Krefeld, Germany

The alarm went off at 6:15 … out of bed at 6:25. Late getting out of the house. Picked Br. Trautmann up and got 15 minutes late to Presidency Meeting. Br. Rudloff was already there. Discussed re-organization of Primary and Relief Society organizations. Got the announcements straight. Br. Trautmann has the lead today. I get to sit back and take it all in.

Eleven brethren at Priesthood Mtg. 43 people at Sunday School. The English lesson was about the miracles of Jesus used to teach his apostles and disciples. We had Correlation Meeting right after Sunday School. All auxiliaries except Primary were represented. I talked to Sister Hohmann just prior to the meeting. She had to go to work and couldn’t stay for the meeting. She suggested Rebekka Hansen as a counselor and a teacher in Primary. (Sister Hohmann) has a problem getting Wednesday free. It’s normally her free day but if something happens, she has to work and can’t be to Primary.

Visiting Teaching districts were set up and will start in February The additional Relief Society on Sunday morning will also start in February. Sister Hansen has talked to Sister Trautmann about teaching a class and about being a counselor. I wish Sister Hansen wouldn’t do that.

We had Missionary Correlation Meeting at 3:00 p.m. Rachel Hansen and 4 missionaries were there. We talked about training Rachel and the missionaries made an appointment for Friday to take Rachel tracting and to give a discussion. The missionaries will make a chart to tell us what is happening with referrlas and contacts. We planned a Fireside for February 16th and will have the movie “Meet the Mormons”.

Thirty-six people at Sacrament Meeting. Br. Dietrich and his wife and a High Counselor were there. Sister Mohr didn’t show to give her talk.

Br. and Sis. Wright and Peter came over after Sacrament Meeting. I took everyone home about midnight and was in bed about 12:30 a.m.

Transcribed from my journal.

Krefeld, Germany

Up at 7:15 and got to the church house a little after 8 to work on the MIA Room. The Missionaries were there, but Br. Rudloff couldn’t make it. The missionaries wallpapered and I painted the door and doorway from the foyer into the MIA Room. The missionaries got one wall almost finished. The wallpaper sure looks good. Br. Miller painted one of the windows, but paint doesn’t go on the windows so well. We quit about noon.

I tried to call Gordon but no answer. The heat was off in the church and I couldn’t get it on. I called Br. Trautmann and he said he’d get it started when he came in to clean the building.

I went home and took a three-hour nap. I picked Rebekka up about 6 p.m. and we went to Düsseldorf to go to dinner with Gordon. We arrived at the Hilton to find a big Carnival Ball going on. I saw Frau Hoch, first time since she left Ehrenreich. We went to the Heinreich Heine Steuben for dinner by taxi. We all had steak. It cost 72 marks for all three of us. We walked around downtown on Schadow Strasse. Took Gordon back to the hotel about 10 p.m. and went home. Was in bed shortly before midnight.

Transcribed from my journal.

Krefeld, Germany

Up at 6:30. Nina drove me to the tram. In to Ehrenreich a little after 8. Wrote expense report for the Repa trip. Gordon came in a little after 9. We spent the morning talking about the Repa and BLW projects. Solved the problem with the Cost Center Summary Records for cost centers with overhead based on machine hours but still having direct labor content. We will write two summary records for these cost centers — one for the machine hours and one for the labor hours. This way Bill Stevens can break out both labor and overhead into the two factors: rate and usage variances.

We had lunch at Rheinaturn, roast beef sandwich and goulash soup, 24 marks for the entire bill.

Discussed Centralized Data Center possibility and Henry Hansen in the afternoon, and got together with Dick. Teves is not a good possibility for getting together with Ehrenreich in a centralized EDP system. Helling at Teves wouldn’t buy the idea. He can’t even get his two plants running centralized let alone talk about centralizing all of Teves with Ehrenreich. We will investigate running the Repa and BLW payroll at Ehrenreich rather than at outside service bureaus. We will try to make a good EDP manager out of Henry. First send him to a management school and then come in and make a detailed study of the EDP organization here. Then develop reporting and control systems which will force him to use his people rather than doing it all himself.

Weather was rain in the morning to partly coudy in the afternoon.

Left work a little after 5 and took the tram home. We went to Mervyn and Lynn’s for the evening. Rebekka Hansen babysat for us. Got home about 1 a.m. and in bed about 1:30.

Transcribed from my journal.

Alfdorf and Krefeld, Germany

I got up about 10:30. I showered and packed the suitcase and checked out of the hotel. The cost was 138.00 marks — 120 for the room for 3 nights and 18.00 for telephone calls to Mervyn and the PostScheckAmt (post office bank). I was able to get breakfast. I went in to Repa just about noon. I made MOUT tape to take to BLW next week and asked Bill Stevens to get info and formulas to calcuate standard costs. I talked with Dr. Von der Lanken’s secretary and ordered the books for Pleuger, attn. Dr. Peeper. The word from Hannover is that the 2314 drive is there but thay haven’t been able to test it because they didn’t have a disk. They knew two months ago that it was coming. It is rather strange that they’ve not ordered one. This is a delay we don’t need.

The driver to the Stuttgart Airport was a half-hour late and traffic was worse than normal, but I made the airport in time. I sat next to a seathog on the way back to Düsseldorf on the airplane. He wanted all of his seat plus half of the ones on either side. Fortunately it’s only a 50 minute flight. The airplane was full. The weather in Alfdorf was mostly coudy with haze; Düsseldorf was overcast.

I did get the seat belt for Frau Schmetz. The price was still 88.80 marks. I had almost 30 kg of luggage, almost 10 kg over, but no questions asked.

Nina picked me up at the airport and I babysat while she went to Relief Society. I did the dishes and cleaned up downstairs. I called Gordon at the Hilton and finally reached him about 10 p.m. He’ll find his own way into Ehrenreich in the morning.

Eight sisters at Relief Society. I took Santa Clause off of the front room door and went to bed about 11:00 p.m.

Transcribed from my journal.

Alfdorf, Germany

I got up about 11:30, showered, and had “brunch” at the Haghof. I got into Repa about 1 p.m. I ordered seat belts for Frau Schmidt at Ehrenreich. I wrote the program to calculate the Branch Ordinance and Action Report statistics. I’ll run the program tonight and see what comes out. It’s a rather complicated program. I worked on the agenda for Branch Council on Sunday. I must send the post cards tomorrow to remind everyone that we’ll be having the meeting.

I put the post cards in the mail and sent Sister Lucyzk the list of the 12-18 year-old girls in the branch. I worked on the program and listings of Branch members. I found an error in the age calculation … after increasing the field size by 1 in the month it worked correctly. There wasn’t enough space in the field two characters wide to subtract 1 from 12 and have a minus sign. the Branch statistics calculated very nicely, with minor discrepancies to the one Br. Rudloff calculated by hand. I got out the birthday list — this coud be a home teaching tool. Br. Trautmann and I go visit the members just before their birthday, take a card, and give them birthday greetings. Fellowshiping possibilities here. The records show a lot of 25-30 year-olds still living with their parents … probably not so in all cases. We’ll need to track them down and see if we need to send off some membership records.

Gordon Plummer arrives in Düsseldorf today and will be here through Monday. We will fly Tuesday to Munich to be at BLW for the rest of the week to attend the EDP Steering Committee Meeting on Friday.

I went to back to the Hoghof hotel about 3 a.m. The weather was clear and beautiful.

Transcribed from my journal.

Alfdorf, Germany

I got up at 8:30 and was in to work at Repa about 10:00. Hans had database problems with the routing input program. Apparently the program on the disk had been changed. I recompiled it and it ran without a problem. Drive 0 was on all night and had a probable electrical failure which clobbered the disk. We were able to reconstruct the disk and repair it. The Gier maintenance man came in a cleaned the drive.

I went house hunting with Bill Stevens from about 2 until after 6 p.m. He didn’t find anything worth while. Rent sure is cheap in Schwäbish-Gmünd … 1/4 of the Düsseldorf area. I ate dinner with Bill at the Haghof Hotel — kalbsteak (veal) with broccolli and heart of palm. Steak was OK.

I reformatted the Branch membership list and wrote a file maintenance program and a new print program. I worked on the membership lists until about 3:30 a.m. and then went back to the Haghof and to bed.

I called Mervyn before coming in to work this morning and told him about the mix up at the PostCheckAmt (post office bank). We must watch the desposit slips to see that everything is done properly. I called Nina when I got in to work and found she was sick in bed with a cold. She didn’t take the kids to school and Peter Chasterneuf stayed there to babyshit while Nina stayed in bed.

Bill sure drives his BMW fast. While we were house hunting I thought we were gonners a couple of times while going around bends in the road.

Latest Branch membership listing shows 126 members in 69 families for an average of 1.8 members per family. That’s not many.

Weather was clear and beautiful, again like an early spring.

Transcribed from my journal.

Krefeld and Alfdorf, Germany

Up a little after 7 a.m. Ate breakfast and got ready to go to Repa. Filled both cars up with gas. I went in to Ehrenreich and copied the TRM report and mailed it to Br. Hoffman. Had meeting with Jänigen, Giersch, Stolpe over the Standard Cost system. Must check handling of c, x, and e inventory parts when the affected parts file is written. Everything seemed clear.

Nina called and said the PostCheckAmt (post office bank) called. Our last (church donation) deposit wasn’t in order. The deposit slip said DM 845.70 should be there but only DM 385.70 was. I called Mervyn who said he’d check on just what was deposited.

I mailed DM 10.40 worth of envelopes and went to the auto insurance company to see why we’d been billed again. They took the second bill and said they’d bring it in order.

I left for Repa at 11:54 a.m. It was 439 km from Ehrenreich to Repa. Averaged 73 km/hr, but that includes an hour stop in Köln for a Big Mac. Other than the stop at Köln I averaged 91.4 km/hr. I called Mervyn underway and he said he deposited the Östreich check for DM 845.70 and cash for DM 385.70. Apparently, they’ve misplaced the deposit slip for DM 385.70 and the Östreich check., thus getting wrong deposit slip with the cash. I must call them tomorrow morning.

I arrived at the Hoghof Hotel at 17:15 and got to Repa at 17:52. I stayed until almost 9. I entered the cost file print program and half of the cost file maintenance. Got a logic error by deletions which must be thought out.

Had entrecôte at the Haghof for supper and went to bed about 10:30.

Weather very good — few clouds and no rain.

Transcribed from my journal.

Krefeld, Germany

I picked the missionaries up at 7:45 for a quick Missionary Correlation Meeting. We discussed the possibility of renting a glass advertisement space for putting a display up about the Church. We decided to emphasis missionary work until Missionary Week of April 14th.

Br. Hoppe came to Priesthood meeting. Sunday School class was over the baptism of Jesus, selection of the apostles, and the miracle of Cana.

I talked to Ingeborg Von Royen about a stake mission. She’ll think it over.

I drove to Dortmund for meetings and got there just in time for the start. Good meeting. The Stake Patriarch was there. We got the new yearbooks for the Branch. I stayed for just 45 minutes of the Stake Quarterly Priesthood Meeting. We had an argue-er there; he had something to say about everything. I went by the Grühn’s to see if their kids were going to Sacrament Meeting. They weren’t.

I arrived at Church 10 minutes before the meeting and found nothing ready. I must remember to make assignments next time. We had a good Sacrament Meeting. Sister Bolyer, Trieschmann, Br. Miller, and Br. Hoppe spoke. 29 present. After the meeting I drove the Wright’s home.

They and Peter came over later and we got the financial report finished. We sorted out all the Sunday School, etc., newsletters and prepared envelopes for everyone. I took Mervyn and Lynn home. Peter spent the night.

Transcribed from my journal.