Blake's Mission Areas

Friday was a travel day for us. We woke up and got ready, packed our bags and headed to the bakery around the corner. The bread here is amazing and I can’t get enough of it. Everywhere we go I point out all of the different bakeries that are selling pretzels, which is every other store. We finished breakfast and headed back to the hotel to get our luggage, we checked out and flagged down a cab; surprisingly it was the same cab driver who drove us from the airport to our hotel. He drove us back to airport to pick up our rental car, it was a very smooth process which surprising. Anytime we try to rent a car it seems like we have to jump through a million hoops to get one. We got a nice 7 passenger diesel van for all of our luggage, and passengers, and it drives really nice. We hit the road about 11 and wanted to visit Potsdam, where there is a cool castle; we started to make our way to it and decided that we are going to see a ton of castles and that we could skip this one. We had to drive to Frankfurt, which took about 5 hours, so we could see Blake’s mission apartment. 

We walked around where he lived and he showed us where he bought groceries and which internet café he used. We then saw his apartment building and then made our way to the “Zeil”, basically City Creek on STEROIDS. It was so cool to see all of the people and to see so many cute shops. We walked down to see the city hall and the buildings there are so authentic, I now know why Zermatt in Midway designed the building the way they did. 

We were meeting a family Pres taught at 7 for dinner so we had to make our way through the cutest little wine/bread tasting market. There were so many people and it was so fun to see the local people out on a Friday night. We met Helena, her husband Klaus and their four kids Emily, Vincent, Noellia, and Melissa. Her mom also came along, and that is who Pres taught 40 years ago. We went to the funnest Italian restaurant, where they give you a card and you order whatever you want and they just put it on your card so you can pay afterward. We started dinner at 7 and ended up finishing around 10:30, we had so much fun! 

It reminded us of being at home because we were constantly running little kids to the bathroom, or ‘Klo’. Not being able to speak the language didn’t make the kids afraid to pull you down to the bathroom, or jump on your shoulders.  

When Blake was serving in Frankfurt, Helena had the twins; Blake was able to go to the hospital and visit them all. There is a picture on Sandy’s counter of Blake holding the two girls as newborns. 15 months later, when Sandy and Pres picked him up they took the same picture of him holding the twins in both arms again. Tonight we captured the same image of Blake holding the two girls in his arms. 

It doesn’t matter what country we are in, every kid loves Blake to pieces. Once they were playing with Blake and knew he was awesome then they finally warmed up to me and we became friends. I even got kisses on the cheek when we said goodbye.  Helena’s mom, Maria said something really special to Pres as they were hugging goodbye. She quoted the scripture about how great your joy will be when you bring one soul to Christ and said thank you for saving her family. It brought tears to all of our eyes looking into their van and seeing all of those beautiful kids and strong members of the church. 

We then jumped back in the car and drove 40 minutes to Ludwigshafen to stay with Volker and Chris for the next two days. We didn’t get in until midnight so we didn’t stay up too late chatting because everyone was exhausted, they are the cutest couple ever. Ludwigshafen was Blake’s first area and Volker was his landlord, every Saturday Volker would bring the missionaries fresh pastries from the bakery. Blake has a really good relationship with him. We washed our faces, and I made Blake wash his feet because I wouldn’t let him in bed with his stinky feet……guess that is what walking all around Germany will do to you!

    Saturday we woke up and walked to the bakery with Volker and Pres, it took forever to order because there were so many good choices. German food is bad for me because carbs are my favorites and they are out of this world here. We walked back to you Volker’s house and all ate breakfast together. It is so fun because they put out all kinds of meats, cheeses, jams, and then you choose your drink and go to town, it was really good and we were all STUFFED. Then we got a quick tour of Volker’s house and Pres was in heaven looking at all the neat things they have here that we don’t have in America. We then headed to the showers and got ready for the day. We got in the car and headed to Heidelberg to see the huge famous castle. It was incredible and you can’t believe how much detail is in every corner. It is so big and overlooks the river!!! 

This was the king's massive wine barrel!

Afterward we walked into town and ordered some crepes with banana, nutella, cinnamon and sugar, of course I had to order my Diet Coke. We walked around and looked at all of the cute little shops. I fell in love with the coo coo clocks and I knew I would be coming home with one. Then we drove back to Mannheim, Blake’s last area, and saw the Water tower that you can still drink water from. It was really cold!!!! 

This is the view behind the water tower

Drinking from the tower!

We walked through all of the shops and Blake finally got his cheese slicer that he has been asking for since we got married. (From the same store he bought our kitchen knives from…that boy has a thing for Kitchen tools). Once we were all tired from walking around all day we finally went to Oma’s house for dinner. Every Sunday night Blake would stop by her house and she would feed him, make him banana milk (which he hates, but drank anyway) and they have such a great relationship. The first thing they set on the table was sausage and that was scary for me to eat but the rest of the dinner ended up being really good. She is the sweetest little lady; she is about 4 ft 6 and absolutely loves Blake. We sat around the table for 3 hours again and laughed, chatted, and heard stories about WWII. She is the lady that went to the bomb shelter when the alarm went off and when they came home there was a bomb that came through their roof and was lying on her bed, it never exploded. Blake calls Oma on Christmas, her birthday and on Mother’s day every year and I have been waiting for so long to meet these people I have heard so much about. It was a perfect evening!