I guess we can say that we have officially arrived at the beginning of the Christmas season. I think most of you are aware of the Advents calendars we put up every year starting with the first of December and continuing on through Christmas day. What is probably less celebrated in the states are the 4 Sundays preceding Christmas, known respectively as First, Second, Third and Fourth Advents. They are great introductions to the season and are big parts of the celebration here in Europe. Happy First Advent to everyone! It’s very common here in Germany to purchase or make Advents Wreaths, usually using evergreen boughs of one kind or another in a circle with 4 candles placed every 90 degrees. We loved our opportunities to make these and use our creative energies while we were in Vienna at our Young Adult Center. Here, we were a little less creative and satisfied ourselves with purchasing a wreath but definitely had to mark the day by lighting our first candle. Of course, at home it’s traditional to get our Christmas tree up on the first weekend after Thanksgiving and celebrate the season with our own displays. We are thankful to the Mosses, who when they left back at Halloween, gifted us with their Christmas tree which they didn’t feel the need to take with them. So, we have purchased a string of lights and put a few ornaments on the tree as well to give it a proper traditional welcome to the holiday season as you can see in the pictures below.
Certainly not as fancy as home but definitely gives us a sense of what we’re celebrating. It was very interesting as we were out shopping to see how difficult it was to pick up anything faintly significant of the reason for the season. A lot of snowmen and Santa Clauses, reindeer and ornaments but we looked in vain for shepherds, wisemen or a child in a manger. Here’s our door display and the decorations we set up in the hallway reserved for us. Can you see that we couldn’t find any shepherds, wise men or babies in a manger?
Nonetheless, we had a wonderful Sabbath day today beginning with a superb Testimony Meeting, I still find it very difficult to focus on the Spirit and the messages being delivered when I have to translate them all. It is very frustrating to be speaking at the same time you’re listening and pick up the great subtleties that really can make a testimony, but we had a number of wonderful testimonies given today with no break in between. We started off with our two new missionaries, Elder and Sister Fiedler who don’t hail from Berlin as I may have indicated earlier but actually come from a place called Neumünster. But it is north of here. The other big topic in todays comments referred to one of our sealers, Bro. Apel, whose name is really a significant emblem in the history of the church here. He is not only a temple sealer but was previously a president of the temple. His daughters are married to our temple recorder and one of the maintenance brethren here on the temple staff. She is our hair dresser as well and has kept us well trimmed for the past year. His son was in the stake presidency and owns the dealership from whom we rent our car. In any event, Friday night was a big evening as one of his granddaughters and her fiancé were receiving their endowments in preparation for being sealed together in a couple of weeks. We have had bitter cold weather in the past week and the streets have been icy and slippery. On his way to the temple to lead the session they were in, he slipped on the ice and fell, apparently fracturing his hip or one of the pelvic bones. There were apparently many accidents that evening, and the report was that he had to wait five hours in the emergency room before he was able to be seen. At any rate, he missed leading the session and it’s very doubtful he’ll be in a position to seal them together two weeks from now. So many of the testimonies offered today, expressed their appreciation for him and their prayers for his recovery.
Following the services, we and the Lindsays drove together to a family’s home in Chemnitz where we were invited for dinner. The plan was to eat together and then drive to a special First Advents Christmas concert at the local New Apostolic Church. The meal was lovely but we didn’t have the address for the church and as we followed our host to the event we got stopped by a red light which he didn’t see and drove on without us. We saw him turn left ahead of us but by the time we got there and turned he was nowhere to be found. We looked for a local New Apostolic Church on our GPS and the only one we could find was about 20 miles away in a city called Zwickau. We decided to drive there and see if we could reunite but found the church dark and empty when we arrived and so had to return home. He later called and apologized for not realizing that we had lost him. We salvaged the evening by getting together with the Lindsays, Fiedlers and the Bartsches, the latter a counselor in our new temple presidency who IS from Berlin. It was Elder Fiedler’s birthday today and so we celebrated as the eight of us sang Christmas carols accompanied by him on a guitar. It was interesting because 7 of us spoke German well enough (4 being native Germans) and the only one struggling and speaking mostly English, was our hostess, Sister Lindsay. But it was fun singing Christmas carols in their language with Mom contributing apfelkuchen. We felt that we had a great celebration of First Advent.
So on to the other events of the week. Up through Friday, we were still coordinating the baptistry and our visitors were all from Hungary. They were devoted and had a group of five or six people here every morning to perform baptisms. The rest of the day, we were fairly free and so kept ourselves busy with initiatories and assignments given us to work on the veil. I had the opportunity to bring a dozen or so people through the veil by reading a Hungarian language card. Most of what I say that seems difficult is repeated by the patron so after a while I think I really started getting my pronunciation down a little better. That’s the one language where I got a little tutoring many months back and it’s really starting to pay off. Unfortunately, no such luck with Polish or Czechoslovakian yet. Maybe next week.
As part of the beginning of the Christmas season, we have all been eagerly awaiting the opening of our local Freiberg Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas Market. They have a similarity for any of you who have ever gone to the Christkindlmarkt at the This is the Place Monument in Salt Lake. The whole central square in front of the City Hall or Rathaus has been taken over by 40 or 50 booths offering mostly goodies to eat but many other handcrafts, hats, decorations and what have you. We went up with the Linfords because we needed to do some grocery shopping afterwards but met the Thornocks and Lindsays while we were there. Unfortunately, we saw many uniformed miners, actually musicians who were leaving even though we got there fairly quickly after our temple work was done, so we missed a few of the musical presentations that were offered but perhaps we’ll have another opportunity later in the month. Pictured below are Rusty and Sister Lindsay in front of a big pyramid which was turning around, and me in front of a cute little kiddie display which we didn’t picture too well because of the fence in the way. All told it was a fun event and we did find some yummy things to eat.
As of December 1st, we are no longer assigned to the baptistry but are back coordinating the initiatory ordinances. According to some of the reading I’ve been doing, it appears that they may have comprised the basis of the temple work done in the Kirtland Temple as the endowment as we now recognize it probably didn’t get started until Nauvoo and was probably further refined by President Woodruff when he was president of the St. George Temple. I love the blessings that are mentioned in these ordinances and recognize therein the promised power from on high that the Lord has promised the saints throughout the Doctrine and Covenants.
We have been communicating with the church travel department for about three weeks now trying to get them to refine our travel plans home. The official departure date is still the 9th January but up until now they still have us leaving from Berlin instead of Dresden. I guess we’ll just have to keep pestering them until they get it all straightened out. Just a month and a week from today and we should be heading home!
Mom: I have really enjoyed the Baptistry this past month having gotten all the details down to a fine art of knowing exactly what to do in any given situation. I have also developed a few fine muscles from helping with the clean- up and throwing very wet towels into the laundry chute. It seems when you reach this stage, you are moved on to somewhere else to serve. I am going to really miss the little families that come together, especially for the first time 12 yr. olds.
The magic of Christmas time has begun. It seems that in every window is the light from a Schwibbogen or a colorful lighted star with many points. A Schwibbogen is a decorative candle-holder from the Ore Mountains region of Saxony, Germany. (Erzgebirge mountains of which Freiberg is a part) The first metal Schwibbogen was made in 1740 in Johanngeorgenstadt. The early candle arches always consisted of black ore. They were made out of one single forged piece and could be painted. Most we see today are made out of wood. Another name for them is Christmas Arches and refers to a type of arch constructed in gothic times when an arch between two walls was called “Schwebebogen” or floating arch. These two are significant for the mining history of Freiberg.
Candles are a big deal in Germany and we enjoy taking part in the lighting of the Advent Candles. It’s kind of like a part of lighting the world with the light of Christ. Candles send out a soft warm glow of welcoming light and it could only be to the love of the Savior they call. You just can’t but want to fill the world with His light.
Hope you, all find many places in this Christmas season to share His light.
Love, prayers and hugs,
Grammy, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker
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