Dear Grandchildren,
Our apartment heater finally conked out. The one that showed so much promise as heat radiating upward through the marble tiles of the floor. The one that left me looking forward to the cold weather. The one that has been bonking and snorting for the past couple of weeks. I was going to ask a technician to come to the apartment to fix it last Tuesday. Then I got a text from the MP asking us to move our departure to Istanbul to an earlier hour. So I dropped the idea of inviting a repair man. Never mind that the forecasters were putting the winter’s coldest temperatures into their prognostications. We turned down the heater and headed for Istanbul which was going to get its own dose of winter weather. When we returned, naturally, we turned on the heat. It never did catch up to the cold that had settled into the apartment. And the heater acted as if it didn’t want to work. Early last evening, after being on for almost forty-eight hours, it hit its own wall. Just before that moment, the doorman stopped for his payment and said something about the noise. So I showed him. I suppose that he will contact someone to come to fix things. I say "suppose" because he was talking in Turkish and I was not staying with him in the least. The only term that I was able to insert into the conversation was the Turkish word for Monday.Tomorrow morning will be our first chance to get to someone after the very long holiday weekend. Long indeed.
Ah yes, Istanbul. It is as though we have taken up an unofficial residence in the city, though we land in a different place each time. Elder and Sister Oaks had come to town and the MP had called a zone conference. Naturally, we went when invited. And, incidentally, we were happy to go. For a long time, he has been one of the very impressive people who are leading the Church. One of his points in the zone meeting was that it is important to do the Lord’s work in His way and according to His timetable. The prior evening he had talked about the way that members of the Church in Asia had successfully moved the Church forward without the aid of formally called YVs and SVs. That was a prelude to him saying that we need to work in the Lord’s way, not our own, because He may have different ideas about how to proceed and succeed. Wednesday evening, he spoke mostly to investigators in the congregation by saying that they could know that the Gospel is true by the simple acts of reading scripture, attending church meetings, and praying. The best part of the experience for me was getting a big hug from him just as we were heading to the Metro to travel to the airport.
Now the airport. Last Thursday was a big snow day in Istanbul. Scores of flights in and out of the two airports had been cancelled. And it was New Year’s Eve, the biggest celebration day of the year. So travelers clogged the airport, all hoping for a way to reach destinations that had been planned weeks and months in advance. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5:00 p.m. We were allowed to pickup our flight coupons and go to the gate. Then the waiting drama began. Before our gate was changed, the flight scheduled to depart at the gate next to ours was postponed for four and a half hours. When the agent announced this bit of news, the place erupted into a mass of shouting and fist-waving. When our gate was changed, I began to wonder whether we were being sent all over the airport to soften us up. The minutes ticked by. The first announced ten-minute delay stretched into an hour. Then two hours. We were finally allowed to board just before 8:00 p.m. When we reached the little approach to the airstrip where we would take off, the plane sat for a long time, then began to roll back to the terminal. I thought blackly, "We are staying in Istanbul tonight." Instead, we went to a place where the de-icing machine could work on our plane. (I had wondered before about the lack of de-icing because I could see snow sticking on the windows.) When we finally rolled down the runway, after not hearing a flight leave for at least an hour, I was relieved. After we were above the snow, we enjoyed a smooth flight back.
Today was Fast and Testimony Meeting, a fact that most of you well know. But ours was very different. We conducted ours in large measure by Skype. For most of our meeting, nine of us sat in the hotel room that we rent. We were joined by two investigators just at the end who stayed with us through our Sunday School lesson taught by the YVs. The unusual element in our meeting was the presence of three Skyped-in contacts. Two of those were from smart phones belonging to an individual. They were joining us for the first time. The other contact brought in ten persons, all in one city. That group included two fathers who are non-members joining their families.
We heard testimonies from most in our hotel gathering and then from three of those who had joined us by Skype, including an investigator. The YVs were amazing. Using our laptop, Grandma’s iPad, and my iPhone, they connected both video and audio to all three contact destinations. We could all hear one another. Most importantly, all could hear the blessings on the Sacrament, something that I have wanted for our branch members for a lot of months. How did I feel? Happy, happy. Better far than a Happy New Year. This was real, deep happiness.
I love you and pray for you.
Grandpa Brown
PS. It seems that Grandma has found a new favorite place to shop. It is a good deal south of town, near the airport. We catch a bus, then a Metro, then we ride a long way and get off. Less than a hundred yards from the Metro exit is a big produce market every Saturday. We have now gone twice to refurbish our stores. We buy as much as Grandma and I can carry. Then we catch the Metro and a bus. If we are quick enough, and if our connections are good enough, we can reach our neighborhood all on the same bus charge. But we have to be on the last bus before the 90 minute allowance has expired. We almost did it yesterday. But not quite. Our arms are a little longer, as you might suppose. But, hey! We have some of the best vegetables, and for a small price. That is worth something. Still shopping for quality bargains.
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