February 25, 2018

Isn’t it amazing how quickly the time flies. We keep getting weather warnings about how much snow is falling back home and here it’s almost gone. It’s just that the temperatures here have been between 18-22 degrees so even when it’s a beautiful sunny day like we’re having today, the snow isn’t. melting much. I was taking the garbage out last evening without a coat on (it’s only about a 1-minute walk to our garbage cans) and a member of the temple presidency who had just come in was warning me that I might freeze my ears off. I didn’t but it was cold!

We finally got our first haircuts here in Germany with the local hair salon just around a couple of corners, easy to walk to and run by our Relief Society President, Sister Fröbel. We don’t see her husband much and we suspect he’s either in the Stake Presidency or on the high council, but it was kind of fun on Friday night to have them both there as temple workers. Definitely a first to coordinate a veil with my barber working there! We went over to her salon with our next-door neighbors, the Mosses, just to make an appointment but she worked all four of us in, doing the men while the women were getting their hair dried. The Mosses have a car and we borrowed it while they were being done long enough to run to the local ATM and get a little cash. Most of the stores around here will take our debit card without any hassle but a few require cash, so we must keep a few euros handy.

We’ve had a little interaction with our newcomers, the Lindsays. She knows Aunt Kate really well and sang with her for a number of years in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I guess they knew each other in junior high at Hillside though she doesn’t remember much interaction at Highland High. She does, however, remember her principal there, Edward W. Parker so we’ve had a lot to talk about. It turns out she developed a bad cough the last few days and couldn’t come Thursday, Friday or Saturday. However, they’d been asked to introduce themselves and bear their testimonies today in Sacrament Meeting, which they did, both in German which was impressive. She didn’t stay around for the other meetings, feeling she was just a bit too contagious. Our other speakers were the Fillmores who are leaving in a week. Brother Fillmore has been unique because he has mastered much of the temple material not only in German but also in Polish, Czech, Hungarian and even Russian!  He will be greatly missed.

This week we had three different groups attending. The biggest group was here all week from Hungary. Last week there was a group from Vienna including a young adult who had moved there from Hungary with his mother that I think I mentioned last week. I sat down with him and had him help me pronounce the Hungarian words and even though I don’t understand what I’m saying, I think I’m getting close enough that they might be able to understand me. We also have a sister who works with us a lot who speaks excellent English and German but originates from Hungary and she has also tutored me a bit. So I’m taking some lessons from Bro. Fillmore and we’ll see if I can pick up any others. We did have members from the Czech Republic here a couple of weeks ago so I may have a little more time to work on that language. Our other two groups were from Germany including one from Berlin. One couple used to be the mission president in our old mission headquartered in Munich when it didn’t include Switzerland but now they live in Neukölln in Berlin where I worked as a junior companion, senior companion and district leader. I don’t remember him at all as he was still primary age back then and was baptized just a couple of years before I served.

The temple will close for a two-week maintenance in just a couple of weeks so we’re starting to make plans about our activities during that time. I think we’ve decided to head west. We’ll visit our friend, Markus Wiese and his family in Leipzig as we pass through, but we’ll only stay briefly as we’ve been invited to attend his confirmation in the local Lutheran church the second week of April.  That will be on a Sunday so we’ll time how long it takes us to drive there and likely spend the day with them then. The rest of our itinerary is still a little bit vague, but we’ll probably include a visit to Erfurt where Martin Luther lived, pass by the Frankfurt Temple, though it’s still closed for renovations and then head on over to Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. The Hague is where there is another temple and we’ll see if we can do a little temple work there. Our next break will be in September and we’re planning on heading north then up to Berlin, Kiel Germany and possibly on into Copenhagen and attend the temple there. It is still open for other plans if anyone wants to visit.

All this means it’s finally time to rent a car and we’ll likely do that in this next week as we get to the first of the month. It remains to be seen whether we keep it for the rest of the mission though I suspect we probably will.  Everyone else here has a car except the Fillmores and it will definitely give us a little more opportunity to get around more.

            Mom: It seems like it’s been a busy week but I’m trying to let go of some of the daily stress. As one of the sisters, who is from Vienna and originally from Hungary says, ‘all the work will come together because it’s the Lord’s house.” You don’t need to worry so much about it. And, of course, she is right, but it is easier to say than do, even though I see it happen every day during our service. I’ve probably already said this, but I love working in the temple because I know that I have truly accomplished some of the Lord’s work each day. My heart is filled with such love for the temple; there is so much Holiness and sacredness inside. I love seeing the saints, the families and ward groups coming together to do work for their past ancestors. They are so happy and seem to be rejoicing during their time in the temple. We share in each other’s love. Even though we are just human and make mistakes, there couldn’t be a better place on earth to work. I hope that every time you grandchildren sing, “ I Love to See the Temple” that you think of Grammy and Grampa working inside the Savior’s beautiful House. Missing and thinking about all of you. Be Faithful. 

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

February 18, 2018

Another very busy week in the service of the Lord. The first big item as many of you, but not all, are aware, was a scary Valentines Day event. We didn’t even have the opportunity to wish Tim and Kathy a happy anniversary. Mom was talking to one of the other sisters in our apartment complex about 3:30 and sensed that she couldn’t express herself very well. The sister, who’s pretty good in German just thought she was telling her that she was having trouble in a different language. She came home but didn’t say a word to me, as the episode had passed, until a couple of hours later when it became obvious that she couldn’t adequately express what she wanted to say. We had planned on a Valentine’s day outing with the other couples when I became seriously concerned that something was really going on. I had her lie down as she described a little bit of a headache over her left eye and then later described a heaviness in her right arm earlier in the day which had subsided. There was a gathering outside our door as everyone was preparing to go out when I announced that I was very concerned about her condition. Our next-door neighbor came in immediately and helped me administer to her and then a member of the temple presidency guided us in his car as we followed in another brother’s car to the hospital. There she was taken into the emergency room where I provided some translation and she was evaluated by the doctor on call. The neurologist on call that night was scheduled to go home in about an hour but came to provide his expertise and we all agreed that she must be having what seemed to be a mild stroke. Most of her symptoms subsided within a short period of time but they recommended that she stay for further evaluation.When we arrived at her room, it turned out to be a “Uni-sex” room with a male roommate. There apparently was no other space available on the ward but they had a curtain between them. That didn’t help to decrease the sound of his snoring. This ended up being a three-day stay and she received an
ultrasound of the brain circulation, an echocardiogram, several blood tests and a
prolonged evaluation of her heart rhythm to make sure she didn’t have what’s known as atrial fibrillation which can be associated with strokes.  On her second day she received
a female roommate and her last day she was the only one in the room.

She had an interesting experience with German medicine as she was rounded on each morning by a doctor and possibly 5 or 6 interns. She found a very nice doctor who came from Sicily where he had learned English as a second language before coming to Germany to get his medical education.  He provided her with some English literature on some of the things going on. All of her tests came back normal. By Saturday afternoon everyone agreed she could go home and really hadn’t had any persistent symptoms since she was first admitted. I think her name got placed on the prayer roll a dozen times or so at the temple and we agreed that she had truly been blessed. No further problems have since arisen and she’s back in the normal swing of things. Thanks for your prayers as well.

As for the rest of the week, it was very busy. We had more people come from Poland and a brother speaking Hungarian with a sister speaking Russian. Languages seem to be our greatest challenge.  While Mom was in the hospital I was assigned to work with a Sister Dospil whom we knew in Vienna but who is a native Hungarian. So even though I don’t know the language she can help me pronounce things off a card that is available. Our most versatile brother, Brother Fillmore, who can read Hungarian, Polish and Czech along with a little Russian is going home in a little over a week from now and we will really miss him and his wife and their capabilities.

On another note, we are no longer the newies in the group.  Elder and Sister Lindsay arrived yesterday for 18 months. He served a mission in Bavaria and is a previous stake president. She speaks only a little German but apparently her mother had some German heritage or may even have originated from Germany. We’ll find out more about them tomorrow night at Family Home Evening.

Our assignments continue to be as veil coordinators and we were kept very busy throughout the whole week. Occasionally a session will be cancelled if there aren’t enough patrons but that didn’t happen this week though we did have a few sessions with only one couple and either an extra brother or sister. Then we have to provide some help with temple workers to augment out things happening around the altar. Sister Dospil really helped me out while Mom was in the hospital and I even had the opportunity of leading one of the sessions on Saturday, only the second time that has ever happened.  We were really helped out by the Bonners, the other veil coordinators who picked up the slack while I was occasionally running to the hospital as well as provided the use of their car to get back and forth, without which it would have been an hour long walk one way. 

Driving in Germany was a new experience, but it went fairly well after I inadvertently turned a couple of times into parking lots by mistake. I was able to pick up my new glasses on the first day out and we’ve also finally received a printer so we can start writing some things down that we want to preserve around here.

People have really been great while all this was going on.  Although Mom did get out our Valentine’s day gifts to everyone before everything started happening we have received goodies, and food and blessings galore from everyone here we know. A faithful Brother Schmidt who was helping out at the last session on Saturday, probably in his 80’s, stopped me as I was adding some names to the prayer roll. He carefully wrote out “Schwester Parker” and added it to the pack of names I was carrying.  As you can imagine, everyone has been concerned and made sure she knew of their love and prayers in her behalf. Two couples even visited her in the hospital and provided candy bars and a package of hot chocolate together with a mug to make it in. I have included a picture of our invitation to dinner tonight. To the right are the Fillmores who leave in a little over a week and the Mosses, our next door neighbors who graciously invited us so Mom wouldn’t have to fix anything today.

               Mom: Wow, that was quite an experience, I hope never to have again. It’s kind of scary to understand everything that’s being said to you but not to be able to find the words to answer back. While I didn’t like staying at the Krankenhaus, it was good to have the reassurance that all the evaluations turned out well. It seems like I’m still in pretty good shape, I just need more sleep and a little less stress. I was very touched by all the love and kindness extended to us, especially the prayers from the temple workers. Everyone reached out to help in any way that they could, and all our senior couples showered us with food and flowers on my return. It felt like the Relief Society sisters compassionate service without any coordination, but it was delightful. I can’t say much for German hospital food, but I survived. Thanks for all your love and prayers. I think that I could feel them coming from heaven upon me.

       Love you all very much,
Hugs and Prayers,
Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker

February 11, 2018

Hello to our family and friends!

Another amazing week is done and we’re still at it with vim and vigor. The notable event this week was transfer time for the Berlin Mission. Although our official presiding authority is President Erlacher, President of the temple, we are also included as missionaries of the Berlin Mission.  President Fingerle, the mission president apparently has a format where all the newly arriving missionaries begin as their first activity, a temple experience. We talked with one of the sisters who had just arrived, and she said her travel itinerary had been a departure from Salt Lake City with transfers in Chicago, Frankfurt and Dresden! After four different flights one can naturally expect a great deal of fatigue and jet lag as we well remember from just a month ago. (Amazing that we arrived here on the 13th just 29 days ago!) The President brilliantly has concluded that a good way to stave off jet lag is to begin with a baptism. All of the missionaries began their mission experience by being baptized for the dead. I’m sure that would help keep me a little more awake for the testimony conference that followed after traveling for a full day or so.

A few days later we had another large group of missionaries, this time, those that were departing.  Each of them participated in a full endowment session and we thought that was really a great way to end one’s mission experience. So one begins with a temple experience and ends 18-24 months later with another mission experience. We occasionally see missionaries who attend at other times if they are working nearby and apparently, they are allowed to do so once a month if they’re within range.

We began this week with a trip with two other missionary couples to the site where Germany was dedicated again for the preaching of the gospel. This was performed by then Elder Monson though the sign pictured names him as President Monson. He may have been the area president for Europe at that time as it all took place on April 27, 1975. The Freiberg Temple was first dedicated on June 29, 1985 while Freiberg was still a part of the “German Democratic Republic” or the DDR, commonly known by the rest of the world as East Germany. The first pictures show us walking down the path to the dedication site, past the large water tower in the vicinity and then a shot showing the water tower with the dedication sign on the wall. We’ve then included a close up of the sign noting the dedication and then a few pictures with Elder and Sister Moss, our next-door neighbors at the overlook site where one can see the city of Dresden and the Elbe River passing through.

We have still been given the assignment of veil coordinators. We have five sessions a day and last week we were responsible for two sessions, with another couple, the Bonners taking the other three.  This week we had the three and they had the two. We alternate 8 AM, 10:30 AM and 1 PM with the other couple getting the 9 AM and 11:30 PM sessions. Friday there is a 7 PM session and the coordinators who have the two sessions get that last one in the evening as their responsibility.

This was actually a pretty straightforward week as we didn’t have to struggle with Czech or Polish.  Everyone spoke either German or a few who preferred English, but it was much less hassle. We actually had one day where one sister preferred Spanish but a member of our temple presidency and his wife, the Wadosch’s, whom we knew in Vienna, volunteered to handle that language so it went pretty smoothly.

The other fun thing that happened was the two groups were visiting the temple that day. One came from Berlin but it had been enough years gone by that we didn’t recognize anyone from back in the 60’s. The other group, however, came from Vienna where we knew quite a few. Several were not only just visiting the temple but came as ordained temple workers. We knew quite well two young adults, Claire Schäffner and Balasz Kiss, who were often at the YA Center where we worked for a year and a half. They had a fireside one evening at the church on the temple grounds and we went over to get a few pictures. We often met Sister Schäffner as we were walking toward one of the elders’ apartments. She would be walking home from a school where she taught kindergarten. She is in the picture with the other sister whose name is Diana and we’ve forgotten her last name. Brother Kiss recognized us when he first came in but thought we had been missionaries in Hungary, his native country.  I reminded him that we had first met him in Vienna where he attended institute as a returned missionary. His English then was better than his German (and still is!) but his German is a lot better now than it was. His mother, also a member, had then been living in Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna, but both are now living in Vienna. He’s the one with dark hair between the two of us in the other picture. 

It was quite rewarding to us that both are now set apart temple workers and we worked with both for the whole week. I had the chance to work Bro. Kiss on initiatory ordinances and just about have all of that mastered. One of our rapidly departing couples in just a few more weeks are the Fillmores. He has been a real asset to us because he can read Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Spanish and Russian and it cannot be emphasized enough what an asset that has been. So I decided while I had the opportunity, to learn to at least read Hungarian while I could spend some time with Bro. Kiss and he gave me a little help in learning to at least pronounce the Hungarian words, even if I didn’t fully understand them.  We have another sister here who is from Hungary and speaks quite excellent English and German and she has also offered to help now that Brother Kiss has returned to Vienna.

Yes, the work is sweet, and we enjoy working with all the temple workers and the patrons who come on a continual basis, sometimes every day. We are even learning many of their names, and they graciously greet us with a hug on each cheek. Still it is quite tiring to work 8 hours each and we come home feeling we need a short nap to refresh us, but sometimes a short walk is just as good. 

 

Mom: I think my German is getting better and then I don’t.  We always have someone translating in our meetings and I’ve tried it a few times with just one ear, but half the time I don’t feel like the translation is that great and I do better figuring it out on my own. There is so much to learn, and I am doing it a little at a time, even with trying to memorize the temple ordinances. 

Yesterday I was feeling a little homesick for some reason, but it seems that when that happens someone “Facetimes” me and all is well with our little missionary world. Love and pray for all of you on your missions and in everyone’s daily endeavors. 

 HUGS AND PRAYERS,
Mom, Dad, Grammy, Grampa, Elder and Sister Parker

February 4, 2018

We have completed our third week! I had to reread our entry from last week so as not to repeat things we’ve already said. It’s amazing, still, how much there is to do and even though we’ve kind of learned the ropes, it seems there are always a few curves they toss at us to keep us humble.

Our Polish brothers and sisters left at the end of last week and were replaced with a contingent from the Czech Republic. They were here all week from Tuesday through Saturday. We got pretty familiar with everyone who spoke Czech and learned quickly who could speak anything else. Few were proficient in German but there were some who were pretty good at English. Leading the group seemed to be Brother Canek (pronounced Chaneck) and his wife Sister Cankova (pronounced Chankova). We learned quickly that even though married, they had unique endings to their names.  Brother Canek was currently serving as a stake patriarch and had previously been a stake president.  We were grateful we’d spent a couple of days in Prague when we left Vienna in 2015 but I don’t think we’d made any attempts at learning the language.

It turned out that our two brethren who could speak a little Polish were also our go-to’s when we needed Czech. Whereas last week we had been assigned to three endowment sessions daily for our responsibility, the other couple taking two, this week we had it easy with only two sessions and the other couple got the three. That should have given us a little more free time but it turns out they kept us pretty busy in between sessions on a variety of other tasks. They had assigned us time to study at the end of the day following our last session, but I don’t think we were able to take advantage of it with other things to do. I ended up serving on the veil three or four times on sessions we weren’t coordinating and several times helped with initiatories. That’s still my biggest hang-up as I haven’t been able to memorize things in German very well and only got a portion of them learned in English in our four days at Mt. Timpanogos Temple.

Perhaps the biggest frustration of the week was yesterday on one session which had participants speaking German, Portuguese, Czech and English. It’s not just a matter of people helping at the veil who speak those languages but also figuring out who goes where once you’ve got them assigned.  We have learned that if you really don’t speak a language you just get a language card and do the best you can. That would have been the case for one Hungarian brother that came through but I had been told he understood German. He didn’t and ended up probably not understanding much that was said.

The other new thing is that we had “late service” and “early service” on Friday and Saturday.  Friday is the one day of the week they have an evening session, so you’re really not done until after 9 PM and then have to close up the temple and turn off all the interior lights. That’s usually when we’re trying to get to bed so we can get up at 5 AM. But the early service means you have to be there before 6 to open everything up so you’re at least up by 4:30 and it ended up a very short night.

    

                Mom: As hard as it is to get up early, it is kind of fun or a better word would be interesting to be in the temple before anyone else. Yesterday morning as we came down stairs to the beginning of the temple tunnel hallway, we met a family that had just come inside. There were about five of them, 3 adults and 2 young people, still in their coats and hats, excited to get started for the day. They had driven for 5 hours to get to the temple and wanted to change clothes and start with baptisms. Then when we got up stairs to the foyer we found, waiting at the door another group of people who wanted to come in somewhere and to change their clothes. They also had driven a long way thru the early morning hours and hadn’t wanted to dress in church clothes. Among them were two people for new endowments. We could only let them into the pre-foyer, but the President and his wife came to the temple about 6:10am and were able to send them downstairs to change by the temple hostel rooms. Interesting how the Lord provides. When we are alone in the temple early or late, a certain amount of awe comes over me as I help take care of the special needs that are required. I think back on those people in the Old Testament who were called to administrate and to take care of the temple. I think about Samuel and also, about Simeon and Anna, all temple workers with special blessings. I feel many of those spiritual blessings too, and feel it is a great privilege to work here, to be part of the Lord’s faithful.

We woke up this morning to a snowfall last night. See the first picture. It was Fast Day so we could sleep in and skip breakfast, but it was really pretty outside with a whitish fog that really looked good on a temple! The other pictures I’ve included, as I went outside after our meeting included the entire temple presidency walking up to our apartment building where they all live. That’s President Wagner on the left, President Erlacher in the middle and President Wadosch on the right.  Also included are pictures of our Herberg or hostel and the chapel right next door where the Freiberg 2nd Branch meets.

Love you all,  

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