A Spirited Home Evening

Hi Guys!

Sometimes we feel like things might be getting into a rut, same old, same old, but whenever that feeling comes across, it seems like something exciting and new happens to keep us fresh, alert and enjoying what we're doing.

For most of the summer, Elder Parker was responsible for the spiritual thought on Monday night home evenings. Most of the time that turned into a lesson but as we got more comfortable with the young people present, we started playing a few more games and really getting to know everyone better.  A few Monday nights, things were pretty sparse with perhaps only 6 or 8 people present but as the summer has pretty much gone, things are getting more active again and people are ready to take assignments for the spiritual thought.  Coming up in the next few weeks are a young sister just returned from a mission to England (who's really happy to be able to speak German again!), a young sister who has become a regular attender who's been a member only since this past spring, one of our Institute council members who is in every picture I can find going back for the 7 years the center has existed, and a young man from Iran who is really the subject of the title above.  He has been a member for about 9 or 10 months and is scheduled to receive the Melchizedek priesthood next month.  His native tongue is Persian or Farsi and he learned German from attending the language classes at the center. His German is certainly now better than ours and he decided he wanted to use as his theme, President Eyring's message from the First Presidency on prayer, found in the October issue of the Liahona and we presume also in the Ensign.

  

There were about 12 of us present and it was a very interesting and diverse group of people.  There was one team of Elders present plus us as the senior couple, 4 members, one of whom was a returned missionary from a year back or so but the other three had all been members for less than a year.  One was a young lady from Vienna whose missionary we met at the MTC with a request to be sure and look her up, another was from Russia and is one of the most recently baptized members, and our third was our presenter.  Then we had 4 investigators.  One is our young lady from Kazakhstan who has committed to baptism but not until she returns home in December.  Interestingly she was unhappy that we are still referring to her as an investigator and we told her we couldn't call her a member until she had been baptized.  So we compromised and said we would henceforth refer to her as a "friend of the church" and she was somewhat mollified.  Two of the other three have been there several times but still seem hesitant to commit to formal lessons, picking things up catch as catch can as we have time to work in various principles in our discussions.  But they brought a friend along with them for his first visit with us who stated he has been a Christian for 20 years but had never been baptized in any church. His name was Gerhard and we took this to mean that he hadn't yet been completely satisfied with his experiences with other churches at least to this point. 

So the subject was prayer and it was interesting to see how intensely interested everyone was on the subject.  Everyone there could relate to prayer but there were very many different approaches and experiences as the discussion progressed.  We discussed that prayers should be addressed to God the Father as the Father of our spirits and in the name of Jesus Christ.  Many had been praying to Jesus and we assured them that we felt their prayers were still being heard. But remember John 14:13-14 and 15:16. We discussed how one gets answers to prayers and the discussion brought up that some answers take longer than others to receive, some answers were no, and that occasionally no answer might be an answer.  We had given Gerhard a Book of Mormon earlier in the evening and borrowed it back to read about the experience of Enos that interestingly we had studied earlier that weekend. (There are no coincidences in the work of the Lord!)  He had prayed all day in an intense fashion to get an answer, a quite rare event we all agreed, to pray that long.  As the discussion went on we were prepared to read Moroni 10:4-5 to cite that as the scriptural recommendation about how to get answers to prayer when our leader started reading it.  Elder Parker was sitting next to Gerhard and had it ready so he could read along as it was recited.  Aigerim, the "friend of the church" from Kazakhstan didn't seem to have much to say but we could tell from her expression that the whole discussion had had a major impact on her thoughts.  The Spirit was strong and we felt it was a wonderful opportunity for everyone present to reflect on their ability to talk to our Heavenly Father and get direction for their lives.

This week also represented a scheduled trip to the Swiss Temple for many of our young adults so the numbers were a little smaller than they had been while everyone was away but we still had about 25 or 30 present for Institute on Wednesday night and we're starting to see new faces that haven't been coming by all summer.  They announced another Polterabend or pre-wedding party for this next weekend prior to General Conference the ceremony itself coming up immediately following conference the next week.  Additionally announced is another wedding for a couple we don't know at all that's supposed to take place before the end of the month.  We'll be going to their ward tomorrow so maybe we can get filled in on the details then.

Only one picture this week.  Some of you may remember us getting locked in the cemetery a few months back while checking out the graves of Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss and Schubert.  We had always thought that no one knew where Mozart was buried because he died as a pauper and was buried in an unmarked grave.  But further research has shown that even though he was buried in a pauper's grave apparently the location was known and he has now been recognized appropriately.  We found his grave in the St. Marx Cemetary nicely decorated with recent flowers, a couple of lanterns and a well attended garden.  Behold!

Sister Parker has mastered the European sewing machine we found in our apartment and helped to repair one of Elder Parker's pants that had been ripped.  After feeling a little better about her ability to handle the machine she then tackled a Dirndl or native dress for Aigerim who needed it taken in just a bit.  It seemed to go quite well and she put it on last night at Waffle Night and was quite pleased with the results.

    This week has been kind of cool all week in the 50's and only reaching 61 or 62 in the day time. It rains occasionally and if we decide not to take our umbrellas it is sure to start, even when it looks like it will be a nice day. Surely Autumn is here but the leaves have not changed here in Vienna yet. I'm looking forward to the leaves changing as there are many beautiful parks having deciduous trees. It is sweater weather for sure but many of the Austrians wear coats. I'm not quite that cold yet, I guess I'm tougher than I think. We have been out looking for winter coats and long ones have been hard to find. On a recent excursion to a street market we found a high quality department store and they had many, many coats some of which were over 500 Euros. Not exactly what I was hoping to pay. So we'll look for a bit longer before we choose to spend between 200 & 500 Euros.

 (Sister Parker)  I don't know why it seems we have to step back and look sometimes to see the tender mercies the Lord gives us and how He blesses us through other people. A sweet young woman, I must use that term a lot as they are all sweet young women, decided to come to Family Night and to Waffle Night so she could help me cook and just talk. Well, I was thinking about Manina and how nice that was to have her come, when it hit me that she was a blessing from the Lord. I don't have many opportunities to speak a lot of German, outside of greetings and casual expressions with the young adults. My real talking sessions come with our dear sister who cooks for Institute and speaks almost no English. There on Wednesday we share whatever we can. Now with Manina the Lord has sent someone to me who is willing to speak slowly and wants to help me with my language. I also help her with some English. Along with Aigerim, she also helps chop and stir and prepare food so I can cook, which helps out my bad arm. On Waffle Night it seems many young adults want a chance to cook a waffle and see how it turns out. This past Friday we could hardly cook them fast enough. In the end though, it was Grampa who helped finish the cooking so the young adults could enjoy some time eating together. After all, that is why we have it and we enjoy seeing them enjoy and socialize with each other.

 So the suggestion for the week is to stand back and look at the tender mercies the Lord puts in our lives each day.  If you are feeling down go to Mormon Messages and play one. They are all inspiring and will pick you up. Love you all and hope you are enjoying the cooler weather. It is fun to see all the different temperatures Mindy setup on my cell phone. I can see how it is in West Virginia, Utah, Calif., and even in Bothel, Wa.

         LOVE &  HUGS,  

Grammy, & Grampa,  

Mom, & Dad,  

Elder &Sister Parker 

Defining Zoroastrianism!

Dear Family, 

It has been another great week with lots happening as the new school year really jumps off to a great start.  Monday night is our night to cook dinner and support Family Home Evening.  It has generally been a sparse crowd through the summer months with around 10-15 people showing up, 4-6 of those generally being missionaries who showed up with an investigator.  One of the very sweet sisters in the stake is on the Stake YSA council and she has the responsibility to assign someone for a spiritual thought each Monday.  There has been a sign-up sheet available but very few takers and for about 8-9 weeks in a row, no one having taken the assignment, good old Elder Parker came through with Sister Parker busy in the kitchen.  For several weeks it turned into a lesson of sorts and the sister was always very apologetic that no one had signed up.  She herself is a kind of miracle.  I may have mentioned in an earlier letter about her being the young lady who was deaf until about a year ago when a new procedure became available with cochlear implants that restored her hearing, a miraculous thing in her and everyone else's judgment.  But as a rule she is one of the few who doesn't know much English and was really dealing with lip reading and sign language as her primary means of communication.  She was quite willing to do the spiritual thoughts herself but worked on Monday nights and we never seemed to be quite ready to go after the meal until she had to leave.  But it wasn't a real problem and gave us a chance to hone our German a little better.  So as of this last Monday, suddenly we have about 5 people lined up for the next month to do the spiritual thought, hurray!, but no one was set up this week so we chimed in again.  

There was quite a good article on the importance of modesty in the October Liahona, did it make it into the Ensign as well?, so we decided to make a few points about that. There were a good twenty YSA's present and we found it very interesting that there was some difficulty amongst all of those present including our leaders understanding the German word for modesty, that being Anstaendig.  The discussion was good but we both wondered if that isn't something seldom referenced here.  The Austrians in general have a real problem with modesty, primarily the young ladies with very short skirts and spaghetti straps if that and we have taken particular notice of a prominent young lady in the stake who has just received her mission call and will be going into the MTC in December.  Her father is in the mission presidency and both he and his wife are tremendous stalwarts but they haven't yet taught their daughter the importance of modesty.  We're assuming and hoping that the realities of that principle will hit home when she has an opportunity to go to the temple as she was present in our missionary preparation seminar a week ago with pretty marginal clothing.  At any rate, she wasn't present at the home evening so we didn't make any progress there or able to pass along a few clues about its importance.

Our language classes are continuing to go very well and we have a whole family from Iran who come every week to learn English. There have been about 8 of them but different members of the family continue to show up and we may have taught up to 10 of them.  I took a picture through our glass doors so pardon all the reflections but this was the class this week with Elder Pugmire, our new district leader and his companion, Elder Brady, our only "golden" (remember we don't use the word "greenie" in this mission) leading out.

Everyone agrees that they are a delightful family.  When we asked about their religious background, they informed us they are neither Muslim, nor Christians but Zoroastrians, a religion which goes back about 1500 years.  Zoroaster is sometimes translated as Zarathustra and some of you knowledgeable folks may remember the opening theme song from 2001, A Space Odyssey, from many years back which opened with some impressive music from Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra. Anyway that's the only time we ever remember hearing his name.  At any rate, the Zoroastrians have diminished considerably in number since about 800-900 AD but were formerly the dominant religion in the Iranian region.  But they have been heavily diminished with the rise of Islam to the point where they are now being persecuted just like Christians.  This whole family is fairly well to do as we can tell and decided to get out of Iran while the getting out was possible.  Their plan is to move to the United States where they anticipate they can practice their religion as they like and hence their motivation to learn English.  They are just waiting for their visas to be approved and then hopefully will be on their way to a new life.  With any luck and the help of the Lord, we may be able to convince them that there is yet a better religion that also has a history of great persecution.  While the Moms and Dads, Aunts and Uncles and even a grandparent or two are busy, Sister Parker and I have taken on the responsibility for two young men, Sasan and Radman, respectively about 7 and 4 years old.  They can repeat any English word we tell them with great accuracy but don't have much understanding of the meanings yet.  While we take care of them, they converse in Farsi at a high rate of speed.  We got them drawing this past week and they were quite talented in their abilities. We'll see where it all goes as the next few weeks carry through. 

Wednesday night was yet another surprise.  That's institute night and originally the new opening of the Institute year was to have been this weekend.  There are several international things going on with this opening that involve people from Hungary across the border and it was decided a few months ago to delay the start until the middle of October.  That's when we have to be ready to start teaching our English Institute class again but in the meantime we're continuing with Summer Institute and guest teachers each Wednesday.  We must say that, to the extent we have been able to understand what is said, the classes have generally been excellent.  We are beginning to appreciate the difference between German and Austrian and when someone is really heavily into the latter, it's still pretty much Greek to us.  So this Wednesday we had our biggest group out yet since we've been here with about 40 YSA's in attendance.  Often during the summer there have been investigators present but interestingly, not a one this week until about three showed up at the end of the meeting.  As the time came for the class to start, no teacher had yet put in an appearance.  That happened once before with a teacher who had never been to the center before and he arrived about 5 minutes late but the council member who generally knows what's going on was in America this past week and so no one had a clue who the teacher was supposed to be when no one showed up.  It turned out it was supposed to be our Stake President and apparently there was a medical emergency of sorts with his wife that appropriately demanded his attention but in the meantime, there was no communication whatsoever and so our YSA young man who has been a great support and the leader of the council stepped up and he decided that we would take all the chairs out of the classroom rows model and turn it into a big circle around the room. He led off with his testimony and opened it up to the group to fill the allotted time.  After a minute or two, a young sister who had just returned from her mission to Manchester, England offered her testimony and the general theme was supposed to be to report on those spiritual happenings of the past summer.  When she finished there was a very painful five minutes when no one offered a testimony but then things got going and we were gratified as the spirit finally sprang into action with many more sharing their thoughts. Everyone on our Institute Council got into the act except for one fellow who is a recently baptized member but we know his testimony is strong nonetheless.  It turned out to be a great evening.

Friday was waffle night and we had quite a few investigators, at least 3 with one member from Hungary and three sets of missionaries.  We got into a hot game of UNO which wasn't bad for a strictly social night and we kept playing excerpts on line from the Piano Guys who have a nice selection on You Tube with music that was acceptable to the missionaries present. We pointed out to everyone that they were all Mormons (or at least we think so!) and they're coming to Vienna in November as part of their big European tour. 

Today we set out on a tour of supposedly a great sidewalk market we heard about from a married couple who are living here in Vienna. They were recently married in the temple and the husband is from England.  The wife is from the States but has taught German for many years and sounds like a native.  But apparently the market was not operating today so we ended up walking ourselves around to exhaustion, finally trying to find a great gelato store recommended by one of our departed sister missionaries.  We decided we either couldn't find the right one or it was greatly exaggerated as the one we eventually tried was definitely below average.  Our best store so far was one we recommended to Tom and Laurel when they were here.  

We ended up our date night today at a place affectionately known as Herb's but officially it's known as the Schitzelwirt.  Prices are really pretty reasonable and the food will last for about two or three days before we're able to eat it all.  Tomorrow we're able to sleep in a little bit because we're going to the International Ward which is the only one that starts at 1:30 PM.  We were up late tonight talking to a bunch of different family members on Facetime to make sure everyone is still really there but it's 11:30 for us when most of the family is enjoying a restful Saturday afternoon.  The joys of being a senior missionary means the rules are a little easier on us and we can stay up later and also get up later in the morning if necessary. 

One of Grandpa's old pair of pants he brought along for work days developed a tear along the front of one of the legs and Grammy decided to tackle an old sewing machine we've had here in the apartment.  First we had to find a sewing store and figure out the name for the right color of thread.  Then she was able to figure out how to load the bobbin, get it to go forward and backward and deal valiantly with an old needle that really wasn't that sharp.  But the pants were repaired nonetheless and now they've been washed and hung out to dry.  We're getting closer to getting a dryer and one of these days things will get easier in that department.

    It seems like this week has been long and busy at the center, but fulfilling. I enjoy the missionaries and their investigators and language people, especially these families from Iran. They give me a whole new prospective on people from this country. I see and feel their goodness. I so want to give them the gospel, but we'll have to see how the spirit directs. Every time the family leaves the little boys give me a big hug and it feels good to have children around. I miss all of our grandchildren and send them our love and hugs. I hope they are trying to be good missionaries with all of their friends.

Wishing you all lots of love and kisses,  

Mom and Dad, 

Grampa and Grammy,

 Elder and Sister Parker.

Singing in the Rain

Dear Family,

Having written pretty late last week it doesn't seem like a lot has happened this week but there are a few interesting things to report.  Our numbers continue to swell as the YSA's all realize that the Center is still there and are starting to show a little more interest with the summer over.  Two weeks in a row now, we've had this family from Iran show up for English lessons.  They are not Muslim but apparently Zoroastrians which we'll have to look up and learn about a little more but 8 more came in on Thursday to continue their studies.  They have two young boys about 4 and 7 years old who find they're more interested in the pool table than learning English.  That was fine up to a point but their idea of pool was to make as much noise as possible pushing the balls into the holes and that was such a racket that no one could concentrate on their lessons so we had to put a stop to it.  I attempted to try a little finesse with them to teach them the finer points of 8-ball but they understand neither English nor German and a finger to the lips with a stern SHHH also didn't seem to cut it.  So we had to finally bodily take them away from the pool table.  Grammy bought a few kid's books at the local book store and they came in handy for distracting them for a while but the thing that eventually did the trick was teaching them to make and then fly paper airplanes.  They had a lot of fun and it was much quieter as we relegated them to our conversation area while the language classes went on.

Thursday was our our third transfer day since we've been here and again we all showed up early at the train station. Two elders and one of our threesome of sisters were being sent to other assignments in the mission, we had no one going home from Vienna, though Sister Smith, one of our Zone sister trainers that we talked about last week was heading home from her assignment in Graz.  But she didn't come to Vienna to turn around and head back to Munich so we really were just saying temporary goodbyes to the other three.  Our district leader got transferred from one of the other outlying cities into Vienna but is in a different district so we're getting a new DL that we know well and we got one "Golden", the local mission term for a greenie who will be working with our new DL.  He'll have double duty to both lead the district and train an Elder straight out of the MTC which in our case is Preston, England.  

Tuesday night Grammy got to go with the sisters to the special Women's meeting where Elders Ballard and Bednar were speaking live from Frankfurt but I'll let her report on that.  Wednesday night was still summer Institute but we had a good crowd out of about 35 people and things are looking good for that activity.  Grandpa has started preparing a few lessons for when we start up regularly but that won"t be until after General Conference.  We've still got to ask a few questions about how that goes forward.  We can hear it live on the internet or at the Stake Center but it will be 6 PM and 10 PM for us which I guess is doable.  Have to wait and see what they do with General Priesthood meeting as that will be 2 in the morning.  I guess we can sleep in on Sunday if the morning sessions doesn't start until 5:30 PM with the Tabernacle Choir.  

Friday we decided to check out the elders' apartment that has been vacant for six weeks since one elder became ill and had to be sent home.  It had some definite water problems in the walls that we've perhaps talked about before.  We had recommended that no be assigned there until it was repaired but heard that it had been worked on.  When we went by there was a big hole in the shower wall where they had torn out the tiles and apparently found a small leak but it hadn't been put back together again and there were still enough problems with the walls throughout the apartment that we have recommended it not be used again until it is completely redone.  One of the local members who is in the mission presidency apparently has a vested interest in the whole building and right now it's us against him as to recommendations so it's a little touchy as we move forward.  We'll see what happens.

For most of the week it's been rain, rain, rain so we didn't do much on our P day except clean the apartment and catch up on things.  Grammy needed to do some shopping which is always a challenge for Grandpa but she was able to pick up some good winter boots.  I guess I'll just sing quietly as she looks around.  A little singing in the rain never hurt anybody.  We haven't yet found any decent long coats she can wear but I guess it's still a little early in the season.  Currently I'm munching on some Cornichons mit Honig which is as close as the Austrians can come to sweet pickles while we attempt to defrost our little refrigerator for the second time in three+ months but Grammy's got a good method of keeping a pan of hot water in there which hurries things up considerably.

A picture of all the redheads in the mission zone, plus dad! :)

 (Sister Parker)  My best times this week were working with the little Iranian boys. They love to be noisy but they are also such cute little guys. They talk up a storm and try to tell me all kinds of things which I, of course, don't understand. I try to teach them a few English words by drawing pictures of things. Its amazing that they can repeat them back to me, perfectly. Then when they leave, they give me great big hugs. Oh, it is worth it. My other great achievement of the week has been the eliminating of mold on our bathroom shower rack. Yes that is right. Mold comes everywhere if you don't watch out for it. We finally found a spray bottle of Shimmel Entferner, in other words Mold Destroyer. We laid the shower rack in the bath tub and sprayed away, or at least Grampa did, also the tile on the wall behind it. Wow, its incredible. It looks like new and I feel more comfortable using the shower. It is the little things that make you happy. We don't really even mind the rain. It's much better than the heat. The Austrians don't seem to mind either. They still all go outside and meet in little groups with their umbrellas. I saw a group of 5 umbrellas just standing together chatting. Its great not to be afraid of the weather. But we'll see when it starts snowing.

Apparently the transmission from Frankfurt didn't go as well as we had hoped for the big chapel presentation but we all moved down to the Relief Society Room where for some reason it came in better with video.  All the sisters from 8 up were invited but there weren't really that many there considering the whole stake was invited.  But it was fun being out with the sisters.  Dad had one of the YSA's who stayed with him until he left to come home.  Always nice to have the apostles paying attention to us!

Love, 

Mom and Dad, Grammy and Grampa, Elder and Sister Parker

Preparing New Missionaries

Hi Everyone!

Well it has been a very busy week with no time even for a P day.  More about that below.  All of the Austrian children have now returned to school and that means that our streetcars run even more frequently and generally the pace picks up.  Everyone has returned from vacation which seemed to be a really big thing around here for August.  Many of the small businesses would just close their doors for 2-3 weeks while they took it easy or disappeared to the far reaches of the land.  But all of that is over now and things are picking up.

In the Center we have noticed that things are much busier.  We've gone from 8 missionaries showing up for perhaps 2 language lessons when others didn't come to having as many as 8-12 people now showing up for courses.  We had a whole family of 8 come in this past week who all wanted to learn English with husbands and wives, uncles and even 2 kids about 5 and 7 years old who were not so happy to be there but we were amazed at how well the 5 year old could pronounce any word he was given.  Ah the wonders of youth!  Summer Institute was supposed to be over this month but I guess there have been several things going on with YSA's in Hungary and the Czech Republic and other countries nearby that they want to celebrate the opening of the Institute year in a big way so it's all being delayed until the third week of October.  So in the meantime, the attendance at our Wednesday night courses continues to grow.  We had about 25 there this week which is the biggest since the closure last June of the regular year.  

For Home Evening on Mondays we have been sometimes getting 9 or 10, at least half of whom were missionaries with occasional investigators but last night we had 14 with no missionaries besides us and our one investigator from Kazakhstan who's just waiting for the university to start but is definitely committed to being baptized when she gets home at the end of the year.  She's regularly taking lessons now, mostly review and always is very good to help Sister Parker with cooking, preparing, cutting veggies for the salad or whatever.  She's mixing in better with the sisters.  Last night instead of taking 30-40 minutes for a lesson as we've been doing we just had a spiritual thought and then had fun playing games.  I found one in the back of the Home Evening manual that was a good mixer for everyone trying to find out whose name started with the same letter as yours, whose birthday was in the same month, who was a grandmother or grandfather (we got to sign everyone's paper on that one!), who had the same favorite song, etc. etc.  In our last 15 minutes we had a spirited game of "Do You Love Your Neighbor" which they had never heard of but really enjoyed. 

Today we had Zone Training and then had to run to get to the Center for the first language class.  We had a total of 9 different classes today! including 2 Gospel discussions with 11 elders and sisters, many doing more than one lesson each and even Elder Parker got to sit in and help with one investigator from Hungary who didn't know much German or English but wanted to improve his English so we did it mostly with the help of the computer and the Google Translator.

We've been on the road again as well this week having now inspected all of the apartments for which we have responsibility.  2 of those were an hour away by train in Wiener Neustadt and we went there on Sunday for Fast Day as it allowed us to attend that ward as well as inspect the apartments.  It was a huge amount of walking but we've now born testimony in 3 of the 7 wards or branches of the stake, July, August and September. (Still in jet lag back in June for that Fast Day).

Last Friday and Saturday, instead of having Waffle Night on Friday as usual, we helped with a Missionary Preparation Seminar that went Friday night from 7:30 to 9:30 PM and then all day Saturday from 8 until 4.  The invited guest was a very excellent brother who was at one time the President of the Berlin Mission, long after the wall went down but he's a native German and works for CES (Church Education System) and just knew how to engage the young pre-missionaries in attendance. He knows President Uchtdorf personally and I rate him as a prime candidate for becoming a future general authority (along with Warren!) He gave three different workshops over the two days, our Institute/Seminary director did three, the Zone Leaders were invited to talk about the Book of Mormon and Grammy and I got to teach our first class on the Christlike attributes and their importance in missionary work.  I think they tolerated our poor German pretty well and everyone was quite gracious.  By the time we were through and cleaned up everything (everyone really pitched in to help) it was pretty late in the day and our P day was pretty much non-existent.  

With a busy Monday finishing up our last apartment inspection and getting ready for Family Home Evening, this is the first we've had to really crank out our weekly report.  I'm actually running on the edge right now of mission rules, Senior Couples being given a few exemptions, because Grammy ran off with our three sisters and one investigator to the special Women's Meeting being broadcast to Europe right now as I write, by Elders Ballard and Bednar, both of whom are visiting in Europe this week.  Two YSA sessions are being held this week with Elder Ballard in Berlin and Elder Bednar in Frankfurt but neither one of those is being broadcast so Sister Parker will have to give us her report from the Sister's meeting.when she gets back.

This Thursday is transfer day again.  We plan on meeting at the train station to say good bye to all those departing our Zone again and welcoming the new arrivals.  Our threesome of sisters are finally being brought back to two with one of the sisters leaving for Germany.  The other two instead of dividing up their time between Wiener Neustadt and Vienna will now be staying exclusively in Vienna.  We'll be getting a new district leader, one who is already here in the district, but our old one will actually be serving here in Vienna instead of out a ways in one of the outlying cities.  We expect to see him a lot more than just at district meetings now that he'll be here in the city and coming more often to the Center.  Included as pictures today are our old district prior to the transfer  (just found out I don't have it but Mindy said it's on Facebook and she'll post it on the blog) and all of the sisters in our zone earlier today at the Zone Training. Can you tell how the Spirit just shines through their eyes? The young lady third from the right in the green dress has been one of our sister zone trainers and will be leaving for home this week. I don't know if it's just the red hair but she reminds me so much of Sister Parker 47 years ago that I had to ask her if she was writing to anyone.  She replied that all of her options were gone.  She lives in Logan and I told her I was sure she was great wife material!  Probably too far away to attempt a line-up with Benj!

Speaking of whom, we're excited that Andy, Ruslana and Benj are coming to Vienna next month.  We have received their itinerary and their flight in is exactly the same one we took when we flew in, coming through Paris and ending up here on an afternoon.  We're looking forward to having them stay with us for a few days!

We have now opened up all of the letters that were sent from the family reunion.  The remaining, in alphabetical order were Amelia, Chloe, Dominick, Emily, Erik, Hollly, Kathy, Kelli, Makenzel, Meaghan, Mikey, Mindy, Myles, Noah, and last but not least, Trish.  We have loved each and every one and each one has been posted on our bulletin board for a full day.  Now we can go back and read them to our heart's content for the entire rest of our mission!  We truly do love all of you and sense your support and your prayers as we in turn pray for each one of you.

    As Grampa said things have become busier as we have moved into September, but we have also had a lot of times when we have small groups and it has been great getting to know the young singles and the investigators that come through more personally. They are always so happy to see you and interact with you. It is great to be in the kitchen area where the singles come and offer to help. We share talking in German and English and have many good laughs. They all become dear friends and I hate to see the short term ones leave. Alan from Mexico, studying in England had his last time with us on Wednesday. It feels like I'm sending off one of my children or grandchildren.  I feel some need to offer them comfort and a little break from the world. This week when the family group of 8 came in unexpectedly I was able to jump in and teach them a little English. The assigned elders hadn't come to the center yet and I couldn't let them stand around, so we formed a classroom and began giving them things to say in English. It was so fun to hear them and to watch their faces. I couldn't help but love them all. They seem like such good people and I'm hoping some will also accept the gospel. Teaching languages is a means to investigators.

  Well, I am enjoying everything more and more. Even though we still don't have a dryer. (I'm working on it.) The cooking is becoming easier as I have learned  the Austrian stores and food supply system. What works and what doesn't. The investigators and singles are great. I enjoy visiting all the gemeindes or wards and sharing some special connections with some of the Austrian sisters. I like the wards with children and noise the best. And our missionaries are some of the best. I love going to district and zone training. They do a great job and somehow always need our computer for a training video. It is a good thing one of our computers made it here. The spirit is powerful and it feels good to be part of the missionary force around the world along with Jeremy, Rachel and Jacob. We have the most important message in the world, that Christ has restored his church and the priesthood power. We need to share it with all good people. It is emphasized here that the Lord has prepared people for us to find. We just need to go out and find them among family, friends and strangers. 

Love you ALL very much and enjoy every contact we have with each of you.

Mit liebe,  Tschuß! (Can zou tell this was tzped on a German kezboard?  

The Z's and Y's are reversed but at least zou can tzpe ö ä ü and ß!

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker