June 10, 2018

Be One

There are several significant events to report on this week.  The special group that arrived for several different aspects of their temple work came from Poland. Although we had seen a couple of the brethren before, this was a very large group that came in by bus. There were probably about 9 or 10 brothers, most of whom were set apart temple workers and a good 12 or 13 sisters. They were mostly interested in endowment sessions although they did a number of initiatory ordinances as well and even a lot of baptisms on their last day. Last week we had the assignment to do the first, third and fifth sessions and so that rotated this week, being responsible for the second and fourth sessions. It just turned out that those were the sessions which were designated for the Polish members. We can handle German and English with no problem whatsoever but don’t have anybody that can really speak Polish.  Our temple recorder and one of the temple presidency counselors can read the language a little bit but we really had to rely on the temple workers they brought with them. Frequently they were on the Polish sessions and so we had to make arrangements to bring them through the veil first and then assign them to their particular stations thereafter. We had several German brothers and sisters who went through the same sessions and occasionally a few of them got frustrated because the language in the room was Polish so they all had to wear headsets and earphones. Boy did we use up a bunch of them! So as we came to the end of each session, we had to arrange for Polish and German members as well as always a few English speakers. Then, just to keep things interesting, we also had a sister who desired to speak Russian when it was her turn. We became quite close to three of the Polish brethren who were set apart as temple workers because we really used them a lot. Fortunately, two of them, Brother Vhovha and Brother Galecki (pronounced Geletschki) spoke English well enough to communicate and I became quite close to both of them as we gave them training on special aspects of the work which they had never done before. Brother Vhovha in particular had been here before. He originated from the Barbary Coast in Africa and had been forced to leave his country for reasons that we never fully understood. He emigrated to Poland where he had joined the church and we became great friends.

We had the opportunity of listening to the “Be One” celebration which was held in the Conference Center, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the revelation which extended the priesthood to all brethren.  It starred Gladys Knight and her choir along with Alex Boye and the wonderful Bonner family.  Many of you probably saw it or participated in it. At any rate, afterwards I told Brother Vhovha that I wanted to get a picture of him because he had helped us so much in our work with the Polish saints.

He was glad to accommodate us, and we look forward to his return later in the year.

Friday is our usual day with six sessions including a 7 PM session and often if there are a sufficient number in attendance we start a 7:30 session as well.  So several of the Poles stayed for the 7PM session, their bus not leaving until 10 PM that evening. But they decided they had more Germans than Poles in the session, so it was broadcast in German. The temple presidency waited until the final count was in to see who was in the majority and when it was determined, the headphones were passed out to the minority group, in this case, the Poles. It kept us on our toes to make sure everyone was having a great spiritual experience. Meanwhile there were still several participating in other ordinances including initiatories and even baptisms, so we felt like we were back at Mt. Timpanogos in our backyard.

Friday, already a long day was even more interesting because President Fingerle, the Berlin Mission president, came with several elders and sisters who were scheduled to be released. They were involved in an endowment session and then had a sealing session as well to culminate their mission experience. President Fingerle is scheduled to be released at the end of this month so it was especially significant for him. We think we have previously mentioned that it was his desire to have all new arriving missionaries participate in baptisms for the dead as soon as they got off the plane. Departing missionaries then have this final experience, thus beginning and ending their missions with temple experiences. But they are also allowed to attend the temple at other times depending upon their assignments and so it was this week. They have a solid group of elders and sisters who are assigned to Persian and Arabic nationalities and they came to perform baptisms, most staying over until Saturday. In fact, we greeted President Fingerle and two sisters this morning as we were walking over to church and they were walking to our apartment building, probably to the missionary room which is down in the basement floor across from where we all do our laundry. (I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned that our assigned laundry day is Friday afternoon.  We get out of the day sessions at the temple around 3 to 3:30 usually and have to be back by 6:15 for the evening sessions. So that gives us the three hours in between to get all of our clothes washed, dried and ready to go for the next week.)

Because of the multi-stake West German conference that was broadcast last week from Salt Lake City, today was a delayed Fast and Testimony meeting. Not only do I get to be the official translator from German into English every morning at our preparation meetings, but I’ve also received the assignment to translate into English for our sacrament meetings during the last month. Sister Ashby, who previously translated, has been assigned as the ward chorister, so it came to me by default. There’s no question that I pay a lot more attention to what is being said when I have to translate it and it’s always special at Testimony Meeting because there were so many wonderful testimonies offered today which lifted me up more than usual. Testimonies were offered amongst others, by two sealers, our Elders Quorum President, the Branch President, and even Sister Lindsay who gave me a break because she spoke in English and was translated into German by a member of the Branch Presidency😊.

Saturday evening, our outside doorbell rang, and we found Sister Peterson and her companion standing at the door, looking to find us. She is the granddaughter of Kent and Sandy Johnston who live up the street from us in Highland. We had heard that she had been called to the mission, has been here for about three transfers and was here along with many of the other missionaries who came for a special  meeting with President Fingerle before he leaves at the end of the month. We were so happy to greet her and spent a good hour or more visiting with them, even providing a lift home at the end of their visit so they could get to the apartment they were sharing with the local sisters before their curfew was up. There normal assignment is in Erfurt, the Martin Luther monastery city we visited last March. They even impressed us with their ability to say “I’m a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in Arabic!

Just as an aside, many of you are aware of the conversation held many years ago between me and Sister Rita Nelson and then Elders Nelson and Oaks regarding church teachings on stillborn babies. I have had numerous opportunities over the years to talk about that conversation and its implications. There was a wonderful article in LDS Living this past Wednesday titled “What We Know About the Lives and Spirits of Unborn Children that contained many references I had not previously been aware of. It was an excerpt from a book by Sherri Wittwer entitled “Gone Too Soon: The Life and Loss of Infants and Unborn Children.” It contained quotes from Elder Bruce R. McConkie, President Joseph F. Smith, Brigham Young and even the Prophet Joseph Smith along with several scriptural citations that I found very enlightening.  Look it up, particularly any of you that may have had miscarriages or other pregnancy losses.

           Mom: Since Grampa shares all the details of our doings in the temple and new friends we meet, I guess that leaves me room to talk about the weather and such. It has been very warm lately, so warm that we want to have the fans going night and day. It does help quite a bit, but it’s hard to get rid of the high humidity. Summer could be a long time if this keeps up, however, some members from here say that they have more wind and rain than surrounding cities. Rain does seem to cool things off a bit. It’s been raining this afternoon, maybe we can still get in a little walk late this evening, when it passes.

           The weeks seem to pass by quickly, we hardly have much down time on Sunday and Monday before we’re going to bed early at 9:30pm and getting back up at 5am on Tuesday morning. We truly feel like missionaries. It’s frustrating that the time differences make it hard to call anyone, except those who are home in the middle of the day. But I really do enjoy seeing pictures of the grandkids that you post, keep sending more, now that they’re out for summer and doing lots of fun things.  Hope the older ones are finding temple names and going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Enjoy the extended day light. The sun rises at 4:52am and sets at 9:20 over here. It’s light when you wake up and when you go to sleep. Take time to love someone.

Hugs, and prayers,

Grammy, Grampa,

Mom, Dad,

Elder and Sister Parker