Today in History...

...November 9, 1989, ended up being a significant day in my life - but I didn't know it would be it at the time. That night at about 11:30, my mom called to me from the living room to come and see something amazing on the television. The Berlin Wall had 'fallen', and people were celebrating on it!!!

It was an unbelievable sight to say the least. As a young girl growing up during the Cold War, I didn't think I'd live to make it through high school. I was certain we'd all die in a nuclear war. The fear of nuclear annihilation was acute at times, as was my fear and certainty of dying in an earthquake (that deserves its own post someday). Pretty much I didn't think I'd make it this long. But I digress.

The fall of The Berlin Wall was simply stunning!!! Six weeks later, I received a mission call to the Dresden German Democratic Republic Mission (East Germany), and was even more stunned!!! I was stunned².

It was a privilege and an honor to serve a mission among people who had been religiously oppressed for so long. It strengthened my love of God and testimony immensely! It was the best time of my life, and I am still blessed by the experience today.

I could go on and on and on, but that would take me forever. Here are a few historically fun pics though.

July 1990

The irony of this picture, is that I was breaking a mission rule by standing in West Berlin - West Berlin being part of the Hamburg Mission at that time. So, there we were, with all kinds of wonderful places to shop and visit, only a few minutes away, but we were restricted from going there because of mission boundaries. Everyone who'd lived under 40 years of communism thought that was pretty funny.

Of particular note in this picture is my Beutel. A Beutel is a bag, and everyone there had a shopping Beutel, or a few, because they didn't have any shopping bags in the stores (a plastic bag of any kind was a rare treasure). This Beutel was a pure 100% polyester pinko-commi Eastern Bloc Beutel, and I loved it! It went missing in one of my transfers, and I'm still not over it. I've got it loaded with pieces of The Wall in this picture, and it was pretty tiring getting back to our apartment, as I remember it. Also of particular note in this picture, is that I kind of look like a nun without the habit.

The Kiss of Death - not what it looks like. This kind of kiss was politically expedient for communist leaders. This particular politically expedient kiss was between Leonid Brezhnev (of super scary bushy eyebrow fame), leader of The Soviet Union, and Erich Honecker (of shoot to kill orders and denier of bananas fame), leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). This mural, based on an actual photo which was quite famous, was painted on a memorial section of The Wall called The East Side Gallery. It's entitled 'The Kiss of Death', and on the bottom it reads, "my God, help me survive this deadly love."

The little LDS Branch in East Berlin met here in the bottom floor of this apartment building in a part of town called Friedrichshain. The members were stalwarts who had remained faithful against all odds. They were amazing!

Laura standing at the entrance to the the Friedrichshain Branch.

In 1963, two years after The Wall went up, John F. Kennedy said, "ich bin ein Berliner."

In 1987, Ronald Reagan said, " Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

In July 1990, I said, "peace."

Das Ende