Elders Jensen, Harris, Nilsson & Pine goofing around. This is as close to a girl as they can get. Elder Pine with sisters Hewitt & Stoddard in the helicopter. Elders Jensen & Pine carrying Charlotte.

MAY 15, 2009 FRIDAY

Here we are again trying to catch up our Friday journal entry on Saturday morning. The annual High Priest Quorum meeting was last night at 7:30 and it was supposed to end at 9:00. But, as some meetings generally do, it continued on until nearly 10:00pm. When the meeting was over, everyone was invited into the cultural hall where we had prepared refreshments. When we left at 11:00 there were still 20 or 25 people standing around munching. Since we had responsibility to help clean up along with the Wichtermnns, we did as much as we could without bothering people too much and then we finally left and went home. Others had pitched in to help so we weren’t missed when we left.

This morning started out with another batch of wash, this time dark clothes. When that was going, I went on my walk with the goal to be at Migros at 8:00 to buy some more ingredients for the extra brownies Diana needed to bake for tonight. While I was doing this, Diana was putting things together getting ready for the missing ingredients to show up. I got home with them and Diana took it from there while I wrote our journal entry for yesterday. I was just getting done when Neide showed up to get her hair cut. Last Monday at FHE Neide asked Diana if I would be able to cut her hair sometime because first she doesn’t have the 100 or so francs to go to a beauty salon and the last time she cut it herself, she wasn’t satisfied with the results. It didn’t take long to trim the ends off her long thick black hair. We had made some beans and ham yesterday and wanted her to try them. Brazilians use beans as one of their staple foods and she has made some beans for us Brazilian style before so we wanted her to try some made the American way. We don’t know if she liked them or not, but we do. Diana finished baking the last of the brownies and frosted them with chocolate frosting while Neide was still here. She also checked her email from our computer while she was here and we emailed some photos of her baptism to her address too.

After Neide left we decided to try to get to our birthday person today, so we got ready and left. When we got to our underground tram stop, we decided we didn’t have time to make it clear out to Dietlikon and back in time to be at the Church at 2:00 to help the Wichtermanns prepare the refreshments and food for tonight’s HP Quorum Meeting. So rather than be late, we decided to postpone the trip and do it after. We waited the 45 minutes and then went to the Church and met the Wichtermanns. Brother Wichtermann and I washed tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower and cucumbers, peeled carrots, cut up the vegetables etc. Diana and Sister Wichtermann made the open faced sandwiches: egg salad, tuna fish, pizza/cheese and garlic spread. Chips, pretzels and cracker sticks along with four different types of dip were prepared. Orange juice, cold and room temperature, and water were also prepared. When all was done and on the table, it all looked wonderful. The brownies were put on small trays and they looked best of all. Once everything was finished, we went home. While at the Church, Elders Pine and Jensen called and asked us if they could use our house to do their Friday planning. They came and got our keys and then left. When we got home, they were busy doing their planning. They found a bag of licorice and were munching away on that. Elder Pine complained he could smell brownies, but couldn’t find any. Diana quickly made them each a “cake-in-mug” and showed them where the ice cream was. We also got a call from Elder Norris giving us our district meeting assignment for next Tuesday. Diana gets to give a commitment on a commandment in German and I get to bring a snack. Then we had to go.

We hurried and got the birthday gift and went to Dietlikon to take it to Evelyn Martin. They weren’t home when we got there so we put it in their mailbox and turned to leave. Just then a lady came to go into the apartment building and we asked her if we could come in. At first she said no because only residents are allowed in unless invited by someone. We showed her the gift and told her we just wanted to leave it at the Martin’s door rather than in their mailbox. She relented and let us in. So we left it at their door and went back to the bus stop. This bus runs only every half hour so we waited until it came and then traveled on home.

Soon it was time to go to the meeting. The focus of the talks were on our covenants with Heavenly Father and the covenant of eternal marriage. The men were counseled to cherish their wives and to love and respect them and that marriage is a three-way partnership between the man, woman and Christ. Before the meeting started we met the Horlachers who were here from Schaffhausen, Germany, for the meeting. Sister Horlacher told Diana she had bought and brought a big bottle of Best Foods Mayonnaise which made Diana very happy. That is one thing she has missed and is not available in Switzerland. They didn’t just buy a small bottle for her, but a giant quart and a half bottle. It was very kind of them to think of Diana and to do that for her. There were some brownies left over so we got some and sent them home with them. There were leftover sandwiches left and Rita offered some to us which we gratefully accepted. The leftover brownies were not offered to us to take home because they all wanted to divide them up for themselves they liked them so much. These brownies are the chewy type and they don’t have that kind over here and they really love them. Rita asked Diana if she could get the recipe. And now I have to spend some time preparing my talk for tomorrow.