Robert in the dumpster; Diana & Elder Evans; another cow.










APRIL 21, 2009 TUESDAY

It seems like we’ve been getting up pretty early often lately because I guess we have. Tomorrow is no different because we have to be at Stettbach at 7:45 to be picked up by Elders Jensen and Evans to go to the temple. Before every transfer a third of the mission is invited to the temple and tomorrow is our turn again. It ‘s always a treat to be able to go to the temple of the Lord. There were many talks in conference about the temple, how special it is, that it is the garner that the wheat will be gathered into in the last days. My recommend expires at the end of this month and I’ve asked Pres. Matern for an interview twice. Both times he has forgotten to bring his recommend book with him to the Church so the third time I asked him, we made an appointment to come to his office on Thursday. While working today on our service project, Charlotte asked if she could come to the temple with us tomorrow. She knows she can’t go in, but just wants to be near the temple and also try to go to the Mormon Store if it’s open. We asked Elder Jensen if he had room in his van tomorrow; he had one spot left so we told him of Charlotte’s request. He said he would call Charlotte tonight and make arrangements.

The first thing we did was make 17 ham & cheese sandwiches and enough egg salad and bread for 16 egg salad sandwiches to be made over there. We were afraid the egg salad would soak up the bread, if we pre-made them. We met Charlotte at 7:30 this morning and rode to Oerlikon where we had to wait a while for the train to come. Elders Norris and Carrier joined us there and we rode together to Kloten and then by bus to the apartment we were helping to clean out. Daniela and Peter Martin and their son were already there and so we got to work. We wished we would have taken some photos of the place before we started because the place was a mess. Everything had to come out including all the furniture, wardrobes (they use these for closets), shelves, tables, sofas, overstuffed chairs, kitchen chairs, washer, fridges, carpets, light fixtures, beds and everything else you can imagine. Diana was working inside with the rest of them while I was helping carry stuff downstairs and out of the building. It seems members always live at the top floor of the building for some reason. Peter was taking apart all of the furniture so we could get it out piece by piece. Diana helped carry out all of the furniture pieces, handing them over the rail to Elder Carrier below who handed them further down to Elder Norris. After all of the stuff had been carried out except the last several wardrobes/shelves Peter was working on, Diana couldn’t find anything else to do so she cleaned the kitchen. She also picked up the stuff on the carpets and swept. She worked on these for a long time and also cleaned the kitchen cupboards etc. when she found out the owners wanted everything removed that the mother had put in during her forty-five years of living there. Diana had already cleaned most everything in the kitchen when she found out, so she stopped. She was also worried about them ripping down the curtains, tearing out the light fixtures and having her and Norma tear up the carpets until she found out they were required to tear it all out. After they tore out the carper and rolled them up, they threw them out the window.

I, on the other hand, was glad to be inside the dumpster packing everything in so tight that absolutely nothing more could be put in by the time we finished. As they brought stuff to me, if it wasn’t flat, I broke things apart or flattened things with a double jack so everything laid flat without any pockets of air. I was also in a good position to go through all of the junk to see if there was anything of value. There wasn’t much. I was able to salvage a jacket (it’s just a little small), a plastic table cloth, a couple of files, a pair of slip joint pliers, a globe for the one that broke a couple of weeks ago in our bathroom, a cute little black vase with 24 carat gold Egyptian figures with “made in Hellas” stamped on the bottom, a silver plaque of a castle in Davos, and not much else. We were sorry to see a kitchen table, new looking beds and other things go into the dumpster. We would of loved to have them at home, but we have no use for them over here. The dumpster was completely full and brimming over when we finally left at 2:00. All our help left at noon or shortly after. At 11:30 the sisters said they had to go, so we offered them a sandwich for lunch. That was the signal for everyone to stop working and have lunch. Lunch broke the will of the missionaries who worked for another little while and then they too went away. That left Diana, Charlotte, Norma Bachmann and her son Allesandro as well as the Martins to continue on. Soon there was not much left we could do, but I saw one wardrobe left to take apart and some parts of others laying around, so I went to work and took it apart while Peter was eating a sandwich. To me, hauling all of this stuff down the stairs was hard work, so I found a better way. I opened the windows and chucked it all out, letting it sail piece by piece the four floors to the ground. I went down, gathered it all up and hauled it to the dumpster making many trips to do it. Diana kept working on the carpets, pulling them up and then rolling them up and throwing them out the window. We finally had to go and the Martins thanked us and the missionaries profusely for helping them. All three of us were dragging a little on the way home, but we made it saying good-bye to Charlotte at our tram stop.

We had an hour and a half to rest a bit and get ready for Elders Ehlen and Roberts who were coming for haircuts at 4:00. Naeide texted us last night and asked us if we would cut Marcello’s hair as well. We didn’t get much of a rest, but we were ready for them when they showed up. Elder Evans and Jensen also called earlier and said they wanted to stop in and teach Marcello a lesson while he was here, but they said they’d be just a little later. I cut all of their hair and then Diana suggested root beer floats; the Elders jumped at that, but Marcello said he’d never tasted root beer and wondered if it was an alcoholic beer. We had to explain to him that it was a non-alcoholic common drink in Utah. After he tasted it and the float, he said he could get addicted to it. Soon after Diana suggested egg salad sandwiches to use up what we had left over from lunch today. Again they were excited to polish off a couple of sandwiches apiece. Marcello remembered the carmel apples from Halloween and how good they were so we got the carmel topping from the fridge for the ice cream. However, Diana had a better idea and brought out some small pretzel sticks and showed them how to dip those in the carmel. They all liked those too, especially Marcello. I asked Diana if she had anything else for them to which she replied she they could eat the leaves off the tulips and that’s all she had left.

We were thankful there was no English class or Institute tonight; they are on vacation this week. Now that haircuts are done and the service project for today is over, we’ll take a shower, finish this report and go to bed so we’ll be ready for tomorrow. We should be home around 4:00 in the afternoon, just in time to go over to Suwang Stefaniak’s apartment to help some of her ward members clean her apartment and get it ready for it to be inspected by Zurich City. They want to make sure she takes care of things before they’ll rent an apartment to her. We hear her apartment was in terrible shape because her three cats were living there while she was in the hospital for the last three months. Her two kids took turns feeding them, but didn’t seem to want to do much else. Hopefully what we’ve heard isn’t true and it won’t be such a hard job.

Sechseluetti, the burning of the snowman in Zurich. It really only took 12 minutes and 56 seconds.