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?