The Two N's

Dear Beloved Family,

As we went over the past week trying to decide what of our varied and diverse activities might be interesting to report, nothing immediately jumped out.  We sometimes seem to get into a bit of a rut as we perform the same activities each week but then we decided that although we still do home evenings, language courses, institute and waffle night each week, still something always seems to be unique about the events.  We were anticipating a real rebound in numbers attending after the previous week was a little down with many on a temple trip.  And yet the numbers weren't really outstanding.  Still, the events had a special meaning as we looked at how many young people and investigators we had contact with, many in some unique ways.  We're really doing well in the language courses with currently more trying to learn German than English.  The international flavor of Vienna brings in lots of people from Iran, Spain, Italy, Romania, Afghanistan and Hungary all of whom need to get better at speaking the local language and it provides for a unique opportunity to teach them the gospel as well.  Elder Parker, in particular has had a chance to teach English to an Iranian psychologist and German to two Hungarians.  We always start our classes with a prayer and most after a time are willing to say a prayer as we either begin or end.  It seems to be a unique experience for them but is a subtle way to introduce the need for the Spirit in our lives.

This past Friday, our Waffle Night was unique because we had a number of missionaries show up, six different pairs.  I think two separate elders came because their missions end this next week and they wanted one last experience at the center before they return home.  But in addition to a few YSA's, we also had at least 4 investigators in the group.  One young man named Nikola has come now and again for quite some time but we've never really had the opportunity to sit down and talk with him.  The elders had informed us that he had a fairly negative attitude in some of the lessons they've had with him but he seemed interested last Friday in talking with "Der Chef" or who he thought was the boss.  Most had gone home by then but Sister Parker was still actively talking with a couple of YSA's when he approached me and we began to talk about where he stood with his beliefs.  He indicated he didn't have much faith, had read a little in the Book of Mormon and even hinted that he'd prayed once about it with the possibility of sensing a little bit of spiritual response but then spent quite some time going over with me a great deal of anti-Mormon literature that he'd picked up along the way.  

We talked about a few of the specifics things reported on, most of them pretty easy to refute but I happened to remember a talk I had copied from the October General Conference by Elder Neil Andersen which I was going to send on to one of you but never had.  It was about Joseph Smith and reported how he was told by Moroni at his first visitation that his name would be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues.  I assured him that he was part of the fulfillment of that prophecy and that if he spent as much time studying the revelations of Joseph Smith as he did studying the writings of his detractors, he might get a bit of a different insight.  He keeps coming back and I think this was a good opening to answering some of the questions the elders might have shied a bit away from.

The next day we had the opportunity of attending a baptismal service for another N, this one named Nicolai,originally from Romania.  We'd had the opportunity to participate in a joint teaching session with him once when visiting the city of St. Poelton, located to the west of Vienna.  One of the elders there is a native German whose parents we met while we were in Leipzig over the Christmas holidays.  Nicolai prefers English to German and they wanted our help just to smooth out a few of the wrinkles in their English. It was quite evident what a sincere man he was.  He had been searching for the truth for quite some time, now 46 years old, and his commitment to change his life and accept the gospel was evident.  The Spirit was palpably present as we participated in his lesson and at his baptism yesterday he also offered his testimony, translated from English into German by our German elder which expressed his appreciation for the restoration of the true church of God.  A great many of the members of the ward came into Vienna for the service as they have no baptismal font in St. Poelton and it was a wonderful experience to talk with him and see how he radiated the Spirit.  Quite a contrast between Nicolai and Nikola of the night previous.

  

Well, there's just a hint of warming up going on this week and I actually wore no coat but only my suit jacket for the last two days as we traveled to the baptism yesterday and church today.  March is just around the corner.  We'll say goodbye to two of our favorite elders this Thursday, one of whom has been here in the Vienna Zone for as long as we've been here.  We'll truly miss him and there'll be a bit of a vacancy for a while. But then his first name is Parker so why wouldn't we?!

I've been communicating with Andrew a bit about my cell phone which finally seems to have died its ultimate death but as a consequence we're going to be totally dependent on Sister Parker's cell phone camera for any subsequent pictures. Nothing new therefore to send other than the written word this week.

   There doesn't seem to be much to add to what Elder Parker has written. Today, at church we were able to watch as Aigerim was sustained in her first calling as music coordinator in the Relief Society and also were able to be present when she was set apart and given a sweet blessing. During the week I very much enjoyed the very sweet, spiritual baptism of Nicolai and talking with some of the young sisters about the gospel in their lives. Like girls, everywhere, young and old we could talk on for hours. Everyday I am grateful for the blessing of growing up in the gospel and having had the scriptures and parents in helping with guidance and direction in making life's decisions. This is a blessing we are meant to share.

This week also we were reading in Mosiah 1 where it says King Benjamin had his sons instructed in languages and in the records that were kept. Then in verse 9, it says, "And it came to pass that after King Benjamin had made an end of teaching his sons, that he waxed old and saw that he soon would go the way of all the earth."   I guess that means we as parents need to keep teaching our children until we're ready to die. And maybe that means we should always be holding some kind of gospel discussion and Family Home Evening with our grown children and their children. We're not done yet. I look forward to having some of those kinds of family get togethers again. 

    

LOVE AND HUGS,   

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

Mission Tour!

To Our Dear Family, One and All,

Another eventful week is now behind us with really not a lot going on in the center as far as the YSA's were concerned but there was plenty of action amongst our investigators. We were coming off a semester break at the university, so called although there are several universities here in Vienna and they're not all on the same schedule.  But at any rate, the week before we'd had no institute and it seemed like things were slow to start up again. It was also due to the major snow storm and blizzard we awoke to on Monday. Totally unusual for Vienna and caused a few traffic problems.  At least we had an assigned spiritual thought for Home Evening and that brought out a few stalwarts with three long-standing investigators also there though none of them are really following through on any specific commitments.  Tuesday we had as many language class students as teachers with five different classes going simultaneously although neither of my Hungarians showed up for some reason. Wednesday's institute was pretty scant to start out but more came in as we got going.  I only had 2 in the English class but one young lady got engaged recently and was off visiting her fiance who apparently lives in Innsbruck.  Then we had 13 who left immediately afterwards to travel to the Frankfurt Temple for a 3 day temple trip and so that left Friday's waffle night really skimpy with six missionaries, one member and a couple of investigators.

But that skipped Thursday, usually a language class day but we shut the center down for the "Mission Tour", an opportunity for the entire mission to meet with President Kaeron of the European Area Presidency.  This happens periodically and in the past they have accomplished it with 2 zones each over 4 days.  This time they decided they'd combine 4 zones at a time over 2 days and we were the second day with Vienna, Salzburg, Stuttgart and Munich all meeting in Munich.

Elder and Sister Parker found Sister Bushman who served with them in Vienna and 

who is now serving in Stuttgart (Picture kindly sent to us from Sister Bushman's mom!)

We were up at 4 AM with maybe about 5 hours of sleep if we were lucky to catch a train that left Vienna at 6:30 in the morning, getting into Munich about 10:30.  I didn't see anyone sleeping on the train as it was a great time to renew acquaintances, study, etc,  We got into the train station with all the young missionaries traveling on a ticket the office had purchased for them and they all immediately headed for public transportation which had been paid for.  We didn't have such tickets and by the time we got oriented to consider buying passes, the rest had gone and 4 of us weren't sure exactly how to get where we were going.  But we'd been in Munich last fall and knew the way to the church where the conference was being held.  It wasn't a very long walk, maybe 15 minutes so we decided to hoof it.  They wanted us in our seats about 15 minutes early, reverent and ready to be taught but the other sister we were with had to walk pretty slowly and we kept the couple company as we went.  We actually arrived about 7 minutes early which we thought was pretty great and actually arrived just as President and Sister Kohler drove up with Elder Kaeron.  It gave us an opportunity to shake his hand and say hi as we hurried upstairs to the chapel to find seats, of which there weren't very many left!

The conference went for about 6 hours which included about 45 minutes for a sack lunch the members had prepared for us.  Sister and President Kohler started things off, along with the Munich Stake President who also was in attendance and spoke excellent English which was the language of the day. But most of the conference was taken up with Elder Kaeron who is a native Brit, as he styled himself, as well as a convert at the age of 26, joining after initially hearing about it at age 24 and getting lost for about a year or so.  We found him extremely motivating, understanding missionary work and its challenges and working through a comprehensive approach to getting better at what we were doing.  He started off with the typical morning, getting up at 6:30, praying and then getting our morning exercise in.  He asked who did the best pushups in the room and Elder Plumb was heartily approved by all the elders who knew him.  Up to the front he came to demonstrate how to do push ups properly.  Then it was personal study, companion study and particular attention was paid to how one prepares himself for the investigators that you're actually teaching.  He talked about the images one receives in being called an "investigator" and becoming aware of how our "friends" regard such a word along with being termed a "non-member".  How would you feel, he asked us, walking into a posh club and being asked if you were a member or automatically being excluded as a "non-member."  We worked on finding people and teaching people as the preludes to baptizing people.  

He had three great videos to show, the first taking only 7 seconds to show a cheetah rapidly chasing a young deer or emu and then once we were all fascinated by its speed, showing us the remaining 5 seconds where a native man runs up, outpaces the cheetah and snatches up the deer with the cheetah then obviously losing interest. One needs to change ones habits!  His third was quite amusing, showing a man and a woman on an escalator, going up from one floor to the next when it suddenly stops.  Both start complaining that they really didn't need this and how long it's going to delay them to wait for someone to come fix it.  No discussion about why don't you just finish walking up the stairs!  Again, change your habits. It was quite interesting that he could see many of us starting to get a little drowsy from lack of a previous night's good sleep and he would periodically have us all stand up for a few minutes while he continued talking.

The conference ended at 4:30 and I thought our train back left at 5:54.  We took time to visit with everyone, I had to turn in some old cell phones we'd had kicking around the apartment for a few years, apparently, which the mission was still paying for and by the time we got to the train station it was 5:28.  Came to find out I'd misread the schedule and the train left at 5:34.  By the time we got there we had 3 minutes to spare.  A little too close for comfort but a tender mercy.

Saturday we celebrated Valentine's Day by going to a new Wienerwald Restaurant (that's Vienna Woods for you non-Deutsch speakers) that was opening and had passed out some discount coupons.  

Today we witnessed one of the new members from Pakistan, who has been to the center numerous times and even taken the English Book of Mormon class, receive the Aaronic Priesthood and be ordained a priest.  I congratulated him and told him his handshake, which used to be like a jellyfish, was getting really good!  We also had a lovely visit afterwards with a 92 year old member who told us some stories about living after the war with her husband a war prisoner in Maryland.  She had been alone for several years waiting for his release and even lost an 8 month old baby to double pneumonia which bonded us considerably.  She stated she has a 95 year old cousin living in the Czech Republic.  They're the only two left in the entire family and she's just waiitng for him to die so she can have his temple work done.  She does have a foster son who takes good care of her and he's promised to have the work done if by chance she doesn't outlive him :)

  (Sister Parker) This week we had a few adventures with the Elders. First we took some elders to get a new bed slat support system and then spent the next hour helping them put it together only to find out it was a bit too long and big. It was great to see Elder Abbott find a tiny 3 inch saw knife and proceed to saw off 1/2 inch from each end of the side boards. After loosening the screws in the bunk bed frame it fit just nicely and the bed was able to be tightened up again. Great, for elders and ingenuity. We had another example of ingenuity on Saturday when we went to pickup 2 mattresses for elders in Wiener Neustadt. The ward mission leader drove us and the elders to pick up the mattresses which were not rolled up as we had been told. It took an interesting bit of putting a puzzle together to fit 5 of us all in the car plus 2 car seats and 2 mattresses. We tried to take pictures of us stuffed inside with me holding one of the car seats, next to the elder stuffed under the mattresses and the other elder in the back stuffed under both the car seat and the mattress. See if you can figure it out. (Note one of the blessings of either being the driver or riding shotgun was having great seats!)

​ I thought our Mission Tour day with Elder Kaeron was great. I especially liked the story told about Elder Kaeron and the scorpion in the Arabian Penninsula  desert where he grew up: "As a seven-year-old boy living in the Arabian Peninsula, I was consistently told by my parents to always wear my shoes, and I understood why. I knew that shoes would protect my feet against the many threats to be found in the desert, such as snakes, scorpions, and thorns. One morning after a night’s camping in the desert, I wanted to go exploring, but I did not want to bother with putting on my shoes. I rationalized that I was only going for a little wander and I would stay close by the camp. So instead of shoes, I wore flip-flops. I told myself that flip-flops were shoes—of a sort. And anyway, what could possibly happen? As I walked along the cool sand—in my flip-flops—I felt something like a thorn going into the arch of my foot. I looked down and saw not a thorn but a scorpion. As my mind registered the scorpion and I realized what had just happened, the pain of the sting began to rise from my foot and up my leg. I grabbed the top of my leg to try and stop the searing pain from moving farther, and I cried out for help. My parents came running from the camp. As my father battered the scorpion with a shovel, an adult friend who was camping with us heroically tried to suck the venom from my foot. At this moment I thought that I was going to die. I sobbed while my parents loaded me into a car and set off across the desert at high speed toward the nearest hospital, which was over two hours away. The pain all through my leg was excruciating, and for that entire journey, I assumed that I was dying. When we finally reached the hospital, however, the doctor was able to assure us that only small infants and the severely malnourished are threatened by the sting of that type of scorpion.He administered an anesthetic, which numbed my leg and took away any sensation of pain. Within 24 hours I no longer had any effects from the sting of the scorpion. But I had learned a powerful lesson. I had known that when my parents told me to wear shoes, they did not mean flip-flops; I was old enough to know that flip-flops did not provide the same protection as a pair of shoes. But that morning in the desert, I disregarded what I knew to be right. I ignored what my parents had repeatedly taught me. I had been both lazy and a little rebellious, and I paid a price for it."  Obedience is an important part of the gospel. We don't regret obeying. We regret disobeying. This is a good story to remember when you are trying to decide what to do.

   

Have a good week. We're not quite as cold as we have been. I even wore real shoes instead of boots to church today.

         LOVE AND HUGS, 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker         

Whirlpool, IKEA and the Last Supper

Dear Family,

As the days seem to be getting a little longer and the nights shorter, school has been out this week in Austria which has meant our attendance at the YSA Center has been pretty minimal.  There were no institute classes this week and so instead of getting a great cooked meal from the sister who's been assigned for several years to do it, Sister Parker decided that we'd provide any comers with a bowl of hot soup and some buttered bread before they headed out to an ice skating party that evening.  Instead of the usual 50 people or so who are there for classes we probably ended up with about 15 or so and she had both some yummy noodle soup that was kind of like we'd set up at home with some Ramen noodles but we had to make it more from scratch, and also some yummy potato soup with a few veggies left over from the Monday home evening fare.  It was an easy evening and after everyone had left and we'd cleaned up, we went down to the Rathaus (pictures from last week) where everyone was ice skating and saw them all having a good time.  We decided not to participate just in case we slipped and broke something important, our ice skating skills being a little limited.

We have had some good attendance at our language courses and we seem to be focusing at the moment on teaching German rather than English. Our Zoroastrian family never returned after the holidays and we have assumed that the visas came through and they're all happily ensconced in the USA, using their skills for real.  I did mention a couple of weeks ago that I'd fill you in on an interesting session with two Hungarians.  For quite some time we've enjoyed regular visits from a member who joined the church about 5 years ago and is now living with his mother here in Vienna while he works for Nuskin.  His English was virtually non-existent as was his German and so it was a real challenge to teach him either language.  We initially started out with English using the Google Translate to get his Hungarian into our language and that really worked OK but he wasn't a real hard studier and so it was slow going.  Then for about 2 1/2 months, our Internet connection has been down and it was quite difficult to get it repaired.  So for quite some time he would come and seemed to make some progress just in hanging around all the English-speaking missionaries.  I really don't know how he managed to survive with as little language as he knew but he is one of our more active attendees and always shows for home evenings, institute and waffle night along with the language classes.

So in December, we had a young lady appear who wanted to learn German who has family in Budapest!  That's right, she was Hungarian and spoke really quite good English.  We had a couple of sessions learning basic vocabulary and I asked her if she would mind being our translater for our Hungarian young man.  She readily agreed but left for Budapest over the holidays so we had to wait for her to return.  She's now been back for a month, comes regularly twice a week and has been very helpful in aiding our devout member.  She's a much better student than he is but she's been very willing to help him out.  So it's routine at every session to start and end with prayer which she probably thought was a little strange but went along with us.  Initially, I was saying all the prayers in English and after our member joined in with us, he tended to pray in Hungarian.  My prayers were pretty short and to the point.  His were long and went on and on and on but at least she was understanding them! I then asked her if she would be willing to pray and she acquiesced after a short lesson on how to pray after the Mormon style, she being a long standing Catholic. So in the past couple of weeks I've been encouraging everyone to see how they'd do praying in German and that has kept the prayers considerably shorter. So the whole point of this lengthy report is that last week after we were finished, our young member presented her with two Books of Mormon, one in Hungarian and the other in German!  He told her it would be a great way to practice her German as she read in one and followed in the other.  She graciously accepted and I congratulated him on being a good missionary.  We'll see where it goes from here.

So while everything else has been kind of slow, we've had several challenges with the physical facilities of our missionary apartments.  One group had their washing machine breakdown and after a challenging foray into speaking with the Whirlpool repairman who will come by sometime this Wednesday between 8 AM and 6 PM(!), I suddenly realized that it was a machine that we had actually purchased only 7 months ago.  So at least it's still on warranty but we're going to have to arrange for someone to hang around the apartment all day until someone shows up.  We told the Elders we'd help as we don't do too much during the day and can get our studying done.  We have to still mount their carbon monoxide monitor on the wall anyway and I found a drill set in our apartment that will work out fine.  Another set of missionaries down south in Wiener Neustadt, about an hour's train ride from here, have decided their mattresses are shot and so we talked it over with mission headquarters who have said they won't be able to advance them the money meaning we'll have to go down, purchase them, pay for them, and get them back to their apartments.  They'd already picked out a couple but my office mentor didn't think they would be high enough quality and recommended something  a little pricier, usually available at IKEA.  Well, fine, but there isn't an IKEA anywhere close to where they live and we don't feel like hauling two mattresses the equivalent of SL to Spanish Fork on a train so they'll look for something else and when they find it, we'll head down to get their mattresses for them.  

In the meantime, two other elders just about killed themselves when one jumped on his bunkbed to have it come crashing down on his poor companion beneath him.  Inspecting the damage, we discovered that the mattress support in the top bunk had been destroyed.  New bunk beds aren't cheap wonder of wonders, a short trip to OUR local IKEA turned up just exactly what we needed and will only cost 70 Euros instead of the 300-600 a new bed would cost.  While we were there we even inspected the recommended mattresses we need for the distant elders and will be able to see if their choices make the grade!

Finally yesterday we spent our P day heading off to view the Imperial Treasury of the Austrian Empire, one of the museums in the new Year's Card bargain we bought a while back. This treasury was put together largely by one of the famous empresses who ruled toward the end of the 19th century. Now we're all up to speed on the fancy vestments, crowns, jewelry, swords, staffs and even spiritual relics from the European past and the Holy Roman Empire.  Although I don't think we're even close to being convinced, we did view items that were reportedly pieces of the actual cross, a fragment of Jesus' loincloth and a fragment of the actual table cloth used at the Last Supper!  All in the same room!

Today we went to St. Poelton, another far away branch in the stake for our Sunday meetings where we got to help in a joint teach with a man from Romania who's really got the spirit. He's scheduled to be baptized on the 28th and promises to be off all of his smoking at least a week before. He's already received a blessing to help him in that regard and is making great progress. His English is better than his German so it was an easy lesson. We're looking forward to a long trip to Munich on Thursday with all the other missionaries to meet with Elder Kaeron of the First Quorum of the Seventy.  Leaving at 6:30 in the morning and not back until 9:30 that night. No wonder they call it the Mission Tour!

 (Sister Parker) Today I felt like the postman: Through all kinds of weather, the wind, rain, and snow the trek to the Gemeinde (ward house) went forward. Bundled up warmly we came from the Train Station through the village and around the corners to our Gemeinde. Actually, there is only one Gemeinde in Vienna that is across the street from our bus stop where we don't have to make a big trek. However, all this makes us feel that we are truly persevering. The small branch in St. Poelton really has a sweet spirit among the sisters and I enjoy visiting with them. They are all so serious about the gospel and applying it to our lives. A diligent sister who leads the choir, conducts Relief Society, and, also taught the Gospel Doctrine lesson, gave us some great advice. She said, when we receive spiritual insights about changes we need to make in our lives from lessons, talks, etc, we should immediately write it down, talk about it and then incorporate it into our lives. She then shared a little story about Pres. Kimball visiting a ward where he took out a little piece of paper and started writing on it. .The ward leaders thought someone had done something wrong and he was going to tell them about it. Instead, he told them he had just heard something he needed to work on and wanted to remember it.  It sounds like great advice so I'm passing it on. 

   This week on Saturday is Valentines day so I'm wishing everyone a  HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! 

 Lots of Hugs and Love, 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker 

The Book of Mormon is True!

To our Dear Family!

It's been another exciting week especially with Rusty, Mom, Grammy, Sister Parker having one of those milestone birthdays.  You all know that this begins the 2 2/3 months when I must bow to her superior wisdom and insight because she's older than me, especially now that she's officially a Seventy!  Some people will do anything to gain a little authority, even if it means getting older.  She appreciates all the comments, well-wishes, Skypes, Face-times, gifts, cards and other  special remembrances that we have received from so many of you.  It has brightened up our apartment again since we took all of the Christmas decorations down.  We asked one of the members where she thought the best restaurant in town was and she thought we should dry the Danube Tower with a rotating restaurant high above the city very near the Vienna United Nations complex.  We thought it sounded like a great idea and decided we'd make reservations for just before sundown so we could have a chance for a great sunset.  Unfortunately, when I called for reservatons I was informed that they're closed for renovations until February 8th!  So I guess we'll leave that for another time and instead we went to our old favorite, the 12 Apostles Cellar where we've been with Steve Lyde, Tom and Laurel and Markus Wiese and his family.  It was a wonderful evening.

This past week, Elder Parker had the chance to be a third companion to a couple of elders who planned to visit one of the sisters in their ward who is over 90 years old.  She is pretty independent and still very sharp, living in a seniors home but with her own small kitchen and a small little conversation area adjacent to her bedroom.  She really has complete privacy and was very sweet as we came in and sat down.  We waited briefly while she prepared us a nice small lunch and they had planned on reviewing the first missionary discussion with her after a little socializing but I happened to ask her when she had first met the missionaries and that turned into about a half hour of a sweet story of her conversion.  She told us she had been raised a Catholic and had prayed to all the saints numerous times, went regularly to confession and read the Bible regularly.  She felt she had literally memorized the Bible, she knew it so well but was concerned that it contained many things she didn't see in her church.  So she began to investigate other churches but still didn't feel satisfied in what they taught.  Then, she said, one day two men appeared on my doorstep and told me about the church and the Book of Mormon.  She received a copy and began to read it and said she just couldn't put it down.  She read late into the night with a burning in her heart that told her what she was reading was true.  Again this took a long time to give us the full story but there was a great spirit there as she talked to us.  Her life has not been easy with her husband and two sons never joining the church but she has been a real stalwart and told us how much joy had come into her life as she served actively in the church since her baptism in 1966.  I thought, boy, that's when I and Mom were both serving our first missions.  At Fast and Testimony meeting this past Sunday we attended a different ward than this sisters and I was motivated to bear testimony about what she had told us. 

Sister Parker and I have been reading a chapter a day in the Book of Mormon since we came on our mission, out loud and in German and Saturday we read Moroni, Chapter 10! The missionaries have all been asked to reread it starting the first of the year and we will finish it by the end of June so for a while we were reading our own chapter and then the chapter assigned to us by the mission. Elder Parker has received an assignment to teach our district tomorrow about something that impressed us during this past week of study.  They do occasionally run a couple of chapters together and some days they'll spend two days on one chapter so the assignment ended up covering potentially 2 Nephi chapters 9-20.  I spent Sunday afternoon going over those 12 chapters, several of which are quoting Isaiah and all of which I'd already had the opportunity of teaching in my Institute class.  It was kind of fun to realize that just in these chapters alone the plan of salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are laid out in considerable detail and especially chapter 9 is a key chapter for the second and third lessons in Preach My Gospel.  For the inquisitive and studious, I'll attach my handout for tomorrow's lesson.  It's two pages, the first on all twelve chapters and the second page just on the teaching in Chapter 9.  Especially you young folks still preparing for a mission, see if you can skip around as I've indicated and get a picture of what the Book of Mormon can teach us.

So tomorrow, including our district meeting, we also have the opportunity of meeting with President Kohler in personal interviews.  A week from Thursday we travel to Munich again, just for one day to be taught by President Kaeron of the First Quorum of the Seventy and a counselor in the European Area Presidency.  Lots of things to look forward to.

Family Home Evening was interesting this week because it was Groundhog Day, a totally meaningless event to the Austrians who had never even heard of the movie.  But we had a little fun with it.  This coming Wednesday, because we're in between semesters, they're not having any Institute classes and instead everyone is going to go down to the City Hall, which always has something going on and they've replaced the big Christmas market with an intricate ice skating rink that winds around through their walking paths and covers the big plaza in front.  They've even got a big tower with a rotating viewer (but no restaurant) that they've installed nearby for a great view.  

Here's a couple of pictures:

and one more:

And the last one shows Mom with a cute souvenir apron they gave her on her birthday at the Institute.

  (Sister Parker) As you can see we still manage to stay busy and even have a moment to celebrate for birthdays. Thanks for all the sweet, little remembrances. I did learn one thing this past week in Relief Society about growing older. A sister shared what her young single adult daughter shared when she complained about aging. She said, mom, you are only old once in your life time. It struck me as awesome because it's not that we are only young once. No, we will spend eternity that way, relatively speaking. It is that only once in Eternity will we  have the opportunity to be old, so enjoy it, experience it, not everyone does have that opportunity. It made me think of old age in a different way. So, maybe I should celebrate that I've made another mile stone. Anyway take time to enjoy whatever stage you are at and don't try to hurry past it. God's blessings are many at all times. Love all the pictures and the stories about the children. 

      Take care and think happy.    

Love and Hugs, 

Grammy, Grampa,  

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation!

Dear Family,

Another wonderful week has gone by without much weather to worry about which has been nice for our shoes with the cold moderated a bit, coming and going but generally a bit warmer than it was a week ago. I wrote that last night and this morning we woke up to about 4 inches of snow! Most of our routine activities have been a little less busy with a lot of the elders and sisters participating but fewer members. We hoped we'd see our Iranian family again but none have returned since the holidays.

We had an assignment on Tuesday for our district meeting to present some of the principles in Preach My Gospel on the creation. This comprises a very short paragraph and the challenge as of our last zone training was to conduct our district meetings in German. So Sister Parker decided she would present most of the principles and then I would go over the cited scriptures which cover those principles. So we had these in our mind for the next day when Home Evening came around on Monday night and the person assigned for the spiritual thought didn't come.  We had 2 members there, 4 investigators and the two of us.  So I decided we might just as well talk about the creation for our spiritual thought.  It gave us the opportunity to talk about our pre-earth life, the purposes of our life here on earth and even the spiritual creation of all things.  The investigators were all long term friends and three of them are involved in a group that apparently has fastened on the belief that the end of the world will come on September 30th!  We smiled and told them we'd like to have a good talk with them all on October 1st!  At any rate the whole discussion took place in German and was great experience for the next day.  We were helped quite a bit by one of our two members, a returned missionary, who really saved the evening as the discussion got a little more involved.  

We did come up with a great scripture not included in the Preach My Gospel selections that you all might want to look up: D&C 88:17-20.

So Tuesday, the district meeting went well and that afternoon at the time for our language classes an interesting man came in indicating he wanted to improve his English.  The elders were all involved in classes teaching German and he really wanted to just talk to someone to improve his English because he has a professor who speaks English and he wanted to be able to present his proposal for a doctorate thesis.  It turns out he also comes from Iran, is a psychologist with a master's degree and has worked in a couple of the Iranian prisons with inmates who are struggling with addictions.  It turned out to be quite an interesting match-up as I decided that I should be his language teacher.  I had had no idea at the outset what his background was but he was filling me in on his beliefs, from his experience and research that there were great similarities in the responses from addicted individuals whether they were addicted to opiates, metamphetamines, or even video games.  He talked about areas in the brain that were affected by these addictions and pointed out their responses were very similar even in schizophrenia, depression and other mental disorders and at least when he talked about the amygdala, the hippocampus and other brain areas, I had some idea what he was talking about.

So to make a very long story a little shorter, we decided we would meet every day for an hour and work on his English.  After the first two days, he spontaneously brought up how impressed he was with Christians, how very nice and kind they seemed to be and how concerned he was about the lack of freedom he and his family experienced in Iran.  We ended up talking for over two hours on Friday and essentially he got most of the first discussion and a little bit of the second.  We had to go a little slow because he knew very little about Christianity per se but we had a good talk about prophets and revelation and if it keeps up he'll have a Book of Mormon in his hands by Monday.  We've even got a copy in Persian if he prefers.  Oh...the above title...he thinks people with addictions can be helped by exposing them to "transcranial magnetic stimulation."  We'll see how well it holds up to the Holy Ghost!

          Yesterday we finally decided it was time to go out and get a little culture and so we bought a year's card to one of the best museums in the world located here in Vienna.  We were already museumed out after about three hours and we only covered ancient Egypt and Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt.  That didn't even begin to cover more than perhaps a fourth of what was there.

Here's the upper lobby of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and we weren't even paying attention until we came down the stairs to the Islamic bride and groom who had come in for their wedding pictures to the left behind the lion! 

The next picture is in the same location looking straight up.

Fill you in later with a report on a young man and woman from Hungary!  

     This week did seem pretty regular to the routine we follow each day. Routine daily life is just doing the things we are expected to do because it is right to do so and blessings come from following through and being faithful. We enjoy the spirituality of the moments that come no matter how great or small they are, and there are many. Being faithful and holding steady is just part of the test of earth life.  

This week a young man came by that is a convert of about a year. He doesn't work far from the center but is very busy in his work commitments and studies. Hence he said he was too busy of late to come to Family Home Evening or Institute, or Waffle night, or to even go to church. I couldn't help asking if he at least was still praying. He said, no, "no time". But I said, he should always be able to pray in his heart. He really is a good young man and does have a testimony, but we all know how neglect can diminish what you have. He only came by to say "Hi" to us for a few minutes, so I didn't really want to get on his case. But I felt like I needed to admonish him to pray and to read his scriptures. Well, lo and behold, he was at church today and I was so happy looking into his eyes and knowing he was still trying to be faithful. So, to all I would like to say, "be faithful in the little things and the big things will take care of themselves." I'm so thankful for the daily blessings of the gospel in our lives. 

LOVE and HUGS,

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker 

A Polyglot of Languages

Hi Guys!

Well, it's been an interesting week for languages.  Since our last zone training meeting, we've been attempting to follow the mission president's request to emphasize German between companions and at our district meetings, at least from 9 AM to 9 PM.  So we've been making an effort to do that with the result that we're picking up all kinds of new words we would have otherwise never had a need for: like Platzdeckchen=placemat or jaemmerlich=miserable.  It's also been good to pick up the Du language which is sort of the German version of thee and thou, primarily used by close friends or when speaking to children however more and more commonly used amongst the Austrians.  We have been asked to refrain by the mission leadership from using it with members of the church or our investigators but sometimes it raises a few eyebrows.  At any rate, as a married couple we're definitely expected to use it with each other so we're using a form of the language that we don't get very often.  

I mentioned last week that I had the opportunity to give a talk in the International Ward which was in English so I've been working this week to translate it all into German.  It took a while but I finally got it all finished yesterday.  I'll give it to one of the natives here and have them refine it for me. Many quotes which I took from a couple of conference talks, I initially translated on my own and then went to the German version in the Liahona to see how they translated it.  Some of the time I was pretty close but many times it was quite a bit better with the professional translations at hand.  At any rate, I'm now ready to go for a talk in German, assuming I can make sure they assign me a similar topic.

The institute class on Wednesday was 2 Nephi 17-24, all Isaiah and even though we get it in English I don't think it was any easier in German, Italian, Spanish or Hungarian.  But the manual was very helpful and we've decided that you're never too old to pick up a better understanding of what Isaiah was trying to say.  Did you all know that he's the most quoted Old Testament prophet in the New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Dead Sea Scrolls!  As we got to chapter 19:6 I couldn't help myself and they got a full stanza from the Messiah "For unto us a child is born, unto us, a son is given...etc."  and even a little family history about our annual Messiah Sing-In's.

Most of the rest of the week was heavily into travel as we finished all of the apartment inspections in the far out cities of Wiener Neustadt and St. Poelton.  The latter city was an adventure because we don't know it very well but went shopping for a dryer as the last transfer, which occurred on Thursday, left 4 elders in that apartment and therefore they were eligible.  We got there early in the train station and then had to figure out which bus to take to get to their major shopping center.  There we bought the elders their dryer and made it back to their apartment for their inspection.  Then we hunted around for a place to eat lunch and at their request joined them in a joint teaching session at the church with a young lady who's had about 10 lessons but didn't seem to be making much progress.  She admitted she didn't have a belief in God, didn't pray and didn't see that it made much difference what religion one believed in.  We gave her a little Alma 32 about how to develop her faith and finally even a little Alma 13:27-29. about what might happen if she procrastinated too long.  I bore her a witness that the time would come in her life when she WOULD want to know these things and remember what we were teaching her now.  The elders thought it would be a make it or break it session and for now it seemed to be a break it event.  We'll see what the future holds for her.

Family home evening was quite good on Monday night with three "seasoned" investigators there and the spiritual thought was given by a sweet young sister only a member for about a year.  She talked about the importance of missionary work and was able to involve each of the investigators personally into the discussion.  I ended up irritating Grammy by speaking with one of them afterwards well into the evening,until about 10:00 pm..  We were giving a presentation in our district meeting on the creation (in German, remember!) the next day so we had a lot of scriptures in our memory and this one lady informed us that her group of Free Christians was predicting the end of the world on September 30 of this year.  I told her I wanted to have a good discussion with her on October 1 but in the meantime we were talking about what would happen to the earth at the time of the Second Coming.  We were able to review the pre-earth life and the earth's spiritual creation and she was fascinated to discover that the earth had even been baptized and was stilll awaiting it's baptism by fire.  I discovered a cool scripture which we didn't quote her in D&C 88:17-20 which I will leave you all to peruse at your leisure.

The district meeting went well with Sister Parker perfecting her German with excellence. Other than purchasing an electric oven which together with the dryer sets us back about 900 Euros (we eventually will get reimbursed by the mission) everything else led up to the weekend highlight. Our young sister Aigerim chose Elder Parker Eldredge to perform her baptism on Saturday and although she was planning on having the Bishop confirm her today, he continues to be too ill to attend the meetings and so she asked me instead. It was special to be able to participate in that fashion and so we again attended the International Ward today for her confirmation where I'd spoken last week. She was approached by many in the ward afterwards, including several who spoke to her in Russian as well as German, though for most the primary language is English.  Here's the photo of the attendees including the sisters, the elders and Elder and Sister Tew who serve in Graz, Austria but first introduced her to us back in June as she had lived with their cousin as a foreign exchange student back in Utah.  

We all went out for pizzas afterwards and it was definitely a high point for us.

      This indeed has been an interestingly full week for us. First with trying to speak German more often and then being asked to give a little discussion in German at our District Mtg. It went quite well but it is nice to know you can still use simple words to discuss important things. During the week as the Elders brought a young woman to teach at the Center, they also asked me to "Joint Teach" with them. I am still taken back when they ask me to do this, usually it is the sisters who ask for help. It turned out very well, as it was a young woman I had met a month or so before with the elders. Strangely enough, I had been thinking about her and wondering what had happened with her because she had been so receptive to the message. It was great to help because she had studied out the pamphlets and scriptures, (with highlights and questions,) the elders had given to her, but hadn't been able to get back together with them. It is great to feel the spirit in these moments.

    (Sister Parker) The most exciting thing this week, of course, was Aigerim's baptism on Saturday. The baptismal font was beautiful with inlaid mosaic tiles that created an upward light expression above the water. It was fun to help her dress and prepare for this moment. This baptism comes at the culmination of many months of waiting for the right time. The above picture doesn't show you all the sisters, elders, and ourselves who worked with her, taught her and had many gospel discussions with her over the months since we first met her in June. She has become like a granddaughter and a friend to us. Her baptism was very special to all of us and a sweet spiritual moment as she went down into the water and came up clean and pure. Likewise was the confirmation, and Grampa gave her a sweet, thoughtful blessing. These are moments to remember forever.

     Today as we talked about prayer in Relief Society I thought, "you are never too old to be reminded to take time to do things right." We discussed how we wouldn't lay on the bed or by the bed half asleep and talk to a friend, or the many other ways we sometimes don't think about Heavenly Father there beside us, listening. This week let's think about how we are praying and what we are saying. I know how much I love everyone of you. You mean the world to me. Heavenly Father loves you so much more.

LOVE AND HUGS

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker 

Inspectors General

Dearest Family,

              It looks like the final holiday for the season in Europe has passed, that of the Three Kings on January 6th.  Although a few are still hanging on, most of the Christmas trees and other holiday decorations have been removed.  We waited until the 8th to take down the Christmas tree in the Center because that was a little slower day for us. but we have noticed that the bright lights are still up down in the city center around St. Stephen's cathedral.  A few of the members tell us that many like to keep their trees around until the end of January, but then again, virtually no one puts them up any earlier than Christmas Eve.  Our little tree in our apartment was an exception, I guess.

   

It seems like there might have been a few misconceptions as to exactly how long the center was going to be closed as it was still a pretty slow week but we did get a few out for home evening on Monday.  Even though Tuesday was an official holiday, the elders got about three people out to a German class and the same for Thursday so we still think that some felt we wouldn't open until next week.  Our Zoroastrian Iranian family have been quite faithful for a few months but we've not seen hide nor hair from any of them since prior to Christmas.  Hopefully they'll reappear next week.

             Institute definitely restarted this week and although the class of usually 9 or 10 wasn't present, we still had our two faithful sisters who have never missed a week. We were also joined by a recently returned missionary who went to Birmingham, England on his mission. All three are native German speakers but have excellent English skills and want to read the Book of Mormon in the original, or as original as it gets unless someone knows reformed Egyptian!  So they all sat on one side of the table and the other side was equally interesting.  None of them were original English speakers either but their German is not as good as their English so they prefer the English class as well.  Our first is a cute young girl from Italy, next to her was a new young man from Madrid, Spain, and finishing up the group was a young man from Budapest, Hungary.  His English isn't a whole lot better than his German but he attends quite regularly and feels he gets more out of English than he would in either of the other two German classes.  Because we're delving into Isaiah currently, I'm not sure it's easy in English either, but we had copies of the Book of Mormon open in Italian, Spanish and Hungarian just to make sure that everyone was coming along.

            Transfers are coming up this Thursday and everyone already knows whether they're going or staying.  (We're staying!)  But one of our responsibilities is to inspect each of the apartments each transfer, allowances being given for the apartments that are really out in the sticks.  But because of the holidays, we really hadn't inspected anyone since back in November so felt we'd better get moving. We really expected that our numbers would drop considerably as about 30 going home are not being replaced in the next six weeks.  But we really only lost two elders in the apartments we're responsible for.  Four are still in one of those distant apartments we haven't been to in a while and we've always felt they deserved a dryer but waited to see if they'd reduce down to two.  They didn't so we have to find a local establishment that sells dryers and get one delivered.  Another apartment that has been vacant until the last transfer has now been rehabilitated from a sorry state and is once again quite livable.  But it desperately needs a new oven.  Right now it has a gas oven that's quite dangerous to light and a replacement runs around 600 Euros.  A newer electrical apparatus only costs about 250 to 300 Euros and so we'd like to replace the gas with the electric.  The trick is to get an electrician in to see if he can provide a socket where we need one, and then another company to seal off the gas supply when we pull out the old oven.  It's one thing to preach the Gospel in German but it's quite another to talk plumbing and electricity!  Well, we've got a good brother from the Stake to help us out where needed.  In fact, he just got put on the high council and has been assigned to the International Ward because his English is pretty good.  Elder Parker had the assignment to give his first talk in Sacrament meeting today in that ward, how nice that it could be in English.  The new high councilor was there so it gave us a good opportunity to map out the phone calls necessary this week to see about all these changes.  We got four of our assigned apartments done in the last couple of days, one is our own which is easy to report on, but we've still got four to go. So we'll get one tomorrow, two on Wednesday and then the final one perhaps on transfer day, Thursday.  That's the one that needs a new dryer so we'll see if we can pull it all together.

                The talk seemed to go pretty well and the theme was on Hope through the Atonement.  I was the last speaker and not sure how long I'd end up having to speak but it worked out pretty well with about 15-20 minutes to go and the talk timed out at about 16-17.  A little ad-libbing and it seemed to be well received.

Not a lot of photos this week so here's an old one showing one of our now-departed sisters, Sister Jencks with our oft-referred to young lady from Kazahkstan, Aigerim.  Aigerim has been interviewed this week and is now scheduled to be baptized this coming Saturday!  Still up in the air a bit about who's going to perform the ordinance but Elder Parker is on the short list. 

    (Sister Parker) January always seems like the time to evaluate things and to recommit to being more diligent in our endeavors,and to looking back over all our blessings. It certainly has been a blessing to serve as missionaries here in Vienna and it has also been a blessing of hard work in so many different ways. Sometimes it is amazing to see what the Lord knows you can do and so He puts you in situations where you have to use the abilities and talents He has already helped you gain. I see this over and over again as we work with the young adults, missionaries and investigators. I am truly thankful for 4 o'clock each afternoon when the young women, or men, missionaries, or friends of the church come just to talk, or have gospel questions or want to help in the kitchen. They help me with German or I help them with English. It so reminds me of being home in my own kitchen with, children, their friends, and with grandchildren. I am thankful for kitchens; warm roomy, kitchens. One young woman told me, "it just feels so good be here, and to talk with you. The whole building feels good." That is what we always hope for and one of the reasons we are serving at the Center. 

Last week at Testimony meeting a brother expressed his thankfulness for garments and their feeling of protection and commitment to his covenants. I hadn't really thought of it but I felt the same way.  Right now I am very thankful for thermal garments. They are such comfort to me.  What a great protection for our day in this evil world. I am also thankful for the privilege of growing up in the gospel and having had parents and grandparents who taught me the gospel by word and example. It is so hard to learn about the Lord's prophets and His Bible teachings when you have been taught incorrectly or have no knowledge of these things at all. It is also a blessing to share this religious and spiritual knowledge and to watch others grow in theirs. God blesses all people with the ability to grow and survive in their circumstances and to be able to recognize the truth when it is presented to them, if they choose to do so. We have seen some of these young people recognize the message the missionaries bring of truth and embrace it.

    I want to share my testimony with my family, especially my grandchildren, that I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus live and love us very much. They want us to be happy here and to return to live with them in Heaven. There isn't any more important message to share. Take time to share your testimonies with each other. I loved hearing about the testimony sharing of Matt and Heidi's children. I'm sure you all do but do it again to start the New Year and to hear the sweetness of your children.

LOVE AND HUGS 

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker