other direction in our living room, top: overlooking Zurich

NOVEMBER 13, 2008 THURSDAY

Today at noon we had a dinner appointment with the Roffler’s, but before we went there we went searching and finding for two members on our list. It’s becoming all too much the case that members who are not active have moved leaving no forwarding address. However, for one of these, when we were at the Aeberli’s last Sunday, we asked them if they knew either of these two members since they lived in their area. Sister Aeberli said she thought the Muellers had moved and looked them up in the phone book. She gave us what she thought was their new address and phone number. We checked the address on our member list today, and sure enough, they had moved. Tonight we called the phone number and was able to talk to the wife and confirm the new address and telephone number. Bro. Mueller wasn’t at home, but she said we should call back tomorrow night.

After we checked the two addresses we found our way to Sister Rofflers. Diana had brought two sunstones, one for a birthday present for Brigitte and one for Sister Roffler. We didn’t realize Heinz and Lilly Locher were going to be there also so we were one short. When we had dinner at the Lochers a few weeks ago, Diana wanted to take one to them, but she had just made them and they weren’t dry yet. We promised them we had one for them too, but they’d have to wait. It was a delicious dinner as is always the case. Roast beef sauted in a light gravy with carrots and onions, ham, mashed potatoes and fresh string beans cooked in a special way. For dessert we had a healthy kind of muffin with mashed raspberries and cream. Everything was just delicious. Their desserts don’t seem to be real sweet. At the FHE last Monday night the dessert was a chocolate mousse with unsweetened whipped cream. When they brought in the cream to put on top, I thought oh boy, something sweet. I was surprised that it wasn’t, but it still was good.

On the way back to our home we ran into Elders Pine and Middleton. They were going back to Schwamendingen so we were able to chat with them a few minutes. We talked of who we had visited and who next. It turned out they had visited a member in a way out of the way hard to get to place and had been rejected by the member. This is the same one we called last week on the phone who said she couldn’t understand me, that she only talked German. Well, I was talking German which made me wonder how good my German was. As Elder Pine related his story he said the member kept telling him she didn’t understand what he was saying, that she only understood German. Elder Pine’s German is very good, so it made me feel better that she said that to him also, just acting as if she couldn’t understand him to get rid of him. The games people play.

By this time it was fairly late but we still wanted to try and find two more addresses. We made connections, but didn’t realize how long it would take to get where we wanted to go. Not all of the stops were listed on our map and we counted them as we went. There was a total of 37 stops. It was way dark before we got to where we wanted to go so we went on back home and will try again tomorrow. It was the bus that went on and on and on and didn’t seem to want to return. So goes another day in the life of a missionary couple.