Week 41

I continue to pray for rain for Utah and other areas that have had such hot temperatures this year resulting in many fires in so many areas in Utah and else where leaving behind great destruction. I don’t know when the picture below was taken—whether this year or another—but we found it our box at the temple with the following note on it:

The glowing Oquirrh Mountain temple amid darkness and fiery flames, stands holy and strong, a witness of protection and safety when the storms and tumult of the world rages—if we remain faithful and obedient to our covenants.

On the other hand, our weather here continues to be unusually cool, in the mid to high 60s.  We enjoy it very much with its soft breezes and intermittent rain showers, or downpours. We are most grateful that we have had such a pleasant summer since our temple was never air-conditioned.  As we understand it, it was built with the idea that it would not be open on an ongoing basis, but would be used only for a while for living ordinances, then closed until the next generation grew up and was ready for it. Of course that was before the Berlin Wall came down and missionaries were allowed to begin preaching again.

This week other Hungarian saints came and next we will have more of them. They far outnumber the Germans. They come so faithfully, I don’t doubt they have great longing for a temple of their own in Budapest, though without them and the Czechs our temple here would lack for numbers.

This week we have enjoyed visits of various sorts.

One of the regulars at the temple day-in-and-day out is Sister Uta Meyer who is a widow. When not at home in Northern Germany, she lives in a tiny one-room apartment she maintains here in Freiberg so she can be nearby the temple. She asked us to come to dinner, where we visited and saw pictures of her husband of just eight years before he died four years ago. He had been married many years before but had been alone for 30 years when he met her—in the temple; they then married and were sealed here.

Thursday evening we met with the missionaries with a young man from China who had lived for 11 years in Xi’an, where we were last year. He and his wife and son live in Freiberg where he works at the university. We don’t get many opportunities to proselyte but we tried to help out the best we could and will meet with them again when we get the chance.

Sunday we played dominos and visited with the Despains, missionaries from Montana. It was fun to get better acquainted with them. Don used to work for Yellowstone Park and there dealt with many forest fires and has some interesting views about them.

In the evening we went to dinner at another missionary couple’s apartment who are converts to the Church, originally from Austria but who have since lived in Australia, later in Canada, and now (when not serving a mission) call Lehi, Utah, home. We enjoyed the dinner, and enjoyed the people even more.

At the temple we have been busy training for our new assignments, John as the sealing coordinator and me as his assistant, though much of the time this week I have been working with our replacements assigned to do the scheduling for the ordinance workers. The learning curve on that task is steep but they are making progress and in another week or so I think they will be fully up and functioning. John and I are also learning everything we can concerning the roles of counselors and assistants to the matron since those now here will be leaving in the next couple of months—before their replacements arrive.  We have been assigned to assist in training the new ones coming. 

We feel very blessed to have this opportunity to serve this mission together in this beautiful part of the Lord’s world.

We hope that you are enjoying your part too. We love you all. Sue & John