Dear Grandchildren,
Our week was filled by the first district conference in Turkey. That meant my week was pretty well spent trying to hold the program together — a leadership meeting, a social evening, and a general session. The challenges came with people who had committed to participate a couple of weeks before and then backed out. As you might expect, my work was complicated because of the language barrier. I had to work through intermediaries. Most held their ground and did as they said they would. One woman from Ankara who agreed to help with the music showed up with her four children and did as she promised. All the while, her four daughters were perfect angels, behaving themselves. Their behavior was in sharp contrast with other children who were all over the rented auditorium in quick, noisy fashion.
I had been put in charge of the overall program, with others of the SVs helping with the transportation and hotel reservations as well as with the klunky sound system in the hotel and the talent show. I admit that I doubted we would see much talent in the district. But I was measuring by our branch. We finally gave up on our branch members and went to the well — our YVs. One of them is a pretty good pianist. And we thought the five of them could sing a song together. In the end, all twenty YVs in Turkey sang a funny song in Turkish and sounded really good. As an illustration that young children should not be invited to do anything solo, a young boy could not be coaxed by his parents or by one of the MCs to recite a poem that his mother helped him prepare. Try as they might, he refused to utter one intelligible syllable.
Before the district conference, we traveled to Istanbul for a zone conference with all twenty YVs. Yes, the last of the YVs arrived on Thursday from Germany. He especially was happy to be on Turkish soil. During the first two months, he was the one who pined for "home" the most. It was a rather bitter pill to swallow when he was denied entry over a residence issue. I was glad to give him a hug. He beamed a lot the first couple of days back.
Our visiting authority was a member of the first quorum of Seventy and the second counselor in the East Europe Area Presidency. He has been in his post for 14 months and was the one who set me apart as the district president in Jerusalem in 2009. In an interesting insight, he said that the transfer time for Seventies is the annual April conference. The assignments across the world are posted on a huge screen and the Seventies go to see where they will be serving. The current first counselor, who has spent his ministry in Latin America because he speaks Spanish, was surprised to be sent to Moscow, Russia. The second counselor welcomed him by saying that he speaks English, Tahitian and French. Not notable qualifications for Eastern Europe.
While in Istanbul, Grandma had to find a key that she had put into her purse. So she set to looking. She stuck her hand in all of the corners and crevasses, into each of the many side pockets. At one point she pulled out our splitter, the device that plugs into the sound port of a laptop or other device and allows two persons to plug in their headsets or ear buds. It had been missing since the first time we used it when watching something together on my laptop. Grandma had thought she put it into a little drawer in a desk. We had searched and searched for that device, without any positive result. Until she went looking for that key.
One of the serious challenges for our Iranian refugee members is that the government doesn’t want a bunch of foreign refugees coming to the biggest city in the country where most of the troubles have occurred during the past year. So I could neither ask these people to participate nor expect them to attend the district conference. One branch member asked me write a letter to the authorities to reverse the denial of their request to travel to the conference. I was disappointed to reply that I could not. I feared putting all of us in jeopardy in light of the deportations of Christian leaders who have been working with refugees. Without the presence of our Iranian members, only seven from our branch attended.
Yesterday I conducted eight temple interviews -- through an interpreter. With one exception, these were with people who have been members of the Church for only a year. They would dearly love to go to the temple, but the wording of the ordinances is not yet translated into Turkish. Afterward, the GA visitor asked me what it was like to interview these people. I said that looking into their eyes I saw pure souls. The experience was as meaningful to me as it may have been to them.
I love you and pray for you.
Grandpa Brown
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