Week 39

Today after Church, I left John home to write his family newsletter while I walked downtown to watch the parade celebrating Freiberg’s 850-year anniversary. I found a bench to wait on and watched the people gather before spotting the Huszes, who also came to watch the festivities. I lasted from the 1300s until the end of the 1700s with their many bands, horses, and carriages before bailing out and walking home in a downpour. Fortunately I had had the foresight to grab a jacket and umbrella before walking down.

850 year history. Can you imagine!

It’s amazing to see how old things are here. In Utah we think buildings are ancient if they’re 100 years old. I already told you about Brother Gottfried Schmidt, whose family has lived within 20 km of this place since about a.d. 1300.

Medieval Era Freiberger Miners

We just received a Church headquarters news item about the Church joining other Utahns in praying for a reversal of the weather there, and the safety of all the firefighters who are battling the many wildfires throughout the state. We are sorry for all the heat and fires but are glad we’re not there to “enjoy” it with all of you, which we understand is pretty universal throughout the U.S.

We, on the other hand, are having fabulous weather here, without any real summer heat to speak of. The temperatures have been in the mid- to upper-70s for the past few weeks, plus we’ve had some beautiful summer thunderstorms, with loud noises (Donner and Blitzen) and downpours in the middle of both day and night that are really fun to experience. I love summer rain! 

Wild storms. Kind of exciting 

This week we had another farewell as we celebrated the conclusion of Maaika and AJ Kingsford’s 18-month-mission here. AJ has been our assistant recorder and they are headed home after serving back-to back missions, first to Family and Church History in Salt Lake (they were in the other branch than the one we served in) and then coming directly here. We will really miss them being our neighbors across the hall.

Pres Husz, Sis Husz, AJ & Maaika Kingsford, and Peter Schönherr (our recorder and bishop)

I mentioned in my last entry that we were shortening our extension of our mission since John’s mobility isn’t great and he hobbles around holding on to staircase banisters, walls and chairs, or me, his “human crutch” (as our neighbors have dubbed me). We’ll now head home about a month later than our original mission call’s end, meanwhile doing the best we can to keep filling our assignments till we leave.

To avoid the long flight to the states that would be so difficult for John, we will again sail home and hope to spend our time on the way cleaning up our Laing family genealogy in our computers and working on personal histories, before going to NIH in DC for evaluation with John’s doctor, then flying home from there on November 14. The missionary couple who are taking care of our condo will leave in mid-October, so the timing is nearly perfect.    

Our "flight" home by slow boat not to China

 At the Freiberg Temple, we continue to have great experiences in recent weeks with the East European Saints. Two weeks ago we had the Romanians here, which was a first for us. Romania had belonged to our temple distric t years ago but was then transferred to Kiev, and now they’re back. It was really nice to meet them, and for John to train their new ordinance workers. The Romanians had to drive about 19 hours to get to the temple—which is better than the 30 hours they were driving to get to Kiev. Even that is less challenging then the 8-day journey that the Saints in Manaus, Brazil, were traveling to São Paulo before their temple was recently dedicated. This kind of commitment and sacrifice humbles us.

A favorite photo of our temple

This last week we’ve had the Hungarians here, again. In fact, they’re scheduled for eight more visits before we leave! It’s amazing to us how they come as families, with the children who are over 12 participating daily in baptisms for the dead, while the younger ones are cared for at the apartments by one parent or the other while the other is in a session. Then in another six weeks they come back and do it all over again. What a great way for kids to grow up with a love for the temple!

Our “mission” to China seems to be bearing a little fruit long after we’ve been gone. We get emails fairly frequently from former students who express appreciation for the things we taught them that they find are now part of the fabric of their personal character—things that had little to do with writing. Here’s one example of an email John recently received from John Lu, a former student with whom he is now carrying on a very interesting email exchange about what life entails, about eternal families, etc.

John Lu

These days I start to read Bible with some Christians. They are all kind-hearted persons and help me to live a peaceful life. I realize that life needs higher meaning, not only about money, better living conditions, fame and so on. They are all temporary, but love lasts. I thought of the music that you played in the writing class and they are all talking about the eternal love. One of them is "The Touch of the Master's Hand", and I shared it with my Christian friends and know that we all have ordinary bodies but we're honored because of the love from God.

I think it's an important year for me, because in China it's said that people tend to suffer more when they're at the age which is the multiple of 12 and I'm 24 year old. I need to learn more about life and myself and the world. I know it's tough but it's worth doing. No matter how hard it'll be, I can practise every day just like you told me before.

Thank God for bringing you to my life! You are an amazing gift from God.

I think John is an amazing gift from God to me too! I am so grateful for all our bonus years.  Enjoy your week.