Introduction and Background

 Background and Introduction

The idea of a blog for the "Junge Ewachsense (JE)"  [Young Adults in English] was introduced late 2013 by Elder and Sister Mower, the senior missionary couple who served in the "Gemeinde Innsbruck" (Innsbruck Branch) in Innsbruck, Austria, between July 2013 and January 2015 (18 months).  In the digital age where memories can now be preserved in word and picture formats, and with little/no cost (except time and effort), we thought a blog dedicated to the JE would be beneficial to help preserve the memories of friends and activities that were held and enjoyed over the years.  We discussed this concept with the Europe Area YSA leadership and they approved of us doing this, since the church is encouraging us to have Internet presence.  They suggested that we add "Not an Official Site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" on the cover to ensure that those reading this open blog know that this blog is/was created by local members/missionaries in Innsbruck.  Our Branch President, President Roth, also approved this blog, with the added comment that it will be primarily the senior missionary couples that will be making blog entries. 

We use the term "JE" (Young Adults) to refer to the young adults that are currently unmarried and also to those young adults that are married but still actively participating in the young adult activities.  We kept the name "JAE Innsbruck" at the front of the blog name to help enable web searches that are similar to the current "JAE Innsbruck" Facebook name.

We observed that there was precious little written history of the JE when we arrived and we struggled to collect past history from before we arrived.  Hence, we have contacted the previous three senior missionary couples (the Stepan's, Glover's, and Meservy's) for pictures and comments that we will add to this blog for the years when they served in Innsbruck.  We hope that the missionary couples that follow us will help carry on this blog so that we can better preserve the precious memories that we collected while in Innsbruck.

The blog posts are organized by year to hopefully enable the reader to quickly access the blog pages that were written for their personal year(s) of interest.  As information/pictures are gathered before 2010, they can be added in the "pre-2010" post simply by reverting that post to a draft, making the additions, and then re-posting.

A note on language:  This blog could  be in English or German but since the native language of Elder and Sister Mower is English, the parts that they write will be done in English.  It has become very clear to us as we have been here that this branch and the Innsbruck area is very international in character.  We have had Young adults participate in our activities that speak numerous languages.  We will try to remember those that we have had communications with.  These include: German, English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, French, Czech, Farsi, a few African languages etc.  Using and communicating in numerous languages at times feels like revisiting  "The Tower of Babel" and trying to understand one another using actions and hand signals as well as pictures.  It has been very helpful to have translators available from missionaries, return missionaries, talented members, and others studying languages at the university.

Regards,  Elder and Sister Mower

Elder and Sister Mower (December 2013)

Alpine German-speaking Mission Map