The Couples Conference in Freiberg

Sorry this part is a little out of order, one of us was sick and we work much better as a team.

This is the whole group in front of the temple. You can see in the background the Chapel where we held our meetings. There is also a Hostel where people who come a long distance stay while they do temple work. There was a busload from the Ukraine there at the time. Cousin Elijah and his wife are to the far left. President Borcherding and his wife are in front right.


This is Elder rich and his wife. He is the one who gallantly got us on the train in Berlin going to Dresden.



You can see the Chapel and Hostel in the background.


We did have fun singing for a little break. This is Brother and Sister Austin. We are developing a great relationship with them. They take good care of us. They are from Mapleton, UT, next to Springville.


Sorry this is not a good picture but it is of our President and his wife (on the right) and we wanted you see him. We really felt his wonderful spirit and love for the gospel and for all of us. The other couple is his counselor and wife. They are all Germans except for the counselor's wife. She is from Texas and has not been back for 10 years.


Cousin Elijah Cardon from Mesa, AZ. What a surprise to find him here.....and visa versa.





We arrived in Dresden Tuesday evening. On Thursday we got on a train to Freiberg to go to a Couples Conference. This trip was on the fast train and it took 23 minutes to get there. These two couples picked us up at the station. Elder and Sister Boam (UT) and Elder and Sister Meng (ID) are the area representatives for the Institute Outreach Centers in Europe. They took us to dinner and we got acquainted. The next morning they gave us some training on the mission and financial part of the centers.

Having breakfast in the hotel.

This hotel was very interesting. Our rooms were inside the door on the top right.


The Freiberg Temple. You need to read "Faith Rewarded" by Thomas S. Monson to know the history of this Temple and the pioneer people here in Germany. What an honor to be there. We were able to attend a session in English.


The words on the Temple. All the Temples have them in their country language.


This is a cool picture because it has the German flag and Angel Moroni in the background.

Our Neighborhood

We want to share with you the neighborhood in which we live. It is starting to feel like home.


We have never seen anyone in these phone booths. So why two? This is just to the right of our bus stop. The little store behind it is a second hand store. We found some good winter clothing for a good price here. The owner speaks a little English and we have a friend.

Waiting for the bus. Sister Gill is always by Sister Wells but someone had to take the picture. We have learned the bus system pretty well and can even almost understand the names of the stops now.


This is where we buy a ticket. It is 44 euro for all the rides you need in a month. This is our transportation. There are some electric trams in the downtown area but we do the bus most of the time.


The street we live on.


Looking down the street we live on. Your eyes are okay...it is a little blurry, sorry.


The Penny Markt where we buy groceries. We carry our bags with us to bring the food home. Needless to say we do not buy very much at a time.


Inside the Penny Markt.


Here comes the bus.


There goes the bus.


One of the main streets in our area. See the bus stop in the distance? If you look closely you can see a very small round about.


This is a little variety store where we have purchased several little items. She is another friend.


Taxi anyone?


One of the houses here. This street is tree lined and is very beautiful. We must be in an upscale neighborhood.


There are many different types of trees. Here are a few.

A typical produce market. The bigger markets have produce too.


The little round about.


This is a sample of the many stones we walk on daily. The sidewalks are not too level either. Our feet feel bruised after waling very much.


Waiting for sister Gill to cross the street.

More of the Apartment

Sister Gill gave it her touch and made it a more lovely place. She know just what to add and the right way to place it.

The living area looking into the bedroom.


The bathroom is the first thing you see on entering...unless we have the door closed. Notice where the faucet is and the half shower door. The toilet flusher is the little button you see on top of the tank.


Our washing machine is in the bathroom. We do not have a dryer. Because it is so humid here we have to plan ahead so the clothes will have time to dry. And because it rains a lot we have them hanging all around the apartment for days. Can you guess who is the red person and the blue person?


This is a small kitchen but it works.


More of the living area.


A nice place to retire to in the evening. Actually there are two desks to the left. This makes it very workable for us. We have a wardrobe and shelves on the right. There is a place for everything and everything is in it's place.

Our Dresden Home

This is the street we live on.


This is the driveway we walk down to get to our artment.


Here is the mailbox just outside the gate. Ours is the bottom one. It does't have things in it too often. The second button under the red on is a buzzer that rings our apartment and we have a phone just inside the door that we can pick up and talk to whoever rang the bell.


Here is the entryway. We love all the flowers.


Here is Elder and Sister Austin. They are a couple from the Outreach Center in Chimnetz, about 35K away. They picked us up at the train station, brought us to our apartment where we left our bags, took us shopping and then to dinner. We loved them form the start. They are from Mapleton, UT. He is really not this grouchy but she is always this happy.


Our driveway looking out.


We love this little patio in front of our door.


Going in.


The entryway. If you look closely you might sese a little of the phone on the right of the door.

Arriving in Germany

This is a long story. Jamar wanted to cut half of this out and Christi wanted to add more. We certainly enjoyed reliving it more than we did living it. We hope you can get through it. If not, just look at the pictures.

After weighing our bags many times and struggling with what to leave we finally got them each to the exact 50 lb limit by deciding to add another bag and PAY for it. (This decision came back to haunt us later.) We breezed through security in Salt Lake, had a nice flight to New York, with a short lay over and then our all night flight to Berlin. We slept very little....in fact Jamar walked that plane all the way to Berlin.

We had no problems getting through customs and even found carts to put our seven bags on. As we pushed our loaded carts toward the door we saw the familiar suit and badge we were looking for on a short, slender, senior Elder. No young, strong Elders in sight. Elder Rich looked at all our bags and apologized that he did not have the mission van because he had put regular gas in the diesel tank. and it was dead. He also commented that he was alone because the young Elders were away at a Zone Conference in Dresden. We headed for the parking lot and he directed us to the smallest car there. We stood there in amazement as he assured us that he would make it fit and he did. He huffed and puffed and arranged and rearranged and we actually got in the car too. I was in the back with suitcases all around me including on my lap. Jamar had the assignment to hold the GPS. It slid to the floor three times as she kept falling asleep. Elder Rich, being fairly new in the area, was struggling to see it to find our way to the Mission Office.

Sister Rich was there to greet us with water, food and an orientation that we can't remember because we had not slept for 30 hours. Much to our amazement we were told that the mission president wanted us to get on the train and go on to Dresden. He and his wife were in Dresden for the conference with his assistants and hoped to see us there. We got back into the car to head for the train station.....but first, it was the mission tradition that all new missionaries were to visit the place where the Berlin wall had been to find a quiet spot in the wooded area to pray and dedicate themselves to do the Lord's work. We hiked across three fields to get there. This unique experience humbled us as we contemplated where we were and what had happened in this area. ..

We hiked back to the car and wedged ourselves in among all the bags with Jamar holding the GPS again. Elder Rich had never been to the train station so Jamar tried very hard to stay awake this time. It took longer than anticipated to get there and then he found that there was no parking close. We were running out of time so he dropped us off with our bags and said go on in while he parked the car. We tried to figure out how to move the bags but we were out numbered and out weighed. Finally it came to us to tandem them together...we had the straps somewhere. By the time we got in the station we had 10 minutes before the train arrived. Elder Rich finally showed up and tried to purchase our tickets in the machine that kept spitting his money out. He pointed the elevator and said go on up to platform #4. We pulled our suitcases into this very narrow elevator and were so relieved that the door opened up in front of us so we could pull our luggage out. We now had less than 5 minutes and the sign pointed us back down to our platform. We hurriedly squeezed ourselves into another elevator and the door closed as we saw Elder Rich coming with the tickets. When the door opened again we realized this elevator had only one door and we would have to push our bags out. A young lady could see our dilemma, came to our rescue and pulled the tandem suitcases out so we could exit. Elder Rich finally caught up with us. He handed us the tickets, jumped on the train and started pulling our suitcases in that were still tied together. We tried to unhook them and he said no time for that. So we pushed and he pulled and we got on and he got off just as the doors closed. As the train pulled out we saw a look of distress on his face which he later explained was due to a sign on the train that said Prague.(which is not in Germany)

When we looked around, we became aware we were in a very small entry way and our bags blocked the bathroom door. As Jamar was trying to get to the bathroom, Christi went down the hall to find a place for the luggage. An old man came out of his compartment and headed for the bathroom. He saw the situation and began to push and shove the bags. Between he and Jamar they finally got to the door and he went in. Meanwhile Christi came back with a plan. The suitcases would have to rest in the hallway. There was no luggage compartment. We struggled with the 7 heavy suitcases lining them up in the hallway. By this time the people settled in their compartments began to close their curtains. As Christi stood in the hall waiting for Jamar to come out of the bathroom the suitcases began to roll and fall over with every turn of the train so she turned them on their side. We did not see a place in a compartment for us anywhere when same young lady appeared and directed us to her compartment where there were two places left. As we settled in we noticed the lady with the food cart fighting her way past all the bags. Christi went back out to help her maneuver them so she could get by. As we looked around us we saw that that the poor man who couldn't get to the bathroom was sitting across from us with his wife. Thanks to the angel who rescued us we had a pleasant trip and conversation with the others as she interpreted for us. Again she came to our rescue as she looked at our tickets and saved us from getting off at the wrong stop in Dresden or going on to Prague. She was one of Heavenly Father's tender mercies in our lives. We were so stressed and tired we did not get her name but hope to find her again. As we pulled into Dresden the people began to line up to get off the train and between them and our suitcases there was no room for us. The old couple stayed behind us to help. By this time they had great compassion for us. They pushed as we pulled to get our suitcases out of the hallway. As we looked out the window and saw the familiar badges it was obvious that Elder Rich had called ahead to prepare them for our arrival. There stood a senior couple, 3 young elders and one of our YSA's. They had 2 cars. It took all of us to get the luggage off the train and to the cars. We had arrived.


The suitcases lined up in the hallway of the train.


After about 40 hours of no sleep Jamar gave in. Our Angel in the background.

More MTC

We loved this sign. "The Missionary Field is Open" and we are ready to go to work.


We got to go to the Provo Temple the Saturday before we left.


This is our German class. We learned to love the Cannons. They went to the Frankfurt Mission Office.


Our Senior Missionary group. We became so close it was hard to say goodbye. Some assignments they had were Hawaii (plumber), Church Headquarters (security), Japan, Greece, Philippines, Nauvoo, Australia, Germany. Salt Lake Temple Square, Jordan, South Africa to mention a few. There were nine single sisters all going to different places. We love these people!