April 1, 2018

49 Years Together and Easter!

It has officially been 49 years today that your Mother and I, or your Grammy and I, or your brother and sister-in-law were sealed together for time and all eternity. We have truly grown to appreciate what that means since we have been working full time in the temple. It has been a very rich experience and especially learning about the covenants and ordinances as they are expressed in several different languages has been very fulfilling. We didn’t get a chance to really celebrate until Monday when we went to the Ratskeller for the first time to enjoy a delicious German meal. We’ve included a few photos of the event with the exterior and interior of the restaurant followed by our meal and each of us enjoying the repast.

This past week has truly been amazing as their spring vacation is officially called Easter vacation and the temple has been extremely busy. Not only have our endowment sessions been well attended but the youth have been present in abundance to perform baptisms and confirmations. We have had youth groups from Vienna, Hannover, Frankfurt and many from more local sites who have been there this week. There have been up to 80-100 participants on some days and the presidency even decided to open the temple on Monday after its two-week closure to accommodate some of the groups who were eager to start.  They had groups on several days arriving at 6 PM and not really getting started until 7 and going past 9 PM. To have the baptistry active along with initiatories, endowments and even several sealing sessions being performed made us feel just like we used to experience at Mt. Timpanogos. President Erlacher informed us on Friday that this will probably have been our last week to coordinate the endowment sessions as we will now be assigned to the baptistry starting this coming week. I doubt it will be as busy as this past week and those assigned to the baptistry in the past have had more opportunities to participate in other activities so perhaps we’ll have a little more time to be patrons rather than just coordinators.

One of the very rewarding aspects of our temple activity has been our relationship with the other ordinance workers, especially the other temple missionaries. Another new couple arrived during the two-week closure, the Linfords, from Midway, Utah bringing us back up to 6 pairs.  We’ll lose the Bonners in this next week, but they will in turn be replaced by the Thornocks in a couple of weeks. I’ve already asked Heidi if they’re related and she thinks they must be but isn’t sure exactly how. So new relationships will form as we work together. We’re planning another special family home evening Monday night to say goodbye to the Bonners and formally welcome the Lindsays from a few weeks ago and the Linfords. We have agreed to share our auto expenses with the Linfords although that hasn’t formally started up yet. We have to get them introduced to the traffic patterns of a German city which are not that easy to comprehend, and I think we still have to get a list of all the German traffic signs as they’re still a few I don’t really comprehend

  

It has been quite fun and warmly appreciated to see many little gifts outside our apartment door on several days this past couple of weeks. We’ve been passing out dyed Easter eggs and chocolate Easter rabbits to the other missionaries and members of the temple presidency as well as receiving several similar gifts from them. Each of us has a little area in our common hallway next to cabinets where we keep our coats and cold weather gear which we can decorate and there are many different designs and patterns up, all of them including pictures of the Savior in one form or another. They’re our additional pictures for this week as we’ve been pretty busy otherwise.

 Mom and Dad's display

We thoroughly enjoy the emails we receive from our family missionaries, Elders Parker, Baker and the Rohlfings, as well as that from Sister Broughton. What wonderful work they are all doing! We assume the Rohlfings will be returning home very soon and look forward to news of their report.

We haven’t had much time to celebrate our anniversary today as we’ve been so involved with General Conference. Yesterday we were able to hear the Saturday morning session live and a few stayed up late to catch the afternoon session which airs from 10-12 PM here in Germany. We decided to get to bed early and have done the Priesthood session this morning, then the Saturday afternoon session today from 2-4, just a day later. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing the Tab Choir and Sunday morning session and were truly inspired by President Nelson’s talk on seeking personal revelation. We’ll stay up late tonight to get the Sunday afternoon session. (This is an addition from Monday morning. Loved the afternoon session with the changed emphasis on ministering instead of home and visiting teaching. Interesting and exciting as well to hear about the new temples, especially one in Russia!) We have thoroughly enjoyed the talks that have been given thus far and contemplating the changes in Priesthood organization. It won’t change much for our branch as the Elders and High Priests already meet together but our High Priest Group Leader is also our temple recorder and he’s definitely up for a new calling. We’ll wait to see if he becomes the new Elders Quorum President. So, we had one session yesterday and a total of four sessions today. That has really kept us in the Spirit and provided a very meaningful Easter.

On a less Easter-inspired topic we always find it interesting to go grocery shopping. Apparently, Germany does not believe in hiring grocery baggers. As one arrives at the grocery store you start out by renting a cart with a small coin which you get back when you eventually turn it back in. When you go through the check stand, first you must empty out your cart which one then fills back up after the checker has billed it all out. Then you fill up your pre-purchased bags with your groceries and haul it home. Usually in the past we walked over with a little wheeled bag on wheels but now that we have a car we just filled up our trunk, took the cart back for our refund and drove on home.  We have purchased a more heavy-duty plastic box to carry our groceries around but it’s definitely a more involved process than at home. The only blessing is that we’re only buying for the two of us. I don’t know how we’d ever survive if we had to buy for an entire family. Consider yourselves all blessed to shop for groceries in America!

Mom:  Hi, what a great and busy week we have had. I love seeing so many groups in the temple who have come to the temple together like families, but from various wards and branches.  We had the chance to visit with a young woman and her husband who we became acquainted with in Vienna. They want to come visit us next year in America, so get ready for visitors. We invite everyone.

Conference was wonderful and I’m glad we got to see it all even if on a different schedule than normal. The spirit was powerful in the Solemn Assembly for our new prophet and carried on to the last session with the witness of powerful revelations being given in our day. You couldn’t help but feel the Lord is preparing the way, through the church, for His second coming. He’s telling us how to hold on to our families and not let them be taken by the evil and casualness of our time. I think I shall always remember the powerful witness of the spirit that was almost overwhelming in the last session, even the last song from the choir sounded like it was coming from heaven. 

And tucked into all of this was an admonition to spend more time in the temple. We have come to understand that need. I hope you will all take it to heart. It’s great that Amelia, Amy, and Erik can all now go to the temple to do baptisms for their past ancestors. 

What a beautiful blessing to do temple work. May you all feel it in your lives.

 Happy Easter Month, 
Love, Prayers, & Hugs, 

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

March 25, 2018

Let’s start off this week’s epistle with a little commemoration of the re-dedication of Germany, or at least what was then East Germany. You may remember our pictures from several weeks back when we visited the site. We noticed the picture below of the dedication by President Monson, then in the First Presidency right next to the dedicatory prayer and thought we would send them along.

We have obviously returned safely from our travels through four different countries, starting and ending in Germany but also including Belgium, France and the Netherlands. As we ended up last week we had made it to the Netherlands but had only stayed in Rotterdam and then The Hague where the temple and chapel were located that occupied our Saturday and Sunday.  Monday we moved on to Amsterdam and tried to find a parking place near the Ann Frank House before checking into our hotel. We finally found a place but a few blocks from our destination. We had been told that entry was probably full for two months and when we arrived it was confirmed that tickets are only sold online. We attempted to use their local WiFi but found there were only 141 people ahead of us and were never able to get connected. So we decided to try for the Rijksmuseum which is huge but we were primarily interested in the 15th-16th century which included Rembrandt. By the time we parked, (they did have a nice underground parking plaza close by,) and got in it was only going to be open for a couple of hours more but that was sufficient to see the things we came to see.  Lots of very interesting things to view including the major presentation of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” pictured below as well as many very interesting paintings of life 4 centuries ago. I particularly liked the painting of the mother delousing her daughter’s hair. We took about 20 pictures or so and will only include a few here but you must wait for our return home to see all the rest.

When we finally checked into our hotel we tried again to see about tickets to Ann Frank’s home where she and her family hid out from the Nazi’s for a couple of years before they were finally discovered and hauled off to concentration camps. There Ann died a young woman and only her father survived of the imprisoned family. We found there were only 81 people ahead of us on the web site but at least we were able to connect and found one ticket available! I had been to the house on the way home from my mission in 1967 so felt it was appropriate that Mom have the opportunity. I have two photos left from the experience, but they wouldn’t allow any photos as she went through, so we’re stuck with what it all looked like 51 years ago. While she went through the museum I toured the church next door and discovered Rembrandt’s grave as well as the Amsterdam Tulip Factory down the street.

We linked up about an hour later and took a walking tour through the old city of Amsterdam.  We left the car at the hotel and experimented with the public street car system which worked just fine. We were impressed how the conductors all could help us in English. We seemed at a total loss in Belgium where the language is closer to French, but the Dutch seem pretty happy with English as a second language. I remember when we went through the Amsterdam airport on the way here that practically everything was in English as the primary language and very little was even written in Dutch.

Our last day in the Netherlands was spent back tracking a little bit to the Delftware porcelain factory in Delft. We were impressed that the tiles around our home fireplace were all done in Delft tiles and Mom really wanted to see how it was all made.  Note the photo of Rembrandt’s Night Watch again but this time all in Delft tile.

Then it was off to Hannover for our final night’s stay but taking in Hamlin along the way. Mom had served in both, but a lot had changed in 50 years with everything much more crowded and busy. We were able to find a statue of the Pied Piper with a little help from two of the local citizenry, but it wasn’t the same statue she remembered from back then.

But they apparently still have a children’s celebration commemorating the event of saving the city from the rats. In Hannover we found the Rathaus and the Herrenhäuser Gardens, stayed the night and then headed to our final destinations the next day.

The first of those was concluding the Luther Trail that we started out on.  We went to Wittenberg where Luther had nailed up his 95 Theses and really launched the Protestant Reformation.

Our GPS took us on a fascinating ride through several small little German villages along the way, finally ending up in the city where the original church had been destroyed by fire but reconstructed and which contained Luther’s grave. We were able to take some pictures of his grave beneath the pulpit as well as the German wording on the steeple “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” (Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott).

Then we frantically tried to find Luther’s home where he and his wife raised 10 children, 4 of them adopted. There were absolutely no signs anywhere, but we had a map and Mom finally figured out where it had to be. I dropped her off and found a parking place and when I returned, she agreed that she had found it. It was 4:25 and the place closed at 5:00. They gave us a 25% discount on tickets and we actually got a pretty good look around where he completed his full translation of the bible, entertained the aristocracy who were both supporting him and criticizing him and even saw some of his original handwriting as well as his death mask.

The last five minutes before they closed, as we were on the third floor, they sent a man up to give us a quick guided tour about the things not to miss and make sure we were ready to be ushered out as they closed. We appreciated his help and he hung around to 5:05.

Then it was back to Leipzig. Along the way we tried to contact Markus Wiese who was attending a class at the university and his wife was teaching. But all three of their kids were home and we paid a short visit letting them know that we now had a car and were only an hour’s drive away. So, we’ll catch them again at another time without having to take a full week off to do so. When we got home, we were only the second of the six temple couples to arrive including the three members of the temple presidency who had all been home. We spent all day Friday doing two weeks’ worth of laundry and Saturday we drove out to the Dresden Mall to get your Mom’s dose of window shopping all taken care of. As of today, there are still only three couples back. We had a lovely church service, entertained one of the couples for dinner and spent an hour with the Lindsay’s reminiscing on the dedication of the Swiss Temple which had the Tab Choir in attendance at the end of their European tour and my mother and grandmother in attendance. While there we had the opportunity of speaking with Aunt Kate on the phone which was special.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.  Even though the temple doesn’t officially open until Tuesday they have about 60 young people coming from Frankfurt to do baptisms for the dead and we’ll probably help out if we’re needed.

   Mom: Following the Luther trail, I must say that I have been impressed with Martin Luther. He was truly an admirable man. He was an excellent preacher, translator, husband and father. He made a great contribution to the reformation of Christianity. We should all, probably, be more true to who we are and to what we believe. We are all making some kind of mark on the history of our lives. Make it worth remembering.

            I was delighted with the Delft ceramic factory and would have liked to bring home a china table platter for three thousand euros. Instead I chose a couple of trinkets to add to our Delft tile fireplace.

But what I really became enamored with were the women riding bicycles in Amsterdam. It was freezing cold and windy, but still there were many bicyclists everywhere, dressed in scarves, hats, furry coats and some listening to music, while others were using their cell phones. Not a sight you would see anywhere in the states, and they were all ages, from young to old, not one of them wearing a helmet. I’ll show you a picture or two. Hope spring shows up soon, so you can pull out your bikes.

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

March 18, 2018

Has it only been a week since our last letter? So much has happened in just this one week. Mondays always start out really well as we receive the letters from Myles, Kyle, Tim and Ellie Broughton as they report on their mission activities. We are inspired by their reports and the activities they pursue. The work is going well whether in Hmong, Spanish or even Korean. We pretty much gave you a detailed description of what we planned to do for this first week and it pretty much came off as we described up to today. We actually didn’t drive by Markus Wiese’s home but instead drove by the church where Heinrich will be confirmed, primarily just to time out the trip as it will be a Sunday morning in April when we visit for that event. That church is our first photo.

Next, we drove to Erfurt and the Augustinian monastery where Luther was ordained a priest and spent some time doing monastic things. We learned quite a bit about his life and discovered that his father was quite a disciplinarian and wanted Luther to be a lawyer. One his way home one day, a bolt of lightning struck right next to him, knocking him down and he felt an impressive spiritual experience that convinced him he should continue to pursue the priest’s career.  His father eventually supported him in that desire. The next photos reveal what a monk’s room looked like, one of their study desks as they spent up to 12 hours a day praying and reading, and a Latin bible with some handwritten notes he made in the lower margins. 

He apparently became a real Latin ace while in school and graduated second in his class. He then moved to Wittenberg which we won’t visit until later this coming week. That is where he became very concerned over the Catholic practice of selling indulgences to receive the Lord’s forgiveness for a variety of sinful practices. There is a lot more detail, of course, in his history but after posting his 95 theses, a copy of which we obtained, he made an appearance before a special conference of high Catholic officials, cardinals, etc. and attempted to explain how church practices could not be defended in the Bible. He was branded a heretic and had to go into hiding. We have a lot of other pictures which we’ll send along in separate emails showing the Augustinian cathedral and the library which has been restored with several ancient texts.

Luther came under the protection of an Elector named Frederick the Wise. He appeared in disguise at a place known as Wartburg Castle, our next stop. Here he lived for about 10 months during which time he translated the Bible from Greek into German, making the scriptures available to the general population in German for the first time. Our next photo is the small room he lived in for these 10 months. 

The castle itself was very impressive with impressive paintings that often told the story of the castle, particularly of an heiress named Elizabeth who lived a very short life, dying at the age of 24 but still regarded highly because of the many wonderful things she did to help other people. A whole hallway of pictures was dedicated to how she visited prisoners, clothed the naked, fed the hungry and housed the homeless. She apparently holds the record for being declared a saint, just two years after she died. Photo of the hallway included.

From Wartburg Castle it was off to Frankfurt to visit the renovation site of the temple there. 

Lots going on and we got the definite impression that the Rome Temple will likely be finished before they’re done with the Frankfurt Temple. That’s no doubt why we get a little more business in Freiberg and we noticed yesterday that they schedule several German sessions at The Hague Netherlands Temple as well. From Frankfurt we travelled one of our favorite stretches thus far, up the Rhine River valley. We drove along in a nice relaxed manner noting medieval castles around every bend, clinging to the hillsides and inviting us to linger. We resisted the temptation but when we arrived at a little village on the river known as Oberwesel we couldn’t holdout any longer. There was an ancient wall one could climb if you ignored the warning that you were taking your life into your hands. See the steps. 

Once up on top, the Rhine was visible to the right, old guard towers in front of us and you could walk along the top for about three blocks past the towers, a hospital still in use and look down into the remains of old buildings. 

It was a nice break from a lot of driving. Then we headed for the town that became famous for perfume, “Eau de Cologne” or Köln, as the Germans name it. Located there is a beautiful cathedral with enough stained-glass windows to apparently cover three football fields.  We probably took twenty pictures there but will favor you with just one from the outside.

Then we were forced to leave a country where we could speak the language and we were off to Belgium, specifically Brussels. We did pass the capitol building of the European Union which we didn’t photograph but spent the night there trying to figure out whether Belgian was closer to French or Dutch. Apparently, it’s a close call. Fortunately, we found that when the chips are down, English really is the universal language and we got through pretty well. In Belgium the Lord must have literally guided us to the site of the Flanders Fields where poppies traditionally grow, though they weren’t out yet even though we were only a few days away from spring. 

But we almost literally stumbled on it when our GPS wouldn’t identify it and even a store clerk where we stopped to gas up wasn’t familiar with the name. There are over 150 cemeteries of those killed in World War I and we did finally see a huge museum known as the Flanders Fields Museum, but it must have been the spirit guiding us there as it wasn’t on our map anywhere.

A bit easier was our brief drive into “Dunkerque” France as the map spelled it.  We figured we’d just head in the direction of the English Channel and literally drove right to the memorial and the beach where “Operation Dynamo” took place. 

We considered trying for the Normandy beaches but they were quite a ways away and we needed to be in Rotterdam by that evening.  We found the hotel where we had reservations and it was only about a half hour away from The Hague Netherlands Temple.

  

That was where we spent yesterday going through two sessions with a break for lunch in between. The first session was a special session for German-speaking saints which we understood pretty well. The second was in Dutch and we used ear phones for that one, remarking, however, how similar spoken Dutch is to German. I had the same brother take me through the first session in German assisting in front of the veil and he also took me through in English from behind. Both went really well, and we became instant friends. We had about two hours between the two sessions so decided we had better change and head out to find some lunch as there was no cafeteria in the temple. We finally found an India Indian snack shop that had several offerings on display in a buffet type arrangement and we found that English really is the universal language as they were able to help us out fairly well. The temple president was from Holladay but had a Dutch background. They had also lived for a while in Germany. He was able to give us the address of the nearest chapel and we ended up in the expatriate branch where people from around the world gathered and all spoke English. Our Sunday School teacher was from Scotland, the bishop was a native of Mexico and most of the members were there working for a variety of business concerns. Grammy recognized a sister sitting a few rows in front of us with five young children and remembered that they were on our plane as we landed in Amsterdam.  We spoke to her and her husband, verifying the fact that they had been there at that time and remarking what a small world it can really be at times.

Dad at the storm surge wall in Rotterdam

Mom: It’s been really quite an amazing week. We’ve driven thru 
heavy rain, fog and steamy areas where visibility wasn’t that great. 
To top it off Grampa is driving a stick shift for the first time in years and there are a zillion truckers on the Autobahn with speeding cars whizzing by. I know the angels have been with us, protecting us and guiding us into these unknown places. GPS is only good up to a point, but we couldn’t get along without it. However, Grampa is getting really good again at stick shift driving. I don’t think Grammy is going to give it a try.

I loved going through the Rhine river valley with all the castles on both sides of the river. I had to pick up a few more knights and castle souvenirs.  I was also impressed by the sacred feelings I had while visiting Flanders Fields and the beaches of Dunkirk, such a great sacrifice of lives for the cause of Liberty. Let me just share one more thing that touched my heart about Martin Luther. He is quoted as saying: Marriage is a better school of character, as it rubs off all the sharp points.

HUGS AND PRAYERS, 
Grammy, Grampa, 
Mom, Dad, 
Elder and Sister Parker

March 11, 2018

As always, another busy week but at least we didn’t lose an hour of sleep last night like most of you. I am happy to report, however, that we have finally solved the crisis of not having enough time to eat. I was not really afraid that we’d lose weight, in fact I was hoping that might be an unexpected benefit of the long hours working here with no cafeteria available. But it turns out that as we are getting a little better trained and know what we’re doing, we have found where there might be 20 or 30 minutes available to sneak back to our apartment and grab lunch. That was part of our regular work schedule when we were working at Mt. Timpanogos. Lunch might have still been short and sweet but at least it was on the work schedule. Not so, here! But I suspect we have succeeded in overcoming the schedule sufficiently to allow us the needed insulation factor while we’ve been enduring very cold weather.

This past week had several very busy events that kept things at a record-setting pace. We had a group come in from the Czech Republic for the second time since we’ve been here. Many were thus very familiar faces to us and it was nice to recognize them and be recognized as well. One of our “ace” translators and his wife, the Fillmores, finished their missions and departed this past Thursday. He was able to at least read Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and even a little Spanish. As you can imagine, he will be greatly missed. The other unique thing is that they were the last missionaries to depart who had been here when the temple was rededicated in 2016. Naturally, the Presidency were here then and still remain, but of the missionaries, the rest of us all arrived after things were again in full swing.
  

So this week, having enjoyed a little time doing nothing but German, we got to amplify our skills with not only German but also Czech, a couple of Polish members, even a French and a Spanish speaker. But we were able to handle the few without too much difficulty. The real challenges came on Friday night and Saturday. The temple will be closed for two weeks for maintenance and so there were an unusual number of patrons who came before they were going to be deprived for a while. Friday is the only day we have an evening session at 7 PM. The Fillmore’s replacements are the Lindsays, about whom we talked last week.  Sister Lindsay is the good friend of Aunt Kate as they sang together in the Tabernacle Choir and even attended Highland High when Great Grandfather Parker was the principal there. (The photo below shows the Lindsays and the Fillmores representing the newies and the oldies.) 

The Lindsays were also assigned to be veil coordinators and we have been helping to train them. Generally, of the normal five sessions a day, one team gets two sessions and the other three, all alternating. So this week we had sessions one, three, and five and the Lindsays had two and four. That’s good for Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday but on Friday the team with two sessions also gets the late session. That’s when we had our largest number of patrons since we’ve been here. Should the 7 PM session fill up, which has never happened since we’ve been here in two months, then there is an option to start another session a half hour later. So we ended up with a record of 77 patrons wishing to do an endowment session that Friday evening.  Several of these were from the Prague, Czechoslovakia stake so the temple presidency attempted to keep them all in one session.  The Lindsays ended up with 34 in their session, (the room will hold 40) and we got 43 with some extra chairs added in the aisles.

The session got interesting when we realized that we only had a limited number of veil workers and our two endowment rooms are side by side, using the same veil. So we had to make sure that the first session was far enough along before we started the later session so we could readjust all of our temple workers and be prepared again. We’re normally done by about 9 PM on a Friday but this time it went much later. We didn’t really get finished until almost 10 PM and still had to be up by 5 AM the next morning for the routine Saturday schedule. We have several times made the comment that temple work can really be physically exhausting at times with long hours. Fortunately, it’s still spiritually very refreshing. Things got really interesting, however on Saturday.  Our local congregation here is the Freiberg 2nd Branch and today was the Branch Conference. They chose Saturday for a Branch Temple Day and we had 35 patrons for our last session at 1 PM. They all fit in one room but about 9 of the brethren are temple workers and we were really short for people to work on the veil. So we just applied good old American standards and had all the temple workers go through first and start filling up their positions with the others waiting patiently until we could get them all taken care o
.

Today’s Branch Conference was really wonderful with the Dresden Stake Presidency all speaking in Sacrament Meeting. We had never met President Menzel before but knew his mother from her attendance at the temple. 
His first counselor, Pres. Apel, is the Nissan car dealer from whom we rented our car.  See the picture below of the car we’ll be driving for the rest of our time here. It was an excellent conference and Pres. Menzel taught a combined priesthood/relief society group the third hour 
on how we can become closer to Christ.

So the next big event begins tomorrow. The temple is closed for two weeks and everyone is taking off to various points near and far. We’re going to be slightly delayed in our departure as we finally got a bill from the hospital for Grammy’s hospitalization, but the business office was closed when we tried to pay it Friday afternoon. They’re not open on Saturday’s either and they want the bill taken care of by the 20th or we’ll start paying interest. So we’ll stop by there tomorrow morning to get it paid and then we can apply for 100% reimbursement from our insurance company. Then we’re off, hopefully by 8:30 or earlier to see some of Western Europe

Our plans right now are to head initially to Leipzig and do a trial run to Marcus Wiese’s home in preparation for going there in April for his son, Heinrich’s, confirmation. Then we’re off on the Luther trail to the monastery where he was ordained, then the castle where he hid out from the Catholics while he translated the New Testament into German. Then we’re heading to Frankfurt to observe progress on the renewal of the Frankfurt Temple. Next, we’ll head down the Rhine Valley for a good sightseeing trip, ending up in Cologne. From there we’ll head to Brussels to see how they’re doing with the European Union and see the sights of Belgium including Dunkirk which some of you may be familiar with if you’ve seen the movie. From there we’re heading to Rotterdam and then The Hague where we have reservations to attend their temple. Next, it’s off to Amsterdam to see some Rembrandt and try and break in to the Anne Frank house which requires reservations two months in advance. From there the plans are to head back through Hamlin, the Pied Piper city, and Hannover where Grammy served as a young missionary. Then we’re planning on finishing up back on the Luther trail at Wittenberg where he nailed up his famous 95 Theses on the door of the church, really starting the Protestant Reformation. If we’re still alive, we’ll then head back to Freiberg and get ready to take up serving the Lord again. We understand there are 60 youth coming to do baptisms for the dead and they’re going to open the temple early on Monday to accommodate them all

  Mom: I, really don’t think there is much more to write. Dad has covered most of the details in our lives except what food we eat and how we prepare to go to bed. However, I do seem to enjoy the sisters from other countries and helping them learn the temple procedures. We have so much fun using a few English words mixed with a few German and many hand signs to get the point across. They are so sweet and put so much effort into everything they do. In the end or at the end of their day we share hugs, smiles and a spiritual communication that overcomes that “darn” Tower of Babel. We also enjoy the missionaries as they come to go on sessions or help with baptisms. They have just set up a wonderful art display in the Missionary room in the bottom of our housing building. It comprises pictures drawn and painted by missionaries in our mission. We will include photos of their efforts as well as a photo of a few of those on hand.

Have a good week. It looks like spring is coming closer.

HUGS AND PRAYERS, 

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

March 4, 2018

Hello to everyone, especially our Dear Mindy who’s celebrating her birthday on the day we wrote this. As always, it’s been an amazing week. We had no groups from Hungary or Poland so it was pretty easy for us to coordinate our responsibilities on organizing the various sessions as we didn’t have to find anyone who was proficient in any other language than German or English.  We did have a big group from the Czech Republic who came on Saturday but it was a youth group who had come to do baptisms for the dead so we really weren’t involved with that other than having to scrounge a bit for veil workers.

We’re always amazed at how tired we get but we do work from 7am to around 3 or 4 PM every day. They don’t schedule a lunch break, so we always have to figure out a time when we can sneak back to our apartment to get something to eat. At least it’s not a long walk and we can usually find 30 minutes or so once a session gets started.

We do thoroughly enjoy the great reports we get every Monday from our grandsons Myles, Kyle and Tim and our great-niece-in-law Elowyn, all of whom seem to be thoroughly involved in the work of the Lord.  You are always in our prayers along with Tom and Laurel, and all of the rest of the missionaries whom we don’t mention by name. I had the opportunity this week at one of our early morning devotionals, to provide the spiritual thought and commented about the way in which one of Christ’s names, “the Prince of Peace,” is especially meaningful in our temple ceremonies. The Spirit here in the temple truly does provide us peace in our lives. I quoted the experience from President Nelson who was almost killed many years ago when the small plane he was riding in went into a nose-dive as the engine started to burn. Death appeared inevitable, but he still remembers the peace he felt at the time because he was eternally sealed to his wife and children and would soon meet the ancestors for whom he had done temple ordinances.

We are starting to recognize more and more of the regular patrons who come to the temple on a regular basis and we frequently have the opportunity to speak with others who come from places we recognize such as Vienna or Berlin. One brother from Berlin lived in Dahlem where Grammy served but now lives in Neukoelln where I served three times as a junior companion, a senior companion and then a district leader. Of course, it has all changed dramatically by now but it’s still fun to reminisce.

We have had some opportunity to get big-time into family history and Grammy particularly has been able to download 10 or 12 names of ancestors who are getting their work done. We brought several names with us from our niece, Alicia Braegger and we are steadily working on getting them through their ordinances. As many of you know, I have always been interested in the living members of the family as new kids come along but decided I needed more information on the families of my cousins. So I’m starting with the Parker side of the gang and will work on the Gunn side after that. Because I know the least about my cousin, John Parker, Uncle Alton’s son, who lives in Texas, I decided to start with him. Looking up what was available on Family Search I noted that he and his two sisters were all listed as deceased. Knowing that was at least partially in error, I emailed him and he has been kind enough to send me all the info I needed on his family, kids, their marriages and his grandchildren. I haven’t done more than just look at the other two, Uncle Tom’s, and Aunt Dorothy’s, but there is a lot to do there. If anyone has the inclination to call up the locals that would be great. Otherwise, just getting me their email addresses would be wonderful. There’s even a little bit of temple work that needs doing with family permission from anyone born less than 110 years ago.

The next big event coming up is the two-week closure of the temple for maintenance on the 13th of March. It will occur right after the Freiberg 2nd Branch Conference on the 11th when we’ll have a special endowment session for our branch at the end of that Saturday. The Freiberg 1st Ward also meets in our chapel but we’re smaller and thus hang together more tightly. Beginning on the Monday afterwards, we’re going to head off in our newly rented car, (see the photo below) first, to Leipzig to time the trip to Markus Wiese’s home.  We’ll be visiting them in April for their special family event and this will give us the opportunity to figure out the drive. Then we’re off to Erfurt to see where Martin Luther first was ordained as a priest. Next off to Wartburg Castle where he translated the New Testament into German. Then we’re heading down to Frankfurt to see the progress being made on the Frankfurt Temple. Next it’s down the Rhine Valley which we’ve been told is quite a sight-seeing trip on our way to Cologne and then Brussels and a few cities in Belgium. Our eventual goal is to get to The Hague by the following Saturday where the Netherlands Temple is located. They only have sessions on Thursday through Saturday and we just found out today that we’d better make reservations, or we might not get in. We’ll plan on staying in The Hague through Sunday and then it’s off to Amsterdam to see the Rembrandt Museum and the house Anne Frank lived in hiding out from the Nazis. We already have reservations in Brussels, Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam but we’ll need to make a few more before we leave.  We have Starpoints we can use in the Marriott or Sheraton systems and Marriott was great in the states. Here in Europe it’s Sheraton that has all the right locations. That should keep our expenses down a bit. President Erlacher has asked us to be back on the Monday before the official re-opening as they have a group of about 60 young people coming to do baptisms that they’ll need some help with.

A little bit more about the car. We’re currently driving a two-door Nissan which is an automatic shift but we’re really going after a 4-door stick which is available but needs a little work that will take about a week. The car rental place is run by a member of our stake presidency and he offers the rentals at pretty reasonable rates for the temple missionaries. So today we took a Sunday drive in the car pictured and went over to Dresden and part of the way to Chemnitz before heading back home. We grabbed some pictures of the statue to the founder of the city of Freiberg and their city hall as well as the cathedral (which we haven’t yet been inside of as it’s not free) and it’s small back yard cemetery. Now that we have the car, we may get around a little better during our free Mondays.

We’ve had the chance to help train our new missionaries, the Lindsays, as they have been named veil coordinators as well. We’ve had several opportunities for socials and even saw a neat film that we’d never heard of called “Australia” which was provided last night by one of the couples. It’s been very heart-warming to be so close to these five other couples. We’re losing the Fillmores after two more days this week and then gaining two more couples in the next month, the Lindfords and the Thornocks. Heidi tells us they’re probably related but not known to them. Below are a few more pictures of Freiberg.

The central square of Freiberg. the city hall is on the right and at the far left of that same line is the "Burgerhaus" where we registered.  Sounds a lot like a hamburger place!

The city hall itself

A statue to Otto "the Rich" Von Meissen who founded the city in 1180

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Mom: It's hard to believe that it is already March. There are no signs of spring, no crocus, no Hyacinth's, no buds of the trees large enough to see. For the last two months we have been in a big, deep freeze. It freezes your head, your eyes and anything else that is uncovered. But the young mothers tuck their babies warmly into pram and go out anyway. Crazy Mama's. They also take out their small toddlers and preschoolers bundled in snowsuits, boots, (even though there is no real snow, just little,frozen patches of here and there) 3 scarves and little knit hats on their heads. And, of course they have cute, rosy cheeks and look adorable. A couple of days ago I was in a store and tried to take a picture of a cute, little boy. He moved before I could get a good shot and I also didn't have his mother's permission. It's fun to watch them, anyway. 

Today the temperature will get up between 38 and 41. Hopefully, spring will show up soon with some flowers as all the temple missionaries and presidency will be leaving with the temple two week closure to do some traveling.

Hope spring will come your way soon also.

Love, Mom and Dad, 

Grammy and Grampa, 

Elder and Sister Parker

February 25, 2018

Isn’t it amazing how quickly the time flies. We keep getting weather warnings about how much snow is falling back home and here it’s almost gone. It’s just that the temperatures here have been between 18-22 degrees so even when it’s a beautiful sunny day like we’re having today, the snow isn’t. melting much. I was taking the garbage out last evening without a coat on (it’s only about a 1-minute walk to our garbage cans) and a member of the temple presidency who had just come in was warning me that I might freeze my ears off. I didn’t but it was cold!

We finally got our first haircuts here in Germany with the local hair salon just around a couple of corners, easy to walk to and run by our Relief Society President, Sister Fröbel. We don’t see her husband much and we suspect he’s either in the Stake Presidency or on the high council, but it was kind of fun on Friday night to have them both there as temple workers. Definitely a first to coordinate a veil with my barber working there! We went over to her salon with our next-door neighbors, the Mosses, just to make an appointment but she worked all four of us in, doing the men while the women were getting their hair dried. The Mosses have a car and we borrowed it while they were being done long enough to run to the local ATM and get a little cash. Most of the stores around here will take our debit card without any hassle but a few require cash, so we must keep a few euros handy.

We’ve had a little interaction with our newcomers, the Lindsays. She knows Aunt Kate really well and sang with her for a number of years in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I guess they knew each other in junior high at Hillside though she doesn’t remember much interaction at Highland High. She does, however, remember her principal there, Edward W. Parker so we’ve had a lot to talk about. It turns out she developed a bad cough the last few days and couldn’t come Thursday, Friday or Saturday. However, they’d been asked to introduce themselves and bear their testimonies today in Sacrament Meeting, which they did, both in German which was impressive. She didn’t stay around for the other meetings, feeling she was just a bit too contagious. Our other speakers were the Fillmores who are leaving in a week. Brother Fillmore has been unique because he has mastered much of the temple material not only in German but also in Polish, Czech, Hungarian and even Russian!  He will be greatly missed.

This week we had three different groups attending. The biggest group was here all week from Hungary. Last week there was a group from Vienna including a young adult who had moved there from Hungary with his mother that I think I mentioned last week. I sat down with him and had him help me pronounce the Hungarian words and even though I don’t understand what I’m saying, I think I’m getting close enough that they might be able to understand me. We also have a sister who works with us a lot who speaks excellent English and German but originates from Hungary and she has also tutored me a bit. So I’m taking some lessons from Bro. Fillmore and we’ll see if I can pick up any others. We did have members from the Czech Republic here a couple of weeks ago so I may have a little more time to work on that language. Our other two groups were from Germany including one from Berlin. One couple used to be the mission president in our old mission headquartered in Munich when it didn’t include Switzerland but now they live in Neukölln in Berlin where I worked as a junior companion, senior companion and district leader. I don’t remember him at all as he was still primary age back then and was baptized just a couple of years before I served.

The temple will close for a two-week maintenance in just a couple of weeks so we’re starting to make plans about our activities during that time. I think we’ve decided to head west. We’ll visit our friend, Markus Wiese and his family in Leipzig as we pass through, but we’ll only stay briefly as we’ve been invited to attend his confirmation in the local Lutheran church the second week of April.  That will be on a Sunday so we’ll time how long it takes us to drive there and likely spend the day with them then. The rest of our itinerary is still a little bit vague, but we’ll probably include a visit to Erfurt where Martin Luther lived, pass by the Frankfurt Temple, though it’s still closed for renovations and then head on over to Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. The Hague is where there is another temple and we’ll see if we can do a little temple work there. Our next break will be in September and we’re planning on heading north then up to Berlin, Kiel Germany and possibly on into Copenhagen and attend the temple there. It is still open for other plans if anyone wants to visit.

All this means it’s finally time to rent a car and we’ll likely do that in this next week as we get to the first of the month. It remains to be seen whether we keep it for the rest of the mission though I suspect we probably will.  Everyone else here has a car except the Fillmores and it will definitely give us a little more opportunity to get around more.

            Mom: It seems like it’s been a busy week but I’m trying to let go of some of the daily stress. As one of the sisters, who is from Vienna and originally from Hungary says, ‘all the work will come together because it’s the Lord’s house.” You don’t need to worry so much about it. And, of course, she is right, but it is easier to say than do, even though I see it happen every day during our service. I’ve probably already said this, but I love working in the temple because I know that I have truly accomplished some of the Lord’s work each day. My heart is filled with such love for the temple; there is so much Holiness and sacredness inside. I love seeing the saints, the families and ward groups coming together to do work for their past ancestors. They are so happy and seem to be rejoicing during their time in the temple. We share in each other’s love. Even though we are just human and make mistakes, there couldn’t be a better place on earth to work. I hope that every time you grandchildren sing, “ I Love to See the Temple” that you think of Grammy and Grampa working inside the Savior’s beautiful House. Missing and thinking about all of you. Be Faithful. 

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