May 29

This morning after breakfast, I took another fast shower. I managed to cut the time down to 4 minutes and 11 seconds. I was quite proud of myself, until I got to church and Bjorn informs me that Nicki showered in just over three minutes. I’m still amazed at that. A young lady with long hair managed to shower in much less time than even Bjorn. They even checked to make sure she smelled clean. I’m amazed. Then it was time for the service. In Breidenbach they have translators for the sermons. You simply plug a set of headphones they provide into a jack in the bench, and find the channel that is translated into your language. The translator sits in a booth on the balcony. The English translator today was Adina. She did a fantastic job. For the first time in nearly three weeks, I actually understood a sermon. After the morning service, I was disappointed to discover that the Taba’s and Nitz’s were leaving for Ireland before the afternoon service. I said goodbye to them all, making certain I had an email address or two, and then headed home with the Pfister’s for lunch. After a quick lunch, I retired to my room to catch up on my blogs. At 2:45ish, we went back to church for the afternoon service. Once again, Adina did a fantastic job of translating. After the service, I met a bunch of young men about my age. I can’t remember any names, much to my dismay. We all took a walk and then went back into church for an hour of singing at five thirty. The singing was again terrific, and the young man next to me even sang with me in English. Once the singing was finished, I had to say my farewells to all my new friends. It’s so strange over here, because I’m not likely to see any of them again for a very long time, if ever. In America, when I say goodbye to new friends it’s usually not for long. I know that I will probably see them again at some point in the not too distant future on this earth. It makes the goodbyes more difficult here. Many of them did express a desire to visit America, and assured me that they would get in touch if they made it over. Lord willing, I will see some of them again. Moving on, when we arrived back at the Pfister’s, their family was gathering. We sat down to dinner with a full table. Ernst and Elizabeth have 14 children, 8 boys and 6 girls. Before the day was over, we saw 8 of them. By the time supper was over, I was kaput. I went back to my room and finished up this blog. Now I am going to get into my pj’s and go to bed. Tomorrow we go through France to the small town in southern Germany where Opa’s grandpa was born.