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