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.