18.09.2011

This morning was stake conference. Lia sang in a Relief Society choir, so I went solo with the girls. We were only fifteen minutes early, which in Germany places you, literally, on the very back row of the cultural hall (there were some seats on the stage, so there were people behind us). The translation equipment wasn’t working, so there was no risk that the girls’ attention would be distracted, even for a moment, by the speakers. I was entirely at their mercy. And I’ve been mostly at their mercy for the eight hours since conference ended. The stake center is much closer to our apartment than our ward chapel, so we didn’t even have the return travel time to occupy the girls. And, naturally, it rained without reprieve. The saintly Kim Thompson recently sent Lia a list of “101+ Sabbath Activities.” We were to about eighty-six before we felt that in good conscience we could send the girls to bed. It has been a long day. Readers should be impressed and grateful that I would forego the pleasures of an idle evening to favor the world with this post.

Last week we failed to post because we were nearly dead. On Friday we took the train to Eisenach for an overnight adventure. It was, as usual, more adventure than we bargained for. We began brilliantly by missing our train. This was mostly the fault of the Berlin public transportation system, which allowed our bus to Hauptbahnhof to be twenty minutes late; partly the fault of our driver, who drove agonizingly slow; and partly the fault of other Berlin motorists, who had the gall to jam the roads we had to travel. Naturally enough, our substitute train was quite late, and we missed our connection in Leipzig. The sun had long since set when we arrived in Eisenach.

But the travails of the journey were amply rewarded when we met up at our hotel with Andrew and Lori Davis, comrades from New Haven now braving German adventures of their own in Munich. We had dinner together, and Holly Davis joined our girls in a wild rumpus of reunion. The next day we tasted the wonders of Eisenach—the house where Bach was born and the church where he was baptized; the lodging where Luther stayed as a student and the fortress where he hid as a man. This last, the Wartburg palace, was the supreme attraction. For the girls, its greatest glory was that they traveled from the bus stop to the foot of the fortress on the backs of donkeys (save Katharine, who timidly arrived in her stroller). Julia’s donkey at one point shook the hills and startled its rider with one booming, boisterous bray. Who knew donkeys could be so loud. Anyhow, it was a great visit—wonderful to spend time with old friends and to see familiar faces. Though traveling with kids by train, in case anyone was wondering, leaves much to be desired. Thankfully for the longer leg of the return trip we had our own compartment. We got home late, exhausted and irritable, wishing for once that the girls could put us to bed.

We spent a lot of this week recovering from last weekend. The girls did a lot better at school this week. In spite of themselves they are learning German. Eli gathered chestnuts by the hundreds of thousands and strategically scattered them in just those locations in our apartment where one is most likely to trip over them in the dark. On Wednesday night a member of the high council stopped by to extend to Lia a call to teach the English-language Institute class. This was a very exciting calling; Lia will be superb. On Thursday night Lia sent me to “Eltern Abend” at Julia’s school, a biannual gathering involving the teacher and every child’s parents all at once.

This was quite an experience. I had the feeling at one point of being surrounded by fanatical spirits; by kobolds and ghouls and harpies; by owls and satyrs and doleful creatures of the night. These people were all mad. They nattered on endlessly about the proper way to slice breakfast rolls when hosting the class beim Frühstück (at a previous Eltern Abend the practice was instituted of marching twenty-six second graders off on a fortnightly basis to one of their homes for breakfast); about which folders the children should bring home which days; about what size of notebooks the children needed, with what size margins and what number of holes down its side; about ships and sails and sealing wax; about cabbages and kings. It seemed never to end. And then came the elections for this year’s “parent representatives” (Elternvertreter).

Never—not even in the halcyon days of the British parliament—was more assiduous attention devoted to points of procedure and form. We were read to from a veritable constitution and bylaws. All was attended to with the utmost solemnity. I was on the point of desperation when there came a quiet confirmation of at least one source of fellow-feeling. My neighbor, a cool-looking young dad with a wispy goatee, learned over and whispered a single word: “Kafka!” Somehow, and at excruciating length, it all ended. As we were walking out, a woman named Antonia, the mother of Julia’s best—because Anglophonic—friend Lillian, introduced herself to me. The evening hadn’t been nearly so bad, she incredibly observed, as the last one.

Let me end on a happier note. Our stake conference was, despite my lone wrestle with the girls, a very powerful experience. Our stake president, Thomas Reiner, was released. In the two months that we’ve been here, President Reiner has ministered to us in a moving and personal way. He is small of stature, but a veritable colossus of inspired insight and spiritual power. He now suffers from three slipped discs in his back; he gave the final testimony of his ministry from his seat on the rostrum. He spoke in great pain, but with great power. We also heard from Elder Manfred Schütze, an area authority seventy, and Elder Erich W. Kopischke, a general authority. It was neat to hear these men speak in their native languages. But it was more moving still to see the inspiration of heaven resting on the servants of the Lord as they act in His behalf to transfer the keys of His priesthood to those He has called and chosen. What a blessing it is to be a member of this Church.