love Family History work!

Marriage record for Werner's parents in laws

After finishing our work in Ulsenheim, we continued onto Munich, where we would eat lunch.  We also wanted to visit Rückert Strasse, which is the location of the Alpine mission home.  We had heard about this address for some time and were now able to visit it in person.  The mission home is near to the site where the Oktoberfest activities occur each year in Munich in September and October.  We were glad to be there in a quieter time of the year.

English translation: Rückert Street

In front of the Church location on Rueckertstrasse 2

Neighboring street of Beethovenstrasse  The Rückertstrasse sign for the next block is in the background.  Famous people  on neighboring streets.

Map of the local area.  You can see Rückertstrasse next to the main park, which is the location of  Oktoberfest

One photo of a portion of the park which is enormous.  We understand that it is completely filled during Oktoberfest.

When we arrived that evening in Salzburg we checked out the downtown area in preparation for our Sound of Music tour the next morning.  We walked around the Mirabell gardens behind the Mirabell Palace that had been built by one of the Archbishops for a birthday present to his wife years ago.  While we did, we saw a sign advertising a concert of Motzart and Vivaldi in the castle.  This was at 7:45 pm and the concert was to begin at 8:00 pm.  Since Salzburg is the birthplace of Motzart, we decided to attend.  The setting was beautiful and the concert was amazing!

Sister Rueckert awaiting the Motzart concert in the Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, Austria

The ensemble playing Motzart's Salzburg Symphony in D

Sitting in the concert hall during intermission while others were out of their seats

In front of the birth home of Motzart, photo taken the next evening

The weather this week was a challenge.  Rain was scheduled just about every day in every city we would be going to, so we tried to do the best we could.  On Wednesday we carried our umbrella but most rain came while we were driving and at the end of the evening while we were eating in an outdoor restaurant.  Our Sound of Music tour was reserved for the next morning, but we saw that sun was forecast for the afternoon.  We decided to do a tour to the salt mines in the morning and then an afternoon tour for "Sound of Music".  We arrived early the next morning to make the change and were successful.

The tour of the Salt Mines was recommended to Sister Rueckert by her visiting teacher, Sister Sabin, so we decided to do it.  Salzburg was named for this gigantic salt mine that has been mined for the last 500 years.  In German, Salzburg mans mountain of salt.  The tour included wearing special overalls, riding a salt mining train, sliding down into the mine area and riding on a boat on an underground salt lake.  All was cool, but no photos were allowed inside the mine area.

In our special attire for the salt mine tour

Photo of us on the train as we began

Going down the slide, Sister Rueckert was a little anxious. However, she felt better by the second slide.

This tour included the drive to the mine and a visit to the neighboring city.  We returned to Salzburg in time to catch the 2:00 pm Sound of Music Tour.  The promise was that the tour would be full of singing the songs.  However, our tour guide was not a singer so we were a bit disappointed.  However, he did play most of the songs and Sister Rueckert sang away.  Some of the others on the bus joined in.

Waiting to get on our bus tour

Sister Rueckert on the bus

During the tour we learned a lot about the filming of the Sound of Music.  We had watched it on our date night the previous week, so the movie was fresh in our minds.  It is interesting that the outdoor scenes by the Von Trapp homes were filmed in two locations.  One was in the gardens of a private palace that faced the lake.  However, whenever there was a scene with the home in the background, it was in a yellow building which is now a Mozarteum Music school.

Our first stop on the tour was across from the Leopoldskron Palace.  This is a view from across the lake of the private palace gardens.   This is also where the lake scenes were filmed and outside shots which were facing the lake. 

This is a distant photo of the yellow home where other outdoor scenes were filmed.  The tour bus did not go to this home but drove a distance away and pointed it out.  However, when ever the film showed scenes with the home, this is the home that was used.  Since it does not have a lake near it, the film fictitiously created a yellow home near a lake.

Our tour guide, in his Austrian attire

This is the original Gazebo where they sang I am 16 going on 17.  It was originally at the Leopoldskron Palace but has since been moved to the Hellbrunn Palace grounds for easier viewing by the tours.  The inside of the Gazebo has been locked since an 80 year old lady got injured jumping from bench to bench.

We drove by the Nonnberg Abbey several times, but could not get close enough to visit it.  The inside scenes were all filmed in Hollywood.  We tried to get to the abbey by car after the tour but were unsuccessful without climbing the mountain to get to it.

The original Nonnberg Abbey where Maria actually lived before joining the Von Trapp family.  This has been an abbey since the 700s and still has 22 nuns.

We then went on a bus ride to the lake regions to see the scenery of Austria.  Much of this scenery was shown in the beginning of the movie.  During this ride the singing on the bus improved a little bit.  We stopped at a beautiful overview of Lake Wolfgang and stopped and took photos:

Photo taken of scenery from the bus

We stopped to take photos of Lake Wolfgang.  I believe that the village is St. Gilgens.

In front of Lake Wolfgang with the others on the tour bus

We then continued onto Lake Mondsee to see the Mondsee Cathedral where the wedding scene was filmed.  A more distant location was needed, since the local cathedral would not allow the filming inside of it.  This is a beautiful church and a beautiful setting.  We spent about an hour there, walking to the church, visiting the surroundings and getting a snack to eat.

Mondsee Cathedral, tour group in the forefront

Sister Rueckert in the Church where Maria walked down the aisle and was married

The tour finished at the Mirabell Gardens behind the Mirabell Palace.  This is where several scenes of Maria and the children were filmed, most famous is the Do-Re-Mi song.

Main garden, photo taken from the steps that they sang on.  We took the photo the night before our tour.

Photo of another part of the Mirabell Gardens which we took at the end of the tour, prettier blue skies.

As we finished the tour, we had a few hours of day left.  We decided to seek out the points that the tour had missed.  We did this that evening and continued the next morning. We learned why the tour had skipped them.  We could not get to the Nonnberg Abbey, even with a car, certainly not with a bus.  We also could not access the gate in front of the yellow home, only walking access.  However, we did find the actual location of the filming of Maria in the meadow in the Alps and followed a winding mountain lane to the location which appeared to be on private property.  Another reason they can't do it on the tour.  We did park our car, walk across a front yard and find what we thought was the perfect place that the scene would have been filmed.  Below Sister Rueckert is doing her Maria impersonation.

The hills are alive with the Sound of Music!

Friday morning we pursued a few more Sound of Music sites with limited success and then began our trip to Füssen, Germany where the castles of King "Mad" Ludwig II are located.  We had a reservation for one of the castles at 2:50 pm  (ticket pick up by 1:50 pm) and hoped to get an opportunity to see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle the same day.  On-line reservations for this castle were no longer available.  It is probably the most famous and visited castle in all of Germany.  It served as the basis for Walt Disney's sleeping beauty castle in Disneyland.

We got stuck in border crossing traffic to come back into Germany which put us behind our schedule.  We were pushing it tight until I made wrong turn, which cost us a few more minutes.  In the end we arrived at the ticket center at about 2:00 pm and I let Sister Rueckert out at the ticket center while I parked the car.  When I came back she had secured our 2:50 tour tickets at the Hohenschwangau castle and had gotten 6:00 pm tour tickets for the Neuschwanstein Castle.  I should have left more of our arrangements to her care, she did awesome!

As predicted there were thunderstorms but in between it would clear up.  Although we got rained on quite a bit, we had moments of clearing that gave us a chance to have a little blue sky in our photos.  We first went to the Hohenschwangau castle which was built by King Maximilian in the early 1800s. There he raised his two sons, Ludwig II and Otto.  Otto was institutionalized and Ludwig II became the next king.  While living in this castle, Ludwig oversaw the building of his dream castle, Neuschwantsein.  In fact in one of his rooms he had a telescope which allowed him to watch the construction of the new castle.  There was also a most beautiful view of a nearby lake in the mountains from the King's floor.  No photos allowed, but I haven't ever seen a better view.  It was obviously planned in the beginning.

Hohenschwangau Castle viewed from the parking area

Riding to the castle on a horse drawn carriage in the rain.  It cost us an additional 20 Euros to get him to take us up without the carriage being full.

Right outside the Hohenschangau Castle

After the tour and the rain at the Hohenschwangau castle

At the Hohenscwangau castle with the Neuschwanstein castle behind us

View of the Newschwanstein from the Hohenschwangau castle

Horse drawn ride back from the Hohenschwangau with view of Neuschwanstein castle

After coming back to the parking area, we boarded a bus to take us above the Neuschwanstein castle. From there we walked up to the Marien Bridge which oversees the castle and a waterfall.  Talk about a postcard perfect view.  Even though another thunderstorm was on it's way, the view was breathtaking.

Perfect postcard view of the Neuschwantstein Castle

Same view without the zoom, showing the mountain base of the castle

Us with the castle behind us

View of a waterfall below from the bridge

Right after we left the bridge, on our way down to the castle, we were hit with another thunderstorm. We were thankful that it didn't hit us while on the bridge.  We waited out the storm and then continued our descent to the castle.  The following are a few of the photos as we approached the castle.

With the castle behind us.

Zoomed in as we approached the castle

From the front of the castle

Once we got to the castle we started planning our descent after the tour.  We would not have time to get to the last bus ride back.  I went down below to a parking area where the horse drawn carriages departed.  The last one would leave at 6:00 pm.  So we devised a plan.  We would schedule a dinner at the restaurant below with my brother Rob and his family, who had just arrived in Füssen.  Their previously scheduled tour was the next morning.

On the way back up from the parking area, I took a few more photos from a different direction.  Notice that once again some blue sky is beginning to appear.

Middle view from below

Looking up at the castle from the back side

Another side view, lots of blue sky

As we went into the schedule tour time, we all received an audio guide instrument.  We were instructed to listen to the tour in each room.  An actual tour guide went with us to make sure all were in each room and then they turned on the narrative.  This was actually a very impressive way to keep tours moving and comprehensive.  New tours started each 5 minutes and could accommodate any of the languages on the audio box.  They know how to move the amazing volume of people through the castle.

We had to go up more than 200 steps and then back down again as part of the tour.  This castle was never finished before Ludwig II's death.  He was determined to be unfit to rule and was removed from his throne on one day while he was only 41 years old in 1886.  He was found dead at the bottom of a lake the next day.  The death remains a mystery until today.  There were no heirs and the mostly finished castle has been a tourist attraction ever since.

Part of Ludwig's fascination was with the operas of Richard Wagner.  The decor throughout the castle is based on these operas.  The magnificent throne room is amazing, but the final throne was never placed in the room.  All of the furnishings are original to the late 1800s and tell an amazing story of his passion and excessive tastes.  No photos inside were allowed, so you will have to trust us on this one.  It is worth a visit if you are able.

Scale model of the castle, shown after the tour

After the tour it was raining again.  We descended partially down the mountain to find Rob's family waiting for us by the restaurant which was now closed.  Although we couldn't eat there we did solve our transportation dilemma as Rob gave us a ride back to our car.  We then went into Fussen and enjoyed a wonderful evening with Rob, Sara, Kate, Josh and Emi.

Enjoying Apfel Strudel with Rob and his family in Füssen, Germany

We had to have apfel strudel, since we had only eaten Italian and Chinese food with them up to that point

Saturday morning we took the short drive to Innsbruck, Austria.  It should have been short, but the traffic was the worst that we had experienced.  It seems that everyone was driving down the mountain to Innsbruck.  We never could understand the delay, but it finally worked itself out.

When we arrived in Innsbruck we tried to find a rondevous point with one of our friends that did not work out.  We will introduce these good people in our Sunday activities.  We did end up parking at the Hungerburg station for the tram ride up the Nordkette mountain.  From there we bought the full pass up to the top and down to the city in three different types of trams.

We took the Funicular down into the city and back while we were waiting for the stormy weather to pass.  Partly cloudy skies were forecast for 2:00 pm and we had arrived at 1:00 pm.  Back at the Hungerburg, we took the next tram to the Seegrube station which is 1,905 meters high (6.250 ft.).  They were holding a music festival there that night and we had many people coming up with sleeping bags and tents.  The view was amazing as we saw goats and hikers along the way.  We were already up into the clouds with limited visibility.  However, we took the next tram to Hafelekar with an elevation of 2,256 meters (7,400 ft.).  At this point it was very windy and cold. Our windbreakers didn't do the job against the cold, but they did help a little.

On the Funicular going down into the city

On the tram going up to Seegrube

We went out to take some looks at certain lookout points and only saw clouds all around, no visibility.  We went into the cafe there and decided to eat some hot goulash and wait for the weather to improve.

Some hot goulash at the top of the mountain with a little strudel for dessert

While we were eating, we saw the cloud lift and close up again several times.   Finally we went out and determined to wait and watch.  

Original visibility - nothing beyond the ledge

Covered in clouds when we started our wait.  Barely able to see the outline of the peak of the mountain.

We were rewarded with some amazing views while some of the clouds lifted.  I also determined to climb the last 250 meters to the peak of the mountain.  Photos follow:

Clearer views of the peak

Elder Rueckert on the top of the peak

Elder Rueckert waving down to Sister Rueckert

The winds going up were very strong and the escalation was a bit tough, but the experience was worth it.  Even though the visibility was limited, it was amazing to be at the top of the Alps.

Selfie looking off one of the sides of the mountain peak

Photo taken by a fellow hiker, an amazing feeling

One more photo at the top

 As I came down we took advantage of some temporary clearing to look around the other side of the mountain and got some great pictures.

Sister Rueckert sitting on a bench on the side of the mountain

A little windy but worth it

We can imagine how beautiful it would be on a perfectly clear day, but it was good to also experience the extreme cold and difficulty on a normal day in July.  We can only imagine the experience in the winter time.  Independent of the weather, we were awestruck with the beauty of God's creations in this part of the world.  The mountains are majestic!

On Sunday we went to church at the Innsbruck Ward and finally met with the family of Günter and Ingrid Jäsche.  I last saw them over 20 years ago while we lived in Brasil.  Today the three children have spouses of their own.  They met us in Church and took wonderful care of us.   We realized that this is the first time that we attended all of the three hour block in German.  We have attended sacrament meetings in our neighboring ward in German, but not the other meetings.  We have also attended in many other languages.  We understood more than in previous occasions.  We must be making some progress.

We finally met with Günter and Ingrid at 3:00 in their home with their 3 biological children that are with them in Austria.  Günter and Ingrid drove 7 hours from Prague, Czechoslovakia today to be with us.  We had a wonderful Brazilian stroganoff which was followed by a Brazilian parfait.  Wonderful food and better company.  

We took time to talk about the self-reliance initiative in their ward.  Their family includes the ward mission leader, high priest group leader, young women president, relief society president, elders quorum president and a member of the bishopric.  It was like talking to the complete ward council.  We discussed some of their individual self-reliance needs and their PEF loans that three of them brought from Brasil.  They were very receptive and anxious to do more in their ward.  They are already having My Foundation lessons in Sunday School, but they need much more.

This family had adopted the three sisters of our son, Abraham.  It was good to get caught up with them and all that has happened since then.  What a wonderful family that is trying to do all in their power to strengthen the Church in Austria.  Their ward was a branch before they arrived.

Family Photo of Günter Jäsche and family with us

We stayed this weekend in the Stefanbrücke Hotel outside of Innsbruck.  It is a wonderful mountainous setting with a spectacular view of the mountain ranges around us.  Today, on Sunday, the rainy weather has left.  A nice place to end our mountain climbing week.

Hotel where we are staying near Innsbruck

View from the front of the hotel

View from down the street