Dear Family,
Well, this week was so busy that we`re two days late in getting our weekly report out to everyone. We greatly appreciate all the contact you gave us while the reunion was going on. We even got to witness the weeding and prettifying of the front flower/weed patch while it was going on. We got a laugh out of Sally Lyde`s email to us. As some of you know, her son, Steve, who is a good friend of Benj`s decided to come to Vienna to give a report at the Vienna Technical University. We encouraged him to stay longer but he arrived on Thursday and left Monday morning so we had to pack a lot of seeing Vienna into just a few days. He agreed to bring over a few things we decided we desperately needed like some short-sleeved shirts for Grampa and some real band-aids for Grammy. So Mindy and Benj took these items over to the Lydes, staying a while for some conversation which Sally was convinced was to enable them to get out of the weeding service project back home:) ( Editors note: Benj and I did tell Sally and Steve that we were trying to get out of weeding, haha! Actually, I don't think Benj said it, only I said it and Benj did go home and weed and I took videos of the whole event and face timed with mom and dad so they could see it ;) So I guess I did get out of weeding! )At any rate we were able to enjoy several conversations with many of you while you were together and enjoyed pictures from the balloon ascension and the opportunity to speak with many of you then or later.
One of our responsibilities while we are helping to run the Young Adult Center is to provide a haven for BYU groups who are here on a variety of excursions. The latest group consisted only of 11 people, most of them but not all music majors and they have been regulars for our Monday night home evening activities and our waffle night for fun and games on Fridays. Their presence isn't always guaranteed as they have the opportunity to go on a variety of other European excursions for a few days now and again but with the institute now having closed and running on a very abbreviated summer schedule, they have been a big portion of our visitors.
We frequently have 8 or 9 of them out on a Monday and they have volunteered to provide spiritual thoughts and such. There is never a lack for a piano player, in fact, their director is the head of BYU's piano department, or so I'm told. Although the institute for the summer is being run by specially invited guest teachers and lecturers, Grandpa volunteered to still provide an English language class for the many who don't understand much German. So for the last 4-5 weeks we've still had from 6-10 people attending that class after a brief opening exercise and song. That has now ended with the group leaving this Wednesday for home and no one replacing them until the fall. They provided a very lovely fireside this past Sunday evening where each provided a lovely musical presentation consisting of piano or organ pieces, quartets, flute and violin offerings and even a quartet of singers.
One young man who is not actually affiliated with the group but is a BYU student, hailing from Oregon has particularly latched onto us for the past week and was our guide and mentor around the city while Steve Lyde was visiting us. He's a french horn player but is actually here doing research on copying old musical texts into a computer format or something like that. But at any rate, he's a real lover of Austrian gelato or a form of ice cream that we've really acquired a taste for. I think we hit an ice cream stand every night on Thursday, Friday and Saturday just to try out all the little shops we've always seen but never stopped at. I sneaked in the french horn solo from Beethoven's Eroica symphony the other night while we were at the center just to impress him which he appreciated.
With Steve in tow but in good jet lag we got him oriented on Thursday night to how to get to his workshop the next day. He then joined us for the waffle night festivities and on Saturday we went back to the area around St. Stephen's cathedral and visited the old Roman ruins of Vindebona, the forerunner to Vienna before the demise of the Roman empire and its virtual disappearance in 500 AD. We visited the venerable old St. Peter's church which we talked about last week and found out there was an organ recital there at 8 PM which we decided to catch later. We were then guided by our BYU friend to the 12 Apostles Cellar, an interesting very old restaurant operating for a few centuries now. It was located down about three flights of stairs in the old Vienna catacombs and had fairly reasonable prices with lots of interesting atmosphere. After that very interesting interlude we repeated our visit to old Emperor Franz Joseph's lovely estate at Schoenbrunn however this time took the tour through the mansion which we hadn't done before.
We also wandered around the city a bit, eating at one of the many pizza, Chinese, Austrian noodle stands which stand on just about every corner with interesting fare to tantalize one's taste buds. We got to the organ concert at St. Peters in time to appreciate that Catholic masses must be mercifully short, for the pews were definitely not built for one's relaxation or long term enjoyment. While sitting in the concert we noticed a few young people sitting immediately in front of us who looked suspiciously wholesome. A tap on the shoulder verified that they were another BYU study group touring through Europe and our mentor separated from us to take them on a few other tours we didn't have time for.
Sunday, in order to have enough time to do some appreciation of the wonders of nature, we attended the German speaking ward at our Stake Center which starts at 9 AM, the international English speaking ward meeting in the afternoon time slot. As it turns out, the group of 45 or so BYU students we'd met the night before were also attending that ward that morning so it worked out well for our two associates as they provided some English translation, at least to some extent for the many visitors. We had a good bilingual Sunday School class and they provided ear phones for Sacrament meeting. We then invited Steve and his new friend to our apartment for a brief Sunday meal and we took off for the wonderful highlands and hills to the north of Vienna that Grammy and I had previously visited a few weeks ago but our BYU young man had never seen. We were treated to a little musical session with a chamber orchestra in a church that had been visited by John Paul II, the polish pope, in honor of the Poles having help defeat the Turks in 1683, still a tender spot for the Austrians as far as the Turks go. Then it was back to the musical fireside I mentioned above and finally ended with a wonderful dinner of chicken, potatoes, corn on the cob and ice cream that was the closest we've come to an American dinner since we got here, prepared by Grammy for our two young friends. Early Monday morning I got up and accompanied Steve back to the airport for his long flight home, which at this writing he has safely accomplished.
In the midst of all that sightseeing we actually did stay quite focused on the work and I actually introduced the church to a woman who wandered into our waffle night on Friday evening just out of curiosity to see what was going on. She had a lot of questions I was hopefully able to answer and she came back on Monday evening for another go round with the missionaries. She got a great introduction to the plan of salvation, first from the home evening lesson that we provided and then from a more formal presentation provided to her alone after the home evening had finished. We now have about three or four that we see regularly and teach, with the other missionaries as our circumstances permit. We think we may provide a little bit of stability and transition as the current crop of elders and sisters are scheduled to be transferred next week. 2 of the 3 sister missionaries working in our district will be going home at the end of the month and we will miss them greatly, as will their investigators.
It has been insufferably hot and humid here this past week, up in the 90's with a humidity generally up in the 70's or 80's. It is a definite testimony builder to deal with that with a suit and tie on. We have been able to regulate that a bit by rolling up the sleeves but the tie stays on and I just work through my handkerchiefs. Air conditioning is definitely not prevalent here and we tend to maneuver so we can sit in front of strategically placed fans that blow here and there. I had to smile at two of our sisters yesterday who are native Europeans, one from Hannover, Germany and the other from Zollikofen, Switzerland. Neither one of them liked the wind generated by the fans and preferred to simply tolerate the heat which they were used to. On the other hand, the water is still delightful as it comes from the taps, and contrary to predictions about the dangers of Austrian pastries, (which are truly delightful), both of us have actually lost some weight. I'm way ahead in the race having, as of this morning lost 14 pounds with my belts getting two more notches to hold up my suits. I think the main reason is I don't have an easy well-stocked refrigerator to raid whenever I want.
We love and miss you all and I'll try and add a few pictures to the letter.
Interesting mock statues outside of Schoenbrunn. They'll move for you if pay them a few coins but otherwise remain motionless.
An interesting mock roman ruins fountain on the grounds of Schoenbrunn
Love, Grammy Grampa, Mom and Dad, Elder and Sister Parker
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