Greetings to the Most Wonderful Family On Earth!
Hard to believe that we're already into August. Our heat wave has temporarily abated but they tell us there is more on the way in the coming week. Nonetheless, the past 7 days have really been pretty nice and a little more of what we have become used to.
Today was quite a wonderful Fast and Testimony meeting. We attended the ward where a lot of our institute leaders are members. Two of the institute council live there as well as the amazing woman who normally does all the cooking on Wednesday nights as well as serving as her ward's Primary president. With only three more Fast days to go after today before we're released, we figured this would likely be our last opportunity to visit them and Elder Parker even planned on leaving his testimony with them but there was such an amazing outpouring of the Spirit with so many wanting to bear testimony that there ended being no time left.
The first testimony was an elderly grandfather, likely in his 80's, who had a granddaughter being married yesterday. He naturally dearly wanted to attend the ceremony but on Friday felt so very weak, virtually unable to speak let alone get out of bed and able to speak only with great difficulty. He called for close family members and actually went through the formality of finalizing his last will and testament feeling that his time had come. His son, who has been one of our best supporters for many of the activities at the institute, discovered how grave the situation had become and asked his father if he desired a blessing. He stated that with no preconceived ideas of what he would say and with no time for any special preparation, he simply offered a blessing, pondering the power of the priesthood and blessed him that he would have the strength to attend the wedding. We were sitting next to another of the grandsons and his father, who had given the administration, got up next to bear his testimony, helping the grandfather down from the stand. During the rest of the meeting we heard from the grandfather, then his son, the Stake Relief Society President and then the mother of the family. One of the elders, who had just heard that he'll be leaving the ward this Thursday on transfer day managed to squeeze in a very nice farewell testimony but then the time ran out. It was truly amazing to see a man who felt he was ready to meet his Maker two days earlier had been raised up not only to attend his granddaughter's wedding but then to bear testimony to the ward about the power of the priesthood in his life It was really special.
The first testimony was an elderly grandfather, likely in his 80's, who had a granddaughter being married yesterday. He naturally dearly wanted to attend the ceremony but on Friday felt so very weak, virtually unable to speak let alone get out of bed and able to speak only with great difficulty. He called for close family members and actually went through the formality of finalizing his last will and testament feeling that his time had come. His son, who has been one of our best supporters for many of the activities at the institute, discovered how grave the situation had become and asked his father if he desired a blessing. He stated that with no preconceived ideas of what he would say and with no time for any special preparation, he simply offered a blessing, pondering the power of the priesthood and blessed him that he would have the strength to attend the wedding. We were sitting next to another of the grandsons and his father, who had given the administration, got up next to bear his testimony, helping the grandfather down from the stand. During the rest of the meeting we heard from the grandfather, then his son, the Stake Relief Society President and then the mother of the family. One of the elders, who had just heard that he'll be leaving the ward this Thursday on transfer day managed to squeeze in a very nice farewell testimony but then the time ran out. It was truly amazing to see a man who felt he was ready to meet his Maker two days earlier had been raised up not only to attend his granddaughter's wedding but then to bear testimony to the ward about the power of the priesthood in his life It was really special.
The earlier part of the week pretty much fulfilled our expectations that the attendance would be pretty scanty. Sister Parker prepared a meal on Monday that was adequate for those who appeared and then led forth on the spiritual thought, highlighting the doctrine of the pioneers in the Gospel story throughout history. Wednesday, Elder Parker was assigned to give the only Institute class and prepared about an hour's lesson in German on President Eyring's General Conference talk on the Law of the Fast. We figured the attendance would be light but still prepared quite a meal just in case. 5 young adults appeared along with a couple of elders and we had enough food left over to serve for tomorrow night's home evening. The five YSA's were an interesting group, all members but in alphabetical order, coming from Austria, Chili, Hungary, Nepal and Pakistan. Only the young woman from Austria considered German as her native language but she at least spoke an excellent English so in spite of all of his preparations to give the class in German, it ended up being translated back into English as that was the best second language for all of the others.
We had quite an interesting discussion later with the young man from Pakistan. He's been a member now for a little over six months and as we talked with him specifically, it was obvious that he still doesn't have a copy of the Doctrine & Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price in Urdu, his native language. He has a great Sunday School teacher who teaches him in the Gospel Principles class on Sunday in what amounts to a German language course as well so we went onto the computer and found the next four lessons of that class in Urdu as well as keyed him into the Gospel Library on his cell phone. He had never been shown all of this and we believe it will really open up a completely new vista for his future study of the gospel.
Saturday we made our final trip to Wiener Neustadt to finish cleaning up the vacant apartment and it turned out to be just in time as the transfer announcement came out the same day. It looks like the mission, though down overall in numbers, is getting six new sisters, one pair of which is slated to move into the now completely cleaned and laundered apartment previously housing the two elders. While waiting for laundry to dry we decided to walk around the immediate area a bit as we'd previously seen only those areas on the way to church or the two apartments there. We'd always been fascinated by their cathedral which had two spires, each topped by an apparent holy rooster.
Outside was this lovely fountain. Later we also found some interesting apartment houses in an area known as the Gasometer.
It was nice to run around while we still had an excuse to be in our P-day clothes. We assume all of our YSA's will be back from their convention in Cologne but this week is the Stake Temple Week and it appears there will be lots heading to Frankfurt before it closes for two years for renovations. It's closing at the same time as the Freiberg Temple is closed but the latter will supposedly open again in about February. We're secretly reserving a place there for our next mission, knowing that Heidi's parents also served there.
Outside was this lovely fountain. Later we also found some interesting apartment houses in an area known as the Gasometer.
It was nice to run around while we still had an excuse to be in our P-day clothes. We assume all of our YSA's will be back from their convention in Cologne but this week is the Stake Temple Week and it appears there will be lots heading to Frankfurt before it closes for two years for renovations. It's closing at the same time as the Freiberg Temple is closed but the latter will supposedly open again in about February. We're secretly reserving a place there for our next mission, knowing that Heidi's parents also served there.
[Sister Parker] Sorry you can't see the roosters on the top of the steeples. They look awesome to a rooster lover. Well, I can't believe we are already at the beginning of August. Isn't there some holiday we can celebrate during this month, besides the Highland Fling which just barely got into August by day one. Really, August means those last couple of summer weeks before school starts and it's back to scheduled days. Vienna is bursting with tourists from every land and you can hear half a dozen different languages while just riding the trams. My favorite thing to do is to stop by the Gelato place on the way home from the center or on our P-days. You just can't beat excellent Gelato. The fruit flavors are especially good during hot weather, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, mango, etc. Some one needs to make a Cold Stone Gelato place, or something like that. I found out that Gelato doesn't have as much fat in it as ice cream, "that's a plus"!
Many of our young adults are also out vacationing, so we don't have as many even in visiting the various wards. It's been great to have so many marriages this summer and some coming in September. We feel fulfilled as YSA leaders. Another sweet thing is that a lot of the ones who married during last year are now having babies and it is fun to see them carrying around these tiny, sweet babies. Hope you enjoy these last lazy, fun days with family and friends.
HUGS AND PRAYERS,
Grammy, Grampa,
Mom, Dad,
Elder and Sister Parker
Mom, Dad,
Elder and Sister Parker
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