Painful mistake!

 True confession!  We unfortunately made a very expensive mistake last Friday on the first day we arrived in Austria.  It was a day fraught with frustrations! We were lost most of the day and still struggling under the influence of jet lag! 

However, we should not make excuses for ourselves.  What was the error?  We drove through a toll gate in the wrong lane and will be paying a huge fine as a result.

Oh well...another opportunity to forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and start all over again! We won’t make that mistake again!

Today was brighter with another delightful visit with members of the Bruck branch.  We drove this afternoon to the Ollendorff’s in Judenburg.  Trond Ollendorff and his wife Monika live in a house in a wonderful neighborhood.  They own a large beautiful piece of property up against a lush forested mountain. They are delightful and 82 years old.  She loves growing fruits and vegetables.  Trond is a retired anesthesiologist and former branch president in Bruck. 

Monika fed us a meal of rice topped with egg salad and home grown string beans from her garden.  Trond kept telling his wife to hurry with the meal preparation.  We felt sad for her but she stood firm with him once and we were glad to see it!  I offered to help she wouldn’t let me help much.  

We enjoyed sharing information about our children with the Ollendorffs.  The gospel binds our hearts together! We understand the many blessings and challenges common in raising a family in the last days.

Trond has nearly a photographic memory and is quite a scriptorian and gospel scholar.  He taught us from the scriptures for over an hour. We wanted to share a spiritual message with them but when we said we needed to go he kept saying he had more to teach us!  He encouraged us to study Amulek’s sermon in Alma 34.

Damon called the past two days when we were having dinner with these dear  members.  I was so disappointed that we couldn’t chat longer with him.  We are grateful to have talked to all our sons since arriving in Austria.  We hope to talk to Sarah and Marianne soon.  How we love and miss all of our children and their spouses and each of our  precious grandchildren!!!