Day 48: Church and a drive to Dorfgastein, Austria! (July 1):

   Today, we packed up in Rothenburg and started driving to Austria. We check LDS.org and find an address for a church building only 40 minutes away. The address doesn't work in our GPS, so we drive as close as we can and then ask for help. On Sundays, throughout all of Europe, pretty much everything is closed, but we find a casino and a gentleman who gestures for us to follow him as he leads us in his car. After a few minutes, he pulls over to ask someone else for directions. Then we follow the new people in their pickup. They are surprised that we are looking for a "Mormon church", but have heard of it, and lead us right to it.
   It always amazes me throughout this trip, that these people, who are total strangers, will drop everything and drive or walk us to what we are looking for. They are awesome!
   By the time we find the church, we are late. When I first walk in the church, I meet the RS President, Connie. She actually grew up on the East side of the Berlin wall. But what stands out to me - the instant I meet her, is her countenance. She is so warm and happy. She has laugh lines, and they are beautiful. On this trip, I have noticed people's countenances a lot. Some people have looked so angry for so long that it becomes a part of them. There is definitely something to be said about the reality of having Christ's image in our countenance.
   We all come in for the last hour of church. We find out it was a military branch, English speaking! I was excited! There was this nice lady named Connie. She helped us find where to go. She was just so sweet. She said in Relief Society, that we may not all speak in the same language, and we may live differently, but we all LOVE in the same language! Later, I went to YWs, where it's always combined because there are like two yw., so when the teacher came in, there were four of us, and she said she wasn't used to so many girls! But in Colorado, we have like 18. One girl, Alina, just got back from America as a foreign exchange student. She converted while in America. Her family isn't LDS though!  The kids seem to have really enjoyed church. We also meet a couple missionary from Westminster, CO - crazy!
  After church, we get water without gas and some McDonalds - I will never complain about McDonalds again! It has been so helpful so many times this trip! We then continue with our 4 1/2 hour drive to Dorfgastein, Austria. This part of Europe is beautiful! Huge grass mountains and steep cliffed mountains snuggling small villages in between them.

  We arrive at our hotel. A farmhouse. 
 

It has 2 ponies, 1 cute pig, 4 bunnies, 2 guinea pigs, 2 bird, 1 sheep and 1 goat, and 1 cat. 

 When we got there, we met a family with an 8 year old boy named Humid, a 14 year old boy and a 15 year old girl, named Addy. They were from Kuwait. They spoke Arabic and English. There English was AMAZING! 

We played in the yard, went Go karting, hide and seek, tag, and hay jumping! It was lots of fun. They were so nice!

Dallin's favorite farmhouse activity.

 Later we went inside, found each other on Facebook, and ate pizza at there place. Then all the kids went into me, Dallin, and Ashy's room with our new friends and started watching "Get Smart" on the I pad. Whew! the whirlwind part of our trip is over, and this is the perfect valley to enjoy beauty and peace, and the perfect place for the kids to run wild and free - and they are!