Rapperwil old town deer at church/castle, fresco on a house

Diana and the ship we rode back to Zurich


NOVEMBER 11, 2008 TUESDAY

It’s always great to start the day with prayer at 7:00. This morning we had to hurry through the getting ready part because we had to be to the church at 8:15. I also forgot that it was our wash morning until Diana reminded me, so I hurried and went to the next building and started our load of wash. I planned on running home after the haircuts to get the wash out and take them to our apartment. Elders Eland and Evans, the AP’s called yesterday and asked if they could get haircuts this morning. We were there on time, but the AP’s were fashionably late as usual. I got Elder Elends’ hair cut in good time after which he asked us if we had a deck of cards at home. He had the assignment for the game today and said he needed a deck of cards which he had forgotten to bring. So, while I cut Elder Evans’ hair, he and Diana went to our apartment and got the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer, got the cards after which they went to the local grocery store because Elder Elend had also forgotten to bring the required 6 Mars bars, the butter and the rice crispies. By the time they got back I had finished with Elder Evans. In the mean time the other missionaries came and were in the kitchen cooking up their treats to eat during the meeting. It was a English recipe similar to rice crispie treats only without the marshmallow. They melted the butter and bars together, added the rice crispies, flattened it on a tray and put it in the fridge, one tray for every companionship. When Elder Pine, our DL, brought them out, there was one tray short because they couldn’t find the 6 candy bars to put in. So we went without. After the meeting we did get to taste some and also to take a little home with us. It wasn’t very tasty to me, mostly greasy butter, but Diana liked it a lot. When all was said and done, there were two boxes of rice crispies left over so we took them home. We are the hosts for the next Monday FHE so we may make normal USA, or at least Utah, rice crispie treats, but we had to find marshmallows first. We had seen some at Denners some time ago and that was the only place we’d seen them. Kind of like our corn syrup adventure. We went there after our meeting and, as luck would have it, we found some ($6.95 a package)and the only ones were colored.

Back to our meeting. The meeting was a little different because Elders Hoffman and Peterson are being transferred Thursday. The German tip went ok and we had a short testimony period for everyone who wanted to bear testimony. Then came the eating the treats and playing a game. The game this time was called “Werewolves.” We all sat in the chairs we were in around a conference table. Each person received a card face down, but each could look at his own. Each card identified the character of the player: red numbers were werewolves; Aces were Freemen; kings were hunters; Queen of Hearts was cupid; Queen of spades was the witch; jack of spades was the fortune teller; black numbers were citizens. The object of the game was for the towns people (everyone but the wolves) to kill all of the wolves or the wolves to kill all of the towns people. The role of each player is defined as such:
Cupid: gets to pick two people to fall in love. They are always linked together; if one dies, they both die; if one lives, they both live.
Hunter: He has one shot and whoever he shoots is dead. If the hunter is killed, he still has his one shot that kills.
Witch: has two potions, one to heal which can bring back one mortally wounded, and one to poison which kills.
Fortuneteller was able to see the card of a player after someone had died. This gave him an advantage of who to kill.
Citizens had no special abilities.
Freemen were safe.
Wolves had the ability to choose who would die first on each round.
To begin the game the moderator would have all the players go to sleep which meant they close their eyes. Cupid wakes up and selects two players to fall in love and then goes to sleep again. The two that fall in love would then wake up and see each other and were able to see each others cards and then go to sleep again. The fortune teller then wakes up and gets to choose to see one card and goes back to sleep. He would then have the wolves wake up and select a person to die. They were told to go to sleep again. The moderator then asked the witch to wake up and told him who had been mortally wounded. He then asked if the witch wanted to use the poison potion to have him stay dead or to heal him. If the witch used the healing potion, then the person would stay alive. That would end the round and everything starts over. If the witch didn’t save him then all would wake up. The moderator then turned the card over of the person who had been killed and that person would be out of the game. There is a short session where everybody could defend himself or accuse someone else and then the person on the left of the dead person would pick someone to save. That saved person would then be able to save someone else until all had been saved except the last person standing is the one who dies for that round. Then everyone goes to sleep again and the whole process starts over. The moderator is the one who controls who wakes up, when they are allowed to use their abilities and when they go to sleep again.

This evening at 6:00 we had an appointment with Stefan Fuehrer who we made an appointment with on
Nov. 5. We were hoping it would be one who we could influence to get back on track. He is probably in his thirties with a wife from Thailand and a really cute 13 month old son. It turns out that he has parents and a sister active in our ward. We probably know their faces, but not their names to recognize them. Anyway, Stefan was raised in the Church, but hasn’t been active for many years. He just doesn’t see the need and is comfortable with his life as it is. I asked him if there was anything we could do to help him find his way back and he said no. He said they occasionally come to church for special occasions like Christmas etc., but he’s not willing to do more than that. We had a good friendly discussion and left it at that. Disappointing for us, but at least they know they are not forgotten and are welcome whenever they choose to come back. Rainy all day today.