Dear Family,
It being a short week this time because of our procrastination in not writing until Tuesday instead of Saturday it seems like the time has flown. We have been busy as usual with our normal duties and seeing some good progress with our investigators. We don't actually have the opportunities the elders and sisters have to get out and meet a lot of people but still, our center is on quite a busy street with a lot of traffic and we get people stopping in just out of curiosity.
Our lady from a few weeks ago when the institute was closing and we were there for a rare Saturday, is still coming in regularly to better her English and is slowly starting to read the Book of Mormon which we gave her on our first contact. Our Zone Leaders have picked her up and they were the ones to greet us when we first arrived. One of them is being transferred out to Germany this coming week and the other is getting a new companion to share the duties of leading the zone. We finally had the chance to look at the CD left to each missionary when President and Sister Miles left at the conclusion of their mission. It shows primarily the pictures of their presidency and the activities they engaged in, especially the pictures of the arriving elders and sisters and the departing seasoned missionaries at the end of their missions. After not recognizing anyone in the first several months depicted, we're now beginning to see several who were greenies that we've now grown fond of as they have been working with us for the past month or two. Two of the sisters that we've been working quite a bit with are both going home this week and they were both in those pictures from 18 months ago. Golly how the time does fly!
With all the BYU students leaving on Wednesday, our summer institute evening was a little less busy than it has been. It's usually the most active night but this was the first time we didn't have an English speaking class to prepare for as everyone there had a good command of German. Still the numbers were down about a third and it gave us time to associate with the YSA's a little bit more than perhaps we'd been doing. We've had an average of about 4-6 people coming in for the language classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays though one of our contacts who comes from Italy and was a devoted atheist finally dropped out. The elders had arranged a fairly lengthy discussion with him and a member of one of the bishoprics here in the stake who had also claimed at one time to be an atheist but apparently to no avail. But we had another woman who happened in off the street last week at Waffle night just full of questions that Elder Parker spent about 45 minutes talking to who came back for another session with the sisters on Family Home Evening night this past Monday. She looks like a good golden contact with numerous questions and they got so involved following our home evening activity that the sisters had to call their district leader to get permission to stay out longer than 9:30 PM as they were actively teaching her. Elder Parker finally intervened as it got later than 10 PM to say that another appointment would be good so we could all eventually go home.
Waffle night was interesting this week with three sister returned missionaries all there, one from our Vienna stake, the other two here visiting from the United States (Arizona and Utah) but both companions with the Austrian sister. Our little lady from Kazakhstan has been interesting. Remember that she has loved cooking waffles, spent a year in Layton as a foreign exchange student and is now preparing to study here in Vienna at the University. She had to take a test on her German skills Friday a week ago and requested a priesthood blessing the day before. After talking about blessings in general and what it could and possibly couldn't do (i.e., it wouldn't put things into her mind that already weren't there), we went ahead with the blessing and she reported to us this past Friday that she passed with flying colors. Everyone was obviously thoroughly pleased.! She gave us an interesting DVD about her home country that was quite intriguing. It was in 3 languages and in Kazakh took 30 minutes to play however listed the time in both Russian and English as 47 minutes. We decided that Kazakh must be a faster language than the other two. At any rate it was quite fascinating to see a little bit more about a country that most of us knew very little about. Obviously a part of the former Soviet Union, they have been very aggressive at attempting to be a cultural assimilating point between Asia and Europe. The country has about 16 million people, or did when the DVD was made about 4-5 years ago and apparently has been attempting to assimilate over 40 different religions into a harmoniously working relationship. They admit to being about 90% Orthodox Catholic. We looked on a map and were impressed about how big Kazakhstan really is, probably the eight or ninth largest country in the world! We looked on the church website and found that Kazakhstan belongs to the Russian Novosibirsk Mission. Her home city of Alma-ti used to be the capital city of the country but no longer is. It does however house one of the two branches present in the country with a total membership of 240 people! In accordance with Pioneer Day, we told her once she joins the church she will be a real pioneer in her country to start a great heritage for the future.
We got into an interesting discussion somehow about a recent Sunday School class which she hadn't attended on the splitting up of the 12 tribes into the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and it became evident that she knew absolutely nothing about the old Bible stories we all learned as children. Joseph and his coat of many colors, Daniel and the lion's den, Elijah being fed by ravens for quite some time, etc. were all foreign to her. We decided we'd stick with basic gospel principles for now and let her worry about David and Goliath at some time in the future.
Yesterday we used our P day primarily to scour our apartment down and get things cleaned up. We're having some continuing electrical problems we can't figure out. Every time we turn on our hot water on a circuit breaker pops and we have to go push it to get anything decent to wash with. No such thing as a hot water tank on one hand and air conditioning on the other. We talked with one of the financial wizards in the Stake today who handles problems with the missionary apartments and he's given us the name of the firm who can hopefully come in and get us fixed up. We'll see how well we can get them to understand our extensive knowledge of German electrical terms. We have the assignment this week in district meeting to speak on the Gift of Tongues so this should be a good trial of the principle.
As we were trying to get a recent Tab Choir presentation going last night, we stumbled on an old concert given in the tabernacle by Igor Gruppman and the Orchestra at Temple Square entitled, "A Night in Vienna." It was a delightful connection between us and St. Petersburg, with Maestro Gruppman also directing one of the main orchestras there. I understand several of you got a chance to hear the Clarks and the Jeppsons at their homecoming reports but we haven't heard any details.
As far as sightseeing this week, it was pretty minimal. We did take a little walk around the plaza of Maria Theresa, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph who has a lovely large statue of her self located in a huge park between the Vienna Natural History Museum and the Vienna National Art Museum. Haven't been inside either one yet but across a very large street is another huge plaza known as the Heroes Plaza or Heldenplatz. It houses the Austrian National Library, the Lipizzaner Stallions, and the Hofburg, a political gathering place of the famous people in the world. One picture of the balcony in front of the library is famous for being the spot where Hitler addressed the Austrian people after Austria joined Germany near the onset of World War II. Lots of places to see in the future.
Here is the Austrian equivalent of the Library of Congress and the balcony where Hitler received the adulation of the Austrian people at the Heldenplatz.
Here is Grammy standing in front of the History Museum which you can't see but it looks exactly like the building you can see across the plaza which is the National Museum of Art with the huge statue of Maria Theresa standing in the middle of the Park. She had 16 children, five of whom were sons. One of her daughters was Marie Antoinette whose life was shortened in more than one way after she married King Louis the XVI of France. If any of you remember Allen Sherman, King Louis was worse then Louis the XVth, worse then Louis the XIVth,etc. He was the worst, since Louis the First!
Dad has really covered everything we have done this week outside of us both getting hair cuts. It seems like nothing but you have to be brave in trying to explain in German exactly what you want it to look like and then hope for the best. But,of course, they turned out fine. Now for the big hair coloring challenge, but I think I'll wait a few days and then give it a try. Outside of a few really hot days, which have been killers with the humidity, the summer thus far has been quite pleasant, even cool at times. My new daily routine requires that I check the weather closely, especially for thunder storms which disturb things like streetcars,etc. The thunder is just about as loud as what I've heard in Texas which shook the house. Our lives have become somewhat routine with our schedule at the center, doing apartment inspections, and randomly helping the missionaries with their needs. I understand people a bit better and they me, so I guess I'm making progress along with new friends. Love you all, miss you all and wish "Happy Birthday" to everyone having a birthday this week.
Love,
Grammy, Grampa, mom, dad, & Elder & Sister Parker
No comments:
Post a Comment