Our Church Service In Germany

Our dear son, John, wants to know if we do anything more than just eat great food and look at beautiful castles and villages here in Germany. We are on a mission, aren't we? So Bob wrote up this nice description of what he does every day. He works very hard and is making a big difference by being here and trying to solve legal issues every day. The Area Presidency really appreciate the work that he is doing. Here's what Bob has to say:

I am serving as the Associate Area Legal Counsel for the Europe Area for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Europe Area includes all of Western and Central Europe. It goes from Greenland and Cape Verde on the West to Moldova, Greece and Cyprus on the East. It goes from Malta, Spain and Cyprus on the South to Norway, Sweden and Finland on the North. There are three attorneys in this area, two in the Frankfurt office and one in Solihull in England. We three supervise all of the legal work for the Church in Europe. We work with local attorneys who speak the many languages and are licensed in the more than 40 countries comprising the area. This includes things like immigration matters, labor law government relations, litigation, intellectual property issues, and cleaning up legal matters which may arise from the actions of thousands of missionaries, most of whom are 19-21 year old young men, who do things without necessarily thinking through the consequences (automobile accidents, injuries, etc.) Considering the large numbers of missionaries in the area, it is amazing at how well they do, but things do occur. In addition, each country has one or more separate legal entities to take care of the secular aspects of the Church. Part of our responsibility is to make sure that all of the legal aspects of the many entities are appropriately taken care of and that as new areas are opened, the Church is registered in these areas. This is not necessarily easy. Freedom of religion here is not necessarily the same as we have grown up with and have come to expect. One gains a profound respect and appreciation for this kind of freedom and the importance of protecting it for all, not just for majority populations.

So far I have found out that I’m primarily in charge of the physical facilities and real estate matters. This includes acquisition of new property, leases, construction and related issues. I also have primary responsibility for matters in Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. New things seem to come up regularly. In the month that we have been here, I have found the learning curve is very steep. Lots of new things come up that are initially baffling and take some time to figure out how to deal with them.

This is a picture of Bob's office. However, when he is not taking the picture, you can usually find him in his chair.

This is a picture of the Frankfurt Area Office Building.