15-16 Jul 2011 150th Karlsruhe Ward Celebration

No time to rest. While the girls were gone, it was back to work, but work that we love to do. We drove to Karlsruhe the next day to set up 4 computers and bring a Book of Mormon display. The Karlsruhe Ward was having its 150th year celebration of their Wards beginning. It was well planned with three days of activities for members and non-members alike. The news media as well as other City officials were invited to attend. I took Photos of all displays which were very interesting. The Book of Mormon display had a lot of first editions and it even had a replica of a golden plate. An unknown artist did about 20 paintings depicting South and Central American life as it was in 600 BC.

We had a chance to look around the Family History Center and it was quite big. You could tell that a lot of genealogy work was being done here. We met Brother Grenier who runs the center. He said that 95% of all the people coming to the center are non LDS. We also met Sister Schultz who is a consultant at the center. We met a Sister who was from Hungary and she said that she had just learned about Indexing and had been doing it for the last 2 weeks. She has done over 2,000 names as of that day. That is such great news, to know records are being made available to the people living in Eastern Europe. Gradually the church has been given permission to photograph those records which are in turn indexed and used for genealogical purposes.

A dinner was served to the Ward as well as the community in the evening and then a concert was held in the Catholic Cathedral where money was being raised to help support a homeless shelter there. I believe it was well received by the community in Karlsruhe. We drove home each night and returned to set up our computers the next day.

We were able to go to our new ward which will be in Friedrichsdorf. It is built right on the Temple grounds. It is a small chapel and they speak in German, but we still have our Sunday School class in English. Our teacher is British with a cute accent. The ward seems very friendly. Our organist wears a huge yellow tie and a bright colored vest.That is his Sunday apparel. The playing is outrageous, I mean outrageously good. He use to play for a Catholic church before he converted to Mormonism. He should be playing at the Salt Lake Convention Center he is that good. It takes him 5 minutes to play the into to our hymns and another 5 to wind it up. Very entertaining. Oh and our Sacrament bread is always home made white bread. A little lady from our Ward makes two loaves each Saturday. I love that, looks like the old pioneer days are still with us.

We went home to rest, but I missed being with my girls. Our going home date will be March 10th. It is going by so fast. I know when the time comes we will not want to leave. Most couples who sign up for only 18 months always extend another 5 months so I am glad we decided on a two year mission at the beginning. Have a nice Sunday.