July 29, 2018

First Indian Baptisms in this Temple - And these Indians aren't from America

Hello to our beloved family! This has been a relatively quiet week compared to last week when we had a large group from the Czech Republic. But what made this week special was that those who did come were from Vienna and we knew many of them from our time there a couple of years ago. One couple in their midst were the Wondra’s. W being near the end of the alphabet, I still remember at our last General Conference in April, very near the end of those who were being sustained as new Area Seventies, the name of Helmut Wondra. He was our stake president when we were in Vienna, and he and his wife were among the group that came. It was special because they remembered us and we had several opportunities to work with them. Our current assignment being in the baptistry, that was where we started, and they had a son who was among the youth. They were assigned to three different baptismal sessions, one each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. As we may have mentioned in the past, a member of the temple presidency will usually speak to each new group and it is most commonly President Erlacher himself who takes that assignment. We alternate our responsibility with Elder and Sister Moss and they ended up with the group on Wednesday but we had them on Tuesday and Thursday. Often there is more than one baptism scheduled per day if other groups are present, so we had other work to do but had the privilege of working with the Viennese those two days.   

Often at the end of a session, after all the baptisms and confirmations have been completed, the group will remain in the area where the font is located, and we have a chance to talk with them about their experience. I took the opportunity to speak with them on Thursday and usually like to take the time in making their baptismal experience a little more meaningful than just witnessing it a few score times. It’s always fun to see the young people respond to questions I ask them: “What are the symbolic elements of a baptism? What are the requirements we have to fulfill before we are baptized? What is the baptismal covenant we make with the Lord? What do we promise to do and what does He promise us in return? How do we renew our baptismal covenants? I’ll let you guys figure out the answers but let me know if you need help. Parents, these questions might make a good family home evening.  I usually give them the hint of the 4th Article of Faith and also mention that we have the opportunity of renewing this covenant almost every week.

Several other special experiences occurred this past week.  We talked about the Lipke family last week who invited us to their new home being remodeled. Michel and Catharina were back yesterday for another session and we had opportunities to work with them again on the veil. They left yesterday to return back to their home but promised they would be back. They are still planning on being sealed around the time of their anniversary in December and I stressed how much we would like to know about it so we can arrange our schedule to be present when it takes place. They assured us they would keep us informed. They will likely be back a few times before then. The other unique experience was a group who came yesterday from the Gorlitz branch which is located in Germany but right on the border with Poland. They were accompanied by their branch president and three-fourths of the group had just been baptized within the past month, all of them India Indians. Most spoke only Hindi but the best translator in the group was a young 12-year old deacon who couldn’t have been more than three feet tall and looked like he still belonged in Primary. But he knew German and served as the translator both when President Erlacher spoke to the group as well as when I spoke to them at the end of the session. For all of them, baptism was a very recent experience and it was a high point of the week to talk to them about what they were doing for the deceased persons for whom they were officiating. We had about 4 sisters and 2 brothers from India with the rest all being Germans, but they definitely had a great spirit of togetherness. It was wonderful to see them respond to the invitation they had received to attend the temple.

We live on Hainichener Strasse, a street which leads to a small city north of us called Hainichen. I have often wanted to visit it just because it’s there and on our last P day, somewhat late in the day as we took care of other things, we decided to drive the 20 kilometers and found a cute little village with a beautiful Lutheran church which was all remodeled way back in 1899. Unlike Catholic churches, the Lutheran churches are usually locked unless a worship service is taking place, so we couldn’t get inside.

The pictures don’t do it proper justice, naturally, but we loved the intricacies of the red and black bricks and the exteriors of the beautiful stained-glass windows. Still trying to figure out exactly who was being depicted around the front door, but one was clearly Peter because he had keys in his hand. Not visible behind the trees but carrying scriptures we figured had to be Luther. The other stop we made was in Meissen, headquarters for a favorite porcelain factory. We were so late that it had already closed for the day, so we might try again tomorrow.

After six months, I have finally finished reading the entire Triple Combination in German! Together we have read the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price and I’ve also read the Doctrine and Covenants. I think we’re now going start on the New Testament. The last page of the Triple Combination is the Articles of Faith and I decided to spend this past week memorizing them in German. I can pretty much still remember them in English from my days in Primary but they’re a little tougher because of German grammar which puts everything in a little bit of a different order.  But I’ve got the basics down and during idle times it gives me the chance to go over them.

We finally got the temple presidency to let us get a photo of us all in our whites in front of the temple and here it is.  That’s us, the Lindsays, Mosses, Wadosches (our next temple president), Erlachers, Wagners, Linfords, Ashbys, and Thornocks.

Mom: Well, it looks like the pictures have taken over, which is fun. There is only one other thing I wanted to mention and that is that we had a mostly red-haired family in for baptisms on Friday. Just the father had brown hair. They came in the afternoon, so they were the only ones getting baptized. The family was from the Olympus High school area and SLC was their temple. The father left with his family to the states when he was 13, but has kept his German citizenship, and still has family here. The father baptized his 2 daughters, his 12-yr. old son and his wife. What a sweet experience for them and for us.

The last photo is of the event Saturday night. Beware, the moon is turning to blood and that’s a clear sign of the last days!

Love, Hugs and Prayers,

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