l: ward members (Br. Sannemann; c: Fabian Streit; r: Bishop Schwendener; B: kids & Samiklaus

DECEMBER 6, 2008 SATURDAY SAMIKLAUS UND SCHMUETZLI TAG

On December 6th the Swiss celebrate Samiklaus and Schmuetzli day. This is the day that Santa Claus, both the Red one and the Black one visits the children. The Black Santa is the helper of the Red Santa. If the kids have been good, the Red Santa gives them nuts, oranges, fruit and other good things to eat in their stockings. If the kids have been bad, the Black Santa in one version takes the kids’ socks, puts them into his sack and takes them with him into the woods. They not only don’t get any goodies, they lose their socks too. In the other version the Black Santa takes the bad kids and puts THEM in his bag and takes them into the woods with him. This kind of goes along with the “naughty and nice” jingle and parents use it to persuade their kids to be nice. They also celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25th in the traditional way as we do, with presents and a focus on the birth of our Savior.

Since we’re talking about Samiklaus Day, we’ll write about the ward activity now and the rest of the day later. About 4:30 the AP’s (Fabian was also in the car) picked us and the DL’s up and we drove over close to a large cabin type building people rent for activities. We had to walk quite a ways to get to it because a hockey game was going on and they wouldn’t let us park any closer. When we went inside, they had us write our first names on a piece of paper and put it in a bowl. The tables were decorated with small pine tree bows, nuts, tangerines, cookies, chocolate candies and candles. It all looked very festive and as the members and visitors came in, they all seemed merry and jolly. It took awhile for all the people to get here and a lot of visiting (and munching) went on until the official start. The program started after the prayer. We sang Christmas hymns, a couple of stories were told, a quartet of sisters sang a song, kind of the normal things that happen in a ward party. And then the big event happened, Samiklaus came in. We were told the children had to sing a song to Santa and, if he liked it, he would give them a bag of goodies. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t get anything. Of course, how could it be otherwise, Santa liked the songs and they all got their goody bag. After that was done everyone, including the very small children, picked a name out of the basket and received a chocolate angel. Each person had to find the person whose name they drew out of the hat, give them the angel and make a wish for them for the coming new year. This was a great way for people to get to know one another and to build fellowship among the saints. Bishop Schwendener asked us to take photos so they could be put into the ward newsletter for January. We took a lot of photos and a couple of video clips of the children singing to Samiklaus. After the official program was over, everyone stayed and had a good time just visiting. It was just a great evening.

So now back to the rest of the day. We did our wash this morning and then I worked on the member list while Diana studied German, memorized scriptures and read. About noon we decided to go into Schwamendingen to our favorite little catchall store and buy some more Christmas paper to wrap BM’s and church DVD’s to give out in Luzern next Saturday. The Christmas wrapping paper in this little store was only one Swiss franc per roll when everywhere else it was at least 6.50sfr. per roll. We got in the door just before they closed and were able to buy six rolls. We stopped in the grocery store for a couple of things and then hurried home because the DL’s were coming over to work on the slide show for zone conference next Friday. That took the rest of the time before we went to the Waldweihnachten in der Schwamendingen.

We better bring you up to date on what is happening next Saturday at Luzern. It’s all planned for the missionaries to meet at the Luzern Bahnhof to do a contacting/display activity. This time it is going to be more elaborate and fun than at the Bahnhof Oerlikon of the past four Saturdays. We are going to be singing carols while wearing Santa hats all the while giving away hot chocolate, church DVD’s, BM’s, as well as Santa hats to those who want them. The DVD’s and BM’s will be wrapped like Christmas gifts which, of course, they are, the best gift anyone could receive. We and the DL’s have been assigned to do all the wrapping.

Fabian related an interesting experience he had with the AP’s today. They went to Zurich University and set us the display to do some contacting there. Elder Evans and Elend felt prompted to bring a Portuguese and an Italian Book of Mormon with them. Fabian chided the Elders for bringing them and said they would never find anyone to give them to. The next people they contacted after he said that spoke English, but when they tried to give them a BM, they said they were Portuguese and couldn’t read English very well. So they placed the Portuguese BM. No sooner had that happened when about the same thing happened with the Italian BM. Fabian told us he’d learned his lesson. If you have faith and rely on the prompting of the Spirit, things can and do happen.