Land of Many Languages

-

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 in middle eastern countries so the people from those countries are seeking out the missionaries here in Germany.  It’s fascinating.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nach sechs Monaten - eine kurze Pause  (After Six Months - a Short Pause)

-
Image
 It is hard to believe it has been 6 months since we arrived in Germany on August 27.  So much has happened. Of course the biggest blessing and challenge was receiving over 90 missionaries from the United States in two short months.  They arrived on different flights on different days and were placed in housing for quarantine all over the mission.  Fortunately they are now all in their mission companionships.  Many are in threesomes due to the lack of enough experienced missionaries to be training, but during the next transfer in mid March they will go into regular twosomes which means we can reopen many cities in the mission that were closed when the numbers of missionaries went down last year. Most of our missionaries are thriving.  These arriving missionaries brought new enthusiasm that has spread throughout the mission.  Many of them are fearless in approaching people on the street. Even though they have difficulty communicating in German, they give it their best which is all that
Read more

An Update on the Mission from Dan

-
  March 2021 I realize that it has been a long time since I gave an update on the Frankfurt mission.    Many are asking about the Covid situation in Germany.    I will give you an update.   Germany went into lockdown 3 months ago, just before Christmas.  Everything closed down and only grocery stores and gas stations were open.  You were not supposed to go into work unless it was essential.  You were not supposed to travel more than 15 km unless it was business-related and considered urgent and necessary.  Restaurants, bars, most hotels, museums, tourist sites, etc., were all closed.  When we first arrived in September, we went to the Frankfurt downtown shopping district.  It is as wide as state street in Salt Lake City, but it is for pedestrians only and goes on for many blocks.  It is an enormous area.  In September, it was packed with thousands of individuals.  We went back a few weeks ago in early March, and it was empty.  Every store was closed, and you might see 10 – 20 individua
Read more

Christmas - A Time of Service for our Missionaries

-
Image
Christmas was a wonderful time for our missionaries to find service opportunities.  I will share just two. Offenbach Charity Each of our missionaries was invited to donate 20 Euros to purchase a Christmas gift for a child in need.  Photos of possible gifts were posted at each of our four zone conferences and as missionaries contributed, they signed the white board next to the gift their donation would purchase.  A few days before Christmas a group of 8 missionaries went to the Tafel Offenbach (a charity).  The missionaries had several assignments: setting up, packing containers of food for the families, and passing out treats from a table filled with chocolate goodies. They also brought in boxes filled with gifts purchased with missionaries' donations for the children. These filled the corner of a room with presents.  Each child was allowed to come in and pick one gift.  The children were so happy and excited because, for most, this would be the only present they would receive for
Read more