Chapter 2 Returning to My Mission

Sunday morning started with going to church in the first ward where I served as a missionary, Spandau. We hopped on the subway and then looked for the bus. As we got on, what we hoped was the right bus, a lady talked to us, and we found out she was Mormon, and she was going to church, to the Spandau ward. The building didn’t look the same, but we found out it was because there had been a fire a few years ago, and they had to rebuild it.

LDS.org said Sacrament Meeting began at 9:00, and so that’s when we showed up. It was the last meeting, so we sat in the other meetings, with poor Ginny and Chris not understanding any of the discussion, except the little bit that got translated.

In Priesthood meeting they asked us to introduce ourselves. I mentioned that I had served in the ward 35 years before and gave our names. A man behind us said he knew my grandfather who was his bishop in East Germany. I turned around and looked, and it was the man who was bishop while I was on my mission. That was how he had introduced himself when I got to Spandau 35 years ago. After church we spent time talking with him, and met his brother, who also had been there while I served.

After church we changed, and then we walked down Falkenhaggenerstrasse and saw the apartment building where i had lived as a missionary.

We found our first German bakery (which are everywhere) and had breakfast, and then walked a little through Old Town Spandau, on our way to the Zitadella to meet the Franke’s. On the way we saw a piece of the old Spandau town wall from over 1000 years ago.

The Zitadella

We got to the Zitadella, which is considered the best preserved Renaissance military structures in all of Europe. It was built, in it’s present form from 1559-94 on top of an even older medieval fort. Here we met up with the Franke’s again, and also were joined by their daughter Claudia, and her family, Oleg, Emi and Lion (pronounced Leon).

We took a tour of ancient to modern honorary sculptings from Berlin. Very cool old statues.

After that tour, we explored the other areas of the Zitadella.

We climbed to the top of the tower and enjoyed the views.

After the Zitadella, it was time for lunch, because, wow, we hadn’t eaten for a couple hours now. Went to a local brewery and had a wonderful lunch of bratwurst, Schweinebratten, and Schnitzel.