Mom's brownies & Naeide's cake; Diana, Solange & Robert; Elders Jensen & Larson, Kyvia, Sister Sigrist, Nikolas, Elders Pine, Harris, and Zenger. Elder Zenger said he is good friends with Brian Stoll and would like to know which mission Brian is going to.










APRIL 19, 2009 SUNDAY

Sunday morning means up early to get to the missionary correlation meeting at 8:00. We had a lot to talk about today and it was a very good meeting. Of utmost importance was to get the remodel started for Cornelia’s shop. Another was to see if we could get the bishop to allow a ward list to be given to members. I think the best we can do is get a copy of the emergency calling list they have in case of a disaster of some kind. It’s a calling tree list with names and phone numbers, but mostly of active members. We’ll keep working on this because, as at home, it’s nice to know who the members are, where they live, and how to contact them if one desires. It was also Sister Matern’s birthday today so we wished her a happy birthday and gave her the normal gift/card.

Following correlation we had a short sacrament meeting where only the announcements were made and the sacrament was passed. Of course there was opening and closing prayers and hymns, but no talks. In Europe the last session of conference ends after midnight because of the 8 hour time difference, so it is shown a couple of weeks later which happened today. They set up German, English, Portuguese and Spanish languages in rooms throughout the building. Many Swiss attend the English broadcast because, as we said before, they think English is more expressive and they also want to improve their English. It was also Jasmine Viegas-Hawes (2 year old) birthday today and we wanted to give her a little gift we brought for her, but there didn’t seem to be a convenient time to do it. I thought it would be best to give it to her after the meeting, but they left sometime in the middle and so the opportunity was lost. We’ll see them next Sunday and give it to her then.

We had invited the two sets of missionaries to come over after for lunch, leftover casserole from yesterday etc. We went home, got things in the oven, corn warming up and made a fruit salad. Elder Pine called and asked if it were OK to bring Sister Sigrist, her daughter, Kyvia, and her son, Nikolas. Nikolas is the one we gave a BM to some time ago and the “future missionary” badge. They live way out in Forch and wanted to stay for the baptism tonight at 5:00 and were just going to wait in the Church until then. Of course we’re pretty flexible and told him to bring them. We had plenty to feed everyone and we had a good time. Elders Pine and Harris gave a spiritual thought using pepper sprinkled on top of water in a bowl. When you put your finger in it and pull it back out, the pepper sticks to it. The pepper represents the bad things in the world (sin) that we get involved in. There are many scriptures you can use to illustrate the concept that sin makes us dirty. Then you talk about things we can do to avoid sin and have the Spirit with us. To illustrate this you can put some (unbeknownst to the rest of the group) dish soap on the end of your finger and, when you stick your finger in, all the pepper floats away and to the side of the bowl leaving your finger clean when you pull it out. This object lesson is also very impressive and helps us, especially children, visualize the power of righteous living in keeping ourselves unspotted from the sins of the world. I tried to get a video clip of it, but my camera battery went dead. Soon after, all of them left giving us time to clean up again, study some German, look at emails and take a short nap.

At 4:00 we got the brownies ready along with the chocolate frosting and went to the Church to help get things ready for the baptism. Naeide made a giant cake decorated with a Church using chocolate bars for the roof. Soon everyone was there and the meeting started. It’s amazing how many people come to support the baptisms. Charlotte has taken over the fellowshipping of Cornelia and invited her to come to Church today as well as to the baptism tonight. She came to both and at the baptism sat between Diana and me. I noticed she had tears in her eyes at points during the service; she definitely was feeling the Spirit. During the time when Solange was changing after being baptized, we sang hymns as well as wrote messages to Solange for her baptism journal. When someone called out the hymn #61, Naeher mein Gott zu dir (Nearer My God to Thee), Cornelia jumped as if someone had shocked her with electricity, then said that hymn was her favorite. It’s been a long time since she’s heard or sung it. We were only singing one verse of each song, but when I noticed she loved this song, I raised my hand and asked for the second verse. We sang that too and she thanked me for doing that. On the other hand Diana and Cynthia Frioud were having a terrible time trying to understand the hymn number and turn to it. By the time they found it, the one verse was over and another hymn was being sung. Sister Frioud is also native South American and doesn’t understand German very well, but also speaks French and some English.

Elder Pine, who was the one baptizing, made an error in the baptism prayer and one of the witnesses caught it. So Solange had to be baptized over. This gave Brother Daehler the opportunity to teach those present that the baptism needed to be done exact and that is why witnesses were necessary. There were many investigators present and the service was very spiritual. Charlotte gave the talk on baptism which was her first talk ever. She was nervous, but did a good job. Norma Bachmann gave the talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost which was her first talk ever in German. She is native to one of the South American countries, probably Brazil. The social after the baptism lasted for over an hour, with a lot of goodies available. We have lots of fun talking to a lot of people we have come to know and love. We can see already how hard it’ll be to leave them when we have to go home in a year and a half. While we were talking to people, I took the occasion to talk to Juerg who has the responsibility to organize the service project to finish the remodel of Cornelia’s shop. I told him we’d talked to Heinz Locher and he was ready to help. He thanked us for laying the ground work with Heinz.

Finally we came home to get our journal and reports written so we can get to bed early. Tomorrow is P-day and Charlotte is guiding us and Elders Ehlen and Roberts to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. We hope it’s good weather so we can take a lot of gorgeous photos. We are going to miss the “Sechseleuti” celebration where they get rid of winter by burning the snowman on top of a pier of wood until the head explodes. Well, we can’t be in two places at once and we seldom get to see Elder Ehlen anymore, so we chose to go there. Charlotte was also excited to go to the Matterhorn too. We’ll be able to see celebration in Zurich next year. We’ll meet Charlotte at 6:20 in the morning and be on our way. Diana made some rice crispie treats to take with us tomorrow.

While typing this journal we got a call from Elder Ehlen asking us to look on Google Maps to help them find an address. We get these kinds of calls many times during the week and, when we’re home, we gladly help out where we can. We can’t go to bed until Elder Norris calls for our weekly statistical report, but we can be ready to flip off the light and go to sleep. He called early tonight so off to bed we go. See ya all tomorrow.