Christmas with Family (even far away!)

To Our Beloved Family Whom we Miss even More at this Time of Year!

Hi, Guys.  Well even though we're thousands of miles away, we were still able to have a wonderful Christmas thanks to the loving attention showered on us by Markus and his family (not to mention that we got to talk to all of you on Christmas anyway.)

In our last letter we talked about the last Advent celebration steeped in centuries of anticipation about upcoming events.  Monday we got the most personal tour of Leipzig one could imagine as Markus took us around town.  We started out in Leipzig's huge train station that clearly holds its own with New York's Grand Central Station.  

It was built in two identical halves by competing royalties that didn't want one side getting better than the other and so ended up essentially a mirror image of itself and was now decorated up for Christmas with all the glory one can imagine.

 As we were saying before inadvertently sending the letter not finished (Dad accidentally sent the letter in two emails), the observant looker may detect the subtle advance of the west into German commercial culture with the presence of Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC and the latest chain taking the country by rage, Dunkin' Donuts.  

From the train station we next went to the St. Thomas Church, renowned for a boy's choir that seems about as good as the Vienna Boy's Choir and historically also once the habitat of Johann Sebastian Bach.  Many years after his death and the rebuilding of the church after its destruction, his body was moved there and now resides in splendid peace once again.  

We had a chance to visit Markus' office where he does a pretty good business as a commercial printer for many of the firms here in Leipzig.  The family joined us in the afternoon as we explored the Leipzig Christmas Market near their city hall and went up to Leipzig's highest skyscraper where we about froze from a very brisk wind but had a wonderful view of the cityscape.  I tried to take a picture of the downtown area and had to have Grammy and Markus hold me in place as the wind was throwing us around pretty good but finally came up with this as our best effort.  Following a return to terra firma we all went on a cute merry go round and then returned home to get ready for their real preparation for Christmas Eve which is the big celebration throughout Europe. 

So the plan for the 23rd was to drop us off downtown to get a little of our own Christmas shopping done.  Grammy was looking for a good book in German of the Grimm fairly tales which Markus was able to reserve for us at one of their famous bookstores.  When we got there, she got enthralled in a book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales as well, so knowing in advance what she wanted, we bought both of them for her.  We then got her a nice pair of house slippers with better support than what she had in her present ones and proceeded to wander around the Christmas Market from the night before where I had seen a neat rendition of an obstetrician delivering a baby, still connected to its mother by the umbilical cord, the whole thing done completely with wires, screws, nuts and bolts and which we will save for later specific viewing by the interested as it pretty much explains a lot of the facts of life about such things.  Still I thought it was really kind of fun and so Mom got that for me for Christmas.  

We decided to get really courageous and take the tram a bit of the way home because it passed by a neat and very big memorial to a huge battle of the nations.  We stepped on the street car and attempted to put in our 4.80 euros which we had in exact change and three times it gave all our money back.  We asked one of the passengers if she could figure out if we were doing something wrong and she concluded that if it wouldn't take our money, the ride must be free.  We got to the memorial at about 4:10 PM pretty much after sunset, and found out it had closed at 4 PM so we had to settle for a picture as proof that we were really there. 

 Getting back on the tram, the little auto ticket taker this time accepted our money and so I guess we were able to remain honest.  They had loaned us Cathleen Wiese's cell phone and when we got back on the tram and took it to the end of the line, we were able to call her and she came and picked us up.

A little side note that for a full week we were overwhelmed with delicious German culinary arts.  Every morning a delicious breakfast was ready for us which we ate with the family, lunch and dinner being also provided every day with wonderful  foods that included German dumplings, red cabbage (one of our favorites and we actually sampled three different recipes during the week, one from Markus, one from his brother next door, and one from his Mother-in-law in Chemnitz--more on that later) and tasty meats that included typical German wurst, rabbit, goose and beef.  I don't think we'd eaten as well or definitely as European in our entire mission. 

Christmas Eve morning was spent initially finishing decorating their Christmas tree which pretty much everyone does that day.  I have several pictures of the process but will spare them in the letter as no one does it adequate justice.  After a yummy noon dinner as partially described above, the next thing on the agenda was a family program hosted by the youngest son, Heinrich.  He had made sure that everyone had a part on the program interspersed with our favorite Christmas Carols and all of their musical talents were displayed.  Dad chose "Still, still, still" a great Austrian carol and our presentation consisted of telling the story of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" while Mom displayed appropriate pictures.  The program ended in time to get Leonie and Ferdinand off to the church to participate in their Christmas play which was pretty interesting.  The youth depicted workers who were cleaning up a park when an angel appeared to them announcing the birth of the Savior, the Son of God who would save mankind.  He suggested they announce that to all they met and they proceeded to do just that, being met with disinterest, disbelief, incredulity or allegations that they must be mentally deranged.  Leonie worked as a secretary in a psychiatrist's office where they were eventually sent but they remained true to their assignment until they got a group of faithful believers.  It was a clever way to bring the significance of Christ's birth to the modern day though there was undoubtedly much we could have told them about true modern day appearances of angels.

We returned home about 8:00 to begin the opening of presents.  While we had taken the kids to prepare for the play, Markus had stayed home to set up all the presents under the tree and when he then joined us all was ready to go.  As we returned home everyone got to sit in the "Seat of Jubilation" where each one opened a present and then selected the next present and who it was meant for who took their seat and so forth.  It was an interesting way to celebrate and we received several lovely gifts of things we had noted during the week like an apple-corer that is used to make delicious baked apples by removing the core and replacing it with yummy delicacies, or an Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher (try saying that without the word written out in front of you) or "Eggshellbreakingandperforatingdevice" a clever little tool to break into a hard boiled or a soft boiled egg shell and make a nice neat break all the way around it.  We also received a cute little carved doctor complete with stethoscope and writing a prescription about six inches high and a little reclining grandmother holding her cup of hot "Postum".  Very popular here are small smoking figures that take a little stick of incense as they puff.  So in this instance the incense is transferred to Grandma's steaming cup.  So those and lots of candies and cookies.  We in turn passed out decorated Christmas tree ornaments from Vienna and table runners like you guys should have received to Markus' family, his brother and his mother-in-law.  

Christmas day everyone slept in as long as they wanted to, the presents having been opened the night before, and then we went over to Markus' brother's house, Stephan who lives again right next door.  He is married to Cathleen's sister which makes it very convenient for family get-together's.  The order of the day there was to enjoy left overs from both families' Christmas Eve meals, once again to sing songs and enjoy musical presentations.  When that was done we had another special treat.  Markus' father and mother, though now divorced were both present, both having driven fairly long distances.  His mother left following the family events on Christmas day but his father had been with us during the Christmas Eve play.  He is quite an accomplished organist and at one time had traveled throughout eastern Europe playing the organ for a variety of church congregations.  He had actually played in the Lutheran Church when his grandson, Heinrich, had been baptized.  After the play they talked to the priest who gave them the keys to the church and the organ loft so he could come and play after all the worship services were over for the day.  So back to the church we went on Christmas evening about 8 PM where he played for about an hour, many times just from memory.  There were pieces from Bach and Mozart and Handel and others that were familiar but we didn't know who had written them.  He said he had an LDS hymnbook with him that was quite old but on request played "Gently Raise the Sacred Strain" so we got a little of the Tab Choir's opening hymn into the Lutheran church on Christmas night.

  

The next day was the Second Day of Christmas, celebrated as a full holiday throughout Europe (known as Boxing Day in England) and which I always thought was so civilized that we made it a tradition in our office to always take at least two days off for Christmas.  (I doubt the tradition carried on after I left.)  The special treat for that day was to travel to the Jentzsch family get-together in Chemnitz.  Brother Jentzsch, father to both Cathleen and Stephan's wife, is the one who takes care of the technical equipment at the Freiberg Temple.  While they got set up for another wonderful meal, Markus and Cathleen's brother, Benjamin, took us on a tour of the city.  Chemnitz was previously known as Karl Marx Stadt, the home of the same with a large bust of Marx, about the only remaining vestige of the previous Communist rule.  It was quite interesting throughout our entire stay to see the role of Communism in the lives of the people of Leipzig and Chemnitz.

There is quite a large display we visited in downtown Leipzig depicting the events of 1989 where over 100,000 people assembled to protest the German Democratic Republic's handling of their lives (the old East German government) and which lead to eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union and the reunification of the two Germanys.  Everyone in middle age and older remembers the times quite vividly.  We were able to see where Markus and Cathleen were married prior to their sealing in the Freiberg Temple, which you remember was the only temple ever approved while still Communist.  We saw the houses both lived in as children, where they went to school, Cathleen attending a school which still bears the labels for two entrances, one for boys and the other for girls. and the very evident influence of the East German years in their architecture and streets, though now steadily diminishing with the years.  Markus drove us by the house where he picked up Cathleen on the way to their marriage.  While visiting the downtown area we passed this church where if you look closely right above the arch and below the black ledge you see the words "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT"  ("A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD"). I'm pretty sure Markus told us that Martin Luther was also born in Chemnitz.  

We got back to the family in time to enjoy another wonderful meal and the third recipe for red cabbage.  They had a great method for dishing up the meal in assembly line fashion with three full tables served in about 10 minutes and then once again we enjoyed singing Christmas carols and another gift exchange.  Markus and Cathleen were exceptional hosts, we were still surrounded by Mormons the entire week. 

Here with Markus and Cathleen's father is Sister Gertraud Richter, widow of Gottfried Richter who was paid a personal visit by President Monson prior to his death two years ago and who still receives a Christmas card from him every year.  You may all remember how influential President Monson was in getting the Freiberg Temple built and now it will be expanded in the next year.  We got home that night in time to enjoy a wonderful German translation of the Polar Express complete with even the punched tickets being translated into German.  That's a family tradition of many years, with even a pause for hot chocolate, topped with marshmallows.  And to top it all off, it was a white Christmas in Chemnitz, the first snow we'd seen on our mission outside of Hallstatt with Andy and Ruslana!

 It was up early Saturday morning to catch the plane back to Vienna where we arrived safely to unpack all our presents and enjoy all the goodies you guys have sent that were waiting for us.  We found four or five cards waiting in the mail box and are enjoying Twizzlers, Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints, Peanut Butter Reese's Pieces, and Santa Hershey Bars.  Ahhh!  What could be better?

The day came to a wonderful close as we had the opportunity to interact with all those who came to the Marcroft Christmas party on Saturday afternoon.  It was great for us because we were still in early evening and so there was time for short hellos and updates with everyone present.  Little to my knowledge, the kids had all been up to a major event which they had all kept secret since Andy and Ruslana were here in October.  Remembering the mishap of my lost computer and its contents on our arrival day now over 7 months ago, the family all got together and purchased a replacement computer and a very lovely briefcase to go with it.  I appreciate sooo much this wonderful gift and especially the fact that it sat here for a few months as I commandeered Mom's computer in the meantime, ofttimes, I'm sure to her frustration.  But everyone kept the secret until I could open in the presence of many as they watched in real time as it was presented.  I'm still in the process of downloading things and will probably need some help along the way as it gets more complicated but I can't express my appreciation enough to you all for this great gift and the sacrifice that was made along with it.  It is simply wonderful and will add a significant dimension to our capabilities as our mission progresses.  The briefcase is equally wonderful with compartments stashed everywhere for everything conceivable that I could ever want or need.  Thank you, thank you, thank you all.  It has truly been a great Christmas! One additional note since finishing everything else, we stayed up late to catch the start of the Messiah Sing-in at Warren and Marilyn's.  Wonderful to talk to all the other side of the family before we finally retired for the night.

It really was wonderful to be welcomed into Markus' family and extended family and to share in their Christmas Traditions. We were treated like family members with love and care and were even given the royal master bedroom. Christmas Eve brought a family program, church services, gifts and stockings filled to the brim. We had a whole week of Christmas and things couldn't have been better had Santa himself arranged it all. Thanks Markus, Cathleen, Ferdinand, Leonie, and Heinrich for being our wonderful German family!

We miss family and friends at home but feel blessed to be serving here in Vienna as missionaries and sharing our Saviors love.

Let us all remember to share the Gift of the Savior all year long. 

Love you all. 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

A Village that Exists Solely for Christmas

To Our Beloved Family,

Another wonderful week has passed with many exciting events to report.  Monday's Home Evening was down a little in numbers as people are very involved in the Advent season here but overall we still had a good group out with Mom making Sloppy Joe's which everyone always loves.  Our language courses were definitely less well attended with our Iranian family not coming for the first time in several months.  We're thinking they are also involved in other things but because we announced that the center would be closing for a couple of weeks, we also think  perhaps they just got the dates wrong.  At any rate, the Institute schedule promoted a Christmas party instead of the routine classes and we had the usual good 40-50 people out for that.  We set all of our chairs up in a big circle in our main classroom and following the main announcements received a fun visitor: 

His German was pretty good and we were having trouble figuring out who he really was but it eventually became obvious that it was our Seminary and Institute Director, Brother Achim Erlacher. 

Here he is pictured afterwards with Sister Wadosch, also a great support on our Institute Council.  She and her husband, an ex-stake president have been called to serve in the Freiberg Temple Presidency.  More on that later. Santa passed around special presents to everyone present that had been prepared by our special sister, Eva, who always cooks the meal for Wednesday nights and had prepared schnitzel, potatoes and wonderful Christmas cakes for everyone.  He had special presents for us, a wonderful souvenir shopping bag emblazoned with lots of the sight seeing spots from Vienna for Sister Parker and a similar souvenir type Viennese mug for Elder Parker.  I was asked what I was going to drink in the mug and replied, naturally only fruit tea!  He gave other special presents to the Youth Council leaders, Sister Wadosch and asked if anyone had been missed.  One of the young adults replied "Brother Erlacher....but he isn't here!:)  Enough food had been prepared that there was quite a bit left over.  Eva not only cooks but also serves as her ward's Primary president.  Her husband apparently doesn't like the missionaries to come by the house and so she always wants to make sure that she can feed them and took special pains to make sure we invited everyone over on Thursday for the leftovers.  This we did and had a wonderful get-to-gether after the language courses with eight of the elders.  The Zone Leaders had sent a message that they planned on coming but didn't show and the sisters replied that they had an assignment in Wiener Neustadt, an hour away but were on their way home.  How long would we be there?  Everyone else showed up between 5 and 6 o'clock but we decided to wait for the sisters and had enough still for four extra plates of food.  We set them all up and while waiting for the sisters who finally got there about 7:15, the Zone Leaders also appeared after they'd had an appointment so it was a nice tender mercy for them that the sisters provided the excuse to wait around as otherwise we would have been long gone.

Friday was our departure on a flight to Leipzig to stay the holidays with the Wiese family.  Our plane flight to Leipzig gave us only two options, 6:25 in the morning or 8 PM in the evening.  We decided we would opt for the 6:25 in the morning but that meant we had to be there by at least 5:30.  There is a special train that makes the trip from the center of Vienna, very close to our apartment and the airport in only 15 minutes but the first train in the morning doesn't leave until 5:35 and we decided that would be cutting it too close.  Our only other options would be a taxi which we thought was probably too expensive or take a night bus which came at 4:30 to the train station for the regular trains that run all night.  That got us to the airport in good time and it took a good thirty minutes from the train to get through security and to the boarding gate.  But the real challenge to do all that meant that we had to get up at 3 AM to get ready for that 4:30 night bus!  Having waited for the sisters longer than we had anticipated meant that we hadn't gotten home when we planned and we had finally gotten to bed around 11:00 after completing all of our packing and other preparations. We snoozed a bit on the plane but the flight was only about an hour and a half and so we were still pretty drowsy by the time we arrived. But the Wiese's were there to meet us and the plan for Friday was to travel to Freiberg and do a temple session, stay one night at the temple apartments and then see some of the local sights there that afternoon.

The Freiberg Temple was really very pretty.  We put our luggage in our room in the temple apartment and met Cathleen Wiese's father who works there in charge of all the technical workings of the temple.  They had us set up for a 10:30 session and we really wondered how we were going to stay awake on our four hours of sleep the night before.  But yet another tender mercy, they asked us to be the witness couple so we had the opportunity to be a little more active than we would normally have been and it was a very enjoyable event.  A small side-light, the same thing happened last year when we went to the Madrid Temple, still in the middle of jet lag, so the Lord has a way of taking care of us!  We even went through the session in German, without earphones which kept us extra alert.

That afternoon, Markus, Cathleen and their son Heinrich picked us up to take us to Albrechtsburg, a small village we'd never really heard of but was the birthplace of Karl Maeser, the founder of BYU.  There we ate lunch at a wonderful restaurant near the old Albrechtsburg cathedral and then went through the old castle built by the local prince. 

The area is located in a  region known as Meissen which is famous for wonderful porcelain and the museum demonstrates much of what they are famous for. In the first picture above you can see a church just to the right of the umbrella.  Below that is a little yellow house immediately to the right of the umbrella, then a small white building and the building next to that was Karl Maeser's birthplace.  Next, Heinrich is showing us on a model of the castle and church exactly where we ate lunch.  

That evening we went to the Freiberg Christmas market where we ate some yummy pizza-type sandwiches but it was actually raining pretty hard so we all stood under umbrellas as we ate.  By the time we got back to the temple apartment we were good and exhausted and slept like logs until the next morning.  While we had been visiting Albrechtsburg, Leonie Wiese who visited us with her brother Ferdinand last summer, had left us special fixings for a wonderful breakfast the next morning.  She left it all in a refrigerator in the eating room with mango fruit juice, chocolate milk and yogurt, hard boiled eggs along with a basketful of bread, muffins and other yummies.  We cleaned our apartment and were finished with breakfast in time for Markus and Cathleen to pick us up the next day for a trip to a little village known as Seiffen.

Seiffen is a little town that exists for only one reason.  It makes wooden toys and special decorations for Christmas. Admittedly their nutcrackers and other wooden figures probably have appeal at other times of the year but they work all year and make virtually all of their income in the last month of the year.  We drove into town and were immediately directed by uniformed personnel to a parking place right near a large work shop.  Here we were allowed to watch the employees as they made and assembled nutcrackers of all sizes and lots of cute big and little creations all to make the Christmas season special.  For instance we saw this craftsman  making these cute little wooden trees as pictured below. 

We spent the next few hours wandering through toy stores, manufacturing work places, museums and even the village church which is quite famous.  

We took over one hundred photos so in this little report we can't even give you as much as a glimpse of everything we were able to see.

Here you see a cute little street scene and a woman putting whiskers and beards on nutcrackers.  Mom was just overwhelmed with everything there was to see and sometime we'll have to send a bigger sampling of all the wonderful sights in this delightful little Christmas village.  

For many decades it was behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany and everything they made was shipped to the west as one of the products of the system.  Now they've really come into their own as they have the chance to be their own businessmen.  Though it was commercial, it was still very much a delightful enterprise. Following a tour through a couple of workshops and multiple little stores selling their various wares we ended up in a museum for toys of the kind the city had made for more than a century.  Included were wonderful matchbox toys, numerous big and little whirligig things some of you may remember from our Christmas decorations which consists of little merry go round devices powered by candles whose heat provide some power to little wooden propellers and cause them to spin around.  We went into several stores selling these little things looking for the most expensive one that finally topped out at 9,999 euros!  

Here they're called "pyramids' and the examples, as here, they included in the museum ran from the ground floor to the top of a two story hall.  They even had cute little make it yourself creations you could buy and assemble on the spot as shown here where Heinrich is putting together a little house and putting on the shingles.  

The last picture shows an action scene where the two figures begin apart and then gradually come together with a big smooching sound as they meet and kiss!

  

Sister Parker got so enthralled with everything there was to see that she bought a couple of items that still bewilder her husband as to how we'll ever get them home.

Sunday morning started off with a delicious breakfast, very typically German provided by Cathleen Wiese.  They have been just wonderful hosts providing us with every amenity we could desire and really bending over backwards to show us their beloved Leipzig and the Saxony region of Germany which surrounds Leipzig. We had agreed to go with them to the Lutheran service which started at 10 AM and they would accompany us to the LDS service which started at 1 PM.  Actually the Lutheran service was really pretty cute and comparable to a Primary special sacrament meeting.  All of the children in the church had prepared a special Christmas Nativity preparation and were decked out as angels, shepherds, a variety of stable animals including a cow and a sheep as well as numerous other sheep and of course, Joseph and Mary.  They knew their parts really well and had some songs they sang as well.  The congregation sang pretty much Christmas carols for their hymns, most of which we already knew and the priest gave quite a good talk on the importance of extending the Christmas spirit to the less fortunate.  

When we made it to the LDS ward that afternoon, they'd already had their Primary presentation the week before but they had their ward choir sing along with special talks from the elder's quorum president and a high council speaker.  Everyone remembered Markus quite well and we even met the family of one of our elders who had recently been transferred into our district in Vienna.  We showed them several pictures we had of him and took a picture of us with them to send to his email.  

That evening we were invited over to Markus' brother's house who lives right next door.  They had a total of four brothers there with their wives and even Markus' father came. It was a special 4th Advent Sunday and we had wonderful food, sang everyone's favorite Christmas carols, and even played some fun games that the family enjoyed.  We must admit that because we had already celebrated the first three Advent Sundays prior to leaving for Germany, we decided to light the fourth candle in our apartment and display our Christmas decorations one last time. So here is our 4th Advent celebration before we left for Leipzig.

  Note the bag Mom received on the left and the stein on the right that Dad received.

And this was the real 4th Advent celebration at the home of Stephan Wiese. Pictured are just a few of the many family members who were there.  Stephan serves in the local ward bishopric and plays the piano, Markus played his cello, his Dad played the flute, a niece played the harp and Heinrich, one of his sons, played the trumpet so it was a beautiful musical evening.  They have kept us so busy since we arrived that it has taken us this long to get the news together and get it off.  More about Christmas next week.  Love to you all and we will hope to have Skyped with many if not all of you on Christmas if we can figure out a way to get around all of the other missionaries who are checking in.  We wish you all a happy holiday and hope you all enjoy the special Spirit of Christmas that prevails.

  (Sister Parker) Being here in beautiful Saxony, Germany is like being in a Christmas dream, even without snow. Every little town is festive with decorations and Christmas Markets. Many have music playing and it helps create a very festive spirit among all the people wandering around even when it is very cold, rainy and windy. I love that life just goes on with plans, no matter the weather. Markus and Cathleen have taken us to the temple, showed us beautiful countrysides, taken us to fine restaurants and shared their extended family with us. This is a wonderful place to be if we can't be at home with all of you. What's more, they try to remember the Savior and his birth. 

You will all be in our hearts this Christmas Eve and Day.      

Love, 

 Mom, Dad, 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Elder and Sister Parker

A Salzburg Devotional

Dearest Family,

It seems hard to believe but the weeks keep getting better and better, no doubt because the Christmas Spirit continues to grow and grow.  I mentioned last time that the Advent season is quite big throughout Europe.  In our last mission letter from President Kohler, he filled us all in on the historical meanings of the season.  Apparently it dates back to the fourth century and was originally a time when converts to Christianity readied themselves for baptism.  Then in the middle ages it became a time of preparation for the second coming of the Savior and now it has evolved into a time of anticipating Christmas and the birth of the Savior.  The circle of the wreath and the evergreen out of which it is made both symbolize on going life.  Three of the candles were apparently originally purple and were lit on the first, second and fourth Sundays prior to Christmas symbolizing hope peace and love.  The third candle was rose in color and lit on third Advent, this weekend, symbolized joy.  He encouraged us to invite and help others to come unto Christ, ready themselves for baptism and to help the Lord in His hastening of the work of the gathering of Israel in preparation for His second coming.

This Wednesday's Institute lesson for Elder Parker was on 2nd Nephi 9 and 10 and were so aptly fitted to the season as the prophet Jacob discusses the atonement and the Lord's intentions to remember his promises to gather scattered Israel. Despite getting to bed a little late that night, we were nonetheless up at 5 to ready ourselves for a trip to Salzburg for the mission Christmas devotional.  Wonderful testimonies were given by President and Sister Kohler on the importance of our work here and then we had a special presentation given by some of the missionaries working in Switzerland who offered a wonderful musical and power point presentation on the real significance of the Christmas season.  They have been doing similar things there since last summer, one of their musical evenings being a great presentation of the Plan of Salvation as told to a granddaughter by her grandfather.  It has been getting more and more attention by the local population there and the president thought it would be appropriate to bring it to us to share.

Then we had a wonderful meal prepared by the local members in Salzburg with appetizers, main course and dessert provided for the two zones in attendance.  President Kohler has been doing this all over the mission which is quite widespread and this was their fourth time in celebrating this season appropriately.  At the conclusion of the meal he had the members who had helped prepared the meal come into the cultural hall where we all sang the great missionary hymn "Called to Serve."  We tried to get a small portion of it on video and hopefully it will transmit:​

Following the meal the President acted like something special was about to happen and he was right.  He had managed to acquire a non-distributable copy of "Meet the Mormons" which we thoroughly enjoyed. We presume that most if not all of you have seen it but if not, spend the money and go or wait until it's out on DVD.  Especially significant for the elders and sisters was the last episode on the young mother who'd had a very difficult life but was now sending her oldest son on a mission.  It rang true for everyone there and there were more than just a few moist eyes.

    ​

So having spent most of the day in Salzburg and getting home late enough to know better, we still spent a little time organizing ourselves for the weekend.  Friday night, instead of the usual waffle night agenda, the young adults decided they wanted to do a little Christmas caroling and scheduled it to start about 5 PM.  The sun does down here now about 4 in the afternoon and it's pretty dark by an early dinner time so at 5 we had about 6 sisters with no brothers.  Sounded like an alto/soprano event when finally three brethren showed up.  They had arranged to sing to several selected people all over the city and by the time we got going it was almost 5:45.  One of the groups needed a good bass or tenor and because Elder Parker can usually sing either, it was decided that we would accompany one group of 4 sisters and a brother and another group of 5 with 2 brethren would head in a different direction.  Sister Parker elected to stay at the center by herself in case anyone else showed up who hadn't gotten the message and off we went.  

Our first stop was about a half hour away on a subway and then transferring to a streetcar and was a very sweet sister who was completely bedridden, getting just a little dementia but knew her music like an ace.  We had to wait while her home nurses finished up and left for the evening and she had another member who has been very dutiful in taking care of her who then let us in.  We gathered around her bedside and proceeded to carol her extensively.  She even sang a little Christmas carol I wasn't familiar with but the YSA's knew and then asked if we would sing an old carol that she had the words for which was in an ancient Austrian dialect.  As it turned out, I had actually heard the tune the previous week as it was sung at the Primary celebration so it was just a bit familiar although I had no idea what most of the words were saying.  But it was a very warm and emotional time singing to her and we think she greatly appreciated our coming.  Next we headed up into the center of the city near the big St. Stephens Cathedral and found an apartment that had been expecting us about 45 minutes earlier.  As it turned out, despite phone calls and multiple door ringing, no answer was achieved and we decided the sister had likely turned in early and wouldn't be aroused.  By this time we were pushing 7:30 and decided it was time to return to the center.  

One of our members had purchased a ticket that had expired after it's 12 hour limit and so everyone decided we would walk from the center of town to the YSA center.  I knew the way but it still took a good half hour to accomplish.  Fortunately, I had purchased a good warm hat which covered my freezing ears and by the time we got back, Sister Parker had welcomed the other group back and still had enough waffles left to supply the stragglers.  They enjoyed playing two of the games we had brought along, "It Came to Pass" and "Spot it" with good enthusiasm but we got home again pretty late.  

Saturday was a day of shopping for a few small Christmas presents and also needed to see if we could find a replacement for an old gas oven that when lit has a tendency to singe the elders' eyebrows.  Not much luck finding one that would fit in their apartment so maybe we can see what it would take to put an electric oven in which is much safer and much less expensive.  That evening we spent at the International Ward, enjoying their Christmas Party and especially a bunch of kids that reminded us of many of our grandchildren.  The Young Men and Young Women did a very nice shadow display of the Christmas story and about five or six families participated in the show which was very typical international with songs from Africa and a very intriguing dance and song from the Philippines.

So today was Third Advent and we decided to visit two wards.  As it turned out, the first one we visited in the morning, we being totally unawares, featured all of the YSA's in the ward who presented the entire sacrament meeting.  During Sunday School time they rehearsed a cute little song dating back quite a few years and reminding me somewhat of the song above which we sang for the bedridden sister above, known as the Yodeler's Devotional.  Sister Parker didn't feel she could handle it but Elder Parker ended up sitting on the stand with the rest of the YSA choir and we took part in a short pre-meeting presentation.  

One of our new members who just celebrated his one year anniversary in the church had the responsibility of speaking on spirituality and had called us last night seeking some good scriptures.  We gave him about 7 or 8 and I had the pleasure of sitting near him in the choir, congratulating him as he did a great job with his part.  Sitting right in front of me was a young returned missionary sister who speaks perfect English and was recognized as finally getting her visa and thus leaving this week to take up residence in Salt Lake where she will be working at the U of U Medical Center helping with colon cancer research.  We'll have to see if Ruslana can maybe look her up once she gets there.  A surprise speaker at the conclusion of the meeting was a member of the Third Quorum of Seventy who was visiting Vienna with his wife.  He's a native German but we talked with them afterwards and they both also speak excellent English.

This afternoon we visited the International Ward for their meetings and helped with a somewhat spontaneous Sunday School class for the one investigator present and otherwise finished up with the group that had entertained us the night previously.  We got home in time to enjoy a wonderful dinner cooked up by Sister Parker.

We have received several Christmas cards and a few packages from many of you and as we type this we're listening to some great Christmas music that was shipped in with one of the packages.

Happy Third Advent and hope your day is filled with JOY! (Note the neat Christmas mugs and one of our recent acquisitions at one of the Christmas markets of the Bremen City Musicians where Sister Parker served 47 years ago--the donkey, dog, cat and rooster all stackable on each other.    It is very awesome and very meaningful to me.)

  Oh, how fun it is to spend Christmas in Vienna. It is like Christmas city with festive things and markets on every corner and while we don't have any snow, we do have cold crispy air and it feels like Christmas. Christmas is such a wonderful and difficult thing because it holds so many memories and so much emotion. Memories of past Christmas' in Germany as a missionary, Christmas when our children were young, extended family Christmas', Christmas with our young marrieds and grandchildren, all wonderful memories. Its hard to be away and we wish we could be with all of you, but we think of you often and hope you will have a joyous Christmas time. We also hope you will take time to reflect on Jesus,  "He IsThe Gift  --  Discover the Gift  - Embrace the gift - and Share the Gift."  That is the message we are sharing as missionaries and hope that you will have opportunities to share it also. 

With Lots of Love,    

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

The Advent Spirit is Strong!

Dear Family,

It's hard to believe that the weeks keep getting better and better.  Certainly the holiday season has a lot to do with it as the Spirit of Christmas seems to permeate everything here in Austria just as it does around the rest of the Christian world.  Many of you will remember our traditional Advents calendar that we always hang on the pantry door in the kitchen every December.  The kids always like to place a little figure on the tree every day in December from the 1st through the 24th and we've been doing that for years ever since being trained in Germany many years ago.  Well it's very special here for everyone and so we've purchased TWO Advent's calendars with one very traditional kind here hiding a yummy piece of chocolate underneath the date and so far we've been able to enjoy 7 pieces of yummy candy during the past week.  Our other Advent's calendar is just a fun one opening a little cover to reveal something special underneath.  The overlying picture is of a street scene in Dickens' England with a young boy underneath number one right in front of a shop labelled Dicken's Books.  When you fold back the cover he's carrying a large pumpkin, two showing a toy shop window which adds a teddy bear hanging in the window when you pull it back.  three grows a yummy multi-layered cake from three to six layers, four has a squirrel eating out of a girl's hand that was empty before pulling the card back, etc.  It's lots of fun and we'll try and save the calendars to use again next year when we'll be home prior to the first of advent if we can talk Sister Parker out of a big long touring trip hauling five big pieces of luggage along with us!

The big events of the week were our last district meeting with Elder Pugmire who returns to Utah and should have arrived by last Friday.  He went out in style with a baptism just five days before he left and asked if he could borrow Elder Parker's white tie!  So here it is, perhaps as close as it will get to a baptism this mission but who knows.  

The young man being baptized is from Pakistan and has been in our Institute class for the past several weeks.  He asked if he could bear his testimony after the closing song of the service and just before the closing prayer and it was very touching to feel the Spirit as he told us of his love for the Savior.

     On Thursday we became a trio as one of the sweet sisters left to serve in Stuttgart and we were her former companions protectors.  Sister Bushman left around 9 AM and her replacement, Sister Anjaloudis didn't come in until about 7 PM.  They'll be an interesting pair as the new senior comes from Australia and our continuing junior comes from Saudi Arabia (though American by ancestry.)  But she's lived there for well over a decade and is used to only being able to drive while on the American compound as women aren't allowed to drive elsewhere in the country.  

We had three other new elders come into Vienna with the transfer and most came by the center on Friday night which turned out to be wonderful as we had 7 of our Iranian family appear.  This time they came in time for waffles, none of them knowing what waffles were beforehand but it was really a very sociable evening.  We just naturally divided up into various groups with missionaries placing themselves amongst each group and they're finally starting to ask questions about what makes the church different from the other churches around.  The young adults had dedicated the night to making cookies and so everyone pitched in. One of the groups was decorating with little sparkles and one of the Iranian men became very philosophical with his decorations symbolizing an evil influence with chocolate sprinkles being overcome by the radiant sunshine of the white, yellow, green and red sprinkles.  It was a lot more complicated than that but fit into their Zoroastrian thinking about life.  He was also quite an accomplished piano player and was impressed with a newly returned missionary who was present and has been called to the Stake Young Adult Council who sat down and tickled the ivories for a few minutes. and I think helped further establish the fact that these Mormons are a cultured group.  They finally asked for pictures and so we took some too.

 Saturday we finally had a chance to have a real P day and got out to two or three more Christmas markets around town. Dad finally broke down and let Mom get a few neat souvenirs of a Christmas in Vienna which will grace the decorations in the future.  We also finished mailing off a few Christmas packages which will hopefully arrive before the great day. Of the 29 different markets around town, each one with it's own special flavor, we've actually been able to visit about 10 of them, many for just a quick walk through.  Later we were able to get to two different ward celebrations.  Saturday is St. Nicholas Day and we saw St. Nicholas both at Schoenbrunn, the fancy castle we have visited with everyone who has come as well as visiting the Primary at the Vienna 5th Ward.  

Not exactly a Santa Claus image but around here it's the Christ child who brings the gifts on Christmas Eve. 

We then moved to the 2nd Ward at the Stake Center where the Young Adults had practiced a cute dance number for part of the entertainment.  

Unfortunately the light was poor and the picture is fuzzy but there was a little more of a Santa Claus guy present. 

Today we got off early to travel to the First Ward for Fast and Testimony meeting.  Our baptizee from last week was confirmed and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost and I felt like we were back in our young adult ward in Utah as the lines to bear testimony were always four to five people long. With time expiring we still had three people get up at the end of the meeting to bear testimony as they just couldn't stay in their seats.  We'd already heard from a 90 year old and two 80 year olds, one of whom was helped up to the podium by the bishop's 1st counselor and another young man waiting to bear his testimony.  One of the late testifiers looked very familiar and it turned out she was the sister of our stake president, Howard Bangerter and former General President of the Relief Society, Julie Beck!  She brought up as a translator a young medical student we know well who did a great job of getting it right in German.  

We had a nice visit after the meeting and they had lots of family connections which brought them to that particular ward as they're touring Europe.  The medical student mentioned she is now on a gynecology rotation and has lots of ethical questions and we're going to meet sometime this week to share some of the wisdom gained in 40 years of practice.  The spirit was very strong and we can't remember a better meeting anywhere at any time.  Also visiting was a just released sister who had served in Vienna and was touring with her family.  She left Vienna in April just prior to our arrival in May so we hadn't known her but her parents had both served missions in Germany, one in Hamburg and the other in Frankfurt.  They met while teaching at the MTC, That sounds a little familiar, right Matt and Heidi?

So, Happy Second Advent everyone and we'll see how the next week goes.

Love, Mom and Dad, 

Grammy and Grampa, 

Elder and Sister Parker

A FULL Week of Thanksgiving!

Dearest Family,

As might have been evident by the long delay in our last letter, it has been a very busy week, starting with last weekend.  We decided that it would be fun to provide a full Thanksgiving dinner for all of the missionaries here in Vienna.  The entire zone includes several missionaries who live at quite a distance and it seemed that most of them were already being taken care of by their local wards.  But there were still 14 elders and sisters who were right here in our immediate area comprising the greater part of three different districts.  We initially proposed that we celebrate on Thanksgiving Day itself but there was a little hesitation about devoting some time away from a normal working day and a couple of them indicated that our predecessors had done the same thing on the normal P day last year, that being Monday.  So we decided to do the same and actually found a couple of small turkeys in one of the stores.  That's a rare thing as most Europeans are happy with duck or goose so we snatched up two of them about 7-8 pounds each.  

We decided we would pick up everything else on Saturday and then it would be fresh for Monday as we got it all prepared. Saturday is usually OUR Pday but the previous Saturday we had spent trying to get an apartment ready that really had some major problems that we have talked about before, and our district leader announced that the next Saturday would be a special district meeting with President Kohler in attendance to interview everyone in the zone.  That would take two days, Friday and Saturday and our district was told to come on Saturday at 1 PM.  We were the last group and sort of assumed that we'd be all done within 2-3 hours, getting away by 4 PM at the latest. Apparently the previous mission president had always been fairly efficient with his interviews, allotting a specific time to each missionary. Not so with President Kohler who felt each interview should take as much time as was necessary.  Senior couples are typically the last ones interviewed and so we were actually finished about 5:45.

Now you need to understand that Austria is not like the US with Saturday being a big shopping day.  Generally speaking, at least as far as the businesses are concerned, all the sidewalks are pulled in by 6 or 6:30 at the latest.  If you want to go to the opera, symphony or the theater, that's a different thing but if you're looking to buy Thanksgiving goodies, we figured we might have 45 minutes at the most to get into the store for our purchases.  We hopped on the subway which would have taken us about 15 minutes to get to our desired store and sat and sat and sat until they announced that there was an electrical problem with the system and there would be considerable delay.  Everyone disembarked and we looked for another way to get into the city from the outskirts where we had been interviewed.  One of the tram operators indicated which line we should pick up, across a plaza and heading into town and it was really crowded and most of those who had left the subway were doing the same thing.  We realized immediately that this was going to be a long ride and after about two stops they announced a transfer point to a different subway we were familiar with.  We decided to hop off the tram and grab the new subway line with the result that something that should have normally been about 6 stops, turned into 18.  By the time we got to our intended destination it was just after 7 and the store had been closed for a half hour. We remembered one store in a different station that remained open every day until 10 PM and there we picked up our corn, other veggies, cranberry sauce and the fixings for the dressing, getting home just after 9 PM.  

Early the next morning we had scheduled a visit to one of the outlying wards that required us to get up at 5 AM, catch a train and then from the destination train station, walk about a half hour to the chapel.  Probably not the best decision considering but one of the sweet young adult sisters who has been newly called as the Stake YSA leader and whose father is the bishop of the ward we were attending offered to drive us back to the train station on our way home.  That was a real blessing and after grabbing a quick bite we headed off to the center where we only have one oven so that Mom could make and bake the pumpkin pies for the next day. We decided Saturday night to pick up some extra turkey breasts that we could use Monday night after the missionaries had eaten for Home Evening and so pre-cooked those at home for a couple of hours anyway late Sunday night after baking the pumpkin pies in the center.  You see why we had no time to write a letter that weekend.

Monday we were up again at 6 and got to the center early to start baking the turkeys and the dressing.  Mom was really putting her all into it as she usually does and I set up a bunch of tables and chairs.  We decided that we would do it up right and instead of using plastic plates and utensils, we found some table cloths, real china and silverware, pretty orange napkins and fancy glassware that had been stored high in some cupboards.  We found several good pictures depicting various Thanksgiving themes including the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and some great cartoons from Peanuts that we used for decorations.  All in all it looked quite festive.

About 1 PM the elders and sisters began to arrive with many bringing some assigned food like golden carrots, rolls, whipped cream, mashed potatoes and one of the elders, our district leader who finishes his mission in a week brought some yummy Apple Crisp for dessert.  We had a wonderful and delightful Thanksgiving celebration and most were able to stay for 2-3 hours.

By the time everyone had finished with warm hugs and great feelings of appreciation, we cleaned up, the missionaries helping quite a bit and then they all left, with us then getting ready for home evening in a few hours.  We finished up cooking the extra turkey breasts, had some pumpkin pie and plenty of dressing left over and put on the equivalent of a second dinner that evening.  Elder Parker had the assignment for the spiritual thought and made a presentation on the importance of family history, passing out the little booklet "My Family" to all who were there.  We had both filled our personal booklets out placing pictures of everyone in them up through all of our great grandparents, most of which we were able to find on line in Family Search.  A few of the missionaries came back with investigators and so had their second Thanksgiving dinner that day!

Tuesday we finally had a little bit of a break and that's when we wrote last week's letter but had another good attendance at the language classes.  One young lady walked in wanting to learn better German. Interestingly she comes from Hungary but spoke pretty good English. She works as a make-up artist and had worked for a year in Frankfurt with English speaking film makers and then returned to Hungary where she got married and returned to Vienna with her husband.  Elder Parker took her in hand personally and told her she was a real godsend because we have a young Hungarian man, a member of the church who speaks very little English and equally little German who we've been trying to work with and improve his German with great difficulty because we have no common language to work with.  So we spent an hour with her going over some basic vocabulary and I indicated that if she would return on Thursday, our other Hungarian should be present and if she was willing to help translate for us, we could then work on the German language together.  She was very willing.  It's always fun when we get a chance to teach personally.  At the end of the day the sisters came by and we broke out the turkey leftovers for Thanksgiving number 3.

We then had to scramble a bit to get ready for the Institute class that Elder Parker teaches on Wednesday and that took up most of the extra time available that morning.  We meet every couple of weeks with the Institute Council, usually at 7:30 in the morning on a Thursday and so that looked like our beginning of the actual Thanksgiving holiday.  In two tender mercies, first we got an email telling us that no one could make it on Thursday morning and so they were going to delay it for a week. Hurray!  Then we received a phone call from a sweet brother in one of the wards, inviting us for the real Thanksgiving dinner at his house.  We had previously been invited there one time before way back in June when we first arrived.  He's a retired attorney who married a delightful wife originating from Mongolia.  He does have some major health problems with diabetes and is essentially blind. He was recently in the hospital with a heart attack but seems to be doing much better now. They speak excellent English and he's fun to talk to because he's been everywhere.  (We finally determined that he'd never been to Japan or Portugal.  You name any other country and he's been there.)  He indicated he had invited 8 other missionaries including our zone leaders and district leader and asked if we'd like to come.  Of course we said yes! and he asked us to be there by 12:30. More turkey with all the trimmings and even a home-baked cake with ice cream!

It was truly a delightful time and we decided to show our appreciation by offering them a bouquet of flowers, note on the left in the last picture. 

That evening we had our language classes again with another session with our new Hungarian woman but unfortunately our other Hungarian member didn't come so we're still waiting for that all to finalize.  But we told her we usually start each session with prayer which she was very willing to do.  We have also started meeting with an older member who wants to perfect his English and so Elder Parker also spends an hour with him once a week, just discussing our lives.  He seems like a very warm man who found his wife by direction of the Spirit before he was a member.  But they've been married for thirty-three years and members for thirty and have yet to be sealed in the temple.  That's our real goal, to see those blessings actualized.  Thursday night it was our fifth Thanksgiving dinner with lots of left overs still around from Monday and Tuesday, the good fortune of all who host fancy dinners.

That brings us to Thursday evening.  We got home a little earlier than sometimes and Elder Parker spent the evening bringing up Christmas music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, all on line.  It was really quite fun because the selections went back over all the previous Christmas specials.  Kate was all over the place and Jessica was really well featured in a Silent Night selection.  Finally spotted Sam in a very quick glimpse but it took a long time to find Laurel.  At last she was there, seated on an aisle in (I think) a Sandi Patty special but once we'd spotted her we could pick her out in every shot of the women.  I even saw Frank Bentley from high school who's long retired, and good old Brother Crapo from Alpine.  Last summer we met one of the clarinetists in the Orchestra on Temple Square who was here in Vienna on vacation and so he's now a familiar face we see often and of course Brother Smith who is a tenor and always easy to see, three of whose children I have delivered.  It was really old home week and brought the beginning of the Christmas season right to the front.  By now the lights should be turned on at Temple Square. 

We saw an opportunity to purchase a Christmas tree of our very own at one of the building marts here, kind of a Home Depot like place and for 10 Euros we got ourselves a cute little two foot tree with all the decorations which we put up, as tradition goes, on the day after Thanksgiving after we got home from a good Waffle Night.  That also entailed setting up for a huge get-together today for about 60 young adults who gathered to make Advent Wreaths, a great European tradition. The four Sundays prior to Christmas are Advent Sundays and the Christmas season really begins on First Advent even though they're just like the rest of the world with commercial Christmas banging down the door by Halloween.  So we had to set up every table in the place and move a bunch of others from classrooms into the big assembly room so everyone could gather to use real evergreen boughs with decorations, ribbons, candles and just about anything else you can imagine.  

Mom was learning her way and so was I as we heated up little metal rods to push inside our candles and then insert them into the wreaths before using hot glue to attach a variety of other decorations.

Note all the pine boughs back in the corner.

Seated at the table to Mom's right (left in the photo) are Chris and Rahel, newly weds.  She was really good at this wreath making and her husband is a policeman leading the way for Brian.  He showed up one night in full uniform and I thought we were really in for it until they told me he was a member.  Here's the final product already to have its first candle lit tomorrow.

And finally, our impressive Christmas decorations, at least one view. 

Stay tuned for future letters to see the rest of the apartment.

  

(Sister Parker) I must say it was a lot of fun making a wreath from fresh pine boughs, but it took a lot of work to build it around the base. I'm going to try to remember how its done and maybe do one next year at home. They made 60 at the Center today. It was quite a delightful day with sisters of all ages  working together and even a few single young men in the group.

    How grateful we are to be able to work with these faithful young adults. It has truly been a blessing to sit in Family Home Evening with them and to feel their great spirit. Last Monday as we sang "Oh My Father" in preparation for the lesson on Family History the spirit rang out so boldly it touched my soul. These young people are the strength of the church here in Austria. We are also grateful for all the love and support we get from family and friends at home. May we always live so that the blessings of the Lord may surround us. I'm thankful for each and everyone of you.

   

LOVE AND HUGS   

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder & Sister Parker

Inspectors General!

Dearest Family,

Wow, it seems like a long time since we last wrote and I guess that's because it has been.  Part of the reason we won't tell you in this letter is because it really belongs in next week's letter but suffice it to say that it has been a very busy weekend with not much time until now to get our weekly letter off.  It's about 10:30 PM on a Tuesday night as this is written and we're finally coming up for a little air.  Trying to find out where we left off, we realized we didn't put a title on our last letter so I guess we could call it "the Lord's Tender Mercies."

So anyway, as you gathered from that letter, the Christmas season seems to be off in full swing here in Austria and with everything coming up we decided we'd better get all of the apartments inspected that we're responsible for.  That meant that we needed to get all the outlying apartments done that are over an hour's train ride away.  We already reported on getting to St. Poelton last week but that left two apartments down in Wiener Neustadt that we'd only inspected once previously in the entire six months we've been here.  One of them had no lights in the bathroom and the elders were showering and shaving by the light of a small heat lamp they put in there.  We had been bugging them a bit on getting out to a store and buying two new fluorescent light bulbs to see if that was the only problem and it turns out they finally did that and voila!, they had light again.  The distance to walk from the train station to their apartment takes about 30 minutes and it's much colder now that the last time we went but at least the exercise kept us warmed up.  From the first apartment it was another good 30 minutes to walk to the second apartment.  Although they do have some bus lines, it's about on the equivalent of what we get in Utah with buses coming every half hour or so if you're lucky so it just proved easier to walk. 

The second apartment used to house three sisters but since they finally found a companion for the third sister, they decided to move the other two to Vienna and put some elders in the apartment instead.  One of the things we check on is to make sure their carbon monoxide sensors are working as well as their smoke alarms.  Most apartments have just one of the latter but this one turned out to have three.  But only one of them was working and we discovered that the other two didn't have any batteries.  I guess one is enough for most of the apartments in this mission but we decided that it wasn't that big a deal as long as they had them to get some batteries installed in their two extras.  When we finished up it was another 30 minute walk back to the train station.  We had left about 8 in the morning and got back to the station for the ride home about 1 PM.  The ride in had taken about 45 minutes of actual travel time and we took the first train leaving to get back figuring it would be about the same.  But NOOO.  It turns out we got the real local ride which stopped in every little village along the way and it was a good hour and a half before we arrived back home.  It was however quite scenic to stop and see the countryside along the way so it wasn't too bad.  We've been reading every day in the Book of Mormon in German and despite the fact that a few people might be listening, we figured it couldn't hurt them to hear a little scripture so we read along the way.

As we reached into the brief case to pull out our papers we discovered a cute little chocolate bar along with a nifty folded paper in the shape of a white shirt and tie with a message on the back from the first elders we had inspected.  They had slipped it into the briefcase while we weren't looking and thanked us for taking care of them as their parents would have done.  We were touched by their kind gesture:)

The rest of the week was pretty routine with good turnouts to all of the daily activities.  We had about 50 people to Institute night and we're getting around 20 now to the language courses on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  One new brother is a member who was actually passing the sacrament at the ward we attended last week and he came once to try and polish his English, attending first, the basic beginners course but then decided it was too elementary for what he needed.  So Elder Parker decided to get directly involved and teach him the finer points of English conversation which was what he needed.  We started off just telling each other about our lives and he proceeded to tell us that he had been a member for about 30 years having left Poland during the years of the Solidarity movement when he and his family moved to Vienna.  He originally joined with a small group of other Poles but stated that he and his wife were now the only active members of the original group and he had no idea where the others had gone.  We had spent some time telling about our family and so as he was finishing his story we realized that he had been a member for 30 years.  So we naturally asked the question of when he first went to the temple.  To our surprise, he hadn't yet been to the temple at all.  So there is obviously much more to his story than we yet know and we suspect there may be some good we can do there in trying to motivate the family a little more.  He's passing the sacrament so we suspect there is possibly  an issue with his wife somewhere.

Our district meetings are usually held each Tuesday.  Following this meeting it had been decided to eat lunch at our favorite local Wiener Schnitzel restaurant that has favored elders for about 40 years.  It generally happens just about every transfer and here is the attendance this week.

At the end of the meeting we were informed that President Kohler would be in town on Saturday for interviews and we'd hold another district meeting while the interviews were going on as well as get some personal instruction from our mission president.  He's very good about taking whatever time is necessary with his interviews so the rest of us stayed busy until it was our turn with some interesting Gospel activities and discussions.  Seniors tend to be last on the interview schedule and so the meeting on Saturday started about 1 but we weren't out of there until almost 6.  Saturday being our P day it really put a crimp in our style as we had decided to have a special Thanksgiving dinner for all of the elders in Vienna on their regular P day which would be the next Monday.  So we really needed to get out of there and do some shopping.  Austria is definitely not like the US and even the big city pulls in its sidewalks around 6 PM as far as all the stores go.  Fortunately we found a grocery store in one of the train stations we go through that is open 7 days a week until 10 PM, a real rarity but saved us as we had to pick up quite a few things or else shop on Sunday which we would never have done.  More about all of that next week.

(Sister Parker) A few extra details of our weekly activities. We had to visit 4 different apartments for inspections and arrive early in the morning so we could fit the rest of the days activities in our schedule. That wears on us because we rarely get to bed before midnight, getting home most nights after 10:00 pm.-- so much for missionary bedtimes which are 10:30 pm. The other fun adventure we had was on Saturday when we were trying to fit in all our p-day preparations. Late from the Mission Pres. interviews we took a bus from the church to the Ubahn or subway only to find that the Bahn was not running because of problems on the line. Finally we asked someone where we could catch another bus or Strassenbahn (street car) and boarded only to have it stop every couple of blocks. By the time we got to the main station the store in it had closed so we had to take another slow bahn to another Station that had a store that stayed open until 10 pm. We couldn't believe we had such a hard time getting the food we needed to start cooking on Sunday Night. Then of course we had to be up at 5:30 am. to take us to one of the out lying wards. No rest for the weary we again had to be up by 6 am for Mondays activities. Hopefully this next week will bring a little more, much needed sleep. 

 The admonition for this week is: "Early to bed, early to raise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."  Healthy and wise is what I'm  trying for. 

Love you all and grateful for you all. 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker