May 27, 2018

Pentecost and Ping Pong

Well, we’re a day late in getting our latest installment off this week. We know the rest of you are celebrating Memorial Day but we’ll talk about our doings next week. This past week was again very busy, keeping us involved in a variety of activities.

Because the Frankfurt Temple will be closed for quite some time, we do seem to pick up quite a few patrons from those who would normally attend there. So it was this week. We had several baptismal groups in, and not just from young members. There were quite a few who came in as families or simply individuals wanting to start the work on various ancestors. Most didn’t seem to have registered in advance and so they hadn’t scheduled us to coordinate the baptisms but the presidency is always very helpful and reassigned us as necessary to accommodate everyone who came in. We had a sister who was baptizing a close family member who had recently passed away and it was very rewarding to take her through the veil later that day as she had accomplished everything that was needed.  

The rest of the week was similar and we were actually asked to lead two different sessions as well as attend a third one as patrons. It’s always a little scary to lead the prayer circle because all the Germans are asked to repeat the words of the prayer and they do it, horrible grammar or not. It is getting better and the second session went much better in that regard than the first. In fact, the second session was Friday evening which is usually the largest session we do and we had a number of sisters who had come in on a bus from Friedrichsdorf, which is where the Frankfurt temple is located. They filled up all the seats on their side and half the seats on the brothers side but it was very sweet to have them all there.

The reason we didn’t get around to writing our usual letter on Sunday was because we invited the Lindsay’s over for dinner. You remember that Sister Lindsay was in the Tabernacle Choir with Aunt Kate and she never lets an idle moment pass. We not only had them for dinner and a delicious dessert that Grammy fixed up but also conversed about everything under the sun including amazing family history work that they’ve been doing as well as their considerable interest about our trip many years ago to Jerusalem. Here they are getting ready for the big repast (and Grampa’s favorite meal,spaghetti)

I don’t think we’ve mentioned enough in the past, how much we enjoy the weekly letters we receive from all of our favorite missionaries, Elders Myles, Kyle, Tim and Sister Ellie Broughton.  They’re great work is always a wonderful inspiration to us and they are always in our prayers.

Last Monday for our P day it was an opportunity to celebrate a German holiday, Pentecost, in lieu of missing Memorial Day. We thought it would be nice to visit the Freiberg Cathedral which we had only seen from the outside and found out that in addition to a guided tour, there would be an organ concert as well.  So we teamed up with the Linford’s with whom we share our car and enjoyed the presentation.

 

We found the priest’s pulpit especially interesting with a front and back picture showing the stairs he ascends to preach supported by famous old citizens of Freiberg. The rest of the cathedral was typical fancy gold altars but definitely pretty. They had a lot of towers set up for a CD recording they were doing later that afternoon by some guy named Suzuki. Sound familiar? After that we decided to explore a nearby town named Nossen where there is an old castle interesting because of the torture chamber that still gruesomely was preserved in the cellar. It’s other claim to fame was the fact that Napoleon once spent a night there. None of the pictures we took were particularly impressive and we opted not to record any of the torture devices.

          Mom: The interesting thing about this castle was that a family with royal connections lived there and enjoyed the castle and grounds for 7 or 8 years. Some time after that they added the gruesome torture room and dungeon. I think it was because they had a band of robbers that sounded like the Gadianton type from the Book of Mormon and they finally caught the ring leader and wanted more names of others. The castle just didn’t have a good feeling around it.

         This week we sang in sacrament meeting. Sister Lindsay made us into a temple missionary choir and we sang “Lift Thine Eyes” in German. I wasn’t sure whether we could pull it all together, but we sounded pretty good. All the temple missionaries also took up Ping Pong this past week as Sister Lindsay found tables in the storage closet over in the ward and bought new paddles and balls. It turned out that all the temple presidency were excellent players, as it was a big sport here even in the church. We all had great time playing and getting energized from all our laughing and great hits?????  I guess you are never too old for Ping Pong. You all need to try it again some time.

   Hugs, loves, and prayers,

Grammy, Grampa,

Mom, Dad,

Elder & Sister Parker