March 4, 2018

Hello to everyone, especially our Dear Mindy who’s celebrating her birthday on the day we wrote this. As always, it’s been an amazing week. We had no groups from Hungary or Poland so it was pretty easy for us to coordinate our responsibilities on organizing the various sessions as we didn’t have to find anyone who was proficient in any other language than German or English.  We did have a big group from the Czech Republic who came on Saturday but it was a youth group who had come to do baptisms for the dead so we really weren’t involved with that other than having to scrounge a bit for veil workers.

We’re always amazed at how tired we get but we do work from 7am to around 3 or 4 PM every day. They don’t schedule a lunch break, so we always have to figure out a time when we can sneak back to our apartment to get something to eat. At least it’s not a long walk and we can usually find 30 minutes or so once a session gets started.

We do thoroughly enjoy the great reports we get every Monday from our grandsons Myles, Kyle and Tim and our great-niece-in-law Elowyn, all of whom seem to be thoroughly involved in the work of the Lord.  You are always in our prayers along with Tom and Laurel, and all of the rest of the missionaries whom we don’t mention by name. I had the opportunity this week at one of our early morning devotionals, to provide the spiritual thought and commented about the way in which one of Christ’s names, “the Prince of Peace,” is especially meaningful in our temple ceremonies. The Spirit here in the temple truly does provide us peace in our lives. I quoted the experience from President Nelson who was almost killed many years ago when the small plane he was riding in went into a nose-dive as the engine started to burn. Death appeared inevitable, but he still remembers the peace he felt at the time because he was eternally sealed to his wife and children and would soon meet the ancestors for whom he had done temple ordinances.

We are starting to recognize more and more of the regular patrons who come to the temple on a regular basis and we frequently have the opportunity to speak with others who come from places we recognize such as Vienna or Berlin. One brother from Berlin lived in Dahlem where Grammy served but now lives in Neukoelln where I served three times as a junior companion, a senior companion and then a district leader. Of course, it has all changed dramatically by now but it’s still fun to reminisce.

We have had some opportunity to get big-time into family history and Grammy particularly has been able to download 10 or 12 names of ancestors who are getting their work done. We brought several names with us from our niece, Alicia Braegger and we are steadily working on getting them through their ordinances. As many of you know, I have always been interested in the living members of the family as new kids come along but decided I needed more information on the families of my cousins. So I’m starting with the Parker side of the gang and will work on the Gunn side after that. Because I know the least about my cousin, John Parker, Uncle Alton’s son, who lives in Texas, I decided to start with him. Looking up what was available on Family Search I noted that he and his two sisters were all listed as deceased. Knowing that was at least partially in error, I emailed him and he has been kind enough to send me all the info I needed on his family, kids, their marriages and his grandchildren. I haven’t done more than just look at the other two, Uncle Tom’s, and Aunt Dorothy’s, but there is a lot to do there. If anyone has the inclination to call up the locals that would be great. Otherwise, just getting me their email addresses would be wonderful. There’s even a little bit of temple work that needs doing with family permission from anyone born less than 110 years ago.

The next big event coming up is the two-week closure of the temple for maintenance on the 13th of March. It will occur right after the Freiberg 2nd Branch Conference on the 11th when we’ll have a special endowment session for our branch at the end of that Saturday. The Freiberg 1st Ward also meets in our chapel but we’re smaller and thus hang together more tightly. Beginning on the Monday afterwards, we’re going to head off in our newly rented car, (see the photo below) first, to Leipzig to time the trip to Markus Wiese’s home.  We’ll be visiting them in April for their special family event and this will give us the opportunity to figure out the drive. Then we’re off to Erfurt to see where Martin Luther first was ordained as a priest. Next off to Wartburg Castle where he translated the New Testament into German. Then we’re heading down to Frankfurt to see the progress being made on the Frankfurt Temple. Next it’s down the Rhine Valley which we’ve been told is quite a sight-seeing trip on our way to Cologne and then Brussels and a few cities in Belgium. Our eventual goal is to get to The Hague by the following Saturday where the Netherlands Temple is located. They only have sessions on Thursday through Saturday and we just found out today that we’d better make reservations, or we might not get in. We’ll plan on staying in The Hague through Sunday and then it’s off to Amsterdam to see the Rembrandt Museum and the house Anne Frank lived in hiding out from the Nazis. We already have reservations in Brussels, Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam but we’ll need to make a few more before we leave.  We have Starpoints we can use in the Marriott or Sheraton systems and Marriott was great in the states. Here in Europe it’s Sheraton that has all the right locations. That should keep our expenses down a bit. President Erlacher has asked us to be back on the Monday before the official re-opening as they have a group of about 60 young people coming to do baptisms that they’ll need some help with.

A little bit more about the car. We’re currently driving a two-door Nissan which is an automatic shift but we’re really going after a 4-door stick which is available but needs a little work that will take about a week. The car rental place is run by a member of our stake presidency and he offers the rentals at pretty reasonable rates for the temple missionaries. So today we took a Sunday drive in the car pictured and went over to Dresden and part of the way to Chemnitz before heading back home. We grabbed some pictures of the statue to the founder of the city of Freiberg and their city hall as well as the cathedral (which we haven’t yet been inside of as it’s not free) and it’s small back yard cemetery. Now that we have the car, we may get around a little better during our free Mondays.

We’ve had the chance to help train our new missionaries, the Lindsays, as they have been named veil coordinators as well. We’ve had several opportunities for socials and even saw a neat film that we’d never heard of called “Australia” which was provided last night by one of the couples. It’s been very heart-warming to be so close to these five other couples. We’re losing the Fillmores after two more days this week and then gaining two more couples in the next month, the Lindfords and the Thornocks. Heidi tells us they’re probably related but not known to them. Below are a few more pictures of Freiberg.

The central square of Freiberg. the city hall is on the right and at the far left of that same line is the "Burgerhaus" where we registered.  Sounds a lot like a hamburger place!

The city hall itself

A statue to Otto "the Rich" Von Meissen who founded the city in 1180

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Mom: It's hard to believe that it is already March. There are no signs of spring, no crocus, no Hyacinth's, no buds of the trees large enough to see. For the last two months we have been in a big, deep freeze. It freezes your head, your eyes and anything else that is uncovered. But the young mothers tuck their babies warmly into pram and go out anyway. Crazy Mama's. They also take out their small toddlers and preschoolers bundled in snowsuits, boots, (even though there is no real snow, just little,frozen patches of here and there) 3 scarves and little knit hats on their heads. And, of course they have cute, rosy cheeks and look adorable. A couple of days ago I was in a store and tried to take a picture of a cute, little boy. He moved before I could get a good shot and I also didn't have his mother's permission. It's fun to watch them, anyway. 

Today the temperature will get up between 38 and 41. Hopefully, spring will show up soon with some flowers as all the temple missionaries and presidency will be leaving with the temple two week closure to do some traveling.

Hope spring will come your way soon also.

Love, Mom and Dad, 

Grammy and Grampa, 

Elder and Sister Parker