E. Pine's middle name is Bond and when Diana put his name on the cake, she just naturally put James instead of Jacob, his real first name. Everyone got a kick out of that. Second photo is of the Rodiguez faily, Mom is Gabriella, Saskia and Julian. 3rd photo beginning on left: E. Ehlen, Pine, Jensen, Nilsson (nose only), Harris and Roberts.


JUNE 10, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Once in awhile we get an email from a senior couple from our MTC group serving in Kentucky. It appears they have the same feelings about their mission as we do about ours. LaRee Pfarrer wrote in her last email, “You must think all we do is play. To justify that, it’s important to be friendly and sociable, don’t you think? That’s part of our “job”. Anyway we do have a lot of fun.” In addition to the fun side of things it is still hard work trying to organize things so that members fellowship non-members and less-actives, new members get the support they need and all the while ensuring the gospel is being taught albeit in small bites and larger chunks. It’s heartwarming to see people respond and make changes in their lives.

Diana was up late last night making potato salad, Elder Pine’s favorite, brownies, and getting other stuff ready for today’s birthday party/fellowshipping the Rodriguez family party. I was up too giving her moral support. This morning while our clothes were in the washer, I took my hour walk and on the way back bought a few more items for the event later today. We’ve found that the Denner’s grocery stores put items for sale at half price in the mornings rather than evenings just before closing time. We don’t know why they discount certain items, usually meats and cheeses, because the expiration dates aren’t even close to being expired. Diana made the potato and green salads and I made the macaroni salad. Once we had everything ready, we went to Dubendorf to take Mitcio Wachter a birthday present, but no one was home. We thought they would be home for lunch, but they weren’t.

Back home we loaded up our little pull cart with the drinks, salads, wieners, sausages, hamburger, buns, bread, dressings, condiments, plates, bowls, etc, etc. and took it all over to Charlottes to get ready for all the others to come. We went back for a second load, ice cream and the tray of brownies decorated like a cake and a few other things. It took Diana a long time to decorate it and it turned our very pretty. By the time the guests started arriving we had it all set up. Anita met Gabriella and her two kids at the Church and escorted them over. Her husband didn’t come, but we were glad that Gabriella came. We knew it took a lot of courage on her part to come and be with mostly strangers. It shows that she is willing to get to know people and we think it has a deeper meaning in that she wants to become active in the ward. It was a little disappointing that Julio didn’t come because that was one of the reasons we had invited Anita to come. The other reason, of course, was to get to know Gabriella as she lives not far from her. We all had a good time, but Gabriella was a little preoccupied with her daughter who had a fever and was not feeling well. But all in all, we had a fun time and at the end Elder Ehlen and Elder Carrier gave a spiritual thought on being happy and we as members of the Church, have a responsibility to be a good example to others around us. After all the gospel is the “Plan of Happiness” so we should always have a smile on our faces.

Diana brought in Elder Pine’s cake (brownies) and he served everyone a piece along with ice cream. He would only let everyone have one piece because he wanted all the rest to take to the mission home tonight to give a piece to each of the “Goldens”, the new missionaries who came in today. Shortly after everyone packed up and left. We gathered the leftovers and trundled our way back to our apartment. After we got everything put away, we went to visit Faser Daly, an Englander, but he and his wife weren’t home. It was also his birthday today. They weren’t home either. After that we came home and called it a day. It doesn’t seem like we do much, but at the end of the day we are dragging. We were supposed to help Suki again today, but Elders Harris and Nilsson did that this morning and boy are we glad. However, we’ve been asked to help on Saturday morning again, but by then we should be rested and eager to get back at it.

Our kids have been talking about sending a combined Mother’s Day and Father’s Day package so we’ve been looking for it with great anticipation. We received notice in the mail that it’s ready to be picked up in the post office tomorrow. We’ll be there bright and early this time with passport in hand.