May 6, 2018

Dresden Revelations

I have talked a little bit in past letters about doing a little Hungarian and Spanish as we work in those languages with temple patrons.  This week I had the opportunity to try a little Czechoslovakian. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to sit down with any Czech patrons to really learn how to pronounce their language and it isn’t that easy. At least they use a mostly Arabic letter system but I have yet to master the ZSCH sound a C makes. I also don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that since Brother Bonner left a month or more ago, I became the official translator in our temple prayer meetings every morning. I speak softly into a microphone translating German into English while those who want to understand what is being said listen on their earphones. Most of it goes over reasonably well but I still have real problems translating the spiritual thoughts offered every morning as they have usually been worked on a bit and carry more than just conversational German.  But it’s coming and the gift of tongues is never too far away. Twice I have been asked to translate the other way as someone would offer their spiritual thought in English and I found it was much tougher to translate into German. But there are enough Germans in the group who understand English that I get plenty of help if I run into a word or phrase that causes me difficulty.

We did mention last week that we would be attending Stake Conference this weekend. It turns out that the Saturday evening session started at 5 PM. There was never any announcement made about it the previous Sunday and as I talked to members of our temple presidency, they indicated they sometimes didn’t attend.  That really surprised us but we then realized that our Saturday sessions don’t end until 2:30 and by the time everyone has left it can be almost an hour later. Driving to Dresden takes about 45 minutes. We also realized there really isn’t much of a parking lot at the stake center and one might have to walk a good couple of Salt Lake sized blocks to get to the building. So we could see that it was a bit more of timing than just desire alone. Nonetheless we made the decision we would try for it. Our only complication was that we were chosen to lead the 1:00 PM endowment session so there was not finagling a way to get away early. But it wasn’t a very big session and several of our associates were able to get away for choir practice which started around 4.  

As it turned out we got there very comfortably and were even helped by one of our local temple worker couples who saw us and helped us get seats close to down front, on the 5th row.  What a wonderful experience it turned out to be.  4 of our temple missionaries were in the choir including the newly arrived Thornocks and Sister Lindsay, the previous member of the Tabernacle Choir. No question about it, the choir was the best thing we’ve heard short of the Tab Choir itself. It became very clear that their director was a seasoned professional chorister and they really sounded great. What made the rest of the meeting very special were the two area 70’s present, including the first counselor to the Europe Area President, Elder Sabin. He speaks only English but had a tremendous translator with him that made me envy having him for our temple prayer meetings! One of the members of our branch presidency is also an excellent translator and provided ear phones for any who needed them, but their language was really quite excellent and we were able to pick up what they were saying without much problem.

In response to the stated question, why do we have two 70’s present? We found out that the program for Sunday morning involved calling and installing a new stake presidency. No one had made that announcement previously and it added a great deal of anticipation to the proceedings. We don’t think we have ever had the equivalent of the wonderful Saturday night meeting with great talks and a wonderful choir as well. Today’s session was crowded right to the back of the large cultural hall and even though we were there 45 minutes early, our seats were on the very back row. There were no earphones available this time but it was still a wonderful testimony meeting offered by the outgoing presidency and the president’s wife as well as the new presidency and our new president’s wife. Our new stake president is the nephew of a regular local temple worker who is also our gospel doctrine teacher and a member of the new presidency is also in the other Freiberg ward meeting in our building as we have seen him often. Our car rental agent was in the previous stake presidency, so we’ll have to wait and see what awaits him as a new calling. All in all, it was a great conference and revelation was abundant everywhere!

Our next-door neighbors, the Mosses, have had children visiting this past week and they invited us to follow them on Thursday as they revisited the dedication site where President Monson had rededicated the country in 1975. We had tried twice previously to return and could never find it with the address we had for our GPS. It turned out that our address of Obereberg Strasse was wrong and it was really located at Obere Burg Strasse. We had a lovely repeat visit and Bro. Moss had even brought along a copy of the dedication prayer which he read to us as we gathered. There were even 4 non-members nearby!

Following the visit to the dedication site, they had made reservations at a restaurant very near to the Frauenkirche, a beautiful Catholic church dating back to the 1700’s, which had been completely destroyed during the second World War and had not been rebuilt during the communist years. But it

has now has been restored beginning in about 1994.  I confess I always wonder how many people had to starve while these glorious edifices were being erected.   

So it was three trips to Dresden this week with the first excursion with the Moss family and the two sessions of stake conference. We had our first opportunity to really see some of the other sites. Dresden was really hit hard by all of the bombing that took place, especially at the end of the war. We had the opportunity of seeing the restoration of what is known as the Zwinger gardens and we’ll send along a few pictures of that taken both at night on Thursday and then again today following the conference meeting.

 

Mom: I don’t have much to add this week. It’s good to be able to get out and visit some of the sites not far from us and to get to know their history. It really is impressive to know that Dresden was completely bombed out and then rebuilt and is still being rebuilt. It gives you a better understanding of what these people have been through, and you have to admire their commitment to not lose their history. Now if they only knew the beginning of their real history began back in heaven. What a great blessing to know who we really are and where we desire to return. We are grateful for all the missionaries around the world who try to teach people who they really are, and where they want to return. We love all the missionaries.

   Love, Hugs, and Prayers,

Grammy, Grampa,

Mom, Dad,

Elder and Sister Parker