INVESTIGATORS, ANNIVERSARY

When (I) Eileen was in Jr. High and High School I spent much time practicing and performing on the piano. I was the organist for our church meetings starting when I was 14 years old. After I was married, the more children we had the less I played.  When we moved to Centerville 25 years ago there were so many individuals that were much more talented than I and so I was glad to not have to play.   I have never really missed it as it seemed like I was so occupied with other pursuits.  When we moved to Germany a few months ago, I was told they desperately needed a piano player for the primary organization. I figured the songs were fairly easy, it was with the young children and they probably weren't too picky.  I have truly enjoyed being with the young children. A couple of weeks ago I was asked to perform a organ-piano duet with Sister Ruth Rich who is here serving as a senior missionary with her husband. I was kind of taken aback and pretty uncomfortable with the whole idea. We had several practice sessions hoping we could make it work. Last Sunday we played the duet "Oh How Lovely Was The Morning."  I had many nice compliments on the song,  with 3 people  telling me that they didn't realize that there was music even available for the organ and piano.  Sometimes when we have a success it builds our confidence to challenge ourselves again.  Perhaps if there is a next time it won't be quite so intimidating.

 In our callings at the Area Office we don't have much interaction with the young missionaries of our church. We see them at Sunday church meetings and occasionally outside our apartment building as several live in our same apartment complex.  We have decided that in order to feel more like missionaries it would be nice to have them over occasionally to our home. Last Sunday we invited two young missionaries and a young couple to join us for dinner. Elder Evans and Elder Sommer are both from Utah.  Maria and Vitor are from Brazil. They are living here in Germany while Vitor goes to school and Maria is working as an aupair. They have been taking lessons from the missionaries to help them understand what we believe.  It was truly a delight to have all of them in our home. Maria and Vitor felt like family to me, and the missionaries reminded me of how much I have missed having the young missioanaries in our home.   All four of them were fun, personable and so warm. Vitor spoke both German and English as did Maria to a lesser extent, in addition to their native Portuguese. I found a common language of Spanish with Maria and tried also to communicate that way - Spanglish worked well!  After dinner the missionaries taught the young couple about our beliefs concerning why we are here on earth and what will happen to us after this life.  We hope to be able to get to know this sweet couple more as time goes on.

Elder Sommer, Elder Evans, Vitor and Maria

Friday we left for a long road trip. During this journey we will be visiting the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. We will be visiting the humanitarian missionary couples in each of those countries and also seeing some of their projects.  None of the couples live in their country's capitals but rather in the rural eastern ends of each country. We are both very grateful the blessing of a GPS. The GPS worked well on the way, but didn't deliver in the end. It took us on to a dead end road and said "Your destination is on the left".  We were in front of an empty field.

Next week on July 27th, Eileen and I will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary.  I feel very fortunate that she said "yes" to my proposal.  She was young and impulsive, perhaps I caught her at a weak moment.  I have been very fortunate to have my best friend as the love of my life, my eternal companion,  and mother of my children.  Neither of us would have ever dreamed when we got engaged that our future together would have taken us down so many roads less traveled - both figuratively and literally!

We have definitely aged a bit.

Oh to be young again!