Front entrance of the second hand store; WML Daehler, Ashley, Anthony Mascaro; attendees for Ashley's baptism.

MAY 31, 2009 SUNDAY

Sunday is the best day of the week because we get to go to Church to renew our covenants and be taught the gospel. It’s wonderful to be able to meet with the saints and missionaries to support and strengthen one another and to see the investigators who are searching and learning. Cornelia came again to Sacrament meeting and the Rodriguez family came too. We were looking for them, but they came a little late after the meeting had started, and then left before it was over because their kids were fussing. We set up an appointment yesterday to come Monday to help them some more with their apartment, but she called this afternoon to change it. They have been invited by some friends to go to Basel tomorrow for the holiday so we arranged to go help them on Wednesday afternoon. She said she met Bishop Schwendener and that he will arrange to get her membership records sent over and then present them to the ward in two weeks. Bishop Schwendener is a jewel and is always on the job. It was good to at least know they came to Church today. We intend to visit them regularly, after they are settled in, to teach her back into activity and hopefully baptize her husband.

Ashley Maurer’s baptism was scheduled at 1:00, an hour after the block of meetings were over, so we went home to fix some sandwiches for the missionaries and get the brownies for the after baptism social. Elders Harris and Nilsson came for their lunch snack and then helped us carry some of the stuff back to the ward. It is amazing to see the number of people who come to a baptism. There was a room full and some standing out in the hallway. Baptisms are always a prime meeting to bring investigators so missionaries make that a priority. The baptismal services are the same here as at home with a talk on the ordinance of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Those who are eight years old are confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost right after, while converts are confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost at the next Sacrament meeting. The goodies after were delicious, especially Diana’s brownies. Following the service, we went home and were so beat from yesterday we felt we needed to just rest the rest of the day. Later in the evening we received the call from Gabriela Rodriguez changing our appointment and then a call from Elder Norris to get our weekly report and give us our Tuesday district meeting assignment. As is almost always the case, Roxsan and her kids skyped us just as Elder Norris called so I missed half the conversation while talking to Elder Norris. But it’s always fun to see and talk to Roxsan and her kids. She told us that Justin called her just before and so we got an update on him too. Monica and Rebecca didn’t skype us so we only got to talk to Roxsan and her kids. Mayleah reminded me that I promised to take her on a motorcycle ride as soon as we get home. And so ends another day.

All these photos are near or at Braunwald. I know you'd probably like to see something different, but we've been too busy to take any more photos.


Church bells at Braunwald.

MAY 30, 2009 SATURDAY

We started today with nothing that was absolutely scheduled for a particular time, but we had some things we wanted to accomplish. We wanted to go look at Cornelia’s shop, take Rachel Mascaro a birthday gift/card, call Angela to see if we could find someway to contact her husband Emeka, and go to Greifen Lake for the ward outing. Yesterday was Ashley’s birthday, but she was gone all day with her mother to a theme park like Lagoon so we couldn’t take her a present yesterday. We wanted to call her today to wish her a happy birthday, but no one answered the phone. Angela didn’t answer her phone either so we left another message for her to call us. While we were doing our usual morning studying etc., Sister Rodrigues called and asked if we could help them this afternoon to put some wardrobes back together. We set the time for 4:00 this afternoon. Then Elder Nilsson called to see if we had any ice cubes because they needed some for a spiritual thought tonight at the Wichtermanns. We didn’t, but we told them we’d put a tray in the freezer and they could come by and pick it up at 5:45. Their appointment was at 6:00. We also needed to go to the store to get some eggs, sugar, butter etc. for the brownies we were asked to bring to Ashley’s baptism tomorrow.

The first thing we did was go to Schwamendingen, get on bus 62 and ride it to the end which is near Cornelia’s place of business. We walked to her shop, but she wasn’t there so we didn’t get a look inside today. We turned around and went back home to get the present for Rachel that I had forgotten to bring along. We stopped at Migros to buy the things we needed and then went on home. I decided to change my pants into my black P-day pants because we’d never make it back in time to change and then get to the Rodrigues’s by 4:00. After changing and getting the gift we got on the tram and traveled to Stettbach, waited 20 minutes for our train and then went to the Schwerzenbach Bahnhof and took the bus to Volketswil Dorf. We got off the bus and mistakenly took the long way around, but finally found Rachel’s apartment. No one answered the doorbell, so we called them. We found out they were in Zollikofen and had just attended the temple wedding of a friend. Diana talked to Rachel for awhile and then wished her a happy birthday. Diana told her to look in their mailbox when they got home because that’s where we put her gift. We hurried on back to the bus stop and got there just in time to catch the returning bus to the train station. We caught the train to Stettbach, rode the tram to Schwamendingen, changed to tram 9 to go to the Rodrigueses. By the time we got there we were about 15 minutes late, but in this case, better late than never.

The people who were in the apartment previously had put in new wood flooring, not the hardwood, but the laminated kind that floats on a foam pad. They hadn’t installed the baseboards so Julio had me help him with that first. He was drilling holes in the walls, inserting plastic anchors and then screwing the baseboards to the wall. It didn’t seem the right way to do it, but that’s the way the other rooms were done, so we continued on until we ran out of screws. When we had to cut a piece to finish one wall, he brought out a serrated bread knife with which to cut the baseboard. If you want to know how hard that is, try it some time. Finally he brought out another knife and a hammer and just whacked it a good one and it broke apart, fortunately in a straight line. I would have loved to of had my own tools here to do this kind of work. We ran out of screws, so we had to stop that and switch to putting a huge wardrobe together. First, we had to bring it up from the basement. Did we tell you before that members, or anyone else we want to visit, are always on the top floor, usually without elevators. Today was no exception. Up five flights of stairs; down five flights of stairs, etc. etc. Finally all parts were in the apartment and then the adventure began. Not having seen the wardrobe before, we relied mostly on Julio to take the lead. Needless to say after we put it together, we had to take it apart because we had forgotten some shelves that had to be in place as it went together and not after it was done. The same for the doors; we put the doors on and discovered we had some in the wrong place so they didn’t shut very good. We eventually got them in the right place. We knew we’d never be home to get the ice cubes for Elder Harris, but he called and said they tried the ice cube thing and it didn’t work so they didn’t need them after all. That meant we could stay longer to help the Rodrigueses. We didn’t leave until 8:00, but were grateful we could be of service to them. Our bones, muscles and feet were tired, but it was a good tired. They still don’t have their beds up or things put away, but at least they have one wardrobe standing so they can start to get a little bit organized. We’ve probably said this before, but the apartments over here don’t have built in closets; they are stand alone wardrobes. They still need a lot of help to get everything set up, so we offered to help again on Monday which is our normal P-day. This Monday is Pfingsten so all of the stores and everything else are closed for the holiday. We’ll help them on Monday and take another day for our P-day.

We came on home and Diana spent the next few hours making brownies while I straighten up the living room, took out the garbage and wrote our journal entry. Elder Harris called us this morning and asked us if it would be okay to bring some investigators over to our place for lunch between the end of Sacrament Meeting and the beginning of the baptism service. We told them it would be okay, but there’s only an hour so we don’t see how there’ll be enough time. We’ve got some sandwich stuff ready for them because there’ll be no time for cooking. We hope it all works out.

Cows in Braunwald. Church in Braunwald. Charlotte, Diana, E. Harris, E. Nilsson and Robert.

MAY 29, 2009 FRIDAY

Well, this morning we found out what Pres. Matern wanted us to do. The mission home garage hadn’t been cleaned out for ages and he wanted to get rid of all the old and broken things and get an inventory of what was still good. We should have taken a photo for posterity sake, but who can think of photos when they’re working. Pres. Matern, Brother Klaumunstner, and we hauled everything out and stacked it in front of the garage along the road so Pres. Matern could take a good look. As we put the good stuff back in he wrote the items on an inventory list so when they needed something, they wouldn’t have to go buy it. The throw away stuff we loaded into the van to be hauled to the garbage/recycle center where the garbage is burned. We ended up with the van stuffed full and another pile to be taken later to the ‘Brockenhaus.” We started at 10:00 and didn’t get done until 3:00. Pres. Matern, Brother Klaumunstner and I took the garbage to the center while Diana and Sister Matern made lunch. During the morning Neide texted us an invite to come to dinner at 6:00 this evening. We texted back that we would, not thinking that we would be eating lunch at the mission home at 3:00. We had a leisurely lunch of spaghetti and meatballs, but tried not to eat too much. Finally we bid goodbye and went on our way home. While we were there we loaded up on brochures, pass-along cards, but they were out of Joseph Smith Story pamphlets. They’ll send us some as soon as they get some in.

We got home, took a shower, got ready to go and then walked to Neide’s. When we got there, her kitchen window was open so rather than ring the doorbell, Diana surprised her through the window. When we went inside, we found that Elders Ehlen and Roberts were there also. Elder Ehlen goes home in two weeks and so he’s being invited here and there so the members can say goodbye to him. Neide made a traditional Brazilian dinner of rice over beans, a different, but very good potato salad and baked chicken. For desert she made what she called a pudding with carmel glaze, but it was similar to what we know as flan, but not so slickery. We had a good conversation and before we left, Elder Ehlen and Roberts gave a spiritual thought with Diana and I adding insights and comments along the way. The thought was on temptations and how one can get help from the Lord to receive the strength to overcome them and learn from them.

We left a little after 8:00 with Elders Ehlen & Roberts following us home to use our computer to find a train schedule for tomorrow morning. On the way home we met the Neidharts on the sidewalk that leads to the Church. We stopped and talked to them for a few minutes and then we went home while the Neidharts went to the Church for an appointment with someone. The Elders found their information and then left to go home. We were pooped and it was 8:40, but we hadn’t been able to go wish Dora Wachter a happy birthday yet. It was difficult to get up the enthusiasm to go back out tonight, but go we finally did. When we arrived, it was after 9:00 , but we rang the doorbell anyway. The door clicked to let us in and we climbed the five stories to Dora’s apartment. She greeted us warmly and invited us in. She had quite a few relatives visiting her and we were introduced to all of them. Her husband Markus wasn’t there because he had taken their son, Misio, to the hospital because about an hour before we got there, he had an allergic reaction to something causing a lot of hives. We stayed for a few minutes, turning down the invitation for something to drink and then a few minutes later, some pie. We just couldn’t stuff anything else down and we didn’t really want to bother the family anyway, so we said our goodbyes and left. On our way out we told her we missed her and invited her to Church Sunday. We hope she comes. We went on home and this time we stayed.

E. Larson in Braunwald. Looking from Braunwald down into the valley. E. Nilsson, Charlotte, E. Harris and S. Larson in Braunwald.

MAY 28, 2009 THURSDAY

This morning we finally took the time for Diana to cut my hair. It was either that or start curling the back. As usual she did a wonderful job and now I feel like a new missionary. Last Monday at FHE Juerg asked if we had been over to see Cornelia’s shop and seemed disappointed when we told him we hadn’t. They’ve done a lot of work for her and wanted us to see it. So, we were going to go to Cornelia’s shop today to see how everything turned out, but as we’ve said before, things don’t always go as planned. We decided to call Sister Rodrigues to see if her move went well and also to apologize for not being able to go there last night in case they needed more help unpacking and arranging in their new apartment. She said they were okay and thanked us again for yesterday. Shortly after she hung up, she called back and told us her old landlord wasn’t satisfied with the way they had left the apartment and could we help her today finish up some stuff. We met her at the old apartment at 12:30 and after we climbed the stairs together and entered her apartment, she broke down and cried. She had her two little kids with her, one on her back and carrying the other one. The little one was still sick and the other one had been asleep and woke up whiny. When the landlord chewed her out, it was just too much for her. The landlord had told her that she was a crappy renter and if she hadn’t of moved on her own, she was ready to throw her out anyway. Gabriella said the landlord didn’t tell her exactly what needed to be done, just that it was unsatisfactory. It seems that here in Switzerland, to get an apartment in the first place, they have to pay a security deposit of 10,000sfr, so the landlord has a lot of power. The stress from the move, her sick children and the landlord had just overwhelmed her. Diana let her cry on her shoulder for awhile until she got herself together somewhat and then I gave her a blessing. Having the priesthood and being able to give a healing blessing is a wonderful gift from the Lord. The change in her and the children was almost instantaneous. She perked up, the kids stopped whining and started to play around while we did what needed to be done. Everything was clean that we could tell, but all of the cleaning stuff as well as some other stuff needed to be gathered up and taken down into the cellar. After we did that we mopped all of the floors again and when we left at 2:15, the apartment was completely empty and as clean as it would ever be. Just as we were leaving, her husband showed up for which we were really glad. We hated to see her walking back to the tram stop with two small children and have to go home by herself.

We had an appointment with Cinthya Frioud this afternoon and promised her we’d be there between 2:00 and 3:00. We didn’t want to be late, but there was no way we could have left Gabriella’s before we did, so we were hoping to make good connections so as not to be late. We already had to move it from yesterday to today because we didn’t get through at sister Gianatti’s until late. We forgot to put her map/address in my bag and I also left our cell phone at home, so there was no way to call and let her know that we were still coming, but we’d probably be late. As it turned out we were only 20 minutes late anyway. When we arrived, we discovered Norma Bachmann was also there with her son Allesandro. Cynthia and Norma are very good friends, having both been born in South American and Spanish as a first language. During our visit we found out Allesandro was going to be baptized on June 7, a day after his 8th birthday. There were some concerns that he wasn’t going to be baptized for some reason or other, mostly because his parents are divorced and Norma didn’t want to push him. That’s the problem with rumors because they are seldom true. Cinthya is 7 months pregnant and is patiently waiting for the last two months to pass. She is just hoping to carry to term and have their first live birth after three former miscarriages. We had a nice visit; Diana talking to the ladies and me playing around with Allesandro.

Usually when we come out this way we travel through Zurich City to get to our destination. After we are through, we hop on the bus traveling the same direction to make the loop down along Greifen Lake to Stettbach and then back home. It’s a much prettier and scenic drive that way. Sometimes, like today, we get to sit on the shore of the lake at Maur to wait for our connecting bus. Today it was mostly overcast and cool so it was just right for Diana. When we arrived at Schwamendingen we walked down to the material/junk store to buy some plastic bowls and plates for Irene, Juerg and Charlotte who need them for a youth activity next week. We were only able to get the bowls because they were out of plates. Then we made a quick stop at COOP and bought some bread, nectarines, and yogurt then went on home. The rest of the evening we read the scriptures, cooked dinner (spaghetti with mushrooms for Diana and spaghetti with mushrooms, herb tofu and grated cheese for me) and wrote reports and this journal entry. Tomorrow we have to be at the mission home to help with cleaning out the garage and whatever else Pres. Matern wants us to do.

Small town on the way to Braunwald; Charlotte, E. Harris & E. Nilsson riding the cable tram up to Braunwald; Diana and Robert in the same cable tram.

This is our buggy ride in Braunwald with the driver smoking a cigar all the while.
May 27, 2009 WEDNESDAY

This morning we had been asked by Elder Ehlen to help a family move from his ward, the Altstetten Ward, to our ward in Schwamendingen. Gabriella Rodriques is coming back into activity and her husband, Julio, is currently not a member but is investigating the Church. He speaks mostly Spanish, but can speak some German. Elder Ehlen wanted to make sure they got a rousing welcome so we recruited Peter and Daniela Martin to help too. Daniela speaks Spanish so she was especially helpful in being able to talk to Julio in his own language. Elders Harris and Nilsson also came to help as well as two young men and a sister from the Altstetten Ward. They have a little boy who is about a year old and today he was a little sick with an ear infection and possibly lung congestion. Half the time she had him in a backpack strapped to her back while she worked. We helped carry mattresses and other a bunch of other stuff down to the cellar and/or to a van parked outside. Once the van was filled, the missionaries and the two young men went with Julio to unload it at the new address while we washed walls, windows and floors. The Rodrigues had lived in the apartment for five years and it required a lot of deep cleaning, especially the bathroom and the kitchen. By the time we had everything cleaned up, it was time to go to our next appointment. We worked there from 10:00 until a little after 1:00.

On our way back to catch our tram we passed a “brockenhaus” pronounced “broken house” which means second hand store. We had passed it a few times while riding trams and thought one day we would stop in to take a look. This time we were on foot so we decided to stop in. It was chuck full of all kinds of things, but nothing caught our fancy, so we just looked and then left. We caught our tram, went home, changed, had a bite to eat and then left to visit Sister Gianati in Bruettisellen. This is the third time we’ve been to her home. The last time we were there we promised we’d bring our laptop so she could watch “The Testament” video we gave her last Christmas. She is a sweet elderly member who doesn’t have a very good understanding of the Church, the doctrines or the Book of Mormon. As we watched the DVD she got confused when it switched back and forth from the Nephites/Lamanites and Jerusalem/Christ. We answered her questions as we went along and, when it was over, went into more detail about the Book of Mormon. She loves her bible, but said it is so hard to understand, that some things didn’t make sense to her. We explained that the bible has been translated so many times that some things are not as clear as the original must have been and she readily agreed because she had already come to that conclusion. She said she had her triple combination, but hadn’t read in it much. She just wished there were just one church instead of so many to choose from. She has a neighbor upstairs that’s Jehovah Witness and she says she has fun “fighting” with her. We challenged her to read the Book of Mormon and read to her the promise of prophet Moroni in Moroni 10:4-7. We also asked her if we could teach her the missionary lessons so she would have a better understanding of why it was necessary for Joseph Smith to be called as a prophet to restore the true Church on the earth again, the Plan of Salvation and the other doctrines of Christ. She promised to begin reading in the Book of Mormon and to pray to get a testimony. We had such a good meeting that we didn’t notice we’d been there for three hours. We had a prayer and slowly made our way out the door and came home leaving her with her two cats.

We had arranged with Sister Frioud to visit her this afternoon, but we spent too long with Silvana to be able to do it today. Diana called her as we were riding back home in the bus and rearranged the appointment for tomorrow at 2:30. We got a call from Elder Ehlen asking us how the Rodrigues move went. We also got a call from Elder Nilsson asking us if we had gotten over to the Rodriqueses to see if they needed any help on the other end of their move. We hadn’t so they were going to call them and then let us know if we should come to help again. We didn’t receive a call so we assumed they didn’t need any more help. Later on Elder Norris called to make his mid-week check on us to see if we were still alive. We are, but after the heavy work today and not being used to it anymore, we feel as if we are dead. We hope all will be good in the morning.

First two photos near Braunwald; Picnicing were E. Nilsson, Charlotte, Diana, E. Harris in Braunwald.

MAY 26. 2009 TUESDAY

The day, a beautiful sunshiny warm day, just began and then it was over. We had a full day planned and we knew we weren’t going to have much down time. We started by going to our district meeting this morning. These generally last two hours which are planned out by the district leader. Everyone gets an assignment and in this way we teach and support each other. Diana’s assignment was to choose the closing song and give the prayer. Mine was to spend ten minutes teaching about doctrine and principles. Elder Carrier had the game today and it was pretty fun. He made a list of 30 random items and when he called out an item, the first team to have the item and place it on the designated spot, won a point.

After the meeting was over we went quickly home, dropped off the stuff we normally take to the meeting, and then left to visit Margarita Maurer in the hospital. It took at least an hour to get there by tram. If it were possible to make instant connections when we have to change trams, it wouldn’t be so bad, but normally we have to wait. We had a nice visit with Margarita. It seems her operation went about as well as expected and she’ll go back home tomorrow. Her room was still sweltering so Diana gave her a hand fan that would help her keep cool. We also gave her the small book, “True to the Faith,” in German so she would have something to read. We thought maybe she would read the short explanations of gospel principles contained in the book. After an hour we excused ourselves and hurried back home to pick up a gift/card for Tamara Daehler who has a birthday today. The weather forecast predicted a cold front with rain for later today and tomorrow. On the way home we saw clouds building so when we left to go visit Tamara, we made sure we had an umbrella. When we left our apartment, the wind picked up, blowing everything around including us. After leaving the tram and getting on the bus at Stettbach we encountered a severe thunderstorm which pelted the bus (and everything else) with large hailstones and rain. Torrents and torrents came down making it impossible to hear inside the bus and flooding the streets outside. We decided we didn’t want to try and walk through the deluge so we called Tamara, wished her a happy birthday, and agreed to give her the gift next Sunday at Church. We switched buses at Bahnhof Bad and went back to Stettbach. We thought we had plenty of time to make it back to Schwamendingen, buy some bread, go home and then get to Church for our 5:00 appointment to cut Marcello’s hair. However, all plans are not to be. For some reason our tram wasn’t running; some problem delayed it. We waited for about a half an hour before one arrived. We did have time to quickly go to COOP and buy some bread (and strawberries that were half price) and then we went home.

Diana decide to stay home while I went to the stake center to meet Marcello and cut his hair. Since our set-to a few weeks ago, he’s been a lot nicer to his mom, Neide, and respectful to me. He’s still meeting with the missionaries and says he wants to get baptized. He asked about the Church’s stand on tattooing which gave me a chance to talk to him about our bodies being sacred and a temple for our spirits. When I was finished with him, Diana arrived about the same time as the Wichtermanns to begin getting things ready for Institute. This time we helped make a large quantity of Birchermuesli. We peeled and grated a lot of apples to go in it. It turned out delicious, but I think my version is much better that this one. Diana doesn’t like yogurt so she was content to just eat bread after the classes were over.

Cows with bells taken while riding in a buggy in Braunwald.

Brown Swiss cows with bells; Elders Larson, Nilsson, Harris & Charlotte; Elder Nilsson Charlotte, Diana, eating lunch at Braunwald.

MAY 25, 2009 MONDAY

We were up and on our way to the Bahnhof to meet up with Elders Harris & Nilsson and Charlotte for our P-day activity. We walked to our underground tram stop and were waiting for our tram when Elder Harris called and asked us where we were. We told him we were waiting for our tram and it would be here in one minute. He said they were only a minute away and wanted to ride together to the train station. They made it just in time and we all boarded and were off to meet Charlotte at the meeting point at the Zurich Bahnhof. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but Charlotte had it all planned out, something about taking a ride over the Swiss Alps. We ended up going through Lindthal, Altdorf, Glaurus and ended up at Braunwald. We traveled through some marvelous breathtaking country with small towns nestled up against the forest as they rose up into snow-capped mountains. The vallley floors were continuous green meadows with a lot of Brown Swiss cows grazing in them. When we were close enough, we could hear the cow bells chiming that were hung around every cow’s neck. We made two video clips of them, one of which we posted with this journal entry.

We wanted to continue on past Braunwald to go over the mountain pass, but that section of the tracks don’t open until June 27 because of the deep snow that piled up during the winter. However, at Braunwald we were able to take a cog wheel train up the steep mountain to a little resort town. Again we were a little early because the lifts to go higher we not running today either. As we got off the train we were met with another breathtaking view of the valley below framed by the Alps in the background that were draped by glaciers and deep deep snow. We took some photos and were going to walk up the steep roads to looks around when we saw two horses with a carriage hooked to it. Charlotte wanted to take a ride in it and so we looked around for the driver and he came running from a building a little ways away. He made us wait until he got his proper Swiss shirt on, blankets arranged on the leather seats to sit on and then we got in. He took us on a half hour ride through the pretty countryside for which he charged us 40.00sfr. We thought that was a little steep, but we paid half and Charlotte paid the other half. He should have paid us because he made us smell his old cigar the whole way. We arrived back at the starting point, got out and walked down a road for a ways to a bench that was in the shade. We wanted shade because it was really hot today although we didn’t know the exact temperature. Switzerland is going through the hottest heat wave they’ve experienced here since the 1930's. We were glad we were in the mountains, although we weren’t very high and it was still hot, but not as hot as lower down. We took our time with lunch which consisted of tuna fish and ham/cheese sandwiches we had brought as well as bread, cheese and different kinds of meat cheeses.

Following lunch we went back to the cog wheel train and traveled back down to the bottom. We waited around for our train for a half an hour then rode back through the same kind of scenery to Rapperswil. We came here a few months ago in the middle of the winter, and it looked much the same as it did today except people were dressed a little more skimpy. We planned on riding a tourist boat back to Zurich, but we had a little time to wait for our ship to come. We walked though part of the old town then walked back to the dock, but we were still too early. We spent some time feeding the ducks, geese and gulls the warm leftover sandwiches we still had with us. They didn’t look to good to us, but the birds fought over every scrap, bread, cheese, ham and all, so they must have been good. The boat finally came and we had a leisurely two hour ride back to Zurich. We then got on a crowed tram, melting in the heat, and went home. The heat doesn’t bother me especially, but Diana suffers when it gets too hot.

A few minutes before we were going to leave for our family home evening Elders Nilsson and Harris arrived to do some more work on our computer for the zone conference coming up. We also got a call from Elder Pine who, with pleading in his voice, told us he and Elder Jensen were still in Luzern and would we do their assignment in family home evening tonight. Their assignment was to organize the game. They must think it’s easy coming up with a game with only a few minutes’ notice, but we told them we would. We couldn’t pawn it off on Elders Harris and Nilsson because they were going to do their emails instead of going to FHE. It was a little odd at FHE because we didn’t have any of the four missionaries there. But we had a good time none the less. Irene gave the lesson on the five senses and how we can use them to develop a better relationship with Heavenly Father and Christ. The game we played was “Helium Stick” which we had played at district meeting one time, but not at FHE. This is the game where the players line up in two rows facing each other, but no exactly opposite. Each holds out both of their pointer fingers so they line up in a row. Then a paper stick made out of rolled up paper is placed on top of their fingers and all the players have to keep their fingers in contact with the “stick.” The object of the game is to lower it to the ground, all the while every player maintains contact with it. It’s almost impossible to do unless every single person cooperates. Mostly the stick rises instead of lowers. They all had fun and had to cheat to get it to the ground, but it took them a good 15 minutes anyway. We’ve come to love the members of our group and miss the ones who are absent.

MAY 24, 2009 SUNDAY

Today we awoke with great hope and anticipation that Charles Aboussou, Emeka Okoro and Cornelia would come to Church today and that later on in the afternoon we’d have the opportunity to teach the “Plan of Salvation” to Emeka. As it turned out Charles and Emeka didn’t come to church and we weren’t able to teach Emeka in the afternoon. Cornelia came as did Angela Campbell and her three kids.

We arrived for our 8:00 correlation meeting and discussed everything we wrote on our report that needed to be brought to the attention of the council. We arranged help for Heather Scheidegger to get help in correcting some errors in her family history records. We also arranged help for the Rodrigues family to move into our ward. We were able to get an English “Joseph Smith” manual for Angela. We made them aware that the last two people baptized hadn’t received their baptism or confirmation certificates and were assured someone would correct that oversight. Following the meeting was a combined Relief Society/Melchizedek Priesthood meeting taught by the Stake RS President. The subject was on financial matters and budgeting. It was a little different in that she went over a budget sheet where she had listed required expenses as spelled out in Swiss law. Every Swiss is required to have and pay for health insurance (and it’s not cheap) even though they have socialized medicine.

Sacrament Meeting was inspirational and thought provoking. One of the main speakers was Sibyle Oberli whom we thought to be less-active. We don’t know her too well, so we could be mistaken, although we don’t see her at Church all too often. Her talk was on faith and she gave several examples and stories that illustrated faith very well. We talked to her after and she was way nice and invited us over sometime. There were many investigators at Church today and we were busy greeting and talking to them after the meeting was over. We also had a lot of members we wanted visit with to see how they were doing and to arrange the family history and moving of the Rodrigues family etc. Charlotte wanted to talk to us about our next great adventure on Monday’s P-day. We finally made our way home escorted by Elders Harris and Nilsson who wanted to burn another CD in preparation for the next zone conference. While they were here, we fixed them a hamburger for lunch as well as some ice cream and strawberries. While they were doing that, Diana washed and prepared the fruit for the refreshments for the music activity this afternoon at 3:30. This is usually a well attended activity, but today there weren’t many. George was there as usual because he is the main attraction. Everyone loves to hear him play the piano and the favorite songs of those who come. He seems to know all the songs off by heart. Besides us the other ones there were Urs Wichtermann, Solange Baptiste, Patricia Rames and her little daughter, Neide, Elders Harris & Nilsson and a friend of Patricia. We had fun together with George playing, Neide and Elder Nilsson singing solos, and all of us singing church hymns. As 5:00 rolled around, we tried to call Angela to confirm our appointment with Emeka, but got no answer. We left a message for her to call us. She didn’t call so we’ll have to call her to get Emeka’s phone number.

We came home for awhile and then went to visit Margarita Maurer who is in the hospital getting ready for another operation on her knee. This is the second time for this knee because the first time they missed something. She went through a lot of pain with the physical therapy from last time only to discover there was a problem that wouldn’t let it heal. It is amazing to us that most places don’t have air conditioning, including this hospital. It was sweltering in her room and no way to relieve the heat. We feel sorry for her to have to stay there. On the way home Elder Norris called to get our report for the week. We had to put him off until we reached home because we needed our report to review with him. And that is where our day ends.

E. Pine, S. Hewitt, S. Stottard, E. Carrier and Jona Neidhart at the Oerlikon Bahnhof. Sister Larson in a real (not set up) contacting situation. The video is of a couple of wonderful fluorescent blue bugs chasing each other.

MAY 23, 2009 SATURDAY

This morning as we were getting dressed Diana discovered a couple of buttons on her dress that were coming loose. She spent some time sewing them back on, but hadn’t finished by the time we had to go. However, she sewed on the ones that were the most important. By 10:00 we were at the Oerlikon Bahnhof for the street contacting display Elder Norris had set up for us. Missionaries participating this time were Elders Pine, Jensen, Harris, Nilsson, Norris, Carrier, Larson and Sisters Larson, Hewitt and Stoddard. Jona Neidhart, our official missionary to be on June 3rd, was there also helping us. We contacted a lot of people, but most just say, “Nein” and walk on by. Today we had a couple who were very vocal about sending us back to America where he thought we belonged. That’s when Jona piped up and said he was Swiss and would love to go, but had stay here. One man got after Diana and then walked off talking to himself. That kind of stuff doesn’t bother Diana and she just kept on with the work of contacting. She is fearless when it comes to talking to people. I like to sit on the edge of the fountain where a lot of people come to rest and strike up a conversation where they can’t just walk off. We were both able to place some brochures and BoMs and I was able to get the name and phone number of one good looking young family. He said he’d read the brochures etc. and consider if he wanted us to come by and tell him more. We pray that he will. We also went over to Herr Fischer’s booth to talk to him. He said the missionaries had come to his home again to teach him. He still hasn’t been to Church yet because he is a referee for soccer matches on Sunday mornings. We talked to him about the promise the Lord has made to those who keep the Sabbath Day holy. He says he understands it and even quoted some scriptures to us, but doesn’t seem anxious to change what he’s doing. He says he still wants to visit a sacrament meeting, but doesn’t know when that will be. All we can do is teach, encourage and pray that someday he’ll receive a testimony strong enough to want to follow the commandments. He gave us another small bottle of lemon olive oil. We told him we may come visit him in Uzwil one of these days and he seemed genuinely happy at the prospect.

We had to leave a little early because we had an appointment in Bruettisellen with Charles Aboussou, a less-active member we contacted a few days ago. We also had to buy some fruit for refreshments for the music activity tomorrow afternoon and the grocery stores always close early (5:00) on Saturdays. We stopped in COOP on the way home and bought some strawberries, kiwi, grapes, apples, bananas and oranges. We took them home, made a pit stop and then took off for Bruettisellen. Charles hadn’t wanted to make a firm appointment so we were hoping he would be home. When we rang his bell, he answered the door and let us in. Happy day! We’ve been to his home at least fifteen times over the last seven months and never found him home. We’ve left a note every time inviting him to come to Church or some other meeting or else call us. He never did.

We found him to be a very nice man of about 35 years old who was divorced and had one 12 year old son. He came to Switzerland from Africa sixteen years ago; French is his mother language. He was baptized in 2001 and for some reason quit coming to Church some years ago. He said he is still a member at heart and will come back to the Church again, he just doesn’t know when that will be. He said he had a lot of problems right now. We responded that the Lord would help him solve the problems if he would live the commandments and that we had a very good bishop who he could talk to as well. When asked if he still had a Book of Mormon he showed us his triple combination. We asked him if he still read in it, and his answer was a little evasive. We asked him if we could come by every so often and encourage him, to which he replied in the affirmative. We talked about the importance of activity, associating with members and renewing covenants through taking the Sacrament. We bore testimony of the Gospel and felt the Spirit as we did. He said he had a member friend from the Altstetten Ward with whom he worked where he was employed. We invited him to come to Church tomorrow and that we would be waiting for him at the door. The last thing we did was have a prayer with him. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

We got on the bus and returned to Stettbach, then got on tram 7 and went a couple of stops where we got off at a little sidewalk fruit stand. We saw some good looking strawberries when we went past eaqrlier going the other way. We bought some as well as a head of lettuce and a few golden delicious apples. We hopped back on the next tram and went on into Schwamendingen. There was a flea market going on so we walked through the many booths looking at all the junk, bought a couple of souvenir spoons and continued on to Migros and bought a few more things there. Then we came on home. We spent some time updating the member list notes and printed off a copy for Bishop Schwendener to give him tomorrow. We finished our correlation report and wrote this journal entry. We still have a little time to review our lesson for the Okoro family that we’ll teach them tomorrow afternoon. Diana spent some more time doing the tedious work of finishing sewing the rest on the buttons on her dress, all by hand.

Urs & Rita Wichtermann, the couple we work with at Institute. Elders Carrier, Jensen, Norris and Pine with Diana in the background.

MAY 22, 2009 FRIDAY

The normal routine of getting up, getting ready, breakfast, alone study, companion study, German study and lunch takes up the whole morning until about 12:30 to 1:00. After that comes missionary work of one kind or another. On Fridays we’re supposed to do an additional three hours of planning for the coming week so we spent the rest of the afternoon going through the member list to see who we should visit or call. We used the white board to list all of the single/divorced/widows in the ward and came up with 42 not counting the young single adults. Next we listed the members married to non-members which totaled nine, some of which are less-active. We worked through the list and decided who we should call this afternoon . Diana called Heather Scheidegger, a less-active member we visited last November who was satisfied with her life. She and her husband were friendly, but we’ve not caught them home since then when we’ve tried to visit. She answered the phone and in talking to her, Heather told Diana she needed some help to correct some errors made in her father’s family history information. Diana said we’d find someone to help her with the research and help her fix the errors. We hope this can be a way to develop a relationship with them and help them back into activity. The problem is they are going on vacation to the USA (Ogden) in June for three months. If she can’t get things fixed here, maybe we can get her and Jonni Sue Schilaty together in Utah. Jonni Sue is a whizz at family history. Next we called Suki. She was at work and said things are going okay for her. That’s good news. We called Denise Maurer to get the information on her mother, Margarita, and discovered she will be operated on next Monday and what hospital she’ll be in. Denise’s daughter, Ashley, fell down and hurt herself so she couldn’t go to school. She left her with her mother because she wanted to go to the temple today. She has a test at work next week that’s very important and she wanted to attend the temple to get some divine help to help her pass it. We also called Sister Martin to invite them to dinner sometime, but as no one answered, we left a voice mail. We called Annika Schmutz again and this time she answered. She said she’d told us before not to call her at work, but we called the only number we had. This time we asked for another number to reach her. She rattled off a number so fast that we had her repeat it and got the same results. We’ll try the number later on and see if we got it written down right. We called Dora Wachter to see how she was and if we could come visit them. She said she was away for a few days, but we could come by next week sometime in the evening. We called some others, but found no one else home.

We went over the lesson we plan to give Emeka Okoro next Sunday, deciding on how we wanted to present it and who would teach which parts. We were working through this when Elders Pine and Jensen came over at 3:00 to do their planning at our place. They had an activity at the Church later on and it would be more convenient to do it here than go clear back to their apartment in Affoltern. After they left I took a gift/card over to Franz Bannwart and put it in his mailbox. Even though he won’t talk to us, he may appreciate the cookies and the thought. When I got back, we practiced giving our parts of the lesson to one another. We need to continue to practice and study so we can teach effectively and also have the Spirit with us.

Elder Pine is still fritzing about what college he wants to go to in Utah and it seems like he calls every two minutes for us to look up another phone number to this, that or the other university. Elder Norris called to see if we were going to be at the Oerlikon Bahnhof at 10:00 tomorrow morning to participate in the display/contacting activity. We told him we planned on it, but we also have an appointment in the afternoon with Charles Aboussou in Dietlikon. Tomorrow we also need to make sure we get to a grocery store to buy the fresh fruit for the music activity tomorrow.

Scottish Highland breed. Tree of Life in Lehi's dream. Some headstones.

MAY 21, 2009 THURSDAY

I woke up this morning and went out for my morning walk, this time through Schwamendingen. I tried a new way and discovered a huge cemetery. When we ride the tram, we go past it, but it is hidden behind some buildings so we never knew it was there. It was interesting in that it is divided up into many smaller squares separated by bushes, shrubs and trees so each seems like its own little cemetery. I found one headstone that was carved in the shape of a tree that reminded me of the Tree of Life in Lehi’s dream. I walked to the to top and hoped I’d find a way out so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way back down to the entrance. Fortunately I found a gate and walked on out and continued towards the woods where there is a path that follows the edge between the woods and the fields. There is a wonderful view of the city and in the cool air it was an invigorating walk. I worked my way back down to the tram line, took a photo of a cow in a butcher shop window and went on back to Schwamendingen where I withdrew some money from the ATM. All the stores were closed today because of a holiday so I couldn’t buy anything. I went on back home. The holiday today is called “Himmelfahrtstag” or in English, “Ascension Day” where they celebrate the ascension of Christ into heaven.

At 3:00 Elders Pine and Jensen came over so Elder Pine could complete his application to BYU. It took him an hour to get it done, just in time for us to leave and meet Jona at the Church. We talked to the bishop for awhile and then we and Jona left for our appointment with the Okoro family. They have three sweet kids, Angel (7), Esther (2) and Emeka (4 months). Esther was all over the place during our meeting and it was a little difficult with the disruptions, but even so, it was a good meeting. Rather than retype everything, I cut and pasted our entry from our log we keep on our missionary activities.

Today we and Jona Neidhart met with Emeka and Angela Okoro Campbell for over an hour this afternoon and had a good meeting with them. We gave parts of the first lesson and bore witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. We also gave him a copy of the Joseph Smith Priesthood Manual. We talked of prophets and gave them a copy of the “Proclamation to the World” on families. He was born in Nigeria and came to Switzerland to play professional soccer, but a broken leg ended his career. He says he would like to get baptized. Angela was taught and baptized in 2001. She has had a hard life, her mother having given her away when young, and then passed along to other families three other times. She wants to write the story of her life and has actually written half of a book, but her computer broke. She is stuck until she finds another one although she has little money to buy one. She is also musically gifted and wrote the song and music she sang in Sacrament meeting last week. She asked our opinion if she should create a CD of her original music and her singing them. Of course we encouraged her to do so. She says she has many talents and prayed to God to ask which she should work on and she felt this was her answer. She also plays the guitar to accompany herself. Right now Emeka and Angela are separated, but it seems they are hoping to get back together. We have another appointment with them on Sunday, May 24, during which we’ll teach the “Plan of Salvation.” It was Angela’s birthday yesterday, but we waited until today to take her a gift/card. Angela needs a copy of the Joseph Smith manual also. Emeka gave the closing prayer.

After we left we rode home on the bus with Jona and discussed our impressions of the meeting. We all felt good about what had been accomplished and are hopeful the gospel will make a change in Emeka’s life. Jona walked us home and we wanted to give him the French coins we bought a few weeks ago. Diana couldn’t find them right off and he couldn’t wait. We sent some of the peach pie we baked yesterday with him for him and his parents. Jona will make a great missionary.

We did our usual reports and updated the member log. When we met Jona earlier at the Church, we also met Bishop Schwendener who happened to be at the Church. We mentioned we had updated the member log and would bring him a copy Sunday. He said that would be fine and he wants a copy because they are going to do a home teaching blitz soon. That means all the priesthood holders will meet at the Church on a day, receive names of members to visit and then actually go out and make the visits.

Roxsan skyped us again to get a few more details worked out on a project she’s working on. We’re glad she’s home taking care of problems we should be dealing with instead of her. And that kind of completes our day and it’s only 9:44 pm.

Fountain in Konstanz. I almost stepped on it. Robert & Diana in Konstanz.

MAY 20, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Today was kind of a different day than we’re used to. We got up and did the usual including the wash because it was Wednesday. We worked on our lesson for tomorrow’s meeting with Angela Okoro and her husband and then let our fingers do the walking. We called Sister Bosshard to see how her checkup at the hospital went. She said they found a few polyps and snipped them out, but other than that she was in good shape for the shape she is in. Next we called Margarita Maurer to see how her checkup on her knee went. She said she was going into the hospital tomorrow for an operation on it, but she would only have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days. We thought she went in on Monday for the operation so we called her daughter, Denise, first to get an update and find out what hospital she was in. She didn’t answer, so on impulse we called Margarita’s number and found her home which surprised us. We just hung up from talking to her when Denise returned our called. She said her mother was going in for her operation on Monday which is a different story than what Margarita told us. Denise said she would get the correct information and then let us know. Next we called Cinthya Frioud, who is suffering from a difficult pregnancy, to see how she was doing. She’s had three miscarriages and this one will be her first child, if she carries to term. She said she’s doing okay for being seven months along and we made an appointment to visit her next Wednesday, a week from today. Next, we called Silvana Gianatti to see if we could arrange an appointment. We did and it’s set for next Wednesday, a week from today. Next, we called Hildegunde Schroeder, who is less-active, to see if we could help her with the music activity next Sunday afternoon. Even though she is less-active, she helps George get it organized and arranges the refreshments for after. She asked us to bring some fresh fruit, so that’s what we’ll do.

We took a break for lunch and I walked in to Schwamendingen to get some money out of the ATM. We’ve been waiting to see if the exchange rate would go up, but it looks like it’s going to stay down for awhile. We decided not to wait any longer. While I was there, I bought some pie dough to make a fruit pie and bought two gallons of punch at the Greek store and then walked back home.

We studied German some more by reading the BoM and going over vocabulary lists. Learning German is a never-ending battle and sometimes it seems we don’t make much progress especially when we’re reading the Isaiah chapters. But we keep trying. We worked a little at building a scaffold on our balcony to tie our plants to so they grow up and not down. We don’t have much room out there so if we can keep them vertical, it’ll work out okay. We have a couple of plants on the clothes dry rack and that’ll help. We have many little green tomatoes on the plants and can’t wait until they are red. Elder Norris called today for us to look up an address for him. He was happy we were home. We also received a call from Elder Ehlen who asked us if we could help a family move from his ward in Altstetten into our ward. Gabriella Rodriguez is less-active and her husband, Roger, is not a member. Elder Ehlen would like us to take over teaching them when they get moved and, if we help them move, it’ll help us to get to know them and also build a relationship with them. The only problem we have is, they are moving next Wednesday, the exact day we just previously had booked two appointments. We’ll help out for a few hours, if we can.

This evening we were back on the phone again making contact, or trying to, with other members we haven’t been able to contact personally, even visiting some as many as six or eight times. Thomas Otth wasn’t home, but we left a message. We got no answer at Patricia Hungerbuehlers. We left a message for Rene’ Hartmann. Annika Schmutz hasn’t answered our many calls since we first contacted her two weeks ago. Genaro Chamorro answered, but told us he had no interest in a visit from us or in talking any longer to us, so we said goodbye and hung up. We always wonder how they’ve come to a point in their lives where they don’t want anything more to do with the Church. It makes us sad to see them turn away from Christ’s true Church which has the keys of salvation and eternal life. Our last call was to Charles Aboussou whose home we’ve been to probably 10 or 15 times, never finding him home. He said he works different hours and it’s difficult for him to make an appointment, but we could try and catch him Saturday. We’ll try.

Elders Norris and Carrier came by to pick up a talk on the Word of Wisdom by Elder Packer that I downloaded (in German) for him off the internet. They visited for about a half hour during which time Diana taught them about the Abrahamic Covenant. After they left Elder Ehlen called to ask a question about how a bishop could go about cleaning up his membership records by canceling memberships of those who say they don’t want any more contact with the Church, but haven’t actually requested in writing the canceling of their memberships. We told him we’d research it and get back to him.

Roxsan skyped us mostly to tell us that someone wanted to buy our property in Draper for a church, not ours. They offered us $150,000 for it, but feel that is not close to market value. We declined the offer and we’ll see if they bump it up any. We’re not anxious to sell anyway. And while we talked of other things, Diana noticed little Nathan walking past holding onto a push toy. This is the first time we’ve seen him walking and it was a big surprise. We do miss the Grandkids, but being able to see them once in a while makes it bearable. Roxsan said Monica & Chris are anxious to move out of our house before we get home and Diana is wondering who will move in when they move out. Roxsan said she wouldn’t move into the top with us living in the basement, but that she’d trade her home for ours. No deal. Rebecca said she’d really like to live in Sandy and Diana mentioned that maybe Rebecca & Jared would like to move in the upstairs and rent their West Jordan home.

Our last comment for tonight is that we baked a peach pie and it turned out great.

Fountain in Konstanz. Church in Konstanz Plant pot in Zurich

MAY 19, 2009 TUESDAY

This morning we were on our way to the Zurich Bahnhof at 7:45 to meet the other missionaries. We met up and traveled on to Luzern for our district meeting. On the way there Neide called and invited us to dinner tonight, but we had to decline because we were already committed to helping at Institute tonight. We enjoy going to Luzern because it is a beautiful city sitting on the end of Vierwaldstaetter Lake with snow capped mountains in the background. It was foggy when we got there, but the sun was shining brightly when we came out of the church after the meeting. We had our usual inspirational meeting, but one story stuck with us. The theme was enduring trials, making the best of every situation, being positive and learning the lessons taught. We’ll tell the Reader’s Digest version.

This farmer had an old donkey and one night it got curious about a deep unused well and fell in. It brayed and brayed for help, but none seemed to come. However, the farmer heard the animal in the bottom of the well and searched and searched to find a way to get it out. He tried one thing after another and then decided the donkey was old anyway so he’d just bury it and that would be the end of it. He rounded up some help and all of them started throwing dirt into the well to bury the donkey. At first the donkey went wild with fear making all kinds of noise. The farmer and his friends kept shoveling the dirt in as fast as they could. After a while, the donkey was quiet, but they kept shoveling dirt in anyway. But the donkey learned from the experience and when dirt was shoveled in, he would shake it off his back and step up on it. He kept doing this until he was out of the well and free again. The farmer and his friends were amazed at the ingenuity of the donkey who used adversity to his advantage. If we have the right attitude and faith to go with it, we can benefit from everything that happens to us. Diana also gave her commitment in German and she did very well. She’s also glad she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

After the meeting the sisters went to an appointment, but the other missionaries and we went to their favorite Kebap (sandwich) shop and had lunch. We split a hamburger made the Kebap way which was so good. After that we went on back to Zurich.

Every three years Zurich has a program where they put out statues or something during the tourist season and then people buy them and take them away. They have already had benches to sit on, teddy bears, and cows (you have seen these on our blog). This year it is giant pots for plants. They put approximately 300 of them throughout the city and there were a lot along Bahnhof street and around and in the main Zurich train station. Some are rather mundane, but there are some that are quite unique. We took a lot of photos of them. Next year you’ll not be able to find very many of them because they’ll be scattered out, even taken to different countries.

The rest of the afternoon we worked on our lesson for Thursday, read scriptures and even napped for a few minutes. First time that has happened! At 6:00 we were at the Church with the Wichtermann’s to prepare the refreshments for Institute. This time it was mostly veggies and dip, but there were also a pastry made by rolling up a stick of chocolate inside dough so it looked like a croissant, and then it was baked. The youth really like them and we did too. We thought we had plenty of veggies, and actually we did, but just barely. Suwang came to Institute tonight and it was good to see her out and about again. It was a long illness that she suffered and a long recovery. She is still not 100% and it will take some time before she is. After Institute she walked to the Schoerlistrasse tram stop with us where we parted, she to go to get on the tram, we to go home. However, she and Diana waited at the top of the ramp while I ran to our apartment to get the screws for her wardrobe closet, the ones I’d forgotten to give to Roland when he moved her belongings the other day. She was really happy to get them and said she had been praying they would turn up. I told her I was sorry I had caused her to fret. She went home happy. We went home tired.

A fountain in Konstanz, Germany. Elder Larson on the horse with Sister Larson peeking under it's neck. Mime in Konstanz with Elder Larson playing along.

MAY 18, 2009 MONDAY

Well, another day bit the dust! One more day closer to the day of reckoning. We got up early and finished cleaning our apartment in anticipation of Pres. & Sister Matern’s visit at 10:30. Before they got here Elders Ehlen and Roberts arrived as promised to get their hair cut. First came Elder Roberts who was a lot more talkative today than when he was here last time. He looks and acts like he’s enjoying his mission much more now. Next came Elder Ehlen who wanted me to teach him how to cut his own hair. We worked it by putting different feet on the clippers and letting him run them over his head. He did pretty well but, of course, could get the hair around his ears or the back of his neck to look good. Once he gave up, I finished it. I was able to repair what he had done and make it look just right. He’s a good looking missionary anyway, so the job wasn’t hard.

Pres. & Sister Matern arrived right on schedule and we had a good visit. He asked us about the less-actives we were working with and the progress they have made. He talked to us about the coordination between us and the young missionaries and if we were working together, not duplicating visits to the same people etc. He talked about our involvement with the YSA’s and wished they would be more proactive with their non-member friends in inviting them to Institute, sport activities and church. We spent about a half hour talking and also showed them our balcony garden. We felt good about our interview and we think they did too.

After they left Charlotte called and we made arrangements to meet her and go to Konstanz, Germany, to do a little shopping and sight-seeing. We were there in an hour and a half and had three hours to look around and do our business. However, as we were riding the train up, a young lady sat down in a seat across the aisle from us. Diana started a conversation with her and we had fun talking to her for about a half hour before she had to get off the train. She was going to visit relatives in Macedonia which is near Greece. We talked to her about the church and it’s programs and Charlotte told her she was a new convert. We ended up giving her a BoM to take with her and asked her to call us when she got back. As we got off the train we bumped into the Klaumunztners who work in the mission home. They were there to buy some bibles to resupply the mission home. They said it was much cheaper to buy them in Germany than in Schwitzerland. They told us how to get to the old town and where a good bank was to change some money into Euros. From the train station we followed directions to the bank, changed money and then went walking up the street into the old town. We stopped in a few stores and in one Diana bought a pair of those rubber looking sandals for 4.00 Euros. She says they are very comfortable and sometimes she needs a different kind of shoe to rest her feet. We continued on and found the Jan Hus museum which memorializes Jan Hus who was one of the reformers of the Catholic church. Unfortunately it was closed on Mondays so we’ll have to come back sometime. Pres. Matern recommended we visit it after he asked what we we’re doing for P-day. We bought a bag of hazelnuts from another little store and then made a beeline back to the mall by the train station to buy some bakery goods for the family home evening tonight. We had a little extra time so we visited the LIDL grocery store just to see what their prices were in Germany. Wow, did we ever get a surprise. Everything is so much cheaper in Germany that Switzerland especially the meat. We ended up buying a couple of sacks of groceries which we hadn’t expected to do. The last thing we did was to buy the pastries that we had actually come for. They were also half as expensive here so we bought plenty.

We walked back to the train station, waited for twenty minutes for our train to come and then were off for Zuerich. We got to the Zuerich airport and decided to get off there instead of riding into the main train station. We caught a train for Oerlikon; from there a bus and then a tram and were home. Elder Harris called and asked us if they could use our computer to download a video of “Reflections of Christ” for a district meeting tomorrow. We told them to meet us at home. We had a few minutes to change and then we left, giving the elders our spare set of keys. We made it to the family home evening and had a great meeting as usual. Elders Harris and Nilsson came finally after they had downloaded the video. We had the usual program and everyone raved about the goodies we’d brought from Germany. They are a little different than the ones you get here. One thing that was unusual this time was that Pres. Bolt asked us missionaries to talk about our current investigators. He seemed pleased with the reports that were given. We also made a call to Suki to give her some support and encouragement, but she didn’t answer her phone. We all yelled words of encouragement which were recorded on her voice mail. Irene and Juerg were back from the USA and they brought us two gifts, a bag of pecans from Costco for Diana and a white tie for me. It was nice of them to think of us and we appreciate them, but what am I going to do with another white tie? We love the pecans and will probably use some to make pecan pie the next time we’re in charge of desserts.

This was a full day again and it’s past 11:00. Where does the time go?

MAY 17, 2009 SUNDAY

And so begins another day albeit the best day of the week, Sunday. We arrived at the church at 8:00 and were the first ones there. We tried to make copies of our weekly report, but the copier was broken. Bishop Schwendener came in and when we saw him he was searching his pockets for something. He discovered he’d loaned his keys to a counselor and hadn’t gotten them back. My key didn’t work for his office, so he was stuck. He told me Sister Campbell asked him to ask me if I would stand in the circle while her two children were blessed. One was a newborn son and the other her year and a half old daughter who had never been blessed. I told him I would be glad to do that, but Diana and I were a little surprised at the request. We don’t know her that well, but we’ve been to her home several times, but never found her home. We always greet her when she’s at Church, but never felt we’d made any particular impression on her. But it’s gratifying to know that in little ways we make a difference. When we got here last October, her husband had left her and she was having a difficult time and was also pregnant at the time. Today her husband was with her in Church and she and her husband asked us to make an appointment to teach her husband who is not a member. We made the appointment for next Thursday at 5:00 and we are excited to be able to teach someone. Diana asked Jona, who is going on his mission in a few weeks, to come with us to team teach him.

We had our usual missionary correlation meeting and passed on the information we had . Following correlation meeting was Relief Society and Priesthood meetings. Suki came to Church and Diana sat between her and Neide during her meeting. Suki seemed to be in better spirits today. In Sunday School Eddie Fuhrer gave the lesson which was on tithing and fast offerings. And then came Sacrament meeting. The two baby blessings took quite a bit of time. Bishop Schwendener blessed the baby boy and Brother Weidmann blessed Esther, the girl. Both blessings were in English because the parents don’t speak German very well. Elder Harris had the first talk and should have used only seven minutes. He ended up taking twelve minutes and, when bishop Schwendener knew that he was going to go over, he leaned over and asked me and Sister Ryser to cut ours short. Anyone whose given a talk knows that’s the most difficult thing to do and still make sense of the rest of the talk. I was obedient and cut a little of it out, but mostly I just talked faster. My talk was on the atonement and I used the story of the “Bird Cage” Roxsan sent me some time ago.

Tomorrow is Bruno Patane’s birthday and we took his gift to church with us today to give him because we wouldn’t have time to do it tomorrow. Old age has caught up with me because I forgot to give it to him so we had to go to his home in Opfikon. We barely had time to get there and back before we had to be at the church again to help prepare the refreshments for the CES fireside. About 60 young single adults attended to hear Elder Bednar talk. He is a wonderful speaker who tells it straight and gave those listening an “Apostolic Warning” to be vigilant in using the digital devices (computers, internet, video games, etc) in the right way. This is a good talk to look up on LDS.org to hear what he said. After the fireside the youth enjoyed spaghetti with different kinds of sauces, meat/tomato, cream/carrot and basil/cheese/oil, with pretzels and crackers to go with it. They were all very tasty. For dessert they had a kind of a carrot cake.

After the fireside we still had one more birthday boy to go visit, but he wasn’t very far away. While we were at it, we wanted to take Sister Schroeder’s umbrella back to her that we borrowed last week since she lived pretty close to Dominic. Neither were home, however, so we left the gift/card for Dominic in his mailbox and brought the umbrella back home. As we left the church from the fireside Elder Pine asked us to call a member he and his companion should have been to by 7:00 for a dinner appointment and tell them they would be a few minutes late. When we got home, I forgot all about it and didn’t do it. As we were starting to return home Elder Pine called and told us they wouldn’t be to the member’s home until 8:00, much later than they originally said. We told him we wouldn’t be home for another fifteen minutes, but we’d call as soon as we could. When we got home, we made the call, but only got their voice mail. Later this evening he called and said everything went fine and all is well.

Roxsan called while we were writing our journal entry and that is always a welcomed event. We were able to talk to her as well as Rees, Drayson, Mayleah and Nathan. It’s good to catch up on the news and hear about what’s going on at home. Roxsan told us that they were going to have Nathan’s birthday party this afternoon. The kids were so excited to show us Nathan’s birthday cake that they tipped it over. Diana saw it before it was tipped over and she said it was very cute as well as the invitations Rebecca made. We still have the invitation on our computer. Wish we were there. It seems Elder Norris always calls during these calls, so while Diana talks with the family, I usually talk to Elder Norris about what we’ve accomplished as missionaries for the week. I did get in on the last of the call and then shortly after Roxsan hung up, Rebecca called. Again it was great to see Rebecca and Mack as we talked to them. The kids seem to be growing like weeds. Well, it’s time to sign off for tonight. Tomorrow morning early Elders Ehlen and Roberts are coming for haircuts at 8:30 and Pres. and Sister Matern will be here at 10:30 for our interview.