MUHLHEIM & the END OF THE NOSTAlGIA TOUR

On Sunday morning we drove to Muhlheim for church. I forgot to take a picture of the church. While waiting in the foyer, I was looking at their missionary board. They had two young men serving missions. As I looked at one of the pictures, I realized that our neighbor was looking back! The missionary serving from the Muhlheim ward is serving in the same mission - and at that time, the same district - as our neighbor! Small world. One of the missionaries, Elder Joslin from Tempe, AR, translated the meeting for me. There were 4 Elders serving in this ward area. Such a difference from Salt Lake, where 2 missionaries cover 2 or 3 entire Stakes.

A few of the people here remembered Don. It was funny that one of the first things they would comment on was the change in his size. The first man to invite us to lunch was not someone Don knew when he served here. (Others did invite us, but we accepted the first invitation.) We wrestled a little with accepting lunch, as we did feel a bit of a time crunch, but I felt it was important to accept and 'eat with the natives', so to speak. So we joined the Fischer family.
Don
Mark & wife Karen
Dirk
Siegfried
Gabriella








The only son that lives at home, Eric, had stepped out before we took this picture. Daughter-in-law Karen is from Grand Junction, CO. She met the Fischer's when she was an exchange student. All the young men spoke English quite well, especially Mark, since his wife is American and they lived here for awhile. Mark was finishing his Master's and would be working in Germany for awhile - until the economy here picks up.

Gabriella was very quiet around us and the family said she is very uncomfortable around English speaking. She served us a very nice meal.

The men all tried to help us with our phone problem (will detail later in a post called Lessons Learned or something.)

Siefried spoke some English, but he and Don were able to converse much better in German. So I sat there, catching the gist of the conversation, but not really getting the details. I looked at Don at one point and he looked at me and then started explaining what they were talking about... in German. That gave me a great laugh.


The Fischer home. He didn't really want me to take the picture, calling the house 'ugly.' They had quite a large back yard and garden. We had a salad, mostly from the garden and fresh strawberries from the garden.

Do you notice the graffiti? More on that later, too.