DECEMBER 28, 2008 SUNDAY

Sunday is always a special day in that we get to go to our church meetings. It began, as usual, with missionary correlation. We always get to report on what we did during the week and correlate with the ward missionaries on what we’d like help with or ways we can help them. After that came the block of meetings. Something was wrong with the heating system in the chapel and so Gospel Doctrine was held in the Relief Society room and Sacrament Meeting in the cultural hall. After the meetings members like to hang around and visit for a long time. Today was no exception, but it was also bitter cold and so maybe people just didn’t want to go outside to go home. The Ryser family invited us to dinner tomorrow evening and so we’ll have to miss our FHE. We’d already put the Ryser’s off before and we didn’t think we should do it again because we don’t want to offend anyone. About half of the FHE group wasn’t going to be there anyway so we thought it would be a good time to do it. Sister Wachter was also at church today and it was good to see her. We took the opportunity to invite her and her family to dinner Friday night, our first victim for our new program. Sister Wachter’s husband was outside in his car waiting to take Sister Wachter home, so we invited him personally to dinner also. We’ll see if they come.

We got home and just kind of settling in when the phone rang. Elder Pine said two missionaries weren’t able to come to a lunch appointment with the other ten missionaries and would we like to come in their place. Who could pass up an invitation like that. We put our coats back on and walked back to church to ride with the elders to the member’s home in Dielsdorf. The members are so nice to the missionaries it’s unbelievable. Imagine inviting twelve missionaries to dinner. It was super delicious and there is always plenty. After lunch, we came home and again dressed down to do some studying and computer report work. Just as we started working the phone rang again. This time it was a member wanting us to come over to talk about a problem she was having. We got dressed again and walked over. She’s been having problems with 18 year old her son, a non-member, who has been disrespectful and abusive as well as demanding and irresponsible. He is going with an older woman with a child and announced he wants to marry her. The mom, of course, is against this marriage and also wanted counseling on what to do to help him understand it wasn’t a good idea. As we got into this, Elders Ehlen and Evans arrived because she had called them too. They stayed for awhile and then left. The member then got into some of her own past history which was causing her depression problems. By the time we left at 10:00 p.m. she was feeling a little better. We were reading the blog of friends, Elder and Sister Doyle, who are on a mission in the Geneva Mission, who said they never seem to get to bed before midnight. We’ve been experiencing the exact same thing. It must be catching.

When we left for the member’s home, I had forgotten our cell phone. Elder Pine always calls on Sunday evening to get our stats for the week and also to give us assignments for the next district meeting. He had called seven times so I returned his calls and apologized for having been so forgetful. After the business stuff was taken care of he said the district was putting together a game day for tomorrow’s P-day during which they want to play card games and board games. Diana loves games and, since it’s her day to decide what we do, I know where we’ll be.

There are three extra good things that happened today. First, Elder Pine reported that their investigator, who we sang Christmas songs to, has set a baptismal date for February 3rd. Second, Sister Wachter, who we also tried to sing to, but left a gift instead because they weren’t home, came to church. Third, Naeide, a two week convert, recognized a person on the ward newsletter birthday list who she knew from Brazil. She called her and found out why she had left the church and asked us to arrange for someone to go by and visit her. Since she only speaks Portuguese, we’ll bring this up in correlation meeting next Sunday. The Lord knows his children and his tender mercies are extended to all.