In 1976 I came to German for the first time as a summer foreign exchange student. I lived at the bend in Kapitan Romer Strasse #40, with the Schoff family.
We found the place where the street turns at the end of town. I lived right where it turned before the cemetery, and beyond the cemetery was the woods where I loved to wander and pick wildflowers.
I read the Book of Mormon twice that summer, often sitting in a Jägerstand in those woods. These hunting stands were made of wood, with wooden ladders, like a small tree house on stilts. For me, this place was my refuge and my special secret place. It’s where heaven came to me as I read.
I took a picture of the Jägerstand below last month as we left Beudingen. You see these little hunting stands, also called a Hochsitz (high seat, or a high perch) in the woods and in farm areas. Hunters secluded themselves here while waiting for deer or other animals.
While I took photos of the house that now stands in the same place where I lived (it has been completely remodeled, enlarged, and made into a multi-family apartment building), John went to the door and read the names on the doorbell plates. He waved me over and said, “you’re not going to believe this,” he said. “The name Schoff is still on the door!” I could hardly believe it. C. Schoff living upstairs and P&M Schoff on the right part of the building. “You have to ring the bell,” he said. I got excited. We rang C. Schoff first. Could it really be Consuela, my exchange sister?? It was. And her mother, Maria, was still living in the original part of the old house down below.
They both came out and stared at us. I told them who I was–the American from California who had come to live with them in 1976. Frau Schoff couldn’t remember me at first (she is now in her late 80s). She looks just the same, but older. Paul, the father died about 20 years ago of cancer.
In 1976, Consuela was 15 and I was 17. She remembered me and the more we talked, the more they both remembered. They invited us in and we spent about an hour there in the little part of the house where I once lived. There was the kitchen that once went out into the animal stalls. They had a cow and pigs and chickens when I was there. Now there is a sunroom and the new apartment building where the old barnyard stood. That summer long ago, we ate from a garden in the back yard–every day we had salad greens, Kohlrabi and home-grown pork.
Consuela and I shared a bedroom upstairs (someone else lives up there now). They showed me the kitchen and the sitting room on the main floor where we had our meals. It was like a grandma house now. Small, filled with memories and knick-knacks. Maria brought out the wedding books. Anita, the younger sister (she was 6) now lives with her husband and 4 kids in Konstanz. Consuela got married at age 31 to a man named Schiller (he was at work). They have a boy named Manuel who is 30 years old now.
It made me SO happy to be there and to see them again after 48 years! I’ve always felt sad that after that summer I went home and my life went on into my busy senior year of high school and then I was off to college, never really looking back. Today I made things right by returning to thank them. I felt so happy to see them again and to remember the good times I had there. That was a memorable and life-changing summer for me.
Here’s a video clip I to send to the kids in a SnapChat:
This was Paul, the father. He wasn’t around much when I lived there. He died of cancer 20 years ago.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 