Church in Mannheim

Today we went to church in Mannheim and had a wonderful experience.  I was really hoping to connect with some members here, but you never know how they are going to take the strange American Family.  As soon as we walked into the building all of our fears were put to rest.  The first two ladies we ran into both spoke English and they welcomed us with open arms.  One of the ladies was actually American, but she has lived in Germany for 41 years.  Her and her husband moved here when they were first married for a 3 year contract with her husbands company.  They fell in love and haven't left.  The funny thing is that neither one of them speak very good German.  It just goes to show that even after 41 years, it's a really hard language to learn.

Once everyone got wind of us, they all came flocking by.  Everyone wanted to say hello.  Most of them even spoke English.  It was wonderful to feel such fellowship thousands of miles away from home.  The meeting was in German and they gave us a rather long introduction, which was a little embarrassing.  Brother Lorz, a member of the bishopric seemed to go on and on about our family.  He even made mention of the girls hair bows.  Apparently, little girls in germany don't wear hair bows because they made a big deal about Hannah's and Emily's.  It was so funny, all through the meeting they keep bringing us up and would introduce us to another member of the congregation.  Brother Lorz would be making an annoucement, of which we did not understand, and then he would stop and say, "Oh, Sis. Thoming, meet so-and-so they live by you and they are actually american, you should get together."  It was truly a one of a kind experience.  We were even invited to the Bishop's house for a New Year's Eve party.  He promised lot's of fireworks! 

The first talks were given by two little old German ladies, who didn't look up from their papers once, nor did they change their inflection at all.  It was humorous. Then all of the men in the ward got up and sang, "Oh Come all ye Faithful" it was rather impressive.  The funniest part was the choir director.  Picture a large very German man who has done a little too much ompahing in his life.  It was very animated!!  My favorite part was singing hymns in German.  This cute little lady behind me, keep trying to give me her English hymn book and was very insistent.  So, I would hold both books and try and sing in German.  Like I am going to pipe up in English and sound like a total dork, I don't think so.  Not that we had done it very well today, but the key is to blend in. 

The last talk was apparently very entertaining because everyone was in stitches.  It was giving by a young man who had just returned from his mission in New Caledonia.  Where is that you ask?  It's in the South Pacific close to Fiji.  They sent this poor (very white) German boy to the South Pacific!   After his talk one of our new friends got up and said that we missed a very good talk and tried to give us the summarized version.  Later we met up with the newly returned missionary in the parking lot and had a very nice chat.  He actually spoke very good English without an accent at all.  If you met him on the street in the US you wouldn't even know he was German.  Crazy!   I guess a lot of the youth here, if they manage to stay close to the church while growing up, like to go to BYU and then they rarely come back.  It's too bad, Germany needs them.

Below is a picture of our new friends Bill and Judy Palmer, along with the missionary who spoke (I didn't catch his name.)