Dear Grandchildren,
I just enjoyed the singular privilege of interviewing two brethren for the Melchizedek Priesthood. (Pause.) By Skype. They live in a community an hour and a half’s flight from here. I have met them each a couple of times. Their local branch features one Melchizedek Priesthood holder, the branch president. So he has been everything to the branch, its chief ecclesiastical officer, main Sacrament Meeting speaker, and biggest cheerleader, roles that he has played for months. He has worked hard to bring the number of attendees to 16 or 17 each Sunday, which represents about 90% of the membership of the branch (that’s a statistic that anyone would love). Now he will have some help. I was pleased when the MP allowed me to set up the interviews with the branch president who himself is a peach of a guy.
But this pair of interviews had to wait for a few minutes. We hosted branch members and our non-member visitors at church meetings for lunch today. On the way out, our YVs and two investigators climbed onto our small elevator and became stuck at the ground floor. The whole system shut down. Three of us tried to help them out, but to no avail. So I went to the fellow who owns the store below us and he called the doorman. Fifteen minutes later he showed up with a key which he inserted into a hole near the top of the elevator door, turned, and opened the door. The YVs said that we should have given them another five minutes to complete the Plan of Salvation lesson that they were giving.
A week ago I performed an experiment on the Sabbath. I went to the internet and looked up the LDS Video "Because of Him." We had viewed it as a part of our Sunday School lesson. I watched it on my iPhone and then opened up other videos that the Church has produced such as A Savior is Born. Much of the first one came from footage shot for the Bible Videos project. I basked in the spirit and feelings that came over me as I watched and listened. It was a wonderful way to spent an hour that afternoon. I recommend it.
It seems that we have lost our Farsi speakers during Sacrament Meetings, including the four in our branch. That is because, what started out as an experiment a few weeks ago to include them with the help of a Farsi-speaking YV in Ankara, has now morphed into bringing these Iranian church members into the Ankara Branch meetings where the YV is located. This turns out to be a much better deal, both for him and for them. Even so, one of our branch members joined us as soon as he finished with the Ankara Branch service today because he speaks some Turkish and wanted to be with those whom he knows and loves. By the end of our meeting, we were fifteen — thirteen in the hotel room and two single persons joining us by Skype. With one of our German sisters in Europe, with the other one having difficulty with her internet, and with the loss of the Farsi speakers, our numbers plunged. But we were fortified by two investigators who attend church meetings for the second week in a row. Pssst. Don’t tell anyone, but one of them has a baptismal date.
Incidentally, our Sunday School classes for the last month have all been in Turkish. The three of us who don’t speak the language just grin and read in our Books of Mormon. I am really pleased that we are at this point in our services.
The past week has been medical week around here. It started with me going to a university hospital for my botox shots in my throat on Monday and continued apace with Grandma getting bit by a dog on Wednesday. No, she was not run over by a reindeer. But it hurt just a much. I had just come back from my walk in the park, had cleaned up a bit, and was thinking of the next task when I received a phone call from her. She: I was bitten by a dog. He: What?! Is it bad. She: Yes. It is bleeding a lot. He: Where are you? I am between the Konak ferry boat station and the shopping area. He: I shall be right there. (It is a 25-minute walk.) She: Two nice men are helping me. After I grabbed my hat, I went out the door. Five minutes into my walk, I received a text that I could barely read (I did not have my reading glasses). She: In ambulance. He: (after calling): Where are you? She: I don’t know. They made me lie down. He: Let me know where you end up.
I then walked to the main road to see whether I could spot an ambulance. None came by. I was walking toward our apartment where a taxi stand sits so that I could go at a moment’s notice when, on a sudden, I receives a call from our YVs asking to meet me. Grandma had called them to help talk to the people in the back of the ambulance so that she would know what they were going to do and where they were going to do it. So I went to the meeting place and we took a taxi to the hospital (in a city this size, there are a bunch of hospitals). In the meantime, I called another church member who was in town to help the YVs solve a problem with the electricity company and he joined us. For the rest of the morning, there was this clump of four men supporting Grandma, including going to the clinic where she got the first of three rabies shots. She and I walked home from the clinic.
Afterward, I tried to think of positives from her dreadful experience. I thought of a couple. The first was that the church member who was in town, and is the branch president of the two men whom I interviewed today, got a commitment from his taxi driver that he would call the YVs for a meeting. The second occurred in the waiting room at the clinic where we met a bunch of people there for rabies shots because they were bitten by dogs. One of the YVs got into a conversation with a young fellow and gave him a Book of Mormon. Right there in front of everyone. Talk about gutsy. I love him for that.
Somehow I don't feel the zing in writing today. Maybe it is because I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, a circumstance helped by a whining mosquito. I was dive-bombed three times in a matter of a half hour or so. I thought that I had every part of my body covered by our sheet. I thought. Then a spot on my hand began to throb and I knew that the mosquito had found an uncovered surface. I saw the varmint on our curtain sheers and took a whack at it. But it might still be alive. I found no residue of a dead mosquito body.
Grandma faces another rabies shot on Wednesday. Wish her luck.
We went to Ephesus this past week for an evening meeting to which we had been invited months ago. It was a wonderful setting for the speakers who talked about the Apostle Paul and his extended stay in Ephesus. I spoke with one of the guards before the event and he said that he is there five to eight evenings per month. Last night there was a concert at the Ephesus library and a bus went from here. It would be a wonderful place for an extended program with church members, if we had enough people to make it worthwhile. The attached photos show something of the set up before the meeting and then views of the library at dusk and at dark. They are for posting.
I love you all and pray for you each every day.
SKB
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