Charlotte Stoeklin announcing her baptism; Jonah Neidhart always gives me a hug when he sees me and Diana the traditional greeting of touching cheeks three times.

FEBRUARY 17, 2009 TUESDAY

Today was zone conference and we had to be at the Aarau Chapel by 9:00. That meant we had to be up early and to the Zurich Bahnhof to meet the other missionaries and catch our train at 8:08. We made it in plenty of time, caught the train and was in the Church by 9:00 although the conference didn’t actually start until 9:30. We were the only couple missionaries there, but it was good to see the other missionaries we know who are not in our district. We received a lot of good training and council. One thing that Pres. Matern said that stuck with us is that if we only make a 1% improvement every year, it’ll only take us 100 years to become perfect. He said the important thing is to make improvement/progress, not how fast it happens.

Elders Pine and Harris, our zone leaders, gave a workshop on “finding” that was quite unique. They had four missionary companionships help them with this of which Diana and I were one. They had one of each companionship sit on a chair (I was one of them) with the other standing behind them. The ones sitting were blindfolded and given a container filled with M&M’s. The one’s blindfolded were asked to pick out the orange M&M’s without the help of their companion. Of course that was impossible. They had us take the blindfolds off and, with the help of our companions, find and pick out the orange M&M’s. One could find none, Diana and I found two and the other two found one each. The object of the game was that when companionships work together, they are much more effective. Some may work hard and not find any among the hundred or so M&M’s. Others may find one or two, but everyone has to work and search through many many M&M’s to find the orange ones. The orange M&M’s can’t help themselves to be found because they don’t even know they are orange, so it’s up to the missionaries to help them understand they are the orange M&M’s. Well, by now we know the orange M&M’s are the golden investigators who then receive a witness and are baptized. They are out there, but it takes hard work, working together and effective teaching to find and baptize them so they can have the blessings of the gospel in their lives.

The game we played was rather fun and Pres. Matern got a kick out of it. Each missionary got a small piece of paper and was asked to write the name of a person, place or thing on it. They then passed it to their left three spots. They were instructed to use whatever was written on their paper as part of a story when their turn came, that Diana was going to start. Diana had the word, “Statue of Liberty,” so she started by saying, “And it came to pass that Pres. Matern wanted to go to the United States to see the Statue of Liberty...... Then each missionary took their turn to make up part of the story until it came around to me, the last one, who ended the story. Most missionaries made up some funny parts and others were just glad to say something to get the story past them. All in all it was pretty funny.

The final segment to the conference, as always, is a testimony meeting. I was proud of Diana because she bore hers in German and I did as well. The conference ended on a spiritual note and everyone was enthused to go back out with renewed energy to find those who are searching for the truth and meaning in their lives. We walked back to the bus stop in the rain/snow, rode to the bahnhof and got on our train. Before we knew it we were back in Zurich.

We had about a half hour before our English class then off we went. Diana and I were the only ones who showed up tonight so Diana got personal attention from Elders Evans and Jensen. After the class we called Esther Ryser and sang happy birthday to her. It was just too late to go to her home so we asked her if it would be alright to bring her gift to her tomorrow. She said that was ok, but she was thrilled to get a call tonight. After that we came home and as we were writing this journal entry, we received a call from Dora Wachter inviting us to dinner tomorrow evening at 6:00 pm. That was a pleasant surprise. Elders Pine and Harris have been working with the Wachters and even have Markus, her non-member husband, committed to a reading schedule in the BM. He’s come to a couple of Church activities and seemed to have enjoyed himself.