Week 47

Gisela Metzner--translator extraordinaire

We have had an interesting Sunday.  John was assigned to play the organ in sacrament meeting and I always go up to sit near him so he doesn’t fall off the organ bench or down the stairs at the end of the meeting. 

While sitting there, minding my own business, the main speaker—a counselor in the stake presidency—asked if I would be willing to bear my testimony about the blessings of our missionary service in the temple before he would speak. I was happy to do it, as long as he didn’t mind my doing so in English, since I had no time to employ John in translating something I could read. He was happy to have me speak auf Englisch and Sis Metzner, was asked to translate for me. (She is one of the current assistants to the matron and is a marvelous simultaneous translator. She always helped me when I was doing the sisters’ training in the temple). It felt very comfortable to have her by my side again. I spoke of the blessing John’s dad has been in our life, of his funeral this last Monday, and the legacy of service and love he left us as well as  the blessing being here has been for us.

After our meetings, we spent the afternoon in a very German fashion, having been invited to Brother and Sister Dzierzon’s home for dinner. Their home was quiet and peaceful, the visiting pleasant (though the usual challenge for me trying to grasp all the Deutsch), and the food delicious. Theirs is a wonderful family of four married sons and one married daughter. Three of their sons have married American girls--and all of them and their families, plus their sister's family, live in our Freiberg ward. Their one other son is inactive right now. 

Dzierzons

When we get invited to dinner, we always let our hosts know in advance that we don’t eat sugar, so that they don’t go to the trouble of making something elaborate that we can’t eat. After a yummy dinner of chicken with zucchini and paprika peppers in an herbed sauce (a little like a cooked version of Chinese haystacks), we enjoyed a wonderfully light dessert of fresh blueberries and strawberries in homemade black berry sauce with pudding and whipped cream—everything sweetened with Stevia. It was just perfect.

Out for our walk between desserts!

After dinner we were shown their garden and then went for a walk together (John on his Nordic sticks that I had brought along) around their wonderful area with its green paths. We had delightfully cool weather with a hint of fall in the air. We returned to their home planning to tell them goodbye and walk home, when we learned we still had Kuchen and Caffee (“Pero” for those who know it) to enjoy together before our visit was over. Sis Dzierzon brought out a stunning yogurt/peach Kuchen (sweetened again with Stevia) and so we sat down to have our second dessert in the same afternoon, proceeded by a second blessing of thanks.

Dessert #2. Yummy!

The dessert tasted just as good as it looked and was beautifully presented on lovely plates. Now fuller than we had been in some time, even skipping the encouraged second helpings, we headed out, accompanied once more by our hosts, on the 25-minute walk back home.  We enjoyed everything about our visit. Arriving home, we promptly went to bed for an hour to recover! I can see that our style of having someone come to dinner must seem very rushed to a European since it doesn't generally last 5 hours! 

The rest of our week has been memorable with the 90+ Hungarian Saints keeping us busy at the temple from Tuesday through Friday evening. Many of these folks will not come again until November, so we once more felt a tug of loss as we hugged them goodbye, knowing we wouldn’t see them again. After the groups leave, generally late on Friday, Saturday can feel really quiet with only a handful of local patrons but this week was an exception. The Berlin Stake had scheduled a Relief Society conference and brought a bus with more than 80 sisters and a handful of brethren for the second and third sessions. Wow! Were we busy!

John with the Huszes

In addition to overflowing endowment sessions, we held multiple initiatories and sealing sessions and the baptistry was equally busy with those unendowed. Everywhere in the temple was hummin!  Many of those who came were older sisters who can no longer manage to get to the temple on their own. It was a wonderful—though a very busy day. John and I came home happy but exhausted and had just lain down for a much needed nap when the phone rang at 4:00 with Pres. Husz on the other end of the line saying “Come dine with us. We leave in 10 minutes.” John dragged himself out of bed, took two Excedrin (instead of his nap), got dressed again, and went with them to Himmel and Hölle once more (Sis Husz’s favorite restaurant!). We enjoyed their company and the wonderful light dinner. Having revived, we came home to catch up on emails.

One of those emails was from a couple from our Chinese branch in Xi’an announcing that they would be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple the end of September. We are so excited for them.  Ning Ning’s was the one Chinese-national’s baptism we had in our little branch. She and her beloved, much older, husband have waited over a year to have the way paved for them to be sealed. Though we would love to join them on this wonderful upcoming occasion, we will miss it, but at their request, John arranged with a friend of ours, Gary Garff, to perform their special sealing. We also enjoyed a phone visit with Julie Monson, our RS president in the branch in Xi'an, now home in SLC, to try to coordinate things for the Judds.

We continue to walk daily and are so grateful that John’s legs are strengthening a little as we do so. He wobbles a lot without his sticks but with them gets along fairly well. We like keeping track of our progress with my pedometer and some days have gone as far as 3+ miles.

We have also begun figuring what we are going to ship home, give away, or carry back with us. It may seem a little early, but it is our way to think forward so we are not rushed in preparing. Br. Hauck was here from Hungary for part of this week—he is our one Hungarian sealer. He kept very busy with sealings on the two days he was here. We had one session where one sister was sealed to her deceased husband, then her son to her and his father, then two couples, each with a child made sacred covenants together.  

Br. Hauck--Hungarian sealer

Before he headed home, we arranged to leave get him our massage table and other equipment. He is a dear, dear man. So many in Hungary are very poor (as are those in the other Eastern European countries) so we are very happy to leave anything we don’t need for him to distribute.

In three weeks our temple will close for its semi-annual maintenance, we will lose both counselors in the temple presidency, and, immediately after, have two new ones come. We have been asked to help train the ones coming.

As I write today, we are snug in our little apartment, listening to an early-fall rainstorm this evening. This next week ends with the arrival of September! Where has this summer gone?!

Week 46

Tuesday we welcomed 20 plus Polish Saints for a week in the temple and worked to greet them with Dzien dobry and thank them with Dziekuje. It is always fun to see their smiles in response, graciously assuring us that our abysmal pronunciation was “Pearfect.” We said goodbye on Saturday to the last ones, giving Brother Zalewski a hug after exchanging email addresses.

Saturday afternoon was a bit slow after they left but it was ok—it gave us a breather before the Hungarian flood of 91 arrive Monday night. Oh, we do love the Ungarns! Seeing these out-of-country groups return is like having family come. We have truly grown to love them.

A walk around Freiberg's wall

Last Monday we had a delightful missionary outing, walking around the old wall in Freiberg before going together to Himmel und Hölle (Heaven and Hell) for lunch. 

City Wall with our Missionary Group

It is a delightful restaurant near the Nicholaikirche. There is an interesting story behind its unusual name, but I can’t remember what it isL.  

Heaven and Hell

President Husz, who really doesn’t much like to walk, was happy to oblige John and me by driving us down to the wall and we were happy to be his excuse for getting to drive down. It was a fun day and even with the ride down and back we still got in about two miles of walking around the wall and to the restaurant. 

A wonderful cool day that was fun to spend together

Tuesday our doorbell buzzed after we got home from the temple. John went out to the front entry to see who was there and found one of our temple workers who had offered to help a tall, rather scruffy man with the modern-unshaven look and earrings, looking for all the world like a member of a motorcycle gang. Learning he was looking for us, Brother Schlüter escorted him to our building. It took John a moment to recognize in him our friendly Zollant (customs) man who had kindly brought us a package that had been delayed by customs, sent to Leipzig, and then returned with permission to send on to us. He choose to bring it to us personally since he lives somewhere in Freiberg. There are good kind people every where, aren't there. 

A fun walk, good food, and good company

We have been enjoying the new couple who just arrived from Coalville, Utah, Louette and Doug Geary. They are the youngest of our missionaries and have lots more energy than we do, but we don’t mind. Yesterday we walked to a Gasthaus restaurant tucked down the end of a lane just off the forest, where we enjoyed dinner together as well as talking with the proprietor. He is German, she is Polish, so I demonstrated my remarkable expertise with Polish with my four Polish words of greeting. It was a kick. We walked over (John sporting his Nordic sticks, of course), ate dinner and walked back, a total of 2.29 miles. We were pretty impressed with him for making it. This daily walking has to be helping strengthen his legs. We discovered that I have my pedometer with me so it has been fun to clock our mileage daily.

Our friendly proprietor!

It has been a wonderful week of hearing from friends and family by email with little tributes to John's wonderful Dad for his life well lived. We have loved having contact with so many.

My favorite picture of Pop!

 After our meetings today we went for a shorter Sunday stroll, just so we didn’t break our consistency. It was actually hot! It felt like August for the first time. We cut our walk short and came home, fixed and ate dinner, then watched the wonderful birthday tribute to President Monson on LDS.org. It was a joy to see. What an amazing thing the Internet is with the good things it can bring us.

Golden Days--A Celebration of Life

Happy Birthday, Pres. Monson!

We look forward to the week ahead, with Grandpa’s funeral tomorrow that we hope to listen to through someone’s cell phone if someone has unlimited minutes, and think of all our kids's being able to represent us by attending. We so appreciate Patrick’s flying down to be there for it, after just having got back with Tessha from her grandma's funeral. We are grateful for each one who is part of our immediate and extended families and friends, wherever you are in this wide world. We feel very blessed because to know and love you.

Week 45

Our week brought us both joy and sorrow as Thursday evening August 9 at 7:42 pm John’s wonderful father, Charles William “Bill” Laing, died after fighting a courageous battle with cancer for some two years.  A week ago Sunday, when I wrote last, his hospice nurses had told the family it was unlikely that he would see Monday. But Monday then Tuesday and Wednesday came and went while he battled on.  We all felt he wanted to stay on to somehow continue his care for Mom—his life’s purpose. Now he could only hold her hand as she nestled nearby him in their daughter, Rebecca’s home. Thursday, we phoned again and once more had the phone held for him in order to tell him we loved him just hours before he stepped into eternity, freed from the limitations of his frail body. With him were Rebecca, John's brothers Paul, and Lorenz, and Mark's son Jeremy.

Joy followed as we thought of the reunion he was experiencing with nearly all his siblings and parents and others. We could not but rejoice with his “graduation” from his mortal curriculum. What a wonderful, good man he was to all of us.

It was great that Mark and Sylvia were able to be there to see him just a few days before he had slipped into being unable to respond any longer.

Our son Adam aptly put into words what we all feel as he wrote: “Can anyone in our family, ever think of the true meaning of love, virtue, undying commitment, patience, pure service with no thought of reward or recognition, without thinking first about Grandpa Laing.”

The rest of the week when we were not at the temple has been spent in conference calls with John’s siblings, planning for the funeral which will be held on Monday, August 20, and doing anything we could to help from afar.  We won’t be there in person but we will surely be there in spirit.

As a family we are so grateful for the loving care Rebecca and Carl and their whole family have provided to both Grandpa and Grandma Laing and for all those who have visited and helped out in any way they could. 

At the temple this week we have had Saints from Kaliningrad, Russia, here as well as some Italian families and have loved working with them. The language barriers are challenging but the warmth and appreciation for their opportunity to be at the temple was wonderful to feel. They had with them three couples who were ordinance workers and with whom John worked, brushing up on their training. A young returned missionary, Sis. Nicholaevich, who spoke good English, was set apart as a new worker, which was wonderful since she was able to then translate in our preparation meetings each morning.

Thursday, a young Russian approached a counselor in the presidency, asking if it would be possible for him and his wife to become ordinance workers.  Pres. Harper said, "Well, you would need to be recommended by your branch president," to which 24-year-old Brother Kartashov responded “I am the branch president!” He and his wife, Daria Kartashova, filled out paperwork, with him recommending himself and his wife. They will come again in December, making that long, long trip, bringing his branch with him, for another week of joy and service.

It has been difficult for us this week in saying goodbye to those who we know we will not see again. Our time remaining is beginning to feel very short. Though we may not see many of these wonderful Saints again, neither will we forget them. 

Over the last couple of years, first living in China and falling in love with the Chinese--especially our students--and now in Germany experiencing a very different type of service, we have found that we have expanded our capacity to love our Father in Heaven's children, whether they come from far off Kaliningrad, Russia, Rumania, or Hungary, or from Poland, the Czech Republic, or right here in Germany, they all have found places in our hearts. 

I recently received wonderful graduation pictures from some of my Chinese kids, letting me know that they had made it! Aren't they cute. They look like they might have graduated from high school rather than from Xi'an Jiaotong University! 

May your week ahead be spectacular and full of opportunities to serve.

Week 44

Last Sunday we began a determined effort to walk every day in order to strengthen John’s legs and I’m happy to report we have done something daily. His Nordic Walking Sticks have been a boon in helping to stabilize him so that he doesn’t always feel he is going to topple over. We think it can’t but be good for him (and me!) and with consistency bring about some good benefits to both arms and legs.

John and his "sticks"

Some of our outings have just been through the interesting neighborhoods, and others have been with a destination in mind—like Vivaldi for Indian dinner Thursday evening with the Schmidts. They like to go with us and don’t mind our slow pace. We walked down through the Tierpark (quasi zoo) in a beautiful clear, cool day, and chose to sit outside under their canopy since we figured it would be stuffy inside. 

Schmidts (from Austria, Austrailia, Canada, and Lehi) and John

The owner, from Punjab, India, waited on us and brought us wonderful lentil soup, tomato/mozzarella salad (Italian—not Indian) before we shared a curry chicken dish. It was all yummy and a fun outing. While we were eating it began to rain and poured down torrents! I love this kind of weather—as long as I am under cover but we were a little concerned about getting home! We visited and ate and then the rain cleared up and we walked home. How’s that for timing? Lots of blessings!

Yummy!

Today we walked through a close-by neighborhood and found an old DDR path overgrown with wild flowers that we followed until it led us back out onto our street. I am proud of John’s having the courage to persevere in doing whatever it takes to keep moving. I don’t doubt but what it would be much easier to give up and go to bed.

We have been busy at the temple with another project for the president to organize books with all the documentation on both sealers and temple workers, putting together a page tracking each one, with a picture, that can be reviewed when someone is coming to serve their shift that he doesn’t know—especially useful with those from out of country (the Russians are coming again next week!).  I have also made spines for all his binders so that they all look the same rather than the mishmash he inherited from his predecessors. It is always fun to work together with John. I do a lot of the work but John helps me when he can and he has the vision of design that helps a lot in making things look great.

Sometimes Saturdays can be very slow at the temple and as workers we often joke about needing to have einen Bus come so we can fill the temple! Well yesterday a real bus did come bringing saints from the Erfurt district and things were hummin'. It was exciting. I helped out in an initiatory session quickly put together to ease the numbers in the endowment room.

We have been greatly enjoying our assignment in handling the sealings for the temple. Yesterday was a particularly choice experience when a young couple came from Erfurt to attend the temple, doing the endowments for her grandparents. They asked if it would be possible to have a little sealing session after the last session so they could do the sealings for the couple and for their son—her father. John had attended the session to observe his newest trainee on his first time being the session leader so didn’t know about the extra sealing until he came off the session and got word to go directly to the sealing room so he could be the son.

We love our temple!

We had some difficulty in printing the sealing card for the couple and so were delayed for half an hour. Our sealer was Brother Beer, from Berlin, who had been very willing to stay to perform the ordinance, though it was delaying his long drive home. Nothing was working and we just couldn’t get NFS to let us print. I finally prayed that we would be able to find some way to do this important work for which the couple was so anxious. At the last minute the patron, quite new to temple service, realized she had a yellow card, but didn’t understand that that was precisely what we needed to go forward. Finally we were able to get everything together and Brother Beer spoke to the couple, who were so embarrassed for holding everything up, with tears in his eyes of the joy he felt in being able to perform this sacred ordinance, and that the grandparents had been waiting for it, and a little delay on our part was no problem. We all felt a great outpouring of the Spirit as they were proxy for her grandparents and then John stood in for her father to be sealed to his parents. It was awesome. Afterwards, everyone hugged everyone, and the young couple extended loving invitations to John and me to “Please, please come to Erfurt, and visit us there.” We won’t likely be able to make that trip, but they will return in October before we leave and we will look forward with joy to seeing them again.

Saying Goodbye from Germany to Springville. We love you, Pop!

 We have been closly following along from a distance while John’s Dad draws ever nearer to “graduating” from his mortal experience. We have been able to call and talk with him and Mom every week or more often, but in the last couple of days his systems have been shutting down and he is soon to leave us. Lorenz and Crystal have sent pictures wherein we recognize how similar he appears to my Mom when her “turn on earth” was nearly over. Today the family fasted for him that he might be released to go forward. This evening after having our prayer to conclude our fast, we called hoping to talk with Pop—he has been unresponsive for several days now, but we knew that, even so, he would be able to hear us.  John’s brother Paul was there at Becca’s and captured this sweet picture of our having this last change to tell him tell him goodbye and that we love him and to thank him for the wonderful example of love and commitment he has always been to us and our family. We are so grateful for his legacy.

It has been a wonderful week for us. Highlights have been coming home Friday to three letters shoved in our door from grandchildren and in receiving today a wonderful email from our Adam in response to Grandpa's wonderful legacy! We hope your week has been full of good things too.

Love, John & Sue