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.
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