November 11, 2018

Leaves Down, Temple Workers Down But Poles Up

Another busy week has flown by, this time with temple visitors out of Poland, Leipzig, Annaberg and Freiberg with the last three all German cities.The last two are within our stake boundaries and it just so happens that this weekend is stake conference, perfectly matching our home stake in Highland which also has stake conference today.

Perhaps I’ll start with stake conference because it’s fresh in my mind. This was the first stake conference since our new stake presidency was installed 6 months ago and they were the primary speakers as we had no general authority reps. Highland, we noted had Elder Robert Gay from the Presidency of the Seventies as well as a special Saturday night presentation to the Priests and Laurels offered by Elder David Bednar. I’ll bet that was special as we remember his visit to our mission when we were serving in Vienna.

The Saturday evening session was more like a Saturday afternoon session which started at 4 PM. Our stake center is in Dresden, about 45 minutes away and there is a great deal of street construction going on there, (as there was 6 months ago but it’s worse now.) They recommended we all get there an hour early as the stake center only has parking places for about 10-12 cars and everyone else parks on a big street on which the church is located.  Because of the construction it was predicted that we might have to walk a while to arrive there, so they recommended we try and get there by 3 PM. That was pretty tough for the temple workers as our last session starts at 1 PM, goes about an hour and a half plus time to work everyone through their ordinances and get them home which usually lasts about another 45 minutes or until 3:15.  I’ll go into more detail about our specific assignment below but suffice it to say that we decided, along with only one other couple, to make the attempt to catch as much of the session as we could. We left about 3:25 which was really making good time and arrived about 4:15. We lucked out with an open parking spot on the street only about 5 minutes away and came in, having missed the first two speakers, one of whom was Sister Dzierzon, one of our new temple matrons who was being released as the stake primary president. Just beginning to speak as we arrived was President Wadosch, our new temple president and previous counselor in the temple presidency as well as a previous stake president in Vienna.  But the rest of the meeting was worth the effort and they featured a lovely stake choir that had practiced well.

Today, with no departure delays, we got away around 8:00, arrived there about 8:45 and found a spot again within about a 5-minute walk and so had plenty of time to visit with the various members, missionaries and many we knew from their temple visits. They had a youth/young adult choir practicing in the chapel and wouldn’t let anyone in to listen, even though we could hear the choir easily through the curtain dividers to the cultural hall. But we decided we’d sit in the cultural hall anyway and had a whole row of 10 of us which pretty much makes up all of the temple missionaries. The talks were all wonderful and the entire stake presidency provided the concluding talks which were pretty easy to understand, especially because I didn’t have to worry about translating them, my usual assignment in the ward sacrament meeting. They did have two different translations available, however, for those who didn’t speak German and a few people took advantage of the headsets provided. They spent about 10 minutes on releases and confirmations of various stake officers, of which there were many, one of which was a member of our branch presidency who was called as a high councilor, so I guess we’ll expect some changes there next Sunday. After the meeting a young sister noticed the badge which I wear on my lapel indicating I had served in the Alpine German Speaking Mission. Apparently, she had served at about the same time but because she was a European citizen, she spent a great deal of her mission in Switzerland which doesn’t allow “foreign” missionaries in to preach and proselytize. I didn’t recognize her, but Mom thought she remembered her from a mission conference or two.

So back to the rest of the week. Although we started at the end of last week, this was our first full week back in the baptistry and it was very busy as well as interesting. Our first group on Tuesday came up from Stuttgart and were extremely well organized. They had a group of about 20 people with their own researched names, witnesses to serve at the baptistry, brethren to serve at confirmations and our only responsibilities were just to get them into baptismal clothing, show them where everything was and help them get all the people needing baptisms and confirmations accommodated. The rest of the week was made quite interesting because of the involvement of our Polish brothers and sisters. We think there is probably a basic communication barrier in speaking with people whose primary language isn’t German because although they are very faithful, they usually don’t present with a nice list of baptists, baptizees, witnesses etc. and so we have to work hard to put it all together when they get there. While eating lunch on Wednesday, we got a phone call that two people were there wondering if they could do some baptisms. So we responded quickly and by the time others recognized that we were setting up, the group expanded to about 8 or 10. We did have the baptismal and confirmation prayers available in Polish and proceeded to do a number of people whose names they had brought with them. This same process happened another two or three times and we got to know the Polish members pretty well.

I had gotten a reputation for being able to perform on the veil in Hungarian, Spanish and Italian so the coordinators made the assumption that I might be able to do it in Polish as well. The first time they asked me it was a very sudden request and I hadn’t even had a chance to look over the language cards before I was serving at the veil and the Polish members were very gracious as I shook their hands later. They may have understood what I was trying to say but as far as I was concerned, “it was Greek to me!” A portion of what we say is repeated back to us and it always seemed very different to listen to what they said to what I had said to them😊. I helped with several score of Polish confirmations as well and in spite of the fact that I could read along with the brother who was confirming, I still don’t think I could have even come close to pronouncing things the way he did.

With our numbers down by two couples, things were very busy this week and if we were found even trying to rest up, we were recruited to help wherever we were needed which seemed to be everywhere! I ended up working on the veil doing Polish 4 times, English and German at the same session and we really felt multi-lingual. This Tuesday we lose the Ashbys and replacements don’t come until the week after that so it’s not going to get better very quickly. This next week we get the Czechs who are old friends and I don’t think I have any reputation for being able to speak Czechish!

Our last baptismal group for the week was yesterday afternoon starting at 1:00 and was the group referenced above that was our last prior to trying to get away for the Saturday session of stake conference. They came from the Warsaw Poland Mission, they did have a prepared list of people who would be baptizers and baptizees, and as we looked the list over, it was obvious that these people had English sounding names. As it turned out, they were all Americans or English with two exceptions, one Polish and the other Russian, but these last two did speak pretty good English. So we had a delightful time performing baptisms and confirmations and the Bishop who accompanied the group was pretty good with his Polish which we used on those two.

The temple president always likes to speak with each new baptismal group and his English is pretty good, so he spoke with the group before we got started. Afterwards, they frequently all wait in the baptistry area until everyone has completed all of their ordinances and it’s a time when I frequently take the opportunity to speak with them about some of the symbolism of baptism, the covenants we make and how we renew those covenants when we partake of the sacrament. We speak of the symbolism of being buried and then brought forth, of being cleansed and purified and the preceding requirements of faith and baptism prior to baptism with the following promise of receiving the Holy Ghost which each had reviewed several times. Even though we were in a bit of a hurry, I don’t think they sensed it and many expressed appreciation for being able to talk about things while they were still in the temple.

        Mom: I always enjoy stake conference, the Saturday evening meeting and the Sunday morning meeting. There is usually a spirit of expectation, among the members, that we will receive spiritual upliftment and support for trying to be faithful in our daily lives. This conference was full of testimonies telling of the love and ever-present hand of the Savior in our lives. I just feel so much love and goodness coming from all the families and members. I also loved the youth choir and was delighted that I recognized so many of them from helping them in the baptistry this week and some returned the recognition with greeting. It’s sweet that, even, little children will shake your hand and say, “Guten Tag.” Here in our meetings the choir will sing a pre-meeting song and a post meeting song, after the prayer is said. The post song was “Hallelujah” the popular song from “Shrek” but with words about Christ. They sang it with great enthusiasm and I loved it.

Autumn came slowly here in Freiberg and is slowly coming to a close.  Many leaves have fallen but still there are leaves on some trees that have taken longer to change. It is “Herrlich” or glorious and I love walking out in front of the temple, the streets around the temple, and driving into the countryside and into the little villages where it is still beautiful. It’s like being in the canyons everywhere. I could be exaggerating but truly it has been and still is a beautiful autumn. Hope it holds until Thanksgiving, but it is getting a bit colder. It seems Utah is all ready into the cold, so stay warm.

Above is a view of our temple grounds, Grammy wandering in all the leaves, and Grampa thankful he doesn’t have to rake them all up. Look how varied the trees are in the last picture.

Love you all, may you all feel the love of the Savior in your lives.

Hugs and Prayers,

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