Sunday, November 18, 2018

November 18, 2018

Baptisms and Confirmations Start the Process of Salvation
Well, we are now down to less than two months left on this mission and even though that’s still a little bit of time away, it seems that everything we do seems to reflect on how short the time is becoming.  When we arrived, we attempted to get a lot of our supplies set up so they’d be good for a year. That’s not too tough for clothing and things than really don’t get used up for many things, especially medications that we both take, they do have a tendency to get lower and lower.  I was taking a few meds that only needed to go for a few months and so they ran out fast. I’m now down to just 4 medications that I take daily and their containers are getting lower and lower, a very visual demonstration that our time is running out. I have a tendency when we travel to save up on the soaps and shampoos from various hotels that we haven’t used when we leave and the shampoos all ran out long ago. But I probably had 20 or 30 small bars of soap that I actually brought with me and we’re now on the very last one which won’t last out more than a final week. Sigh. I guess I’ll actually have to go out and buy a bar! My white ties are getting just a bit worn around the tips but I think I can encourage them to hang in there for the last two months.
This week it was the Czechoslovakians who were our visitors. Most of them we have gotten to know quite well but now that we’re assigned to the baptistry, it seems that we hadn’t had a lot of experience with them in that department. Many of the groups that come have registered well in advance and have all of the necessary positions assigned and ready to go. Most of the time, it’s the youth who are being baptized and their names all get filled out on the available forms. For groups really well organized, there are also brethren and sisters assigned to be recorders, baptizers, witnesses and confirmers and all we have to do is supervise a bit and make sure the dressing rooms are cleaned up when they’re finished. But every so often, I think language difficulties play a role, they simply appear to perform the ordinances and it’s a real scramble to get everything organized. We have to write the names of those who will be representing the deceased on little slips of paper so the baptizer can  read them on the TV screen and recite their names before performing the ordinance. Invariably, when a group is here, there are always others who would like to join in and they are always welcome but occasionally we’re dealing with more than one or two languages and so we have to be certain that the baptizer can read Czech as well as German or occasionally English and that gets to be lots of fun. I have sat in on numerous Czech confirmations with the responsibility to change the name of the person being confirmed.  Even though the prayer is written down in front of me, Czech has no easy-to-figure-out pronunciation guide and I have to really be paying attention to change the name card if I can figure out when the actual name is being pronounced. The Spirit is there and things usually work out pretty well.
Yesterday was a very interesting day as four different baptismal groups were scheduled to appear. The first was a Czech group that we had worked with during the week and we knew them pretty well, but they had no assigned witnesses and not enough priesthood holders to confirm while the baptisms were still going on. We got done barely in time to greet the next group, a father, mother and two teenage children. We had to find two witnesses and an extra brother to help with confirmations, but it wasn’t as hard as the day before when a father and mother appeared with two daughters. Our good assistant, Bro. Linford, with whom we share our car, volunteered to be the extra baptist, so the father could baptize his wife and two daughters, and then in turn was baptized by Bro. Linford. We were able to find two brethren to be witnesses and kept one to help with the confirmations.  It all went smoothly. But yesterday, as soon as we finished with the family, we had to be ready for the next group who came in a bus from the Berlin Stake. They were well organized and we simply had to greet them and give them a little support with their baptismal clothing.
The last group came right on the heels from the Berlin group, from a city known as Coburg. Apparently, they had been disappointed on their last visit a few months ago that the temple was not heavily supplied with names. Most of our temple ordinance cards may only have three or four names each and they felt a little shortchanged after having travelled for several hours to get here.  So this time they came really prepared with 15-25 names each to do and a few extra people joined in because we were organized and read to go. All in all, it was a wonderful day, all 4 groups felt rewarded and each even received a little message from a member of the temple presidency before beginning their service. We had had breakfast, as usual, at around 6:30 that morning and by the time we had any respite at all, it was the end of our usual day at 3 PM. It keeps us trim and fit. Have we mentioned before that temple service is more strenuous than we anticipated?
Next week promises to be a little easier as no groups are scheduled for the entire week. We’ll wait and see. We are planning on a Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow, our only day off for the week but it should be special with everyone contributing something to the feast.
We very much enjoy getting the emails from Myles, Kyle and Tim each week as well as our grand-niece Elle Broughton who’s speaking Spanish down in Alabama. You guys are always in our prayers and we love hearing about your experiences. We’re losing Sister Strong today, a sister missionary who has been here in our branch about six months but leaves for home tomorrow. She gave a wonderful departure testimony today in sacrament meeting as well as sang a lovely solo for our musical number. We also greeted the Stapleys, our new next-door neighbors, who arrived yesterday. He served in Hamburg in the early 70’s and has a pretty good German. His wife has been learning German for the past 3-6 months, so we’ll see how she does. They are welcome arrivals while we’re down three couples. The Fiedlers arrive next week, a senior couple from Berlin, and that will pretty much bring us back to full speed. That makes us the senior Senior couple now until we leave in January.
Cold weather has finally arrived. We had a few temps in the high 30’s all last week but the fountains in front of the temple we’re still going strong. Yesterday the frost hit strong and we noted the fountains have finally been turned off. It’s predicted we’ll get snow most of next week but so far nothing has developed to bring out the shovels. We did note a snow shovel has been placed strategically by the front door into our apartment house so we’ll see.
We had the opportunity of going to dinner a while back at a restaurant owned by a member of our branch. We had never been there before but there were six of us there and he really fussed over us with a delightful meal. I think we’ll have to frequent his place more often. However, although he is located right next to the St. Petri Church very near to the central square in Freiburg, we just had never taken the occasion to walk down a narrow street and look at it up close.  We were informed that it originally dated back into the 1100’s but has been restored several times having been burned down at least three times.  
Its steeple is the highest in the city and we were told that it’s permissible to walk all the way up it’s entire 230 meters—that’s only 2 ½ footballs fields! We tried it out last Monday and felt rewarded to have a personal guide escort us. He spoke a pretty heavy Platt German, so I only understood about half of what he said (Mom said she only got about a third of it) but it was well worth the climb. Above are a few shots of what we saw. The first picture of the exterior shows a balcony way up high below the bells that we were allowed to walk upon. The next picture is a shot from that balcony looking down upon the white city hall or Rathaus which has had scaffolding around it all year until this month when it finally came down. The last shot out one of the windows demonstrates that they’re already celebrating the Christmas season here and we’re looking forward to the special Christmas market that will be set up this next week in the square by the Rathaus.
Mom: Working in the baptistry is enjoyable as there is usually time to talk with the various patrons as I fit them for baptismal clothing and have them help with the clean up and handing out towels. I had to smile as one young lady clearly let me know that she was the “Betreurerin” or ministering sister for her group. I was glad she was excited to hand out towels. The sweet times are when I observe the mothers get tears in their eyes, as they watch the fathers baptizing their son or daughter who has just turned 12, coming to the temple for the first time. Other times are observing very spiritual moments as someone older is being baptized for their, mother, sister, brother or grandparents. Then you know that these spirits, who have passed on, are present to witness the ordinance being performed for them. It seems a joy to work anywhere in the temple. It is a wonderful privilege to feel the presence of the Spirit of the Lord and the spirits of our ancestors. They feel such joy and gladness. This week, I also had a sweet experience as I did some initiatories for a couple of Parker family names. Then, I took the names personally to have them scanned and stamped. Afterwards I felt as though someone was saying, “thank you,  thank you for doing my work. It was a feeling that just stayed with me for quite a while afterwards.
  Since tomorrow is our Thanksgiving, I’ll say “Happy Thanksgiving” to you all. We’re grateful for all of you and the opportunity to serve the Lord. May you find your own way to serve Him.

Love, Hugs, and prayers,
Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker

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