To Our Dear Family,
What another incredible week it has been. It seems like we don't have enough time in the day to get everything done that's waiting for our attention. We had what everyone thought was a quick zone training meeting on Thursday which is when we had planned to travel down to Wiener Neustadt to do some apartment inspections. But because of the zone training they cancelled our district meeting on Tuesday so we decided that was our best day to travel instead. We have two apartments there that used to be about 25-30 minutes apart as the crow walks and he does as their public transportation system is pretty slow. But it must be that we're aging a bit as this time it took us a good 35-40 minutes to make the walk and that was just between the two apartments, not counting the walk to and from the train station before and after the inspections. That left us just one apartment to check out with the other two both undergoing serious repair work at the moment. So we got the last apartment on Wednesday morning and then were able to hit a couple of our favorite hardware and furniture stores and stock up on about 180 Euros of goodies that they all needed. We managed to pack it all up and deliver it to everyone at the zone meeting by Thursday! Boy did we feel like we were efficient. (Plus we have a huge credit on our mission statement with a promise that we'll eventually get it all back.) We think we're already due enough money that we won't need anymore for the next 4 months and that's twice as long as we still have left. It was kind of fun at zone meeting because we had visited the apartment of every single companionship there within the previous two weeks with the exception of the two undergoing repairs and we see those elders a lot anyway.
On the spiritual side of things, last week was our second best week of the entire summer as to how many people appeared at the center for this or that activity. Actually it was our third best but we're not counting one week where we had an extra 24 people for a Visitor's Evening on a Sunday night. We now have a good cadre of about 8-10 YSA's who are regular attenders at several of our activities along with the others who come just for institute. That by the way was really special also this week as the teacher was an ex-bishop, ex-stake president, ex-mission president, ex-member of a temple presidency (we think he may have even been an ex-area Seventy but not completely sure about that) who taught a wonderful lesson on living the gospel in spite of the realities of daily life that confront each of us. Then on Thursday, we made sure language courses ended by 6 PM because there was a very special baptism scheduled for 7 that evening. A sweet sister has been investigating the church for over 10 years and was known to every missionary in Vienna as she tended to fuss over them, giving presents such as ties and frequently goodies. The baptism was scheduled for an unusual Thursday because the Europe Area was holding a three-day mission presidents seminar which began on Tuesday and President Kohler thought it would be nice if he and Sister Kohler could attend the baptism while they were in town. So naturally this sweet sister who is invariably 20 minutes early to all meetings was about 30 minutes late! But she had called to assure the elders that she was still coming so everyone had a good time visiting and waiting. It seemed like every elder in the city was there. It turned out that a bit of her dress floated up during the first try and so she got to do it twice but she handled it well. The attendees (just from the mission):
Transfers are this coming Thursday and we're getting 4 new Goldens, 2 of whom will be in our district. We usually try and conduct the district meetings in German so that should be interesting. One of our Zone Leaders is becoming an AP and we'll also be getting a new District Leader so life is never dull.
P day was special as the sisters had told us about a special chapel that had been built up in the Vienna Woods to commemorate the marriage of Franz Joseph II and his 16 year old bride, Elisabeth, commonly known as Sisi. We finally got it located and it looked like the closest approach was directly south of it so we went there to find that although it was closer, it was also straight uphill all the way! We kept wondering why everyone we passed was going the other way, i.e., downhill and came to find out the better way was to take a little bit of a longer walk from a different bus stop but at least make the walk through the forest on the much less strenuous approach. But the chapel was really pretty and actually quite small compared to the usual Catholic edifices. It was located very near a large "Life-Tree Circle" with about 26 different stations, each representing two weeks out of the year with typical astrological pointers indicating how great we were if we were born during that two weeks. Every station was represented by a tree. Elder Parker was a maple and Sister Parker was a cypress which we learned symbolically represents the resurrection! Appropriate pictures are stored for later. Above the Life Circle was a large meadow containing something laid out on a north-south east-west grid that sort of reminded us of Stonehenge. Great home movies awaiting but here are a few items we will use.
The Sisi chapel,
the Life-Tree-Circle,
and the kind of sunsets you get to see when you live in a big city surrounded by apartment houses.
This last was actually pretty spectacular and the picture doesn't do it justice but this is the street right around the corner from our apartment which is to the right of the BIPA building about two doors down.
Well, the new senior couple comes in on Thursday with whom we'll ride to Switzerland in a couple of weeks, we're still trying to finalize a new apartment for the genealogy records couple that come right after we get back and then two days later is another zone conference in Salzburg which takes place on Aaron's birthday. Never a dull moment around here.
Times are busy, but good. It seems when you get down to the last couple of months of your mission you have achieved a competence of some sort in your missionary work and language, then time speeds up and you can't get everything done you would like too. We enjoy supporting the missionaries in their training meetings. They are very capable of training and supporting each other and bringing the Holy Spirit to lift them up and sustain them during hard times. This week the Zone Leaders challenged everyone to deep clean their apartments as a sign of recommitment to the work. I liked that part, clean apartments make missionaries feel good and well organized. Their emphasis was on showing the Lord that you were ready to change and be a better missionary. We also enjoy working with the young singles as they seek to prepare to find their place in the world and to remain faithful. Friday, "Waffle Nights" are a way of having fun and being supportive at the same time. Here missionaries and members interact and we enjoy the banter that goes on over who is going to help cook waffles and who can win at "Spot It".
Also this week I was reminded by a sister missionary's talk that Sacrament meeting is a time to refill our cup after emptying it all week long. If we come prepared to the sacrament table, we can refill our cup spiritually, from the Savior, to take us through to the next week. Of course, we can put a little back in as we pray and have scripture study, but with our emphasis on "Sabbath Day Worship", what a great reason to look forward to Sunday.
It's a sweet rainy day here, hope you're getting some Autumn weather too. We are going back up to 90 degrees in a couple days, just for a day or two, so I'm enjoying what I can for the minute. Have a great day.
with love 
Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker
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