President and Sister Hammon in the Germany Frankfurt Mission

  27 Missionaries in 2 Days; 40 Missionaries in 2 Weeks! We are thrilled!  Starting last Friday we had 27 missionaries fly into our mission from England on 7 different flights on 2  different days to 2 different airports located 3 hours apart.  It was a crazy busy two days.  Dan and greeted each group (from a social distance) and welcomed them to Germany.  They are now in 7 different apartments in 4 different cities awaiting another 10 day quarantine until they are transferred to their new companions.  Last Monday, November 23, 13 missionaries who had already been in quarantine for ten days joined their companions.  FORTY missionaries in two weeks.  It's an exciting time in the Germany Frankfurt Mission! It is such a blessing to receive these 40 new missionaries* that arrived in Germany over the past 2 weeks.  Some of them started their Mission Training as early as February.  All were reassigned to missions in the United States.  I heard one describe her disappointment in leaving t

  Full circle for the little congregation in Trier! On Sunday we drove to Trier.  This was where Dan/President Hammon served his first nine months of his mission 40 years ago. On a trip to Germany in 2003 Dan had a strong impression we needed to attend church in Trier.  It happened to be the day the branch was closed and the members were told they would need to attend another ward.  This past Sunday we attended the Trier meeting along with 42 others.  The stake president announced that with that many people in attendance, he felt it was time to make it an official branch again on January 1!!!  Such a full circle banner day!!!  Here is a photo of us with Elders Frei and Miner who are serving there. Zone Conference Great Zone Conferences this past week where we discussed new and better ways of finding, choosing to be happy,  goal setting, and using the Book of Mormon in our teaching.  We are blessed to serve with these amazing missionaries. A highlight at our zone conferences was soft i

Beautiful Fall Colors As we travel hundreds of miles each day visiting missionaries, wards and branches we are enjoying the gorgeous fall colors of Germany.   You can see every shade of orange, gold, lime green, purple and burgundy along the roadways.   There are many vineyards in the area and the vines of each type of grape are all different colors.   It is gorgeous.     Gorgeous fall colors in Germany Germans and Fresh Air We were in church last Sunday.  The temperatures outside were in the 50's and they threw open the doors.  I chilly draft blew through and Dan and I about froze to death during the hour long meeting.  In another church building we saw this pile of blankets the ward had purchased for members to use during meetings.  Below is the explanation of the German way of thinking on fresh air: If you're in an office, cafe, bar or restaurant, look around you. Are the windows or doors wide open? If so, it's likely because of a very German habit: Lüften or airing

We had a fun time celebrating Dan’s birthday last week.  After our bakery goods breakfast and a missionary meeting we drove into the city where we did a Hop On Hop Off tour and learned a lot about the city. Birthday Breakfast with German Baked Goods   Hop On Hop Off Tour Dan's Birthday Dinner We have beautiful skyscrapers.  The architecture reminds me of the beautiful architecture of Chicago. There are also two very interesting things about them.  They are all tall and not very big around and their windows all open!  The reason being...German law requires that all office space have natural light and also that there is fresh air ventilation.  Go figure.   The work never stops on the mission.  So this week after interviewing some missionaries we decided to eat out.  We heard about a restaurant that overlooked an airport and thought we would give it a try.  Well it was a tiny regional airport in an out-of-the-way place and when we got there they weren't serving dinner yet, so we o

  Dan served his mission in Germany until October 1980.  It is now 40 years later October 2020.  We thought it would be fun to take a photo in front of the same building in the same pose.  Just a different companion (who he has been with for one long transfer of 39 years!). The was the location of the mission office where he served -- Ditmarstraße 9.  It is right around the corner from where we currently live in Frankfurt.  

Facebook Service Projects We had been together in the city of Hagen for about three months when it seemed like  missionary work was slowing down. We were running out of ideas of what we could do here to continue the work. As we were discussing this subject as a companionship, we felt inspired by the Rise & Reach initiative and came up with the idea to serve the people in our area. We felt good about it but were not exactly sure how to start. We took some pictures from a service project that we had done and posted them in several Facebook groups such as "Werdohler Help Werdohler" or "Herdecke Helping Neighbors." We said that we were doing volunteer work and would love to help people with their garden or house. The group members reacted positively towards our initiative. Some said it was really nice that young men like us would have the desire to serve this way. The people that we helped started asking us, "Why are you doing this?" We just replied that w

Sarah Frei, the younger sister of one of our missionaries, is recovering from a serious car accident that occurred July 30.  She has been a great inspiration to many, including our missionaries here in Germany.  The first link is a newscast about her. "Clearfield teen inspires others while recovering from car crash" https://youtu.be/V0-B2eSX348 This second link shows a video that we, as a mission, made for her. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13c1UBLqfk_MXLFtRvCV3IK6hOxroSGYU/view?usp=sharing

Letter to my friends, I am so sorry not to have communicated earlier.  I knew it would be busy, but I had no idea how busy it would be.  We have heard several times that becoming a mission president is like jumping on a speeding train.  I have decided that isn’t what it is like.  It’s like being hit by a speeding train.  There are so many moving parts and you are a vital part of each one.  Another good analogy we heard was it was like being in the ocean during a storm.  You just get that breath of fresh air and get slammed down as another wave slams you down 20 feet deep.  Last week I had a maximum of 6 hours of sleep each night and on 2 nights I had 4 hours.  Things keep coming up that you weren’t expecting that require immediate attention.  Yesterday, we got up at 3 am yesterday to say good-bye to 5 missionaries at the airport.  We took another sister to the airport at 7:30 am and then another this morning at 5 am.  I am always tired, but it has been fascinating to see that I always

 Friends, I just shared these stories with a very close friend and I just felt I should share them will my other close friends.  These are a few of the tender mercies or miracles I have witnessed in the past few days.  I always love hearing stories like these and the missionaries have already shared many others.  These are ones that I have witnessed personally. - How about a 21 year old Sister American Missionary who had hearing problems before her mission.  She wears hearing aids but depends on reading lips to help her understand.  The German’s don’t move their lips like Americans and therefore her first 6 weeks here were very difficult and she didn’t know how she could ever learn German.  At 6 weeks, she suddenly could understand and speak German.  Sadly, her hearing has worsened during her mission but this is the amazing part, when she is sitting in Zone Conference, if a person speaks English, her native language, she has to look at them to read their lips in order to understand.  I

During the past twelve days we have been traveling a lot to be with our missionaries at zone conferences and interviews and to visit congregations.  The following maps detail our travels.  When they are added up they equal over 2200 kilometers or 1400 miles.  This adds up to over 28 hours of distance driving (not including travels in and around Frankfurt).  We just returned today from the last leg.  We arose at 5am to leave for meetings beginning at 10am in Regensburg at the far southeast corner of the mission.  No wonder we feel like dropping into bed every night!    

  Dan's mom Shirley gave us some money to use for the mission.  Although we could have used it for many things, Dan considered this sacred money and he wanted to use it for the benefit of our missionaries.  He decided to purchase a soft ice cream machine.  We plan to take it to every zone conference and serve soft ice cream to all the missionaries.  They will all know that Grandma Hammon provided this special treat.

This past week we had our first three zone conferences.  Monday here in Frankfurt.  Wednesday an hour south in Heidelberg. And Friday 3 hours north in Dusseldorf.  On Tuesday and Thursday we drove to many of the missionaries in their cities.  Dan would interview each while I visited with their companion and got to know them a little better.  We met with all 102 of them!  What a wonderful group of young people!

We used the maps app to look up a grocery story and chose Aldi in downtown Frankfurt.  It was on a tiny street with no parking lot, so we were on our own to find parking on the street. After circling I decided to just have Dan drop me off and I would go into the store while he tried to find a parallel parking spot along one of the streets big enough for our Hyundai Santa Fe (a huge vehicle by European standards).  I entered the store and tried to take a grocery cart but they were chained together.  Someone saw me struggling and communicated in German and hand motions that I needed to insert a Euro to release the chain and take a cart.  (I later learned that when you returned the cart and reattached the chain you could retrieve your Euro.  A great way to make sure people return carts!) The grocery cart thing left me a little shaken.  Then I began going up and down the aisles trying to decipher labels and find things we needed.  (If you need ANY type of cheese here you are in luck!).  Al

We attended a sacrament meeting in Langen, a ward south of Frankfurt today.  It is a beautiful chapel but the meeting space is small so they have the ward divided into three groups which take turns meeting one week at a time.  We each shared a few things in German during their testimony meeting.  Dan’s German is getting better and better.  My understanding is improving and I am learning to say quite a few things in German.  The members have given us lots of positive feedback.  I think they sincerely appreciate our efforts to speak their language.   I expected the Germans to be somewhat reserved, but once you ask them a few things and get them talking about themselves, they open right up.  I know how to ask a few key questions in German.  Once they know I am interested they start talking German a mile a minute.  Quite often I have no idea what they are saying but I just smile, nod my head a lot, and say a few words from my limited vocabulary that suggest I understand everything they are

Frankfurt is a wonderfully diverse city.  Our daughter Carolyn suggested we watch a Rick Steves video which explained that 25% of the people living here are from other countries.  We have certainly found this to be true in the wards we have visited.  Quite often families faithfully attend wards where German is spoken yet they do not speak a word of German!  Not a complaint.  And a good portion of the people being taught by our missionaries are from other countries.  When we went to the office we found closets full of copies of the Book of Mormon written in various languages.  The total count of languages — 28!   There seem to be lots of people from middle eastern countries who are drawn to Christianity and the church.  We have one missionary trained to speak Persian (often called Farsi, a Western Iranian language) and missionaries from all over the mission have him video conference during discussions so he can communicate with those they are trying to teach.  Missionaries cannot teach

Dan has been doing all the driving up until today when I drove for the first time.  We love our heads up navigation display on the Hyundai Sante Fe we drive.  It is so helpful when navigating all the many roads and turns.  It’s fun to watch cars speed by in the left lane on the autobahn.  Dan has been tempted . . .   If only he had a fast car here he could drive. By German standards the Sante Fe is monstrous, especially when it comes to finding spaces large enough to parallel park on the narrow city streets of Frankfurt.  We drove into the mission office on Friday but we the car is too long to make the sharp turn at the bottom of the ramp of the underground parking, so we had to find parking on the street.  After driving around for 20 minutes we finally found a space about ten minutes for the office.  Only one problem.  At the end of the day we couldn’t remember where we had parked!  All the streets looked the same.  We walked and walked and finally found it.  I will never let that hap