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.