Week 49

Monday, together with three other missionary couples, we took a bus outing to Seiffen. We have long wanted to go back, after our aborted anniversary trip last June when we came home with the flu.

Awaiting the bus for Seiffen

We had a grand time down on the bus, laughing and sharing stories along the way as we rode through wonderful scenery of green fields, forests, and tiny German villages along our way.

A fun outing together

Seiffen is a wonderful old health town (Kurort) tucked right above the Czech border in the Erzgebirge Mountains. It is famous for its wonderful hand carved wood works and for its marvelous old hexagonal church.

The beautiful old Seiffen Kirche

We have come to know that church from many works of art we have seen but to actually see it in person was a real thrill for us. I love the charming cemetery to the side of the church, so typical of Europe with its garden plots so beautifully tended by loved ones.

Seiffen cemetery--I love this ongoing attention to someone who has gone before.

We returned home in good time to finish up our preparations for beginning our temple week on Tuesday—an Allegemeine Woche (a week in the temple not designated for any particular group, country, or mission). By Thursday, however, we received a good-sized group of Czechs who came and stayed through Saturday, attending every session offered.

Tuesday first thing we also met the one to become the new first counselor and his wife, Elder and Sister Koch, here from Switzerland, who came for their week of observation and training. They, as the Suckows, will arrive to begin their missions, on September 25. We liked them both very much, though their English—particularly hers—is pretty limited. She is anxious to learn more and we will work together closely communicating the best we can. John and I are grateful for the new folks coming to replace those leaving.

It always strikes me with wonder at the smoothness of transition in Church responsibilities as one is released and leaves and another comes to fill their shoes.

Wednesday marked the 89th birthday of John's mom, Grace Scott Laing. We called and spoke with her briefly to let her know that we love her and were thinking of her. John had written a wonderful birthday letter to her which Becca had read her. She has not been eating or drinking for a few days and we don't know how long she will be here. No doubt Pop is anxious for her to join him.

Mom Laing, now 89, with Paul's family

Addendum: We received a phone call early Monday morning letting us know that Mom Laing passed away at 4:22 pm--one month to the day after her beloved husband. They are without doubt celebrating being together again after this brief separation, now to begin their eternal lives together. Rebecca reported that Mom went through these final stages of mortality step by step in hours that Pop took weeks to go through. Certainly his delaying was a desire not to leave her and her speed was a desire to rejoin him! We had phoned to have our love conveyed to her just two hours before she slipped into eternity. We are so grateful for our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation that allows us to rejoice at this time rather than to sorrow.

This has indeed been a week of endings with Pres. and Sis Metzner (1^st counselor and assistant) finishing their service on Saturday and the Harpers (2^nd counselor and assistant) following suit next Saturday. How we will miss the Metzners. Gisela is sunshine and love personified and Rolf is constant in service and friendship. We are glad to keep the Harpers for one more week.

Rolf and Gisela Metzner, returning to Darmstadt

 Thursday night we celebrated and thanked both couples at a combined Abschied dinner with all the missionaries. Jim Chidester, at the request of the president, had made use of old slate shingles from off the temple (the East Germans never get rid of anything!) to make etched plaques showing the temple and pictures of their presidency. It was a lovely event.

Bruce and Jean Harper, returning to Cottonwood Heights, Utah

Friday, Rolf Metzner asked John if he and I would come with him before the evening session so he could show us something he had discovered on one of his many bike rides—but he would take us in the car, for John’s sake. We willingly went with him and he drove us in his BMW over bumpy pastures roads and old DDR forest lanes until we came across a horse ranch he had discovered. We visited those mounts in their stalls, wishing we had brought an apple or two along with us.

A visit to the horse stables.

On our way back into Freiberg we were stopped by a police blockade a couple of blocks from the Temple. The forceful woman refused to allow Rolf to drive further down Hainichener Strasse, demanding he turn around and go park in designated parking in Kleinwaltersdorf, the next town down the road we had just traveled—he didn’t have the necessary residence tag to permit him to drive into Freiberg Saxon Days, being held Friday through Sunday.

John and I got out and hiked back to the temple, while Rolf obediently turned his beamer around. We saw him later after we all got back and learned he had obtained the tag and collected his vehicle. That was our reminder that Saxon Days were upon us in Freiberg!

John enjoying Saxon Days downtown Freiberg

Saxon Days is like a huge state fair at home in Utah, but located throughout an entire city. This year it was being held here. Saturday after the temple John and I gathered up his sticks and headed down Hainichener Strasse for town to get a flavor of the three-day event.

Heading into the throng!

All the city streets were blocked off but for police and emergency vehicles and thousands of pedestrians crowded the streets.

We enjoyed the festive feel in the air, ate an Italiansich Eis and a grilled wurst, saw displays of goods (and goodies) for sale, before dragging ourselves home ending a 4.37 mile walk. I’m sure that John had little hope of ever making it back but we did—both of us relieved to finally get home.

Loop lace making

Polish pottery display

I had to laugh at the displays of Texas cowboys and American Indians we stumbled across along our way. What a strange thing to find in Freiberg, Germany for Saxon days! I did enjoy the melodic sound of the haunting Indian flutes played.

Indian flutes mixed with Umpah bands. A world of contrasts.

Our week ahead will be the last before our temple shuts down for two-weeks’ maintenance and we have Hungarian here again. We look forward to seeing these wonderful friends—likely our last chance before it is time for us to leave ourselves.

Week 48

Our one week of warm summer days has ended and we have returned to cool weather, now with an escalating touch of fall in the air. In September we are coming up on our one-year anniversary of our mission. Can it really have gone by so fast?

We continue to try to strengthen John by walking and it is making a positive difference, though he isn’t always enthused about getting out and moving. Some days we are so tired, neither of us feels like doing so, but we are determined not to break our daily pattern, even if the walk is short. 

Today, after our Sunday meetings we changed clothes and then walked to the forest nearby to enjoy the peace there and to take some photos along the way of some of our favorite neighborhoods with their boxes of flowers spilling over in colorful bloom.  

Though his mobility (when not using his Nordic sticks) continues to be pretty wobbly, strengthening John's leg muscles seems to be a wise thing to do. Besides doing it is good for the soul!

Bernd Suckow

Tuesday Bernd and Barbara Suckow arrived to spend a week in the temple being oriented to their new assignments—he as 2^nd counselor and she as 2^nd assistant to the matron—starting immediately after our shutdown the end of September. They are Germans though they lived for 14 years in California, having been transferred there by Volkwagen, for whom he worked for 35 years.

Change is always a little difficult and when it now comes to saying goodbye to the Metzners and the Harpers, who finish their assignments in the presidency in the next two weeks, and return to Darmstadt (for the Metzners) and Salt Lake (for the Harpers); we will feel their loss. That said, we will welcome the Suckows with open arms. John has worked with him all week training him on everything and he is a quick study. She too learns quickly and both will fit in well. We look forward to working with them for the three weeks we have remaining after the temple reopens. This next week the other counselor will come with his wife to have a similar overview and training.

Pötzschers, heading home to Berlin

Thursday evening we enjoyed a wonderful potluck as a sendoff for the Pötzschers, who left Saturday after their two months with us, and for Rebecca Tollefson, who is being transferred to the Family and Church History Mission in Salt Lake City, next Thursday morning. We were excited to learn that Rebecca will be attending our former branch there where we served for five years and where my sister and her husband now lead. We wish each of them well.

Rebecca Tollefson, headed to Utah

As for us, we have been dragging out suitcases and empty boxes to try to figure what we need to ship home, give away, or take with us. We like to plan ahead so that we feel no pressure as the time draws closer.

We spoke by phone with our former counselors in our Xi’an branch, now home from their second year in China, to learn that they returned three weeks ago and they say it now feels as though they had never left home. I suppose that is as it will be with us too but for now we are savoring each day and trying to serve faithfully and well with what energy we can muster.

Saturday we phoned to talk with John’s Mom to see how she is faring without his Dad. She was very weak and is unable to get out of bed any longer, nor is she eating or drinking much. In lucid moments, however, she knows “Bill” is gone—though she often sees him close by her now, as she does her sister Bea and her mother. It is not surprising to have the veil so thin for her, I think. We will see how long it is before she follows her sweetheart of so many years into the Spirit world. Meanwhile her only daughter, Rebecca, and her family care for her lovingly and are blessed with a wonderful outpouring of the Spirit in their home because of their devoted service to her. 

After nearly 69 years of being together. 

In times such as these the reality of the Plan of Happiness is clear before us and we are grateful for our knowledge of it.

Today in our Sunday School class we studied Alma’s wonderful sermon to his son Corianton, who had not behaved as he should while serving his mission. Alma, Chapters 40-42 provides a wonderful instruction manual for explaining the plan of salvation—of redemption, of mercy, of happiness. We had a marvelous discussion about the importance of the role of the Atonement in our lives—without which, with all the best intentions of our hearts, we could never return home to our Father in Heaven. One of the brothers made the comment that it is one thing to read of these things, but it is quite another to apply them.  His comment led me to see in a new light a poignant illustration of exactly that:

A sweet Rumanian sister in our ward and her much-older husband have longed for a child of their own. Needless to say, they were elated about expecting a baby. Then she had a miscarriage and since then she has not been at church. Because she likes to practice her limited English she often attends our English Sunday School classes. Today although I did notice that she had come in and taken a seat and felt pleased to see her, I got caught up in getting the class started, calling on one among us to give the invocation, and then—with an incredible lack of sensitivity—asked the lesson leader to share their wonderful news of the night before. She did so with tears of joy: they had just learned that their daughter-in-law is expecting twins!

Neither I, nor anyone else there, had any intention in the world of hurting Sis Hübner, but neither had I considered how such joyous news would make her feel. In my focus on the Gearys’ happiness, I didn’t even notice when she slipped quietly out of the room.  When it did dawn on me, I shared with the class what had just taken place, and how grateful I was for the Atonement that makes up for these unintentional blunders as well as the weighty matters of our sins. How blessed we are for our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and of the role of the Savior of the World in providing a way for us to go home, without which we would all be lost.

After class, though we didn’t find Sis Hübner we did speak with her husband and asked his forgiveness for our lack of sensitivity and that he give our love to his grieving wife. For each of us we had had a vivid lesson in likening these scriptures concerning the necessity of the Atonement in our lives.

We are grateful for the blessings of the gospel and pray that your week ahead will be filled with joy as you walk your particular path towards "home."

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.