MAY 10, 2009 SUNDAY

For correlation meeting this morning we had a two week report because last Sunday was stake conference and we didn’t have a correlation meeting. Our report this time was fairly lengthy, but our ward mission leader only wanted to hear about the most important ones, the ones where maybe the ward missionaries and ward council could help with our missionary work. Our report also goes to the bishop so we list things on it that are important for him to know, such as when the ones we visit have hospital appointments, when someone has moved, when someone doesn’t want contact with the Church anymore. Even though Bro. Daehler gets a little impatient with us, we always list what we feel the Bishop would want to know about. In our meeting there are representatives from the Relief Society, Bishopric, Elders Quorum, High Priest Group and the Young Single Adults and what we report is important for them to know about also.

Following correlation meeting were the usual Priesthood/Relief Society and Sunday School meetings. When Sacrament meeting came we were anxious to see if Cornelia would be there on her crutches. We shouldn’t have worried so much, but it’s hard not to. She came and enjoyed the meeting. Diana takes special pains to look for members who may need a friendly hug or who may be down and need a little more than a hug. We were wanting to visit Suki all week, but never found the time to get to her home. She came today and Diana saw she was a little down so she sat by her during Sacrament meeting. As it turned out Suki is having problems at work and needed Diana’s counsel and support. We hope and pray that Suki can get the problems resolved and get back to her happy self.

Today was Mother’s Day and Elder Jensen asked us if he could come over to our place to make his phone call. His companion, Elder Pine, had already made his phone call last month because England’s Mother’s Day is a month earlier than the rest of the world. He said Elder Jensen would be on the phone for hours and he would rather have some company instead of listening to Elder Jensen on the phone with his mother, family and girl friend. So we invited them, Elders Harris and Nilsson and Charlotte to come home with us after the meetings for lunch. It didn’t take long to cook some noodles, a chicken sauce to go over them and creamed ham spinach for the vegetable. For dessert we had vanilla ice cream topped with fresh strawberries. Everyone was here for a few hours and then the pre-set time came for the missionaries to make their phone calls. Elders Harris and Nilsson left to go to the Rothmunds where they would be able to use their computers (two) to skype their families simultaneously. Charlotte went home and Elder Jensen started his phone call.

It came time for us to leave for our dinner appointment with the Brother & Sister Aeberli who live in Wallisellen. George was also invited so we made arrangements to meet him at the bus stop at the Wallisellen Bahnhof. It’s always an adventure using the public transit system on Sundays because the trams and buses don’t run as often or not at all. We looked at the schedules and thought we had it figured out. The first thing that happened is we missed our first tram by about thirty seconds so we had to wait 15 minutes for the next one instead of he usual 8 minutes.
It finally came and we rode to our stop to get off and switch to a bus. We found out the time we thought a bus would arrive only ran when the mall was open and when we got there, the mall was already closed so we had to wait another 13 minutes. We were supposed to meet George at 6:30 and our bus didn’t arrive until 6:37 which was past our meeting time. We tried to call George to tell him we would be late, but found out we had his home number instead of his cell number. Finally our bus arrived and we continued on to Wallisellen, but as we got there, we didn’t see George so we stayed on the bus and rode to the next stop where we needed to get off to walk to Aeberli’s. It’s all uphill to their home and we were huffing and puffing when we got there, hurrying because we were almost a half hour late. We found out George was already there and that he’d got a ride from a friend and didn’t stop at the bahnhof at all, so we needn’t have worried about leaving him in the lurch after all. All’s well that ends well and we had a nice dinner of traditional “raclette” together. George has a very strict self-imposed diet of no eggs, milk or meats so when George is with us when we eat, we normally have “raclette” because it’s a safe meal to prepare for George. It’s also very good. It consists of squares of thinly sliced cheeses you heat up in little trays and dump on boiled potatoes and dill pickles. That’s the traditional way. At home when we fix it, we also add other things on which to dump the melted cheese such as pineapple chucks, apple slices, cooked carrots, olives and anything else that sounds good.

After the meal we gave them a spiritual thought using the same one Elders Jensen and Pine gave us today after our lunch at home. Using 2 Nephi 2:8 you set up the object lesson by taking about us being made up of a spirit and a body, we all suffer various ills and as a result our bodies wear out or something gets broken and we all die. Christ was the first fruits of the resurrections and, because of what he did for us, we all will be resurrected. Then read Alma 40:23 which describes what it’s like to be resurrected with a perfect body. You’ll have to fill in the blanks and this discussion can be as short or as long as you want it. The object part of this lesson is as follows. You need a small hand towel or wash cloth that has one side sewn over as they normally do to hem around the edges. You need one to be able to slide a match stick inside the hem so you can’t see it. After you do this lay the small towel in the middle of the table where everyone can see it. Use another match stick and make a comparison that the match represents your body during earth life and then put the match stick in the middle of the towel and fold the rest over it. You need to fold the secreted match (the one in the hem) so it’s in a position inside the towel where you can feel it and so put it in a place where it can be broken all the while keeping the other match hidden inside the towel. Pick it up and find the match secreted in the hem of the towel and then have someone break it into little pieces while describing that is what happens to our bodies during life and then we die. When they are satisfied the match is broken, hold the towel over the table and, while holding onto two corners, let the rest fall so it’s hanging in your hands above the table and the unbroken match stick falls to the table. Remember, the broken one is still hidden in the seam of the towel. Describe that in the resurrection we’ll receive our perfected body again just as the match stick appears to be the same one and in perfect form, unbroken. I hope I explained this well enough. The only trouble is that they try to focus more on how the trick is done rather than what it’s supposed to teach, so you need to bring them back to the point of the demonstration.

After that one we demonstrated the one with the tea bag, only in shortened form, using faith and enduring to the end. We didn’t have one of our tea bags so we asked if they had one. They did, but it was not the right one. We had to use scissors to cut it because the ends we heat sealed rather than stapled and we could only use a half of it so it was really short, only about 2 or 3 inches to make the tube. We didn’t know if it would work or not, so we put it on a hard surface and lit it. It burned all the way down and it looked as if it wouldn’t take flight, but it finally did. It went up into the air really fast and right into the lamp shade above the table. Everybody jumped to get it and make sure it didn’t catch things on fire. Everyone laughed and Bro. Aeberli joked he’s send us a bill for a new light.