June 17, 2018

Hungarians In Saxony Switzerland

As much as we love being here in Germany, there is definitely a deficiency that was evident today. They don’t celebrate Father’s Day! Mother’s Day is celebrated on the same day as in the States, but I guess fathers just haven’t made it here yet. Nonetheless we enjoyed listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s special today which was wonderful, Mom made a scrumptious dinner that we thoroughly enjoyed, and we even had a chance to join the Primary in Sacrament Meeting today as the Temple Missionaries joined in with them singing “Called to Serve”.  

It has been another wonderful week, this time with loads of Hungarian Saints to keep us on our toes. You may remember that I had a couple of members run me through how to pronounce their language a little bit from written cards we use. I had forgotten a great deal of what they taught me but nonetheless I was given the opportunity to take several of them through the ordinances in their own language. They were very tolerant of my terrible pronunciation but at least it was an attempt to let them hear everything in “Magyar”. We’re back as veil coordinators, as you may remember and of our five sessions each day, last week we had 2 and 4 which were the designated Hungarian language sessions.  So we thought we’d have it easy this week with 1, 3, and 5 which were all in German. Both ended up being challenging as our sessions were pretty small and we were striving to come up with enough veil workers but it seemed to work out well.

I actually had some fun in my service as the translator from German into English as several of the spiritual thoughts in our morning devotionals were offered by the Hungarian brothers and sisters and so there was plenty of time to figure out what was being said. A Hungarian translator stood up with the speaker while I had a microphone to use with all who wanted it in English using headphones. First the thought was expressed in Hungarian, then translated into German and then I got to whisper my end of the translation while the talk went on again in Hungarian.  Occasionally they ask me to translate into German if one of the missionaries gives their spiritual thought in English, but we don’t use the headsets for that and I’m always thankful that there are plenty of others around to help me when I’m lacking a good German word. They all left yesterday to return home and we thought we would be done for a while but now we understand there is another group from Hungary coming next week and also a third group the week after that. I think there must be a strong band of the lost 10 tribes there in Hungary.

Other than that, we’ve had the opportunity to finally get back out to explore more of the Saxony Switzerland National Park. We were there after many went on the bike ride from a couple of weeks ago but none of us wanted to hike way up on top to really enjoy the great scenery which I likened to Bryce Canyon but with lots of greenery. So we found a route that let’s us drive to the area and then hike down instead of up. Three couples went and thoroughly enjoyed what was there for us including a site that used to be occupied by a big well-defended castle back in the 1300’s. It was truly a wonderful tour and we ended it all by having a late lunch at a hotel restaurant in the area.  It’s apparently one of the big sight-seeing attractions here in Saxony. I took over a hundred pictures only a very few of which we’ll share. You’ll get all the rest when we get home.

Finally, just a few days ago we took a walk along the fortress wall which used to protect the old city of Freiberg back in the middle ages. It has truly become an important city to the members here in eastern Europe.

Another of the things that we have really enjoyed here, with the sun rising before 5 AM and  around 9:30, is the wonderful songs of all the birds that inhabit the trees outside our open windows. They start chirping at the earliest sign of dawn before the sun has even come up and they really know how to let us know that they’re there.

MOM:  It’s been a good week again, with all the Hungarian brothers and sisters (one nice thing in German is you can use one word for brother and sister, “Geschwister).  They are very nice people and are so committed that they keep going to 2 or 3 sessions, one after another. There is also this loving bond between the visiting people and the temple missionaries. I saw a very sweet thing this week, which you don’t get to see often. One of our missionary sisters grew up in Hungary and ended up marrying an Austrian. Well, of course, she felt close to these Hungarian families, so it was very touching to see her opening the front temple door, while still dressed in white, and waving good-by to them. We will see them again in October or November, but the sister who waved will be home from her mission by then. Sometimes these relationships will have to begin again in Heaven. It is such a privilege to work in the House of the Lord and to help others make special covenants with Him. I can’t encourage all of you enough to go to the temple and to partake of the peace and comfort that is there.

Love you all, especially the fathers this week.

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