Sunday, June 29, 2014

Institute Closes for the Summer

Dear Family,   

As you all start preparing for the big summer reunions, we are going through some milestones as well. Grandpa has been teaching an Institute class on Wednesday nights and this past week was a review of the last quarter and the final formal week before everyone adds up their credits and moves on.  We had a quite interesting time reviewing all sorts of interesting things that the Pearl of Great Price teaches us that aren't so well explained in other scriptures plus had a little fun like asking everyone questions like if Methuselah lived longer than any other person in mortality how come his father lived longer than he did?


Yesterday was a big party and outing to commemorate the closure of the school year.  We started out with an hour's train ride early on a Saturday morning to an outlying ward known as Wiener Neustadt. We'd been there once before just a couple of weeks ago but still managed to head off by foot for 45 minutes in the wrong direction. Luckily they had our phone number and sent a car to rescue us so we could help put together a lovely brunch before they had a nice commemorative meeting and then headed out on a lovely hike up a watery course filled with waterfalls known as Myrafaelle.  I've attached a few photos to give you an idea plus some shots of the young people we deal with on a daily basis.  After three or four hours of hiking and playing games we came back to Vienna to the YSA Center to watch Brazil finally beat Chile in a long drawn out soccer match in the World Cup while Grammy worked for quite a while preparing open faced sandwiches for everyone to eat for dinner. She also helped prepare about a hundred and fifty tacos that were served after a special Singles ward sacrament meeting that was held in the center today as part of the Institute certificate passing out ceremonies. It was a busy lovely time and we didn't get much of a P day in this week.  Family Home Evening is tomorrow night and we'll see if anyone is still hanging around but we had people in from as far away as Salzburg, Linz, Klagenfurt and even met the senior couple who work in Salzburg who had driven in to support about six or eight of their youth who had come too.


We're also learning about some of our other responsibilities like replacing or repairing broken washing machines, stoves, refrigerators in the missionaries' apartments etc. which seems to have jumped on us all together. We've priced some replacements but it was hard to raise the mission office personnel as we just lost President and Sister Miles a few days ago to be replaced by President and Sister Kohler.They are all busy getting them oriented and moved in so we'll try them again tomorrow to see if we can finish all of that up.

On the more typical missionary side of things, because we were at the center on the weekend which we typically aren't we just happened to get all kinds of passerby who stopped in to check on our free language courses.  I met one lady who really wants to learn English but seemed very curious about the church.  Were we Catholic, Lutheran?  I explained to her that we were the restored Church of Jesus Christ and ended up sharing the Joseph Smith story with her and talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon in our religion.  She graciously accepted a copy which I gave her and said she'd be back on Tuesday when we offer the classes.  On the same day, Grammy had the opportunity to teach a lesson with one of the sister missionaries and also felt she could handle the German pretty well, at least enough to bear her testimony also about the Book of Mormon.  The other two sisters had a lesson at the same time and they were really having a booming day with 7 lessons given in all.  It was quite a busy day and we'll see how the coming week goes. Our washing machine broke down briefly and Grammy was the ace who figured out how to go online for repair instructions which worked very well and we're getting our washing finally done after sitting around in wet wash baskets for about 2-3 days.

I guess Warren and Marilyn Clark should be home by now and we're excited to hear about all of their experiences.  We've been watching a few of their lovely pictures on Facebook as they have posted them. Everybody have a great 4th of July.  It will be Waffle Night for us so we think we'll do red white and blue waffles somehow, maybe with strawberries, whipped cream and blueberry toppings or something like that!

    (From Mom) Lest you should think that I am really awesome, I don't handle all that cooking and preparing by myself, only dinner on Mondays and Friday night Waffles. For the Institute activities there are a couple of other sisters who are in charge and I just help them out as much as I can and enjoy, talking and sharing things about every day life with them. We have fun laughing over my German-English and whatever it takes to understand each other.  They have all ready become "dear to me", as have the sister missionaries. The sisters are teaching German and gospel lessons to the young woman we met from Kazahkstan.  She has come to Waffle Night on Fridays and likes helping me with one of the sister missionaries. She loves waffles and making them. Last Friday I let her mix up all the batches and do most of the cooking; she is great at making big fluffing ones.  She has also become my dear little friend (she is small) and on Saturday while having a lesson with the sisters, she said she was thinking about baptism. We are all so happy about that. 


    As Dad said, yesterday and today was the Institute closing. So we took an hour train ride to one of our outer wards, helped fix Brunch, and then went on a great hike to some water falls. After the whole party moved to our Center for dinner, which is really "abend brot ", meaning we had open face sandwiches that we helped to fix. It was rather chaotic but a lot of fun for the young adults who played games & watched the world soccer games. But while that was going on one of the Sis. Missionaries asked me to help teach a discussion to an investigator with her because her other 2 companions were already teaching in another room. It was my first real teaching missionary experience even mostly in German. It was a sweet tender mercy the Lord gave me to feel the spirit of the work and to show me I could do it.  I was a able to share some thoughts & testimony in German. I felt blessed.  

Love you all and hope you have a great 4th of July and getting together for family reunion. 

Mom, Dad, Grammy, Grampa (Oma and Opa) -- Elder and Sister Parker

Saturday, June 28, 2014

7 Bishops and a Stake President

Liebe Familie,

Well, it has been another great week.  We really feel like we're getting our feet on the ground now.  Monday night your mother made great Poppy Seed chicken Casserole  from scratch for about 25 people and when only about half that many showed up, she was able to freeze the second batch for another evening coming up.  Everyone remarked on how great it tasted.  For Friday with the waffles we had a better showing than the previous week when everyone was involved in finals. The World Cup is on as some of you soccer fans may know and the stake has opted to set up a video transmitter so we can show two or three of the games every night.  We see them live from Rio de Janeiro and I think we're only about 5 hours ahead of Brazil so it isn't too late in the evening.

We have a new BYU group that came in this past week, all music students again with a french horn player, several piano and violin students and one older woman with 5 kids who used to be a member of the Tabernacle Choir and is looking for permission from the Stake President to get into the chapel and practice the organ.  So far we haven't been able to contact him but I'm working through one of his counselors who has contacts with our Institute Advisory Council and the Youth Center to see if it can be arranged.  At any rate I was humming a few bars of this great french horn solo from one of Beehoven's symphonies which impressed him and so then I had to sing him several lines from the chorale symphony (#9) which I memorized years ago in German (O du schoene Goetter funken, Tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, himmlishce dein Heiligtum.)  Well you get the idea and have had enough of it I'm sure but we became fast friends.

He has been attending my class on the Pearl of Great Price which is given on Wednesday nights at Institute.  We have been talking about Moroni's visits on September 22-23, 1823 out of Joseph Smith-History and we discussed the fact that one of the scriptures cited by Moroni at that time Joel 2:28-32 was cited by Moroni as not yet fulfilled but soon would be.  I then commented that President Hinckley had indicated in General Conference following the 9-11 attacks, that that prophecy had now been fulfilled.  He looked it up and emailed me the exact quote from October Conference.  It turns out that he served a mission in Russia and last Friday was very actively involved in a discussion with a young lady we have introduced to the center who comes from Kazahkstan and is here studying in Vienna.  She had spent a year in Taylorsville as a foreign exchange student, speaks excellent English but needs to brush up on her German now that she's here and we told her we offered both English and German courses free of charge at the center on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She's been having such a good time that she decided to come to waffle night as well, speaks fluent Russian from her days when Kazahkstan was part of the Soviet Union and they fell into an  animated conversation which was joined by a recent convert to the church who spent quite some time in Ukraine. I just sat and listened to the three of them as they talked, enjoying it immensely but not understanding anything that was said. The Ukrainian young man told us he was just baptized in April and that discussion led into my asking him what priesthood he now held.  Turns out he hadn't yet been ordained to any priesthood and so we're now encouraging him to get to priesthood meeting, arrange a visit with the Bishop and see if he can't become at least an Aaronic Priesthood holder before much more time passes.  I somehow doubt that any of this is coincidental so it's nice to know we're having an impact beyond just cooking for the Young Adults.  By the way, our young lady from Kazahkstan tried her hand for the first time at cooking waffles and turned out to be a natural!

Today we decided to visit the only ward we hadn't yet been to since our arrival, and became aware that they were celebrating their 40th year as a ward and the 30th year since they had moved into their new ward house.  They had a special meeting which went two hours and was attended by many who at one time or another had been in the ward.  Speakers included three sisters and 7 of the brothers all of whom had been a bishop in the ward at one time or another including the present bishop and then the Stake President concluded the meeting.  It was really a wonderful two hours of how the church grows and progresses.  Two of the bishops mentioned how recently they had joined the church when they had been called as bishops.  One of them had only been endowed for six months when he was called and made the comment that the seminary students knew the gospel better than he did.  So as a result, for 4 of the 5 or so years he was bishop, he took early morning seminary with the youth in his ward so he'd have a better chance to know the details of the gospel.  After the meeting, I was talking with one of the old bishops who commented further that he had been called as a branch president before he'd even been to the temple and yet was interviewing many of his members for temple recommends.  Ah the pioneer spirit was alive and well today. They had  a special box they wanted everyone to leave a message in and they were going to seal it up and then open it again in 30 more years.  So we wrote how fortunate it was for us to be in the ward for the first time on their 40th anniversary!   Doubt anyone will remember us 30 years from now but I have every expectation that we'll have faced the Second Coming by then.

Yesterday we took a little excursion on our P day up a small little mountain to the north of Vienna.  I'll include a few pictures of the wonderful view we had from the top. Along the way we stumbled upon 3 of the 4 homes that Beethoven lived in and in the close neighborhood was a house that Einstein had lived in for about 7 years.  During the last week I noticed a tour guide stopping across the street from our Youth Center with about 15-20 people listening to his announcements.  After they left I walked  over and noticed that in the house across the street from where we've been working for a month, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1952 had lived, one Albert Schweizer.  So who would have ever known? Here's one of Beethoven's homes.


The lovely Danube River just before entering Vienna.  Below is the view looking downstream as it courses through the city proper.  


I don't know who that old guy is not wearing missionary attire but it was a hot day and a lot of climbing so that was the excuse.  


Love, Mom and Dad.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Locked in the Zentral Friedhof!

Dear Family:

Time for our weekly report from the beautiful city of Vienna.  According to our favorite son from Germany, Markus, Vienna is the city in all of Europe with the highest income, lowest poverty and most cleanly.  He reports that getting lost in Vienna, which we have done a few times is more of a great experience than something to worry about.  I think we would echo that.





This past week started off with a three day holiday as Europe in general and Austria in particular celebrated Pentecost.  I suspect the actual event of the apostles and the early Christian church experiencing the advent of the Holy Ghost is probably lost on most of the celebrants but a holiday is a holiday and we were happy to take some time to explore the city a bit as the Youth Center was closed because of the celebration.  It followed a lesser celebration but still noted of Christ's Ascension to Heaven which was the previous Thursday.  Most of the holidays seem oriented to significant events in the life of the Savior or the early church.  We can't hold a candle in the U.S. to events that are being advertised around the city and on various signs here and there, especially while waiting for a subway to come or such like one little city that is celebrating its 900th anniversary this summer.  Columbus wouldn't come along for another 378 years at that time!  So we decided we'd spend part of the day exploring the Central Cemetery which was anything but centrally located.  Still it was the Main Cemetery and we knew there was a section where many of the great musicians were buried such as Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss (both father and son), Schubert and even a nice memorial in the same section to Mozart who apparently was buried in a pauper's mass grave before the city and the world recognized him as someone we should cherish. 




Earlier in the day we walked about two blocks from the stop on the streetcar that we make every day on our way to the Youth Center to the People's Garden and the Citizen's Garden.  Both were very close but we'd never taken the time to walk through them.  Filled with beautiful flowers and flowering trees and fountains and a beautiful Grecian Temple originally built to house the sculpture of Theseus slaying the Centaur, (nope, I'd never heard of it before either) but it was impressive enough that they have now moved the sculpture to the main entrance of the Vienna Museum, which we won't make for a while.  But the temple was still there in the garden.  Vienna was in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures up in the 90's so we delayed our visit to the cemetery until later in the day.  We then took an S-Bahn which is faster than the U-Bahn or subway and it took us right to one of the main gates at the back of the cemetery, #11 to be precise.  There was in information office right there and the attendant was very nice in providing us a map of the entire city and showing us where the great musicians were located.  The cemetery was divided up into 183 sections not counting the New and the Old Jewish cemeteries and the Lutheran cemetery which were closely appended on both sides.  I figure the whole area probably encompassed about 4 square miles!

The musicians were primarily in section 32A, very near the center of the cemetery and although the map was largely in green there was a bright orange section, 57A to be exact, which really stood out and was designated the Mormon section.  Other sections were reserved for Islamists, Muslim-Egyptians, Buddhists, Greek Orthodox, Rumanian-Bulgarian Orthodox, well you get the idea.  But we were impressed at how well the Mormon section stood out on the map.  I'll include pictures of some of the sights we saw.  So we got to the cemetery about 5:30 or so with several hours of daylight left, got the map and found the graves of the great musicians without any big problem.  The Mormon section was about half way back to the gate we had entered and so we headed there with a lovely sculpture of the Savior with a family and an inscription around the base of the sculpture saying "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live."  We subsequently talked to a young man at the center who had helped do some of the landscaping there when he was a young Aaronic Priesthood holder.


We got back to our entry gate about 7:30 to find that the cemetery had closed and the gate was locked!  A young couple on bikes were just ahead of us and the sign indicated to get out we'd have to walk all the way across the cemetery, a distance of about a mile to get to gate 2.  They looked at us with some concern.  Could these old folks make it that far?  We assured them we could make it and they drove off on their bikes toward Gate 2.  About 15 minutes later we arrived to find Gate 2 was also locked!  These sweet young people had waited for us on the other side of the gate and sticking their hands through the gate motioned that we should go to our right to find the emergency exit.  That we did and we finally got out to find the couple gone. We were quite impressed that they had waited for us to arrive to make sure we were OK and we have found this is not atypical of the Viennese. Several times they announce on the streetcars or subways to be on the watch for old folks or handicapped people who might have greater need for your seat than you do.
Last Sunday we went to the Vienna First Ward where I was asked to say the opening prayer in Priesthood Opening Exercises and your mother was asked to say the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting..  Then on Thursday we had our first Zone Conference and finally met our mission president and his wife, Pres. and Sister Miles.  She is a cousin of Tom Rohlfing and specifically asked to say hi to Laurel. Again I was asked to say the opening prayer at the conference so they're giving us a good workout.  They leave for home in 2 weeks about the same time that Warren and Marilyn will be leaving to return home but gave us an interview nonetheless with good advice about how to conduct ourselves as missionaries.  We've already met our new mission president, Brian Kohler who will be replacing them.  He comes with his wife and two children, a third serving a mission with a 17 year old who will likely leave from here while they're serving.  Their youngest daughter is 14. 

Friday nights are "Waffle Night" and we had yet to get through one of those as the last two Fridays were busy with other events.  Cooking here is always interesting because most is done from scratch as far as the baking is concerned.  We had never tried out the two waffle irons but the recipe seemed to work and two sets of missionaries came by expecting two investigators to come.  We had been warned that the turnout might be small because all of the young people who are studying were in the midst of final exams and we were right between two BYU groups, one of whom had just left and the other not coming until tomorrow.  So we got ready nonetheless and after some good advice from one of the elders about how to cook the ideal waffle, found that absolutely no one showed up!  So the six of us had a good time with our trial waffles which were really quite good.  No one believes in syrup here so we had interesting concoctions of caramel, Nutella, strawberry and currant sauces on our waffles. Well, will we ever be ready for next Friday when everyone is back.  


Love to all,   Elder and Sister Parker, Mom and Dad, Grammy and Grampa

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Getting a taste of Vienna


Dear Family,

As we begin our third week here in Vienna, things seem to be settling down a bit. Thus far we've visited three of the seven wards here in Vienna with five of them quite easily reached and with two of them quite a ways away, (actually there's an eighth ward located in Graz, an entirely different city)  Today we'll visit the fourth of the five easy-to-get-to's.  We currently have a threesome of sisters working here in the city and two of them will be speaking today.  One is a native German who speaks excellent English in our private discussions but obviously has no problem with the language otherwise.

No sign of the lost briefcase. We did get a call from the Lost and Found indicating they had found two laptops, but neither one was ours so we've been reconstituting what we can from our iflashes.  I think we've figured out how to get pictures from our cell phones onto Mom's computer and we'll see if we can find one or two later on to attach to this email.

We've essentially been through just about everything at least once with the exception of a Friday night "Wafflenight".  We were spared that twice because of a couple of special events.  One was a forum on morality and sexuality especially for the Young Adults a week ago and the other was a special fireside with visiting general church leaders.  Sister Wixom, the president of the Primary and Sister Reeves, 2nd counselor in the Relief Society, along with Elder Kaeron who is the 70 in charge of the European Area came for a special meeting.  It was kind of neat for us because they all spoke English and were then translated into German so it helped us build our vocabulary. At any rate, both meetings were held on Fridays so we have yet to try out Grammy's hand at cooking waffles.  We met the senior couple from Graz prior to the meeting and they informed us that it's also the responsibility of the elder to cook waffles so I guess we'll have to try out my meager talents.

Last Thursday morning we attended our first Institute Advisory Council with a member of the Stake Presidency, the area supervisor over seminaries and institute, and three members of the YA advisory council.  We figured we picked up somewhere between a third and a half of what was being said but hopefully it will get better.  We generally understood what they were talking about but not much of the details as they spoke quickly and in detail.  They were planning special activities for the close of the institute year and we may get a chance to get down to one of those outlying wards which is centrally enough located for people who may be coming in from as far away as Salzburg as well as the folks from Graz and all the Vienna students.  They're planning on a hike up some scenic pathways with beautiful waterfalls apparently.  Then later in the day, everyone comes back to our youth center for further activities and apparently all want to see the ongoing World Master Cup finals in soccer which apparently takes place over several days.  I guess we'll figure out how to get it projected in the center by then.  All of this takes place at the end of this month.  There is an apparent conflict that day with a special festival presentation that always occurs at the end of the school year in Vienna in which numerous bands come for free concerts, and apparently it's an annual conflict with institute closing as well so it's a perennial problem no one has yet solved.  I guess we'll see what happens but it sounds like we're stranded to make sure everyone can see the soccer matches if they're willing to forego the free concerts.

It seems there have been lots of celebrations going on since we've been here.  I think the end of May is the annual Vienna Festival Week or Wienerfestwoche. Because our youth center is located right behind the big city hall or Rathaus we have the option of taking the subway which lands us right behind the city building or the streetcar which places us in front of it.  Generally we take the streetcar because its more direct with fewer transfers but a longer walk.  Since we've been here they've been setting up or tearing down and then setting up again for one celebration or another. I've included a picture we took one night between set ups when it was the best we'd ever seen with all the lights on. We spent part of our day off yesterday walking through all the displays and little shops set up on the Rathausplatz with lots of little yummy pastry shops and food stands hither and yon.  Everyone told me I'd put on 10 pounds the first week from all the yummy little pastry goodies everywhere.  Interestingly, we've been running so much from here to there that dinner was catch as catch can.  Our predecessors left us a scale and depending on how accurate it is, I actually weighed in initially at 98.6 kilos and then actually down to 95 kilos.  I'll let the mathematicians in the group figure it out but it calculates out to 8-9 pounds less than when I left.  I haven't weighed this little for 10-15 years.  I'd been losing some weight very little at a time over the past couple of years and before we left I actually put an extra hole in all my belts to cinch them up a little tighter.  I've had to add one more hole to two of my belts now because if I don't my pants would hang around my knees and that's certainly not proper for an elder!  We had an extra hour on Thursday and decided to just walk past the big cathedral in the center of town, St. Stephens Cathedral.  Because this is a big holiday weekend, celebrating Pentecost over a three day weekend, there were lots of tourists in town.  I presume that everyone is renting space from the Catholic Church but all around the cathedral were shops and craftsmen selling their wares. We didn't pursue it as we had no time but I'm sure we'll get back to it some time.

We're back now from church where we had quite a delightful time.  The ward made us feel quite at home.  One couple has a son at BYU Idaho who will be home in August after serving a mission in the states and he has a younger brother currently on a mission in Idaho as well.  Everyone generally speaks pretty passable English but they tolerate us trying to get our German going. I was asked to say the opening prayer in Priesthood opening exercises and Grammy, much to her dismay, was asked to say the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting.  They don't want us to be idle!  She did a great job and everyone is quite impressed at how good her German is compared to the last several sisters who have preceded us.  We have also received an invitation to go to dinner tomorrow on the last day of the three-day holiday from a family in the ward we visited today.  They've also invited the sisters who spoke today so it should be fun.  Of all of the things I'm most impressed with here in Vienna, considering that we really haven't been to much yet, the top of the list is the water.  Boy is it great!  The Viennese brag about the fact that it comes directly from the Alps and I believe it.  No one makes ice cubes here but it doesn't matter because it flows cold and clear straight from the taps.  You can even get tap water at restaurants which was unheard of in northern Germany.  I can't seem to get enough of it. Well, I'll let Mom say a few words and we'll be back in touch next week.

I think Dad or Grandpa said it all but there are a few things of note. The washing machine is in our bathroom and is an interesting contraption. You open a metal door inside the washer, which opens into a rolling machine that you lock before turning the thing on.When it changes from wash to rinse or rinse to spin, it sounds like metal trash cans banging into each other. The spinning leaves the clothes dry enough to hang out in the room on collapsible drying racks and then you turn on a fan to help them finish drying, which of course takes until the next day. I also keep wanting to put the dishes into the dishwasher that isn't and to turn on the air conditioner which isn't. We take trams, buses, and subways to church, sometimes 3 different ones. Oh, it is such an adventure and we are having a good time. We don't stop to question why we are doing something. We just do it because it is what we are suppose to be doing and part of the mission experience. 

Love you All, 
Grammy and Grandpa, 
or Sister Parker and Elder Parker

Monday, June 2, 2014

First Week

Well, it looks like our first week has successfully come to a close.  We were hustled around for five days by our predecessors who were successful in showing us where 5 of the 7 ward houses are located as well as the missionary apartments that go with each one.  We ended up being pretty confused but have pretty good instructions as to how to get back to each one.  The Youth Center for which we have primary responsibilities is pretty nice and set up close to the center of the City Hall and the University of Vienna.  The young adults seem to like to come and socialize and they have three primary activities each week.  On Monday your Mom is primarily responsible for a meal that costs them each about a $2.00 fee and I guess I'm supposed to help out a bit though I'm busy as the set-up guy with all the tables and chairs and also being the cashier.  So far they've let our predecessors be the only responsible people on the cashier end which breaks one of the big no-no's in church policies of always having two people handle money but I guess we can be trusted and the rules and regs are pretty complete to document people and receipts for all expenditures.  

After the meal, one of the YA's is responsible for family home evening.  Apparently occasionally someone has fallen through in which case it's our opportunity to pull something together.  They have a lot of talent and virtually every one here has had English in school.  Though they certainly like speaking German, many get by very easily if we don't know how to express ourselves yet with helping us out a bit.  Today we met the couple responsible for the YA's for the entire mission.  They help supervise the seven stakes in the mission which include two in Austria, three in Switzerland and two in southern Germany.  Interestingly, the Swiss have really clamped down on foreign missionaries, primarily to hold back the Muslim influence and so Americans and others who are not of the EUA are not permitted to proselyte and can't get visas to do so.  Therefore all the missionaries there are from Germany, France, Spain, etc and even they are not allowed to tract or do any active proselyting.  It's all driven by the members.  At any rate our couple was very helpful in giving us some ideas about how to get started as a new couple and change up from what's been going on up until now.

Speaking of visas, still no sign of our missing briefcase with all of its important documents.  I think the laptop and hard drives we had there are probably long gone but the two credit cards that were tucked away were not used and have been cancelled.  We're still grieving over the lost documents but there's still hope that they might turn up.  We've registered with a couple of lost and found places and will really have our first chance to check back with them in the morning.  We were supposed to register within 3 days but the mission failed to give us an officially stamped form we need to do that.  We now have that in our possession as of today and should be able to officially register tomorrow.  After that we have 91 days to apply for our visas and hopefully we can have the necessary documents ready to go in that time.  We have to reregister at the end of a year but I don't think we have to reduplicate anything at that time.  We're still living on the money we took with us, most of which has gone to buying a year's pass on all the public transportation systems which has been really neat and the rest will go to the registration processes when we get there.  Eating hasn't been too expensive and so far we're living pretty well and actually losing a bit of weight.  As things settle down, we'll see if that changes!

Last Sunday, we visited the International Ward which was quite cosmopolitan with people from all over the globe who work here.  They use English as their basic language so it was an easy start.  Today we visited the other ward which meets in the same building which happens to be the Stake Center.  We've met the Stake President Friday night at a Youth Forum which they have planned for some time and which went Friday evening and Saturday morning.  We basically helped with the physical set up and your mom worked to help the sister who was doing all the cooking as her basic calling in the church.  She also helps on Wednesdays at the Youth Center where they have institute classes followed by a meal and where we have the responsibility to teach a class in English.  Our class is attended by the BYU students who come and go on the study abroad programs but even they have their own schedules and aren't always there.  The others are all basically Austrians who enjoy learning about the gospel in English and many are returned missionaries who had American or English companions.  The church really emphasizes learning English as well as the mission language.  

One of our missionaries is from Spain and between English and German we communicate all right though he gets a little confused as to which language he's speaking.  The full-time missionaries offer both English and German language training as well as their regular missionary discussions on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Youth Center so we're busy every weekday afternoon and evening.  Mondays-Family Home Evening, Tuesdays and Thursdays-missionary discussions, Wednesday-Institute.  Fridays are "Waffle Night" and a night just to relax, play games and socialize.  The waffles are free and our responsibility to prepare.  Last Friday we got off because of the special Youth Forum they held, and this Friday we're off again because Sister Wixom, Primary General President, Sister Reeves, 2nd counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency and Elder Kaeron of the First Quorum of the 70 and the Area supervisor for Europe are coming for a special presentation at the Stake Center.  Then next Monday is Pfingsten or Pentecost which is a big national holiday as most Catholic events are and runs the whole weekend from Saturday through Monday.  So I guess we have a 4 day free weekend as far as the center goes.  We do have an assignment to teach a topic at the weekly District Meeting with the missionaries which occurs on Tuesdays at noon which we just received today and once a month we meet with the Institute Board on Thursday mornings which will occur this coming week.  Never a dull moment.  We figure we'll have our feet on the ground in just another couple of weeks.

Miss you all, but have had opportunities to Facetime with Mindy and Emily and see the pictures from Memorial Day. It rains a lot here! and we frequently are carrying our umbrellas so we don't get drenched. Happy Birthday to Tim!  
Hopefully our usual letters will get posted on Saturday which is our designated P day.  

Love,  Elder and Sister Parker
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