Cornelia's shop, Bro. Locher helping dismantle book shelf Greifensee in Mauer

MAY 4, 2009 MONDAY

We awoke to another rainy wet cool day which dampened our spirits for any kind of early morning walk. Instead we did our usual morning routine and then got to work studying German. This time we put a language disk in the laptop and followed along in a lesson book that went with it. Later we combined working on our assignment for family home evening with our German study. Using common sayings in English, we translated them into German. We used the internet program “Leo” to help us with some of the translations. Elders Harris and Nilsson called to ask if they could use our computer for their emails and then came on over. Suwang Stefaniak also called and Diana spoke with her. She told Diana she hadn’t gotten any renters yet for the apartment she was in and would have to continue paying rent for three months after she moves out unless she can find someone to rent it. She asked us to let Pres. Bolt know her situation to see if he knew of anyone who would like to rent it.

Bro. Locher showed up at 11:25 to pick me up to go help him with Cornelia Schaer’s shop. He said he’d pick me up at 11:45 so I wasn’t quite ready. I quickly put my shoes on and then we left. While I was helping Bro. Locher, Diana fixed lunch for the Elders. They continued to work on their emails until about 1:00 pm and then they left. Bro. Locher and I arrived at Cornelia’s shop a bit early, but she didn’t have any customers right then so we got to work. We took apart some nice cabinets, a bookshelf and a roll top desk. Again it would have been nice if we could have given it to someone who may have needed them, but they don’t seemed concerned about junking good furniture. We loaded all the pieces into Bro. Locher’s station wagon and took it to the huge incinerators where they burn all their garbage. In looking at Cornelia’s shop she just needs a few things to have it functional. Bro. Locher is going to fix her electrical next Monday so she can hook up her tanning bed and plug in other equipment. He’s also going to hang a light in place of the one that is hanging way down. Bro. Fuhrer is supposed to build a wall between the tanning bed and the rest of the shop so there is privacy there. Once that’s done she’ll be set except for customers. When we left Cornelia’s shop, Bro. Locher needed to take a table and two benches that were strapped to the roof of his car to his daughter’s place in Dielsdorf. After that he took me home.

We worked for another couple of hours on our game for tonight and while doing that, we thought this would also be good for a German tip for district meeting tomorrow. I have been assigned to give a German tip tomorrow which consists of teaching some aspect of the German language. It should be fun to write the English idiom on one side and the German on the other so they are all mixed up and have them match the right ones together. When the Elders were here today, we tried some of the old saying out on them to see if they had heard of them before. It’s surprising how many they have never heard of before. A couple of examples are, “a penny for your thoughts,” and “a stick in the mud.” Another is “two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar.” Anyway, it should be fun tomorrow.

One of the activities for FHE tonight was to put together a care package for Fabian who’s stationed in Kosovo. As it turned out, we and Neide were the only ones who had remembered to bring something. Diana spent some time today putting our care package together which contained gummi bears, a bag of licorice, a current newspaper, a BoM and some tracts, a package of snickers candy bars, some hard candy, a candle, Peanut M&M’s. Neide wrote him a letter and after the FHE Charlotte got a pepperoni stick for him and Juerg found a Church DVD to put in. Juerg insisted on mailing the package to him and we were glad to let him do it.

Charlotte gave the lesson on loving ones neighbor and it was very inspirational. She’s come a long way for a new member of only a couple of months. She was very relieved when it was over. The game we played was about as we expected. Some of the saying were totally foreign to Europeans, and most of theirs were foreign to us. Some the older folks understood, but were foreign to the younger missionaries as was already explained. But we did have fun and in the process learned something of each other’s culture and language.

Tomorrow is Kathi Bolt’s birthday so we brought her a present and we all sang happy birthday to her. She had made a rhubarb pie for dessert, but we used it as a birthday cake. Charlotte brought one of here fireworks candles which flared up like it was supposed to. It’s been a long long time since we’ve had rhubarb pie, but it was very delicious and the crust was like a big cookie.

We relayed Suwang’s message to Pres. Bolt. He advised us to tell Suwang she must give her termination notice to her landlord immediately so the three months has an official start. She has the obligation to advertise and rent the apartment but, if she writes the name, address and phone number of anyone who is interested in looking at it, and then gives this information to the landlord, her obligation ends and she isn’t required to pay the three month’s rent after she moves out, even if those particular people end up not renting the apartment.

While riding with Bro. Locher, I asked him what went on before the conference started yesterday. This is his explanation. In Switzerland The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Later-day Saints is not recognized as a church, mainly because the Church keeps it’s financial records confidential and won’t let the government have access to them. Because of this, the government designates our Church as an association and the “association” has to have a charter, bylaws and a designated leadership. So what happened yesterday was only to fulfill the letter of the law and really has no bearing on the Church at all. The government requires this be put to the membership once a year.