April 29, 2018

The Mid-Singles Arrive

Now that we have been baptistry coordinators for almost a month, we have discovered several unique aspects to our assignment.  While coordinating the veil work in our previous month, one session pretty much merged into another and we stayed pretty focused. Occasionally we would be able to help out with other things but not too often. However, baptisms are usually taking place in the morning hours leaving us a great deal of unscheduled time, or at least time where we are asked to help out, either on the veil, initiatories, or even on occasional sealings. It certainly is possible for two baptismal sessions to be scheduled on one day and we even had one day this past week where three different sessions were on the list. As with the veil work, we have another couple also assigned and they have had a month longer experience than us, so usually one couple will take one session and the other will do the alternate. In the next week we begin the month of May and our colleagues, the Ashby’s will move on and we will receive the companionship of the Lindsay’s, Sister Lindsay being the previous Tab choir member and friend to Kathleen and Laurel. Each couple stay on their respective assignments for two months and then are changed and it looks like each of the two couples are staggered so the experienced two can help train the newbies. We haven’t yet been coordinators for the initiatories so that will probably come up for us in June.

For the month of April, our primary experience was dealing with youth and we had several different groups including Munich, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg as well as more local wards and stakes from Leipzig, Dresden and our local ward and branch from Freiberg. But they were here primarily during Easter vacations and have now all returned to school. So, we thought the scheduling would become much lighter. Instead, we discovered there was a scheduled conference here at the temple for the Mid-singles, or those 30 years and older. They really put us through our paces and although the number of participants was fewer, the number of baptisms and confirmations they performed was truly impressive. They had perhaps three or four brethren each day and perhaps as many as seven or eight sisters, but each performed as many as 15-20 baptisms each, so we saw our temple names significantly depleted, not ruling out the fact that they brought a couple of hundred names themselves. Also of interest was the fact that they were a multi-lingual group, coming from countries speaking French, Russian, Hungarian, and of course, German. It seemed like the common tongue for everyone was English and that made things a little easier for us. I was particularly impressed with a Brother Pauly who brought so many of his own researched names that it seemed like we were working on them through three different sessions. There were a few new converts in the group and we encouraged one brother, in particular, to try his hand at baptizing. He eventually did, after having been baptized himself about 20 times and seemed to enjoy the experience immensely.

Today at church they were all here and we opened up the cultural hall all the way to the back to accommodate them.  Our stake presidency were all here along with one of the area 70’s, all of whom spoke after several assigned testimonies from 4-5 of the singles. We didn’t get his name accurately, but he is apparently from Costa Rica and is currently living in Spain. A delightful brother, he opened his talk in Spanish asking how many in the congregation spoke that language. About 6 hands went up. Then in English he asked how many spoke English as their primary language. About 20 hands went up. And then he asked how many spoke German with the rest of the congregation raising their hands. So he said, “OK, I guess I’ll speak in German.” His German was really quite excellent, and they had translators ready with many present wearing earphones so hear it in their own languages. It was really a wonderful meeting and at the conclusion they asked all of the mid-single sisters to meet back in our baptismal room and the brothers to assemble in the Hostel cafeteria room for the next 45 minutes. Afterwards we noticed them all gathered between the hostel and the church and I snapped this picture!

Friday, we had a very interesting experience. Apparently mis-scheduled for Saturday, a young engaged couple appeared to do baptisms at around 1 PM. The Lord seemed to provide as we were able to provide a couple of brethren for witnesses and another brother who is one of our local temple workers had a few names of his own that he wanted to do so we were able to work them in without too much of a problem. Her name was Tanya Ilina and his name was Gerrit Welleke. When asked she said she had been a member since she was 8 years old and he had been on a mission to Moscow. They had apparently met on Facebook and were engaged to be married in August at the Freiberg Temple.  When asked about their origins, he was from Braunschweig, Germany and she was from St. Petersburg! I asked her if she had ever met President and Sister Clark and her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she said, “Of course!” Brother Welleke then said that he had spoken to Pres. Clark multiple times on the phone while he was working in the mission office in Moscow. He was also aware that they were both working at the MTC in Provo. We later had the opportunity of eating lunch with them in the Hostel cafeteria and he had long enough arms to take the following picture. I thought what a small world we live in!

She will take out her endowment in the Helsinki Temple in June and they will then be married in Freiberg the same day they plan to be sealed in the temple.  We’ll look forward to seeing them again at that time.

Last week I talked about taking a few people through the veil in Hungarian, an activity which they tolerated in good grace. This week we had a sister who spoke Spanish. It occurred to me that several languages are fairly easy to read because unlike English, they have pretty specific pronunciation rules. German, Italian, and Spanish are pretty much like that. I had once read the Book of Mormon out loud to my friend, Al Toronto, when he returned from his mission to Chile and he said he could understand reasonably well what I was saying although I had no comprehension of what I was saying. So with a Spanish card in hand I attempted it on Friday. Sister Parker was in front and I was behind, and she did it all in German while I was attempting it in Spanish. Again, the sister was very tolerant of the effort, but I may be getting a reputation for a bit of a linguist. I won’t try and push it too far.

Next week is our Stake Conference in Dresden. We had never been to the stake center but got the address off the church website and decided yesterday was a good day to travel to Dresden, not only to see the Dresden Stake Center but also to buy an entryway carpet from IKEA which we had checked out a couple of weeks ago. We made some measurements to make sure it would fit and made the purchase. Here it is installed in our entryway. At last we have an apartment with at least a little bit of a rug!

We did have a chance to see the stake center we’ll be attending next week.  It’s really in a very lovely area with a park and lake with a fountain in the middle of it right across the street. After the picture of the church see if you can see the steeple in the trees on the next picture.

And lastly, we had a chance to wander around a little in the parks here in Freiberg. Grammy is just falling all over herself enjoying all the blossoms and flowers that are out. Here are a few more photos.

Fountains in the Freiberg Park

Flowers around an old Freiberg pillar

Close up of the pillar showing a Freiberg knight

Flowers have sprung up around the temple

Moroni illuminated by the sun

Mom: Of course, I love the blooming of spring in every park and garden. Who wouldn’t after many months of winter, and Freiberg has turned into a very lovely spot to be in this time of year but watch out there are also many thunder storms.

      It’s been great this week working with the mid-singles in the baptistry. They all seem relatively young and are more like young adults. It is sweet to connect with them spiritually. I think that we are, really, not old or young but spiritual beings who can communicate on a different level. I love working in the temple and seeing all these brothers and sisters, dressed in white, seeking to do the Lord’s work. It is such a welcome sanctuary from the troubled world. I have really become attached to this Freiberg temple and to working here. Never have I had the opportunity to serve so many days in a row in the temple. I know I will miss it. There is a sweet little video on temples on Mormon.org called “Holy temples are necessary today”. It’s kind of in outline.

 LOVE, HUGS, AND PRAYERS,

Grammy, Grampa,

Mom, Dad,

Elder and Sister Parker

April 22, 2018

A Lutheran Confirmation

After last weeks run at our Hungarian brothers and sisters, I apparently got the reputation for being willing to at least attempt to read the various cards we have in different languages. I admit that I have had two native Hungarians sit down with me to provide schooling on pronouncing the language, but it must be admitted that that hasn’t been really enough to learn it even rudimentarily.  Nonetheless a reputation is exactly that and before I knew what was happening I found myself working in the endowment sessions with Hungarian brothers and sisters. I have figured out that they must have been able to interpret whatever I was trying to say but it was far from the real thing. About the only other brother who can pronounce Hungarian is our temple recorder and he just isn’t available enough to cover the need, so I was called upon a lot last week to help out. It definitely keeps one humble. I mentioned last week about asking the other couples how many would like copies of several expressions that the temple has provided in a small notebook at the recommend desk. Simple things like “Good Morning”,  “Have a good day”, “Thanks for your help” and “Have a safe trip home”.  Up until now we haven’t had to deal with Rumanian or Bulgarian yet. On the other hand, we did have a couple of Russian speakers and even a sister who spoke Greek.  Nobody here can even read their alphabets so that’s still a challenge though a couple of  members of the presidency seem to be able to help in those areas.

We did have a very sweet experience that I was involved with on both ends of the whole process. A sister came to the temple ready to take out her own endowments, but she also had the names of her two deceased parents. Now that our primary responsibility is to coordinate baptisms, we met her early in the week wanting to be baptized for her mother. Another brother offered to be baptized for her father and then both were confirmed. She then proceeded to get her own initiatory ordinances performed and went through for her own endowment. The next day she returned to have the initiatories performed for both of her parents, taking care of her mother personally. These were all promptly recorded in the office.  She then went through a session for her mother while a friend did the same for her father. At the conclusion of the session, a member of the temple presidency agreed to perform the sealing of her parents and she again represented her mother. Then two other proxies represented her parents as she was personally sealed to them and I was privileged to serve as one of the witnesses. There was a very special spirit present as she united her immediate family together for eternity and it brought the whole work we do here into marvelous focus.

Our next interesting event was to deal with the latest transfer within the Berlin Mission. We may have mentioned this in the past but when missionaries first arrive in the field, even if still suffering from jet lag, their first stop is at the temple where all perform baptisms for the dead. At the end of their missions they conclude with an endowment session in the temple, followed by a testimony meeting in the neighboring chapel. We have found it a very interesting and rewarding routine that has been a hallmark of President Fingerle who is due to be released at the end of June.  He will be replaced by a brother who is now an area seventy in Frankfurt and it will be interesting to see if he continues this tradition or starts off on his own pathway. 

I was serving in the small booth prior to the start of the session where one of our responsibilities is to determine which language the patron would like to use at the veil. I think I took all of the elders through and was happy that every one of them wanted to proceed in German. At any rate, this week represented the end of the missions for about 12 elders and 2 sisters. One of the latter we had invited, with her companion, to our apartment for dinner and we found out she had some health problems that could not be readily addressed here in Germany, so she was being released after about 10-11 months in the field. So, we made the decision to attend the testimony meeting at the end of the day and wish her a fond farewell. All gave their testimonies in German and several were quite moved, as one can imagine. We have included a picture of Sister Sorenson here with Sisters Parker and Moss as we bid her farewell.

The next big event occurred on Wednesday with birthday #73 for the old man here. I received many messages and Facebook congratulations as well as a delightful package from home containing lots of fun games and goodies. Many thanks to one and all. It was very special, and I even received an acknowledgment in our morning prayer meeting along with a birthday card signed by the temple presidency, matrons and the other missionary couples as well as the office secretary and our temple recorder. At least I’m finally as old as my companion so I can hold my own again without having to defer to her superior insight and wisdom😊. We did go out to dinner that night, but no photos were taken this time.

The last big event took place today with the confirmation ceremony of Markus Wiese’s youngest son, Heinrich in Leipzig.  Most of you will remember Markus as our foreign exchange student when he was 16, living in former East Germany and then a member of the church. He has visited us a few times in the states as well as once when we were serving in Vienna. We had been invited a couple of months ago and decided it would be very lovely to attend, even though it would be in a Lutheran worship service. There were about 16 young people being confirmed, 10 young men and 6 young women. All were apparently 14 and apparently this is an event associated with their baptisms as children. The church was packed including two choirs, one in the balcony at the front left and the other at the back in the balcony by the organ. There were several hymns sung during the service and three of them had similar hymns to those in our hymn book though the words were slightly different. Most of us had only a printed program with the words of the hymns on it and one was close enough in German that I wondered if it would be the same song I recognized and was pleased that it was. There were also musical instruments involved with trumpets and woodwinds up by the organ and several strings and a flute that came in front of the congregation. Markus’ wife, Cathleen, was one of the violin players.

  

The confirmation candidates were introduced two and three at a time and came before the priest who initially made his comments to them, calling each by name, and then they knelt and he laid his hands upon their heads, two at a time, or with three, moving his two hands alternately to the left, right or to both sides. None received both hands upon their heads simultaneously. At the conclusion of their confirmations each received a small booklet and perhaps a certificate, we weren’t sure exactly what they consisted of, but these were passed out by two fathers of the participants, one of whom was Markus. They then proceeded to the sacrament with the confirmations receiving it first after which all of the congregation that wished to proceed filed to the front in a long line where a small wafer was given for the bread, administered by one of the women, and then each was offered a chalice from which they drank a small sip of wine.  Markus was involved in delivering the chalice to the patrons. He later stated that they have introduced apple juice for those who would prefer it. We were interested to note that many drank from the same chalice but there are apparently two or three such and it was rotated slightly between each receiver.  After it had been turned 365 degrees it was retired and a sister wiped the rim clean before it made its next round. We did note that several dipped their wafers into the wine instead of sipping from the chalice. I still wonder how likely it would be to catch something contagious in the process. The priest delivered his message prior to the ceremonies and seemed to be quite a warm individual. Apparently, he has never married though that is not a requirement of the Lutheran church and was present outside the door of the church as we all filed out. 

Then it was back to Markus’ house for the further commemoration of the event. He expected as many as 50 people would be attending though I never counted more than about 35 at any one time. He and his brother built houses next to each other and their back yards combined are probably bigger than our back yard. He had erected a large tent to be out of the sun and inside he had placed two long rows of table and benches wonderfully decorated with flowers.  Markus is a printer by trade but recently has also taken up the calling of a chef. He owns a café known as Grill Wiese where he provides all manner of delicious meat foods. His partner in this effort was present to help with the food preparation and we had all been asked to bring a dessert of some kind. The spread was magnificent and Markus, his wife Cathleen, and their three children all sat at a head table along with the girl friend of Ferdinand, their oldest son. See all of the accompanying pictures. The meal was delicious, consisting of grilled meat of pork and venison from animals that Markus had personally shot while hunting; potatoes, dumplings and forty bottles of various drinks from mineral water to various fruit drinks and sodas. I had been previously asked by Heinrich to offer the blessing on the food, which I considered a great honor.

We spent all of the entire afternoon there visiting with the various friends and family members.  All of Markus’s brothers were there, Stephan (his next-door neighbor), Thomas, Simon, and Georg with their families. Markus’s father was there whom we had visited back while we were picking up Matt from his mission and Markus was living at our house. All of the kids were then at home and much younger so it was fun to see them all again. Cathleen’s family was also well represented with her father, who is our temple engineer in Freiberg, and Markus’ grandmother, Sister Richter. We had visited her in Chemnitz, previously known as Karl Marx Stadt, back during Christmas of 2014. Her husband had been a counselor to the essential president of the church in the DDR, Henry Burkhardt, though Bro. Burkhardt was officially a counselor to the mission president in West Berlin. They were very instrumental in leading the church during the communist years and had worked with President Monson in getting approval for the Freiberg Temple.  Sister Richter was the one who had mentioned to us that she received a birthday card from President Monson each year. Unfortunately, no more. 

Along with the lovely meal there was a fun program which Markus described as “table talks” provided by a couple who were designated as Heinrich’s godfather and godmother as well as from Heinrich’s great grandmother, Sister Richter. All lauded him for his many accomplishments and personal warm-hearted characteristics.  Following the meal and allowing a little time for the ample food to digest they then proceeded to provide a wonderful sampling of dessert offerings which were delicious. We were impressed that Markus sat down with the two of us and spent over an hour discussing his life and that of his family. There was much left-over food and he was prepared to feed everyone an evening meal as well (German Abendbrot) but we finally excused ourselves for the long drive home. He did provide us with several bags of wrapped-up meat, dumplings and delicious German red-cabbage, Rotkohl, one of our favorites. The day was lovely, the weather was great, and it was a memorable event.

            Mom: yes, it was a great day and lovely to be with Markus’ family and extended family. We were treated like family and felt their goodness and love. A few women who are still members said they would look for me in the temple. We also enjoyed the road trip to Leipzig through beautiful little villages and green fields. Winter has been a long time in leaving, but spring in the last week has burst upon us with blossoms and leaves everywhere. I love it. Strange isn’t it, that as missionaries we notice every bit of change to the weather and the changing of the seasons.

           Being with Markus reminded me of how much we love and miss all of you and your activities, but we enjoy seeing all the pictures you post. So, if you haven’t posted any lately, please try to send some more. 

Love, Hugs, Prayers, 

Grammie, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

April 15, 2018

Üdvözöllek a Templomban. 

That was the way it went this week.  We had a large group of Hungarians here and that means “Welcome to the temple” in Hungarian. It was the second time since we’ve been here that the folks out of Budapest and neighboring cities were making an excursion and we had some fun trying to figure out their language. The last time they were here we met Brother Balzac Kiss, a native Hungarian whom we first met in Vienna when his German wasn’t too proficient, but his English was pretty good. He had now been set apart as a temple worker and he sat down with me to go over some of the phrases and teach me how to pronounce them. We also regularly work with Sister Dospil whose step-son also lives in Vienna and she is a native Hungarian. She also spent some time back then helping learn some of the pronunciations.  Most of what went on back several weeks ago was now gone so this time I decided to really get into it and attempted to read from prepared cards as they all worked on their endowments. I got a lot of smiles for my efforts, so I guess they could figure out what I was trying to say but it will take several more visits before we get a little closer. Isten aldjon, testver! God bless you, brother!  

I did remember that there were several pages of expressions in Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, and Rumanian beneath the recommend desk up front and as I asked around there were several who were interested in learning a little bit, so I had the office secretary make us several copies and we’ll see where we go.  Apparently, this week it will be a Czech group coming for their third time since January. We know several of them quite well, so it might be fun to surprise them that we can say a few things to them in their native language. English is really a pretty well understood language throughout Europe and serves us well when we need to communicate with someone whose language we don’t really know but we’ll see what we can come up with.

This past Monday we had a belated farewell party for the Bonners who had already left but we skyped as it went forward. There is a brother who plays the accordion fairly well, “Ziehharmonika” in German, who came and entertained us and I’ll try and attach two or three videos we took as he played. You’ll probably have to download them separately to hear it but we’ll see how it goes. (I added a link to the videos as the files were to big to add here) 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YIJacPlpUZFBnoZtJs7peMn-buYwiPwI/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FDPpdS2e00VECqsTC9IL4Cd9TNmNw5U9/view?usp=sharing

We welcomed the Linfords at the same time and you may remember their pictures from last week. Both couples are from Midway and knew each other before they served here.  oday was the first day to welcome the Thornocks who just arrived yesterday evening. We didn’t have much time to get their details yet but they started out in Idaho, he served with the Air Force for many years and they ended up in Hawaii where they’ve lived for the last thirtyseven years or so. He served in the North German mission from 1960-1962, before my time in 1964 but she has only taken a little German in school so will have much to learn. He felt it was probable that he was related to Warren and Sue Thornock but we didn’t have time to track down the specifics. We’ll see if we can get to know them better, perhaps Monday night if we succeed in inviting everyone to watch “Miss Potter”, one of Mom’s favorite movies. We did get the opportunity to walk out into the woods on Wednesday and took a picture of someone’s efforts to build a shelter, no doubt a local Boy Scout effort which will be our final picture for the day.

This week we had several opportunities to work with youth groups from Munich, Nurnberg and even some occasional families who came in to participate with groups who had reserved the time. We were used to 5 or 6 baptisms each back home but here most come with large stacks of names. We had a family with 4 youths who performed baptisms for about a hundred departed souls and groups of 15-20 who would easily do from 200-300 or from 15-20 each.  Friday was a very typical long day for us with “early service” in the morning starting at 6AM, then our prayer meeting, followed by baptisms, initiatories in our ‘spare’ time, occasionally being assigned to an endowment veil. Then on Friday afternoons we have to get our laundry done in the break between 4 and 6 PM, then it was back for another baptism session at 7. We felt we were really efficient when we got done by 9:30 and could go home. You know you’re really serving when your day lasts 15 ½ hours!

Yes, 15 ½ hour is unusually long for senior missionaries, but interestingly enough, I don’t feel the tiredness while we are working and serving. It comes when you get home and just want to drop in bed. I have really enjoyed the time we spend with the leaders or parents that come with the Baptism groups. One sister asked if I had a name she could take on an endowment session as I don’t often get to go myself. There is a special spiritual connection you get when you serve the Lord together. Even the work of cleaning up doesn’t seem like a burden. It’s nice to see everything bright and clean. There is nothing comparable to the sweet, powerful feeling of the spirit you get in the temple. I hope all the grandchildren who are old enough to do baptisms for the dead are going as often as they can. What a blessing to have those people whose temple work you do watch over you and help you in times of need. Love the Work.  Love praying for you all in the celestial room.

     Prayers and Hugs, 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

April 8, 2018

Baptisms by Immersion!

We have had another amazing week. Week before last we enjoyed a very busy time as we reported in our last letter because the local congregations were celebrating their Easter week vacation and the youth were here in abundance while they were out of school. Little did we know that in Bavaria and points around, they celebrate their Easter break during the following week, or the week just passed. So once again it was a very busy week with the sessions filled up and many coming to the temple. I think for most, it was also the stimulating experiences of General Conference as well that kept them all enthused.

As I think we reported, we have been given the new assignment to be coordinators in the baptistry. We fortunately had trainers in the Ashby’s, who have had much experience doing what they have now taught us to do. Tuesday was a bit easier as the baptistry was running a pretty normal schedule which did not include more than about 10-15 young people in two sessions and we had the Ashby’s to kind of show us the ropes. But then the training was largely over as we had the Munich stake appear on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with 60 young people which they divided up into groups of 20 for three sessions each day, 8-10+, 11-1, and 1-3. It wasn’t a bad way to really get started as their Stake President, Pres. Auras, was present and had things really ready to go.  We really were blessed to follow the Ashby’s for the first session and then handled the second session pretty much by ourselves. The next day was the reverse as we had the first and third sessions and the Ashby’s took the middle session.

  

The work really involves getting all the temple recommends signed in, then getting the baptismal clothing signed out and the kids gathered in the font area ready to go. Munich had witnesses, recorders, baptizers and confirmers all ready to go. It was really neat to see the many priests assigned to participate both as baptizers and as witnesses though the confirmations were still in the hands of the Melchizedek priesthood holders. At the beginning of each session, our temple president, President Erlacher would usually greet them and offer a spiritual thought. If he occasionally wasn’t available, one of his counselors would fill in. Our assignment was to instruct them on how to handle their wet clothing as they left the font and also give them instructions as to how to hold their hands and arms to best avoid not being fully immersed and repeating a few ordinances. There’s always a good spirit present in the work and we frequently had occasion to offer a few remarks at the end of a session after everyone was back dressed in their Sunday clothes and had completed all of the confirmations. I enjoyed talking to them about the Lord’s comments to Nicodemus about needing to be born again, the symbolism of baptism and occasionally the covenants of baptism that we renew each Sunday with the sacrament.

So, by Friday we were feeling like we were really ready to go as Munich was finishing up their last session from 1-3 PM. Fridays are usually our busiest days as we normally finish the last endowment session around 3:30-4PM and then have a couple of hours free time until starting the only evening session of the week at 6 PM. So we were taken a little aback when we saw that the Nurnberg Stake had scheduled 50 youth for Friday evening and Saturday morning. It was very obvious that we couldn’t handle 50 youth at a time, so the presidency wisely decided they would break them up into two groups of 25 each and have the first group start at 4 PM with the second half starting at 6.  That gave us virtually no time for a break at all but we just kept plugging along.  That did have one advantage as you’ll read below. The fun thing about the Nurnberg group was that in the first session they had many, virtually all of the young people who spoke or understood English. They wanted to use the English ordinance cards and although we were getting pretty tired by that time, having reported to the temple at about 6:50 AM that morning, it turned out to give us a nice break being able to speak in our native language and not struggle to say it right in German. It went very well but we still weren’t done until about 9 PM that night. That’s a long 14-hour day!  Along the way, as we were still alternating with the Ashby’s they asked us to serve at the end of the endowment sessions or help with initiatories.

  

A couple that really befriended us and with whom we became quite close were the Bonners. They were scheduled to leave tomorrow, however Sister Bonner’s father is 99 years old and was apparently not doing very well with everyone expecting him to pass away at any time. She felt it was important to try and get home while he was still alive so left on a quick flight out of Prague on Friday with the report from her husband that she arrived home in time to be with her father who was still alive as of today. Elder Bonner will still leave tomorrow afternoon from Dresden, our normal airport, with a long layover in Amsterdam and then arrive home on Tuesday. They live in Midway (perhaps the Clarks might know them, Larry and Ellen) and are being replaced by good friends they knew prior, the Linfords, Joe and Lani. We may have mentioned the Linfords previously as the ones with whom we will be sharing our car, halving our expenses.  I’ve included a photo at a welcome/farewell party we had a week ago with the Bonners on the left and the Linfords on the right. (I’ve also included a photo of our anniversary presents from the Ratskeller restaurant with the two fancy Easter eggs and a chocolate acknowledging Sisi, the empress we got acquainted with while we were in Vienna.

We understood that today would not be Fast and Testimony meeting because they were only going to have Sacrament meeting and then show the Sunday afternoon session of Conference. When we arrived, we found out it was Fast Sunday. We hadn’t fasted but figured, as noted above, that we made up for it on Friday when our schedule began at 7 AM and didn’t finish up until 9 PM with no break. At any rate, it was Fast Sunday, but they invited Elder Bonner to bear his departing testimony, along with the Linfords to give us their greeting testimonies. There wasn’t a lot of extra time as they concluded the meeting 15 minutes early in order to start the General Conference session at the beginning of the hour. Although we stayed up to see the session, we thoroughly enjoyed it again, especially not being quite so tired as we were late Sunday night last week.Then finally today we took the opportunity to hear the Easter presentation of the Tab Choir’s Messiah with two other couples and our temple matron, Sister Erlacher. We cut the intermissions short and did it in just a little over two and a half hours but enjoyed it thoroughly.

The final new event was attending a beautiful wedding reception for the daughter of our temple recorder, Brother Schoenherr, and her new husband.  He is a convert to the church of about 7-8 months, so they won’t be sealed until his year is up, but it was quite an event with a real feast offered to all attendees. We were truly impressed at the whole undertaking and had a delightful time visiting with the members and the other temple workers in attendance.

We understand all the vacations are over and we should return to a more normal schedule in the coming week. We anticipate that we might have much more time available to actually participate as patrons in a few more activities.  According to “Rohlfings Down Under”, Uncle Tom and Aunt Laurel are departing this next week for a little tour of Sydney and New Zealand, arriving home by the 22nd and giving their homecoming report on the 29th. Sorry we can’t be there, but it sounds like their mission has been truly wonderful.

         Mom:  Changes are always inevitable and certainly a good way to keep us flexible. I have truly enjoyed working with the veils and endowments, etc. It was my special place in the temple to take care of, as Samuel did in ancient times.  Now coordinating baptisms has become our new adventure. When you have 25 youth lined up for clothing, it becomes quite a massive effort to get it all right, from quite small to very tall. I’m getting pretty good at guessing sizes by looking at their body size, and they are all good sports about it.

          Baptisms and confirmations are very sacred ordinances and the youth are very reverent, some bringing their own scriptures and others use temple scriptures while they wait. I was impressed the other day while one of the counselors gave the spiritual talk on D&C 138:15. He explained that their past ancestors were filled with joy and rejoicing because their day of deliverance was at hand as the scripture states. He went on to say each time they were being baptized for an ancestor they should repeat their name in their minds and remember that this is their day of joy and rejoicing and they would spiritually feel this joy. He added that when they themselves were having a difficult day or time, that they should again think on this joy and rejoicing of this ancestor and it would help them feel the spirit and be able to receive spiritual help. I had never thought on this scripture this way and I am sure that it could be applied to all ordinances, as we often have spiritual experiences as we do them. I encourage us all to take it one step further and apply it to our difficult times, and experience that spiritual joy again.

    Missing you all and hoping spring has really arrived as it is beginning to bud and flower here. We can finally enjoy our walks without freezing wind. I rejoice in your goodness.

       Love, Hugs, and Prayers, 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

April 1, 2018

49 Years Together and Easter!

It has officially been 49 years today that your Mother and I, or your Grammy and I, or your brother and sister-in-law were sealed together for time and all eternity. We have truly grown to appreciate what that means since we have been working full time in the temple. It has been a very rich experience and especially learning about the covenants and ordinances as they are expressed in several different languages has been very fulfilling. We didn’t get a chance to really celebrate until Monday when we went to the Ratskeller for the first time to enjoy a delicious German meal. We’ve included a few photos of the event with the exterior and interior of the restaurant followed by our meal and each of us enjoying the repast.

This past week has truly been amazing as their spring vacation is officially called Easter vacation and the temple has been extremely busy. Not only have our endowment sessions been well attended but the youth have been present in abundance to perform baptisms and confirmations. We have had youth groups from Vienna, Hannover, Frankfurt and many from more local sites who have been there this week. There have been up to 80-100 participants on some days and the presidency even decided to open the temple on Monday after its two-week closure to accommodate some of the groups who were eager to start.  They had groups on several days arriving at 6 PM and not really getting started until 7 and going past 9 PM. To have the baptistry active along with initiatories, endowments and even several sealing sessions being performed made us feel just like we used to experience at Mt. Timpanogos. President Erlacher informed us on Friday that this will probably have been our last week to coordinate the endowment sessions as we will now be assigned to the baptistry starting this coming week. I doubt it will be as busy as this past week and those assigned to the baptistry in the past have had more opportunities to participate in other activities so perhaps we’ll have a little more time to be patrons rather than just coordinators.

One of the very rewarding aspects of our temple activity has been our relationship with the other ordinance workers, especially the other temple missionaries. Another new couple arrived during the two-week closure, the Linfords, from Midway, Utah bringing us back up to 6 pairs.  We’ll lose the Bonners in this next week, but they will in turn be replaced by the Thornocks in a couple of weeks. I’ve already asked Heidi if they’re related and she thinks they must be but isn’t sure exactly how. So new relationships will form as we work together. We’re planning another special family home evening Monday night to say goodbye to the Bonners and formally welcome the Lindsays from a few weeks ago and the Linfords. We have agreed to share our auto expenses with the Linfords although that hasn’t formally started up yet. We have to get them introduced to the traffic patterns of a German city which are not that easy to comprehend, and I think we still have to get a list of all the German traffic signs as they’re still a few I don’t really comprehend

  

It has been quite fun and warmly appreciated to see many little gifts outside our apartment door on several days this past couple of weeks. We’ve been passing out dyed Easter eggs and chocolate Easter rabbits to the other missionaries and members of the temple presidency as well as receiving several similar gifts from them. Each of us has a little area in our common hallway next to cabinets where we keep our coats and cold weather gear which we can decorate and there are many different designs and patterns up, all of them including pictures of the Savior in one form or another. They’re our additional pictures for this week as we’ve been pretty busy otherwise.

 Mom and Dad's display

We thoroughly enjoy the emails we receive from our family missionaries, Elders Parker, Baker and the Rohlfings, as well as that from Sister Broughton. What wonderful work they are all doing! We assume the Rohlfings will be returning home very soon and look forward to news of their report.

We haven’t had much time to celebrate our anniversary today as we’ve been so involved with General Conference. Yesterday we were able to hear the Saturday morning session live and a few stayed up late to catch the afternoon session which airs from 10-12 PM here in Germany. We decided to get to bed early and have done the Priesthood session this morning, then the Saturday afternoon session today from 2-4, just a day later. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing the Tab Choir and Sunday morning session and were truly inspired by President Nelson’s talk on seeking personal revelation. We’ll stay up late tonight to get the Sunday afternoon session. (This is an addition from Monday morning. Loved the afternoon session with the changed emphasis on ministering instead of home and visiting teaching. Interesting and exciting as well to hear about the new temples, especially one in Russia!) We have thoroughly enjoyed the talks that have been given thus far and contemplating the changes in Priesthood organization. It won’t change much for our branch as the Elders and High Priests already meet together but our High Priest Group Leader is also our temple recorder and he’s definitely up for a new calling. We’ll wait to see if he becomes the new Elders Quorum President. So, we had one session yesterday and a total of four sessions today. That has really kept us in the Spirit and provided a very meaningful Easter.

On a less Easter-inspired topic we always find it interesting to go grocery shopping. Apparently, Germany does not believe in hiring grocery baggers. As one arrives at the grocery store you start out by renting a cart with a small coin which you get back when you eventually turn it back in. When you go through the check stand, first you must empty out your cart which one then fills back up after the checker has billed it all out. Then you fill up your pre-purchased bags with your groceries and haul it home. Usually in the past we walked over with a little wheeled bag on wheels but now that we have a car we just filled up our trunk, took the cart back for our refund and drove on home.  We have purchased a more heavy-duty plastic box to carry our groceries around but it’s definitely a more involved process than at home. The only blessing is that we’re only buying for the two of us. I don’t know how we’d ever survive if we had to buy for an entire family. Consider yourselves all blessed to shop for groceries in America!

Mom:  Hi, what a great and busy week we have had. I love seeing so many groups in the temple who have come to the temple together like families, but from various wards and branches.  We had the chance to visit with a young woman and her husband who we became acquainted with in Vienna. They want to come visit us next year in America, so get ready for visitors. We invite everyone.

Conference was wonderful and I’m glad we got to see it all even if on a different schedule than normal. The spirit was powerful in the Solemn Assembly for our new prophet and carried on to the last session with the witness of powerful revelations being given in our day. You couldn’t help but feel the Lord is preparing the way, through the church, for His second coming. He’s telling us how to hold on to our families and not let them be taken by the evil and casualness of our time. I think I shall always remember the powerful witness of the spirit that was almost overwhelming in the last session, even the last song from the choir sounded like it was coming from heaven. 

And tucked into all of this was an admonition to spend more time in the temple. We have come to understand that need. I hope you will all take it to heart. It’s great that Amelia, Amy, and Erik can all now go to the temple to do baptisms for their past ancestors. 

What a beautiful blessing to do temple work. May you all feel it in your lives.

 Happy Easter Month, 
Love, Prayers, & Hugs, 

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