What a week!!

Well, it's Friday, and we have been here four days. Having arrived at 0700 in the morning on Tuesday, we didn't have a lot of "wake-up" left when we got to the appartment with the necessary supplies from the grocery store. We woke up as the sun was going down, though, and got a few things done before the day ended, including taking the pictures for the previous posting to the blog. Wednesday we were picked up by the Calls and taken to where we will be working. Surprise! It is a spare office above a very modern machine shop in an industrial part of the town named Bad Homburg. We got introductions (people and responsibilities) but we didn't get them firmly in our minds. We spent time with two of the "bosses."

I tried to post the pictures I had taken the night before to this blog, but couldn't make it work. When the Calls dropped us off at our appartment, we crashed again, and had to fix our dinner around 0900 pm. I got to take a walk up and down the Nidda Strasse, went across the Nidda river and looked up and down a major street over there, but stayed close enough to be able to find my way home for another crash. But we were up again the next day (Thursday)and at the office we had interviews and instructions from our immediate boss that lasted several hours and included a lunch out at a restaurant. The responsibilities (opportunities) were mind-boggling. They wanted us to start driving - quit depending on the Calls, and one of the bosses enforced it by making me drive to a bank to open an account so we'd have a good way to pay our bills. Then I was supposed to drive home at the end of the day. As we got ready to go home, we discovered the talking GPS in the car, so we punched in a few destination instructions and followed what it told us to do until we had found and visited the "Area Office" and other places that seemed interesting. Then the thing guided us right back home to our door. We were having fun!

Today is Friday, and we had official business to take care of. One of the managers of such matters came to our apartment about 0800 in the morning and took us to "register." Everyone, even the native Germans, has to register their place of residence. I understand that I could go back to the records and find information about every place I lived over 45 years ago. Well we got registered in Nidda Str., then went for a walk to find a photographer so we could get more passport photos of the type that meets the German idea of what people should look like (on official documents): no smiles, strait face, head square with the sides of the picture, etc. We got it done, but we have to go back about 1100 tomorrow to pick them up. Obviously there were pictures hanging in the studio that didn't meet the criteria they followed for our pictures. The German photographers are very talented when they are free to be so.

After a little walk around, we got back in the car and programmed the GPS to guide us back to our work area. Believe it or not, we got there without a hitch, but I surely didn't recognize some of the areas we went through.
We're still having problems getting our computers to work through the "Church computer system," so we decided to bring the laptop home and work from here. On the way home we saw an Aldi market, and decided to stop, but we had to go back to it. Boy, that GPS started talking to us - something about making U turns, etc. But we did some more shopping, then got back on the road. It figured out where in the process we were, and guided us the rest of the way with only one thing at the end where it wanted us to take a road that we couldn't get to quick enough, so we had to go around the block. Believe us, it is entertaining to be told what to do by your car.
Once home I was able to get our computer hooked up to the Internet, and make our first posting to this blog.

This afternoon, Pat and I spent time on the telephone calling all of the Stakes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to ask the High Counsellors in charge of YM/YW to schedule an activity in 2009 to which we would come and get the youth involved in the Indexing program. Can you immagine having to do that in the first week? We reached about half of them and arranged that we would call back in about two weeks to get their proposed date. We will be going to each of those places to get the youth started doing this work. That means a bunch of computers, instructions, etc. Boy have we ever gotten ourselves into a bees' nest, but we are going to do it. Even though tomorrow is Saturday, we have scheduled some calls to people who weren't home today. So we get to try out the GPS again (after we pick up our photos).
The pictures here show views outside of our house, primarily from the balcony on the west side. Also included, however, is a picture from the MTC in which we posed with Br. and Sister lambert. Those of you who knew them can immagine what a pleasure it was for us to be reuinited with them.


GSH&PLMH