News Media Student Shares Experiences from Study Abroad in Germany
News media student Landon Moore traveled to Germany this summer with faculty members Kathy Aiken and Alan Neves and student Alyson Caffrey to film Living Legends’ tour of Germany, to film interstitials for BYUtv and to complete a video segment for the ongoing Poor Wayfaring Man project. Read more about these experiences from Landon’s point of view below.
During our trip, we visited the Fuggerei, which is the world’s oldest social housing complex. There we were able to interview one of the administrators. We learned that to live at this complex, residents must show financial need, identify as Catholic and agree to say a minimum of three prayers a day. Additionally, they only have to pay a grand total of 88 euro cents per year in rent, the equivalent of what residents there had to pay when it first opened in 1521.
Living Legends toured the complex and visited some of residents. A highlight of the day was when the students invited to four of the residents to attend their performance that night. These individuals were given complimentary tickets and thoroughly enjoyed the performance, which was translated into German for this tour. Having these guests attend the performance was a clear demonstration of the power of the BYU performing arts to touch the hearts and lives of people all over the world.
While we were in Germany, we attended the singles branch in Munich. The first counselor in the stake presidency in Munich, Steffen Dzierzen, shared his testimony during the meeting. He told how he was one of the first 10 missionaries allowed to serve from East Germany back in 1989 when it was still a communist country. We interviewed him in his home the next day about his experience growing up there as a member of the church.
Dzierzen recounted seeing Living Legends perform for the first time about 30 years ago. He was so moved by their performance that he drove to a distant city the next day to see them perform again. In 1988, Living Legends was the closest thing East Germany had to missionaries. It wasn't until a year after those performances that Dzierzen learned he would be able to serve a mission. He was called to Wisconsin.
Traveling around Germany was an incredible experience that I will never forget. Not only did it strengthen my resume, but I feel that it increased my ability to adapt and work with the resources I have to be successful. We could only bring so much equipment and sometimes we had to come up with a plan on the fly to accomplish our purposes in being there. We ran into numerous difficulties and problems on this trip, not the least of which was being unable to communicate. However, our faculty were excellent examples of adapting and pushing forward. Their efforts helped us get some great video and interviews for the projects we were sent there to film. I hope that future students will also be able to have these kinds of experiential learning experiences, which will better prepare them for complex work in the real world.