President and Sister Hammon in the Germany Frankfurt Mission

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

We are having a wonderful experience here in Germany.  The weather has been beautiful — low to mid 70s.  It’s been partly cloudy at times, but we’ve had lots of sun.  Of course it is green and beautiful in Germany.  We have loved seeing the scenery as we have driven to several ward buildings.  The countryside and farms are so clean and orderly.  There are bike paths everywhere both in the city and in the country.  We see lots of people and their families riding bikes together.  If we walk across our street there is a walkway up over the highway that leads to a huge park filled with walking and bike paths.  Apparently Frankfurt prides itself in having 30% of its land set aside for green space.   Frankfurt is a beautiful city.  Because most of the buildings were destroyed during the war, the architecture is sleek and modern.  Apparently it is a banking hub.  It is home to the European Central Bank.

This has been a busy couple of weeks! On Monday, August 17 we received a phone call from President Kopischke of the Europe Area Presidency asking if we would be willing to leave for our mission on the following Saturday, August 22. Of course the answer was a resounding YES! We had a long list of final preparations to make that last week to prepare our home for our friend who will be living there, selling several vehicles, and making all the necessary arrangements. We were also required to take 2 Covid tests apiece within 5 days of leaving. For various reasons we ended up having 4 Covid tests each--an uncomfortable process. But if that was what it took to get us to Germany we were willing to do it!  First we flew to Budapest, Hungary. We later learned an office elder and others from the Hungary mission had researched and found that visitors from other countries were allowed to enter Hungary providing they had had 2 negative Covid tests within the past 5 days. We entered Hungary on Sunda