Dear Family,
I’m sure you are all sitting by your computer anxiously awaiting our latest news. When we return we will give you all a quick quiz to see how carefully you have read our emails/blog. We actually have no idea who reads our blog. Julianne has been our agent in this matter, and we appreciate her making it available to all of you who really want to know about our lives.
We have been here for twenty two Fast Sundays. Today is the first time that dad has NOT conducted that meeting. His new counselor conducted the meeting in Turkish. An elder stood by his side and translated it for us English speakers. He did a great job. A newly baptized young man passed the sacrament. The testimonies were very nice. One investigator bore his testimony about the BofM and how it speaks to him. He quoted a passage. One new member also bore his testimony and quoted another part of the BofM that spoke to him. Both of these men are Turks. A German sister bore her testimony and her 6 year old daughter also did. They live in a distant city and are usually with us on Skype. A newly baptized 11 year old gave the closing prayer in Turkish. She is Ukrainian/Turkish. An Iranian woman bore her testimony over Skype. One of the Elders could translate her Farsi. All of this is amazing to me. People have begun to come out of the woodwork. The elders have done an excellent job. And our new Hungarian family weren’t even there to add to our numbers.
The room was full… 20 people there and a bunch on Skype.
On the first and third Sundays we have Priesthood/RS. We have to rent another room in the hotel for this. The German sister taught RS today. She tried to translate the lesson into Turkish. She has a Turkish husband and speaks some Turkish. But it was too hard for her, so she gave the lesson mainly in English and our YA translated it into Turkish for her. The German sister has two daughters. One daughter is a HUGE challenge. I think she is about 3. She likes to have 200% of her mother’s attention. I tried to distract her while her mother was teaching by doing origami birds with her. It helped a little. They came to our house for dinner afterwards. The 3 year old didn’t want anything we were eating (waffles). But later she saw a jar of skittles and wanted some of them. The members of this family were very sick a couple of weeks ago, and Kent and an Elder went to their city to administer to them. It was a 13 hour day for them. Everyone in the family is in good health now.
Dad mentioned that we have lots of visitors in our apartment. At one point it got to be too much for me, so we asked the elders to not come between 6-7 each evening. They have respected that, and we can usually now have dinner. I often invited them for dinner because they were here, but I didn’t really have enough food. They are often here for lunch though. We are not a mission area where the elders get invited to homes for meals. Now and then it happens, but very rarely. They have long distances to travel to return to their own apartments to prepare their own meals. I imagine they eat out a lot. The local food is pretty inexpensive for them. I do notice that some are HUGE eaters. So when they eat here I dish up the food and then let them have extras after that.
You father has done very well as a presiding church leader here. He seems to handle all the twists and turns that arise in an emerging church area. He gives wonderful talks, he is very gracious to everyone. But he does have his vulnerabilities. In his church positions he has always had clerks, executive secretaries, etc. But he “gets” to be everything here. Most recently a young elder was called to be Branch Clerk. That should help. But prior to that he’s done all the finances, reports, etc. He had to open bank accounts, deposit funds, withdraw funds, hand-create tithing settlement receipts, etc.
The Area has now instituted IMOS for Turkey. Dad went to Istanbul to be trained. He took his counselor who is quite tech-saavy with him. They gave them a large PC and printer to haul back to Izmir for IMOS. That counselor was deported shortly after the training. That left Dad, the un-tech-saavy person, with the boxed computer and printer. He delayed as long as he could in opening the box. (2 months) We had to purchase a table for it. It now sits in our dining room. We set up the computer and when dad tried to log-in nothing worked. I looked at his notes, and we found a work-around. Then he brought in his clerk and he couldn’t log-in. Then someone from the Russia office said they’d come to Istanbul to help everyone but everyone had to bring their PC’s to Istanbul. Dad was really excited about that! But then the Russian guy got sick and didn’t come to Istanbul. So we took the computer out of the suitcase. This is not a small PC.
This week someone from Russia (our Ares) called dad to help walk him through the process of logging on. He spoke to dad for one hour while he was standing on a cold street corner. He called back the next morning when dad had the young elder here. When he failed to help him, he told dad to call SLC and get help. Dad said he didn’t have international calling and couldn’t do it. The young elder was also part of this conversation. They worked and worked at it and finally got him into the program. They were also able to add the young elder as a clerk. IMOS has all membership records, finances, etc. And of course Dad is finding lots of misspellings in the membership records that he is trying to correct. And if you are still reading this, it goes on and one. Please give the ward clerks of the church your thanks for saving people like your father from near annihilation.
And his cell phone also has a mind of its own. It shuts off for no reason, drops calls, etc. It really makes your dad happy. He may have been happier if the computer world didn’t evolve during his lifetime. But then I guess it would have been harder for him to write 1,100 pages about Luke.
We were saddened at the passing of Joel’s father this week. His service will be next Friday. WE had the opportunity of visiting with his father when we visited Colorado. One time he picked me up at the airport when I went for the birth of a baby. He will be very much missed by his family.
We expect the elders shortly. I have some cold waffles I’ll give them if they are hungry.
I hope you are all doing well. WE love hearing from you.
Love,
Mother
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