L: museum; m: looking across the river from museum; R: museum

JANUARY 11, 2009 SUNDAY

Sunday morning begins a new day which starts with our correlation meeting at 8:00. Bishop Schwendener asked us last week to start putting our weekly report on the regular report form that the other missionaries use. We haven’t been using that form because it just doesn’t fit the kind of work we are doing, but we are obedient and so we try. I struggled last night to decide what to put on the form, but was just so frustrated I decided to wait until the morning. Diana gave me some counsel on what to do and then see what happens at the meeting tomorrow. She told me I should just continue to put down what we usually put on our old report and ignore the column headings. I did just that and it seems they are a pleased as punch with how we turned it in. I don’t get it, but as long as they are happy and we get to put what we want on the report, I guess everyone is happy. The AP’s and DL’s were also putting their reports together on one page and they were asked to put their’s on two separate reports.

Next came priesthood meeting and Elder Koepischki (don’t know if I spelled that right) from the General Authorities taught us today. He taught out of Section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants concerning the Priesthood and the responsibilities priesthood holders have and the blessings we receive through it. For Sunday School Diana went to the Gospel Essentials class with Naeide and Suki while I stayed in the Gospel Doctrine class. I sat by a little elderly sister who I discovered was originally from Thailand, but had been in Switzerland for 30 years. She has three children here in Switzerland, was converted in Thailand and has been active ever since. She speaks German good enough for me to understand her if she talks slowly although she likes to talk fast. When Diana came in, she changed to English. Elder Koepischki spoke in Sacrament Meeting and talked about New Year’s resolutions and that’s just another way of saying things you need to repent of or improve in.

After church we visited with people for longer than usual. The Mascaro’s were back from the USA and Sister Mascaro said she brought me a small bottle of Miracle Whip. Whoopee!!!! It’s funny what things you miss from home. Anyway, she said the airlines lost all their luggage, but did manage to find two pieces and deliver them to their home. My miracle whip was in one of them. This is the tender mercy of the Lord for today. They have a daughter named Emily who had a birthday and turned three while they were gone. We had to wait until today to wish her a happy birthday. Mom just happened to put some gummi worms in her bag (inspiration?) and gave them to her for her present. This is the first time she’s brought anything to church with her. A young man came to the church entrance doors looking to use a phone and before he left, he was greet like an old friend by many members, had a BM, and promised to come back to church next Sunday. I don’t think he’d ever met so many friendly people all at once.

Before we went home, Elder Middleton very sheepishly told us they had forgotten to buy anything to eat today and did we have some leftovers or something they could have. Of course we invited them home and fixed a pizza for them that we’d bought for just such occasions. Later today the AP’s called and asked us if we would help team teach Rolf next Tuesday afternoon and we told them we’d love to. Rolf caved in and is smoking again although he would really like to quit. Later on this afternoon I called George and gave him the phone number of a less-active woman who we’ve been trying to visit. She is a widow, is from Portugal or Brazil and doesn’t get out and is very lonely (Naeide told us this). He called back later and we have an appointment with her on Tuesday right after we get done at Rolf’s. George told us he felt she was very lonely and would love to have us come by. We’ve tried to visit her, but she won’t let anyone in who she doesn’t know and that’s why we’ve never been let in.

It seems kind of funny to us that our District Leader, Elder Pine, has to make a separate call every Sunday night to get our weekly report. We see him at the correlation meeting, all morning at church, he came here for lunch, called on the phone several times for us to look up a German phrase on LEO, the online dictionary, and the last phone call he said he’d call back in five minutes to get our report. I guess he’s following the guidelines for District Leaders. He did call back and we discussed our weekly activities and those we have scheduled for next week.