What a sad day..... what a sad day...

I was shocked!

I was so sad, when I found out on Facebook, that my 1st Mission President, David Michael Stewart had passed away on Friday 15th- my 1 year being home!

He was the grandfather I always wanted to have, but never had...




Betty Lou, President's wife, wrote to one of our senior couples from Temple Square the following:

"Last night Michael and I excitedly looked over the list of seniors
who are going to Branson filled with anticipation for our opportunity to be with our eternal friends. Today at mid afternoon, I returned from a shopping trip to find Michael lying on the floor of the kitchen in a resting position already cold having passed away probably a few hours earlier. He was in good health with his next 30 years planned out and his card filled with the jobs for the day: 9-12 paint the porch etc etc. We had just returned from three days together in Bear Lake where we played tennis and walked daily. My heart is heavy but as Elder Evans, his dear friend, said, He was prepared for eternal life. We send our love to all of you and ask you to send out a senior Email. We love you.
Betty Lou Stewart"




I was really shocked and still can't believe that this man, who was always full of energy has passed away.

I always thought he would one day become one of the 12 apostles in the church.
What a great man the world lost on Friday!

I've never met a man that made me feel so loved (except Anthon of course).
I remember our interviews and how he looked at me, tears in his eyes and told me to tell my mom that she should be proud of me.

I will never forget his warm hugs and his smile while I was telling him what I had learned on my mission so far.



I will never forget to "KILL THE PIG!"

I will never forget his funny stories from his mission in the Swiss-Austrian Mission.

We sometimes talked in German and often talked about German food :-) (He also served as a mission president in the Frankfurt Germany Mission).

I will never forget our LUAUs in Big Cottonwood Canyon-they were so much fun!

I will never forget our mission conferences and how often he made us get up and sing the song "What a great day!"

It goes like this: "What a great day! What a great day! What a what a what a what a, what a great day!
What a what a what a what a what a what a what a what a what a what what a great day!"

(I hope I didn't forget a "what a")



I'm sad that I couldn't go to our mission reunion at the October conference weekend, but I am grateful that he and his wife came to our wedding and that he gave a little speech.

Sadly, my mission conference notes are all still at home in Germany.

But I do remember, him talking about casting away our fears: " KILL THE PIG!!!!"
He said this in every mission conference!!!

He taught us what our future husbands should be like and he said: "Adam and Eve had a great relationship! Adam didn't talk about what a good cook his mom is, and Eve didn't talk about her former boyfriends." :-D

I used to name President Stewart my "teddy bear". He always hugged us, he was such a warm, welcoming person. He made every sister feel like a princess.
I will never forget how spiritual he was! He often, really often cried in our mission conferences.



He has had a great impact in my mission and in my life. I will miss him but I'm thankful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation... knowing that we will one day have a huge mission reunion in heaven and sing together "What a great day!"


Thank you President Stewart for everything you did for me!!!



at our wedding- the last time I saw him...



Here are some links about what he achieved in life and the announcement in the SL Tribune and deseret news:

http://www.stewartspeaks.com/

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50485678-76/stewart-lake-salt-commission.html.csp

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700074396/Former-Salt-Lake-County-Commissioner-D-Michael-Stewart-dies.html




Also, if you knew him, you can post something on this website:

http://d-michael-stewart.1000memories.com/



"We will all see [Michael] again."

Our 3-day-weekend trip!

I know some of you have been waiting to finally see some of our pictures from last weekend. But I had to post some other post before that...

So... since we are "only" living 7,5 hours away from Palmyra, NY, and I've always wanting to go there to see the historic church sites, we decided to go there on a 3-day-weekend.

And we did...

Anthon found out that the first two October weeks are the prettiest there because of the trees turning yellow, orange and red.

And they really did! It was soooo beautiful! I wish we had a nice expensive camera...some day we will... as you have probably noticed...I love taking pictures!

We left home at 5 am on Saturday morning and first drove up to the Niagara Falls (Canada) which are about 1,5 hours away from Rochester.

The weather was perfect!!!! It was warm, no clouds, sun was shining... we couldn't have asked for better weather!!!!






Anthon after sneezing... *just kidding*






When we got to the Visitors' center, I saw that tickets for 4 different things (including a boat trip) was 39 Dollars. I thought that you have to pay 39 Dollars, whether you do all the 4 things or not.
Anthon really wanted to go on the "Maid of the Mist" boat that goes really close to the waterfalls. But I thought that spending 80 Dollars was a little bit too pricy.
Because Anthon had been there with his family several years ago, he called his dad and told him that we were there.
He told him that we were thinking about doing the boat thing, but that I thought it was a little bit too expensive.

So, Anthon's dad Frank wanted to talk to me and told me that we should definitely do it... even if it costs 80 bucks... and that Anthon and I will probably not come back again... and that we should do that...
That was really, really nice of him!

But I was still hesitant!

So we walked to the boat place... and saw that a boat trip was only 15 Dollars... and of course, I wanted to do that for so much less money!



Because the Maid of the Mist goes very close to the waterfalls, they hand out rain jackets to everybody...




The Niagara Falls are soooo beautiful!


It was so much fun going on that boat.. and then after that walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather!


After that, we wanted to go to our hotel in Rochester, about 1,5 hours away...
Since we had to go back to the US, we had to go through the border control.
When we were standing in line, we saw this car with the bumper sticker.. pretty funny!



We were lucky that we could go there... I just got my travel permission. Because my permanent residence application is still pending, I wasn't allowed to re-enter the US. But because we applied for the travel permission, we could go and see the Niagara Falls.

Since I'm a foreignor, we had to go to a border control building and had to wait 1 hour to go back to the US. Every foreignor has to go there... the waiting room was pretty crowded... and I was soooo tired!


Next morning, we went to Palmyra to see the sights.


I had never seen a yogurt with two colors like that.. so I had to take a picture of it..



The first thing we did was going to Sacred Grove. It was a lovely Sunday morning and there were only a few other people in the entire Grove.

So it was really quiet and we could enjoy our time there.

After a while, we sat down on a bench and prayed together as a couple and thanked Heavenly Father for all the many blessings we have received in the past few months.


After that, we read together the 1st vision and talked about life in general. We had a great time there!







Then we walked around the Palmyra New York temple and took some pictures.
We went to a session on Monday morning, where I met a couple that had served on Temple Square- the Fairbanks! What a surprise!



We also went to Hill Cumorah. This is a view from the hill.








We also went to the Visitors' center and took a short tour. It was way different than Temple Square where you take a 30 minute tour and learn tons of facts.

After that, we went to the E.B. Grandin print shop where the first 5000 Books of Mormon were printed.

Clarissa Judkin's old roommate and close friend serves her mission in the Rochester New York mission. The sisters serve switch their station every day.
While we were in the print shop, Anthon remembered that Clarissa's roommate serves her mission in this area... and exactly 3 seconds later she passed us... CRAZY!

Anthon couldn't remember her last name...so he just said" Kristin!"...she turned around and was, of course, very surprised...

That happens a lot on Temple Square...but S. Eagan said that it was her first time in 12 months that she met somebody she knows.

So she continued taking us on a tour... she did a great job!


We learned something about the entire story, about contracts, about the process of printing and binding a book.... very complicated, but very interesting!!!




This is an announcement about the BoM as it was printed in the newspaper about 10 days before the church was formally organized.






We went back to our hotel...and drove back to Springfield next morning...
The drive was not that bad and the scenery was soooo pretty!

Day with Kaylie in DC, our nursery....

The Friday before school started again, Judie didn't want Kaylie to spend the entire day inside in front of the TV. When Kaylie was already in bed, we decided that Kaylie and I will spend the day in DC.
Next morning, Kaylie was not excited at all! She wanted to spend the entire day in front of the TV... but.. we kind of forced her to go with us... and so she did.

I was afraid that she would complain the entire day and be in a bad mood.
But as soon as we went to a 3-D-show in the Air and Space Museum, she got excited..which I was really happy about!



After that, we went to the Hirshhorn Museum- a really weird art museum... Because of its round shape, Kaylie always calls it the "Doughnut Museum".
After looking at the weird art and trying to understand it, we went to National History Museum.

On the way there, we took some random pictures..



Kaylie loves taking pictures!



The Sculpture Garden







They had a nice exhibit for kids at the National History Museum, where kids could try some things out, build something and so on...

Kaylie loved it! More than anything else in the museum.









Not being used walking that much, Kaylie just wanted to relax in the Sculpture Garden...




Back in Judie's office, she took many random pictures...




Silly girl!


I'm happy that Kaylie and I get along with each other very well.
Several of her friends have nannies, so she told me one day: "Normally, no kid likes her nanny....but I really like you!"

She often wants me to watch TV with her.. and then she cuddles with me and tries to use me as a pillow.

The other day, when Anthon and I came back from our 3-day-weekend trip to Palmyra, she ran from her couch to me and gave me the biggest hug and said: "I missed you!"

That was really cute!

It really feels good to know that she likes me...



Anyway....

On our 2nd Sunday at church, we were called to be nursery workers! I guess, they neeeded someone really badly ;-)











Anthon and I enjoy our calling- we really have a cute bunch!

Our calling and living with Judie and Kaylie gives us many opportunities to talk about raising kids and what we wanna do and how...
We talk about how we were raised and that is very interesting.

Since we both had great parents and learned so much from them, our kids will be perfect, of course...hahaha!
At least that's what we are convinced of... :-D



Anthon and I went to a classical concert at the John F. Kennedy Center in DC.
But Anthon forbid posting pictures with him on this blog...he thinks he looks too chubby in the pictures...



We had the opportunity to listen to a kind of interesting German piece "Herodiade" (not to mix up with Jules Massenets Herodiade).
The purpose of this piece was not to sound beautiful and to have a nice melody... it was more a piece to disvocer different sound effects with different instruments... it was very dramatic...

But after that, they playes Beethoven's 9th Symphony- the reason why we came.
It was great! Especially the big choir at the end singing the "Ode to Joy".

I love going to classical concerts! I've played the violin for several years, so I love watching the strings and thinking back of my violin lessons... I miss playing the violin... it's way harder to play than the piano.. but I loved playing in different orchestras.