September 30, 2018

From Helsinki to Freiberg in One Fell Swoop

Well, we safely made it back “home” after a very interesting trip from Stockholm to Helsinki and then all the way back to Freiberg. After a very uplifting day on Sunday in Stockholm we set out on the part of our journey that we felt we had the least control over. We did have tickets for our flight to Helsinki and reservations at the temple patron housing area but we planned on leaving our rental car in Stockholm at the airport parking lot and thus would rely on taxis to get us around in Helsinki. Never having been to either airport and not really knowing up from down, we relied on the Lord to pull us through which He did.  Hurray for the internet as we were able to figure out which of five terminals our airline was using and where we could most conveniently park to get to it. Stockholm has a major airport with lots going on as a major hub for Scandinavia and ports all over the northern Europe area. At any rate we made our flight without a problem and it was just a short hour’s duration to arrive in Helsinki where the temple was located only about 20 minutes away from a much smaller and less confusing airport. There we were greeted by the very man who had given us our reservations. We were very impressed with how big the Helsinki Temple is. Stockholm was dedicated within a couple of weeks of when Freiberg was dedicated in 1985 with Copenhagen being dedicated in 2005 and Helsinki in 2006. Of the three, it was definitely the largest with a very beautiful celestial room and well attended sessions, but they still only had one endowment room that we were aware of, behind Freiberg with 2 and Stockholm with 4. However, Stockholm’s rooms were all much smaller, organized with two sides and a middle area where if you planned your seating well, one could actually sit next to a spouse, pretty rare in most temples. The grounds were well taken care of at all three temples but again, Helsinki seemed to have a bigger area for their efforts and we were just impressed with our final stop.  

But, we didn’t have handy transportation and so spent all of our time within walking distance of the temple. We did two sessions on Tuesday and again they asked us to be the witness couple on the first one.  One of the temple missionaries recognized that two other couples had preceded us from Freiberg the previous week but there wasn’t a lot of English going on and we wore headsets for everything we did. Wednesday, we got up at 5 AM and thoroughly cleaned our rooms, breakfasted and arranged for a cab to pick us up by 8 AM, again getting to the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight. We lost an hour from the rest of central Europe in Finland so our hour’s flight back to Stockholm regained that and we arrived at the same time we left. I had Mom wait with the luggage while I walked to the parking lot, intending to drive back to the arrivals area and pick her up. But I guess not understanding Swedish didn’t help and it took me a good 30-40 minutes to finally figure out how to get where she was waiting. Again, Stockholm has a big, 5-terminal airport that got me thoroughly confused and it was after 12:30 before we started our drive home.

Not being sure exactly how fast we’d be able to drive and electing not to go back through Copenhagen, we planned a route through a harbor in the southeastern part of Denmark that offered a ferry directly to Germany. Apparently, it was a port utilized by the Nazi’s in WWII when they first invaded Denmark because of its close proximity but we hadn’t looked closely at what time we’d arrive, thinking we would perhaps find a spot where we could grab a motel and stay the night. But it turned out that the Danes don’t like to stay up too late and by the time we started really looking for a place where we might stay, we ended up on a stretch with no big cities and no really obvious places where we could pull in. The ferry was located in a little port town called Gedser and the first thing we saw as we turned toward the ferry coming into Gedser was a lovely little boarding house all lit up and inviting! I was thanking the Lord for answering prayers when we discovered a sign on the front door indicating they were all filled up, no vacancy. We checked our GPS for other nearby hotels as there were none other obviously available and found a bed and breakfast that was located about 4 kilometers away. We decided we’d try it but by the time we got there it was about 10 PM and it wasn’t obvious that anyone was up expecting guests. So, we moved on to the ferry about another 10 kilometers down the road, seeing no other options for lodging and were informed at the entry to the ferry that they had a ship leaving at 11:45 PM if we wanted to get on.  It turned out that we were one of about a dozen parties traveling through the middle of the night. So, we got about an hour and a half of sleep waiting to drive on to the ferry and another hour and a half on the ferry but because it was the dark of night we totally missed any sightseeing opportunities ferrying across the Baltic to Rostock in northern Germany. Once there we continued driving through the remainder of the night, heading down through Berlin where we found a lovely little rest stop to get breakfast and refuel. By that time it was daylight and we decided we might just as well head on home, it only being another couple of hours.

So, we got home a day sooner than we had planned, took a good long nap to finally catch up and decided that we still had a couple of days before anything was expected of us. We unpacked, emptied the car of all of our contents and decided we would spend Friday exploring the cute little Christmas town of Seiffen about 45 minutes away from Freiberg. Mom had already been there once with a few of the other temple sisters and we had both visited it back in 2014 when we visited with Markus Wiese and his family and they took us there. It’s really quite a delightful little village full of shops that sell typical German woodwork and Grammy was in her element picking up things for all the granddaughters and grandsons. Don’t expect them for Christmas but they’ll get to you eventually.

One would think that being temple missionaries would give us plenty of exposure to the importance of our temple ordinances and covenants and yet these past two weeks have been significant in our lives. Of the 159 operating temples in the church, we have actually been inside 59 of them, been on site for an additional 11 and also visited 4 old non-operating temple sites including Kirtland, Independence, Far West and Jerusalem. We’ve covered all of the European temples except Paris, Rome and Kiev and have designs on taking Andrew and Ruslana to those three at some point in the future. Maybe Lisbon will be done by then as well. In the meantime, we’ll busy ourselves with catching a few more of those in the states as well as perhaps Vancouver and Tijuana. But of greatest significance is not the actual visiting of the various temples but the considerations of the important work that is done there. I spent a little bit of time reviewing some of the talks given six months ago at our last general conference, preparing for the upcoming conference next week. Six speakers had major points to make about the importance of temples and what occurs there. I’ll even refer to the page numbers in the conference edition of the Ensign. Sister Oscarson (p.37) talked about the new responsibilities given the young women; Elder Wakolo (p.40) spoke about receiving the sacred ordinances and honoring the associated covenants filling us with light and strength to resist and overcome temptations; Elder Renlund (p.47-49) talked about the personal revelation we can receive there, the peace it brings into our lives and quoted Pres. Nelson twice, fortifying our commitment to stay on the covenant path. He related a wonderful story of the brother who received a heart transplant that aided him in serving as a proxy as the donor was sealed to his parents; Elder Gong (p.97) mentioned these sacred covenants were not available anywhere else and the promised blessings reflect our faith and obedience; Elder Cook (p.116) spoke of the equality and unity that permeate the temple as we humble ourselves before God; and finally President Nelson (p.119) as he encouraged us to identify those things we can set aside so we can spend more time in the temple and care for our eternal family relationships.

In six separate sessions we were able to perform ordinances for people in our own lines and I smiled to think how many different languages they had to understand (but they probably had access to my headphones😊). Each of them, as well as each of us, have to make independent decisions regarding our actions and how we will fulfill our individual obligations. You are all in our daily prayers that the Lord will bless you and help you in your individual struggles and challenges.

Mom: There is one more thing to add to Grampa’s great descriptions of our visits to all these Scandinavian temples and that is that what goes on inside each temple is exactly the same. The covenants, ordinances and promises are given out in the exact same manor, nothing differing. What a great witness of the truthfulness of the gospel and that it truly comes from our Savior, Jesus Christ. The same flow of peace, comfort and inspiration can be felt every time, really in every temple on the earth no matter what language dominates the instructions.As for the outside structure of the temples, each is beautiful in its own way, but I must say something about the Helsinki temple. I was overwhelmed with the beauty, design, and immenseness of the Celestial room. The high vaulted ceilings and dome with chandelier were impressive, along with the wood and color scheme representing the Nordic countries. I just loved it, along with the baptismal room, and font which had Nordic designs all around it, in green and brown tones. I just wanted to stand and look into that room. I’ve never seen such an unusual baptismal font. I hope that some day you will all have the opportunity to visit many temples, places that are really conduits to heaven. In every celestial room we prayed for all of you. May you go to the temples often.

 Love, Hugs and Prayers,

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

September 23, 2018

Go North Young Man! (And Woman!)

After a number of months of predictable, same-old activities, this has been a week of never knowing exactly what the next day would bring. After a very enjoyable day in Berlin visiting with a few people who knew us and even some old folks who didn’t remember us though we remembered them, it was time to hit the road for new adventures. Our hotel, if it can be called that, in Berlin, was unique for sharing the bathroom with four other rooms on our floor though we did have our own shower in one corner of the room. But then we headed to Hotel Seeufer which means Lakeshore, near the city of Kiel, Germany where Grammy had worked as a young missionary. It’s a harbor town on the shores of the Baltic and the Seeufer was quite delightful with private bath and shower and a picturesque location in a little town known as Ploen, about 20-30 minutes away. While it wasn’t located on the Baltic, it was, as the name implies, right on the shore of a beautiful lake with a dock at the end of their garden backyard. Here a couple of representative photos.

Grammy remembered walking along the harbor paths in Kiel which we did on Monday afternoon and enjoyed all of the sailing ships, the “German Naval Yards” and what we thought was a delicious meal in a picturesque restaurant right there outside until Grammy ended up throwing up for about two hours later that night. She blamed it on either the fish or the salad she ate but fortunately it was all over by the next morning with no further repercussions. Here are some scenes from Kiel.

 

Tuesday,  it was off to Copenhagen where we had secured lodgings at the Copenhagen Temple patron housing facility.  When we arrived at the temple we found out it was closed until a session which started at 6:30 PM. Although we had a number we could use to get in, it turned out that it wasn’t obvious exactly where the housing was located. We did ask a passerby who fortunately spoke a little English and she indicated she thought the Mormons busied themselves in a building behind the temple and when we finally got that far and looked around, sure enough, there was a church (no steeple) in a building of 4 stories, the chapel being on the second floor and the patron housing being on the fourth. We did find a door bell to ring above a number board where I suppose we might have  used the number they gave us but when I rang the bell a familiar voice answered and asked what we wanted. It turns out that one of our co-workers in Freiberg also had the Copenhagen Temple on their visiting list and were the ones to answer the bell. No one otherwise was working at the facility until Thursday! But they did have an envelope with our name on it and keys inside to our room which our friends supplied us with so the Lord does provide. Our room was again two small twin beds with a shared bath as well as a shared shower with a room carrying 2 bunk beds and housing a mother and three daughters. But we all arranged a nice schedule for using the facilities and it wasn’t all that bad. We knew in advance that there was no cafeteria but there was an eating area where we could bring and cook any food we wanted to purchase. We did make the 6:30 PM session where they asked us to be the witness couple and they had a total of 11 patrons including the 4 women, our neighbors, as well as the other Freiberg couple.

Wednesday we did get a second session in as well as had the opportunity to get around Copenhagen and see the sights including the famous statues of Hans Christian Anderson, the Little Mermaid, and our favorite goal of the cathedral with the statues of Christ (which the church has adopted) and 12 apostles excluding Judas Iscariot but including Paul.  We understand they have all of them at the visitor’s center at the new Rome Temple. Here you see the temple and a few of our other visits.

Then it was time to move on for our longest day trip of the journey so far as we headed for Stockholm and the temple there. Having left Germany on Tuesday, we were definitely in countries where we didn’t know the language but were blessed that virtually everyone we had to deal with spoke enough English that we could get by. Although Denmark wasn’t too bad, it seems like just about everyone in Sweden knows enough English that we were able to salvage a little self-confidence and get by. Below the Christus cathedral and the Stockholm Temple.

Interestingly, we were asked in our first of the two sessions we did in Stockholm to again be the witness couple. As witnesses, one always participates in a special prayer circle during the session and we were quite surprised that it was conducted in English in Copenhagen (though our second session there was in Danish) but both sessions in Stockholm were done in Swedish and we wore headsets for all the sessions we did.

Interestingly, the Stockholm Temple was dedicated in 1985, the same year as the Freiberg Temple but the latter has now been remodeled twice whereas the Stockholm Temple has never been remodeled yet. But Freiberg now has two endowment rooms whereas the Stockholm Temple has 4. It clearly is quite a bit busier than either Copenhagen or Freiberg and we were truly enchanted by the friendliness of the Swedish Saints. We attended church today at the chapel adjacent to the temple and had a lovely American couple who served as translators for us. He is the Elders Quorum President and originates from Kaysville. He came here to get a master’s degree and planned on only staying about 20 months but is now working in helping the Pentecostals publish their magazine and has been here 7 years. He says he just about has them convinced that we’re really Christians.

Our side trips here in Stockholm have taken us down past a few sites we saw when we came through several years ago with Tom and Laurel on a Baltic cruise including the King’s castle and the building where the Nobel prizes are awarded each year. Here’s the view from our hotel window and I kept thinking it would be lovely to somehow get across the lake beyond the train station there. 

We finally pulled it off in a lovely walk through a genuine Swedish forest. Stay tuned for all the slides when we finally get home!

Mom: Well, we’ve had some interesting places to stay this past week, kind of like girl’s camp. You sort of need to ignore the inconveniences and jump in and have an adventure. It’s just that girls need more bathroom space for their stuff and we don’t get that over here in Europe. At any rate its been fun driving through all the beautiful countryside and landscapes of Northern Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Denmark is a lot like Germany but was greener and had more cows in the pleasant pastures. Poetic. Sweden has been a little flatter, with some green, soft, rolling hills, and many lakes. There seems to be less pine trees here and more deciduous, bushy trees. Still beautiful. A few trees have started to turn reddish gold and autumn came rushing in with a huge, pouring rain storm. Our legs and shoes got soaking wet even under our umbrellas. The weather has really been quite nice, with temperatures around 60 and some in the upper 50,s. It’s my favorite time of year to travel, even with an occasional wind and rain storm.

The temples have all been great to visit and are unique and beautiful in their own ways. The grounds here in Stockholm are the most beautiful and by far the largest. But truly I think the most beautiful temple is the Freiberg and though, I am prejudiced, I think the best managed and organized. We’ll have to wait and see about Helsinki. I’m excited for our flight into Finland tomorrow, hopefully I can see some of the many lakes below.

Until the next time. Love, hugs, and prayers,

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

September 16, 2018

The Gift of Tongues Brings Wonderful Blessings!

As of about 27 hours ago, we entered our second temple maintenance closure period during our mission. It will be closed from today through two weeks from tomorrow, reopening on Tuesday the 2nd of October.  So as a result, this letter is being written from Berlin, where we have lots of history to commemorate. More on that below.

The past week was significant for being unusually busy. I guess with everyone realizing that access would be down for a couple of weeks, we had lots of people looking to do their temple work while It was still possible. As a general rule our responsibility as coordinators for the initiatory ordinances has quite a bit of up and down. Sometimes we’re assigned quite a few workers to help with the work and other times, not too many are available. But it seemed like we were pretty stocked up with lots of helpers this entire week. As we’ve probably mentioned in the past there’s quite a bit of standing up and incessant talking so one really feel the wear and tear on one’s back, shoulders and vocal cords. But we seemed to have survived it pretty well and the patrons were very gracious as we got a lot of work done, especially for our deceased ancestors.  

But what seemed really special this week was that we had several members who were here for their own first endowments, or in some cases, sealings. Our temple presidency is short a member for three months while President Wadosch and his wife have been given a three-month sabbatical prior to beginning as the new temple president in November which time includes their special training in Salt Lake for a few weeks. So in the meantime the vacancy left an opening to fill in where the presidency usually personally handles these living ordinances. It was special to be asked to participate several times in these living ordinances. We always make the assumption, sometimes quite real, that our deceased brothers and sisters are often present as we do their work. But there is obviously no question about the presence of the living and I think our emphasis is to maintain the same level of spirituality in both situations.

However, I had a very special experience this past Saturday as a husband and wife came in for their own sealing. He is stationed with the US military in Poland and is wife was able to visit for just a week and they had determined that everything was right for going ahead and fulfilling the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Although many of their family members naturally wanted to be present, it just wasn’t possible for quite a while to accomplish that and so they had decided to proceed while they had the opportunity. Two of our presidency members speak pretty good English, President Erlacher and President Wadosch. But President Erlacher had to leave town on a special assignment earlier yesterday and President Wadosch, as mentioned, was on sabbatical. President Wagner speaks only very minimal English and was assigned to perform the sealing, so he asked me, as the resident English interpreter, if I would be willing to participate and translate his remarks for the couple. I was naturally more than happy to do so and he gave me a couple of quotes he was going to use that I could be working on in the meantime. So when the time came, it was a unique opportunity to stand right next to the sealer as he performed this wonderful and sacred ordinance and translate his personal remarks to the couple. Translations were already available for the ordinances themselves, of course, but I have treasured up the things I translated and was going to give you one of the quotes. It looks like I left them back in our apartment, however. So maybe at a later date.

The other special experience we all shared this past Monday was a trip organized by President Erlacher for all the temple workers who wanted to go, to a special establishment known as the Jewish-Christian Schooling and Fellowshipping Foundation. It was a wonderful creation set up by, as the name implies, both Jewish and Christian worshippers, to better appreciate the Old Testament teachings cherished by both groups, but especially as they pertain to the ancient temples erected by Solomon,  Zerubabbel, and Herod, as well as the “portable” Tabernacle created by Moses which was carried for the 40 years the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. It was quite fascinating to see the differences and similarities between these ancient temples and those established today.

 

Our chapel near the temple has a pretty good display itself of the tabernacle as well as many pictures of other LDS temples but it was really fascinating to see how well they had duplicated what is described in the scriptures about these holy edifices. We always quote Exodus 40:12-13 in our ceremonies but I spent some time this past week also reading Exodus 39 and comparing it to one of the paintings hanging in our initiatory area where Moses is ordaining Aaron. Fascinating stuff.

Finally, just a 10-minute walk from our apartment is a wonderful, wide expanse revealing a gorgeous view of occasional sunsets.

Just a few quick examples from a night where we spent 45 minutes gradually watching the sun reveals all its many glories to us.

Mom: Wow, what can I say, this sunset set was much more beautiful than even these pictures show. The colors were so deep and rich as they feathered out across the sky and became a deep rose across the horizon as they sank into the darkness. I could hardly take it all in as it filled my soul with such beauty of God’s creations. This is one all the grandchildren would have loved watching with me and I appreciate sending me pictures of sunsets when they catch one at home.

       As Grampa says it has been a very busy week with constant need to keep the initiatories going and finding sisters to help. While I love it, the temple closing is a welcome break to do some other things. It has been fun to come back to Berlin after all these years and to visit the Dahlem ward where I served as a young missionary and Grampa also. There have been a few changes to the ward house over the years, even the addition of an elevator to help elderly and handicap people make it upstairs to the bishop’s offices. But mostly in looks the same from the outside. It is in a beautiful part of the city with wide, tree lined streets around it. I still remember getting off the bus across the street and seeing it for the first time. We met quite a few members who remembered us from the temple and who have callings as temple workers.

There was even one older gentleman whom I recognized from years ago when as a young married he served on the stake high council and then became the stake president. We also met the young missionaries now serving in this area and one was especially glad to see us since she had just been transferred from Freiberg. We took some pictures. After church we drove all over Berlin trying to find the different wards and places Grampa had served in as a young missionary, only being in the Berlin mission for the entire time.

It was a fun time reminiscing and a frustrating time trying to find our way around the street construction in the city. (Above photo left used to be split down the middle with the old Berlin Wall. First street we tracted out. Right, Grampa in front of the old mission home.) Tomorrow it is onward to Kiel and Copenhagen.

        Love, prayers and hugs,

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

September 9, 2018

Romanians Find Peace in Christ

We completed our final week with the Romanian saints after almost a three week stay. There were several very special people that we grew to love during this time and most of them we will not see again because we will have left before their planned return. We mentioned in our letter last week, the Geambasu (pronounced Jahmbassoo) family who were set apart temple workers. We had also mentioned the wonderful program Sister Geambasu had put on a couple of weeks ago. As they were leaving, I tried to get an email address for them and she gave me a card on which were her Facebook and YouTube websites. Little did I realize that she has posted a great many of her songs and one or two programs with YouTube. We highly recommend you take the time when you’ve got it to listen to a little of her talent. Search for Izabel Geambasu and it will come right up. Here are a few photos of the people we’ve been working with starting with the Geambasu’s.

And also noting Brother and Sister Wengert who are members of our branch and also temple workers.

Third are Brother and Sister Dzierzon, a sealer and the parents of our Branch President.



It has been revealed this past week that they have received a call to be counselor and assistant matron of the new Temple Presidency when it is reorganized in November.

Over the past several weeks, as time permitted I have been looking carefully at all the pictures hanging in the temple, our apartment complex and the patron housing building right next to ours. I ended up reviewing exactly 101 different paintings and pictures and studying the various details of each. I then decided that it might be a fun game to come up with a questionnaire asking specific questions about each picture. So I ended up with two pages containing specific questions about each and passed them out to all the missionary couples. A few of the local members also became interested and we passed a few to them as well, cautioning them all, however, that the questions were all in English. We then had a family home evening last Monday where we went over everyone’s answers, promising a free dinner at a fancy restaurant to the winners. We ended up not haggling over who did the best and all agreed we should go out together for an evening event and they wanted to treat us! It really was an interesting event and we kept it reasonably spiritual. There were three different pictures of the Sacred Grove but only one with Moroni and Joseph Smith visible. There were two others calling apostles, one with James and John and the other with Peter and Andrew which took specific scriptural references to demonstrate which picture was which. I noted that we only had two pictures with bearded angels despite over scores of angels depicted at the Second Coming and the Savior appearing at the temple in the Americas. Those two turned out to be Gabriel and Moroni. We even had questions where there was no right answer but just looking for interesting impressions about what this or that might represent. My favorite answer to a small black and white structure in a bush was a Boston terrier. Others thought it might be an owl on a rock. But I loved a picture of the Sermon on the Mount where a young boy is pointing at a butterfly. There were several pictures of Martha and Mary and several others with Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene at the time of His resurrection. There was even a well-known picture of Christ appearing to the eleven apostles on the Mt. of Olives at the time of His ascension to heaven. We all had a fun time together.

The next night, delayed because of the time it took to go through 101 pictures, we all got together for S’mores and Ping-Pong and enjoyed a great social evening.

Now we’re all really gearing up for the temple closure in a week. We’re renting our own car because the Linford’s are going to take our shared car south to Vienna and Budapest. We’re gearing up for visiting three temples in three different countries and seeing the sights along the way. We’ll see if we can find Internet service next week when we’re in Berlin to tell you about this next week’s events.

   Mom: I don’t have much to add today. Our Romanian sisters kept me busy in initiatories along with many other visitors who brought their families along. I enjoyed seeing children in the temple housing hallways. We were also able to help some of these families have fun making “S’mores.” Friday was the last day for most of the Romanians and they couldn’t give enough hugs as we finished our work in the temple. It’s wonderful to be a part of the saints making up this great church. The spirit keeps witnessing of the great truth and goodness that we all share.

Praying for all your welfare and happiness, love and hugs,
Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker  

September 2, 2018

Getting Lost on the way to Poland

Another special week has come and gone. We had the opportunity of enjoying our first visitors from Romania. They had a reasonable group but only one couple were set apart as temple workers and they had some small children so neither of them was present at the same time as the other was responsible for the kids. We found out that a couple we have known that we first became acquainted with several months ago, the Kiefers, found a home here within the branch boundaries and moved in after having been previously in the ward with which we share the chapel. Sister Kiefer is a temple worker, speaks great English, works in the temple laundry, and little did we know but she is a native Romanian.

I had a little bit of a reputation for being able to read Hungarian but found myself behind the veil on one session with a Romanian card posted. So, I decided, hey, why not, and decided to see how I’d do in attempting to read it. I had literally never even seen the card before but even though my pronunciation was probably terrible, they seemed to understand what I was trying to say and hopefully it added to their temple experience.

So back to the above-mentioned temple workers. Sister Geambusu presented a very lovely and sweet musical program on Wednesday entitled “Finding Peace through Christ.” Even though her German isn’t too bad, her English was excellent and she presented a lovely musical/video program. One of the counselors in the branch performed all the technical details of arranging the videos and the background music as she sang songs in both German and English that were just impressively sweet and uplifting. Even though we thanked her after the program, I had the opportunity to tell her in the temple waiting room on Saturday what a sweet and shining example she was to all of us. Today in Priesthood meeting where we normally don’t provide any translation, I sat next to her husband who was sitting behind two of his Romanian brethren. I would summarize the discussion for him in English and he would then provide the summary to the two sitting in front of him in Romanian. I guess it was a bit of the gift of tongues. They’ll still be with us in the coming week until Friday when they’ll all be returning home.

Today was a wonderful Fast and Testimony service. Brother Apel, whose family are prominent members of the branch and stake (past member of the Stake Presidency, his father a past temple president, patriarch and now a sealer, his daughters serving as Relief Society President and wife of the temple recorder) and who, by the way, is the one from whom we rent our car, had a son who just returned home from his mission in the Germany Frankfurt mission this past week. We presume he’ll give his report next week or soon, but in the meantime, he bore a wonderful and strong testimony today, followed by his father, grandfather, aunt and many other members of the ward and for whom it was my privilege to translate what they said into English.  

The temple closes two weeks from yesterday for the last part of September and we have finally finalized most of the details of what we’ll be doing. We received permission from the temple department to leave the temple district and our plans are to visit two of our old mission locations, Berlin-Dahlem where we first interacted, and then Kiel where Rusty served for several months. Then we’re moving on to Copenhagen, Stockholm and then Helsinki to visit those temples and enjoy Scandinavia again. We’ve been to all of those locations once before on our Baltic cruise with Tom and Laurel, and in my case Copenhagen twice before. But this time we’re actually going to attend the temples and enjoy the spirit that will be there, likely not too much different from what we experience here on a regular basis.  

There is apparently a very interesting old salt mine in Poland in the region of Krakow that several of the couples here have decided they’d like to see. Our car partners, the Linfords, apparently were familiar with a Polish man who speaks reasonable English and is the owner of a restaurant not too far from where we live, about a 20-30-minute walk. So about 8 of us decided we would walk over to his little guest house, have dinner and see if he’d be willing to share some information about how to get to the mine and what other things might be of interest along the way. Plans are still in the works. After eating, it was decided to take a different path home than the one that we followed to get there. We ended up walking quite a bit further and actually got lost for a while but found our way by getting directions from passersby.  Hence the following picture:

 

Have a great Labor Day. It’s nice to get a little break right after starting back to school.

Mom: It was great fun getting a little lost in the forest on our way back from the restaurant. You can just imagine how it is working with all these fun senior missionaries in the temple. It was supposed to be a short cut and had convinced one sister who wasn’t wanting a long walk to come along. Oh well, she was a good sport.

Most of my week in the temple has been working with six Romanian sisters each morning in initiatories about 7:45am. Included in the picture above on the right is Sister Kiefer mentioned above. I expect them again this week. We communicate in a little German, English and some Romanish and in whatever my workers can speak. Somehow, we always make it work and it is a sweet experience for all. We have all become good friends. After this week, they probably won’t be back until next year. So, for many the next time we meet will probably, be literally at Jesus’ feet.

The weather seems to be changing. We’ve had rain for the past two days and temperatures have come down from the eighties to the lower sixties and even into the upper fifties. Great for walking. Hope you’re having a fun Labor Day weekend. Two of our senior missionary couples live in Midway and are missing “Swiss Days.”

Love you all, keep on being faithful.  

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