The Humphreys. Witch wind vane next to Tony Dkere's apartment.

JUNE 19, 2009 FRIDAY

It started raining last night and it was still raining this morning and it’s still raining right now (10:48 pm). Last night Diana felt a little like a cold was coming on and she woke up a little stuffy. She didn’t want that to stop us from going out today, but I made her stay in until this afternoon when we had an appointment with the elusive Tony Dkere. We worked on a lesson for the Humphreys who invited us to dinner tonight. We decided to do the lesson on the parable of the ten virgins and had to retype all of the pages we had because they were of such poor quality. But when we tried to print it out, our black ink cartridge ran out. We also baked banana nut bread to take to them as a thank you for the dinner. It smelled so good and the loaf was so big that Diana wanted to eat some of it, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her I would bake a loaf all for her, but we were out of eggs. Diana kept typing on the 10 virgin story while I went to the store to get the eggs and ink cartridges. While I was at it, we needed to get some cacao powder and sugar. I went out in the rain and when I got back, Diana asked me where the eggs were. I couldn’t believe I bought everything but had forgotten the eggs. Alas, Diana didn’t get her own loaf today.

Charlotte called and was a little miffed at Elders Pine and Jensen because they weren’t answering their phone and she needed to talk to them about some dinner appointments. She asked us to help her get in contact with them. We tried their number and got no results. We called the ZL’s and they didn’t answer either. Next we tried Elder Norris, our district leader, and he told us the four elders were busy in their monthly “mission council” meeting held once a transfer. We gave this information to Charlotte and she told us the next time we see them tell them that they have been invited to the Martin’s at 7:00 tomorrow evening and also to Charlotte’s at 1:00 on Sunday. Elder Pine called us during their lunch break and we passed on the information. They told us to let Charlotte know they would call her later on and talk to her. About 6:30 we got a text message from Charlotte asking if we had been in contact with Elder Pine. We texted back that we had.

When it came time for our appointment with Tony, we got ready and left. We have been to his place so many times we know it off by heart. This is the third time we have arranged an appointment time with him and again we were disappointed; he wasn’t home. So the question is, do we keep calling him and keep trying, or just let him go? Of course we won’t give up; we’ll keep trying until we actually get to see his smiling face. Next time we hope it won’t be raining. But we didn’t let the trip go waste. We visited a little junk store that’s by him and bought some frisbees and spiders (rubber) to give to kids in our ward on their birthdays.

Since our appointment fell through and we had some time to kill, we rode tram 9 all the way to the end and back to the Seilbahn Rigi tram stop. It turned out that maybe we shouldn’t have spent so much time on the tram, but we didn’t want to get to our dinner appointment too early. When we got off at the tram stop to get on the cable car to ride up the mountain, it was under repair. Now what do we do? We were trying to decide what to do when a young Japanese man approached us and told us in English that a small bus would be coming which had replaced the cable car until it was fixed. He even escorted us to the right spot as he was going the same direction as we. He was an exchange student and he was leaving for home tomorrow. We gave him a Joseph Smith pamphlet (in English) and encouraged him to get in contact with the missionaries when he got home.

We arrived at the Humphreys after about a 10-15 minute walk in the rain from where the small bus dropped us off. We were somewhat soaked when we got there, but we’ve been in worse weather. Rather than spend time searching, when we got close, we called Cynthia and she talked us to the right building. They were so friendly and nice and she had a dinner of salmon, wild rice, broccoli, shrimp salad and hot rolls waiting for us. It was oh so very good and for dessert, she had something similar to a fruit pizza our kids sometimes make at home, topped with pistachio ice cream. After dinner we talked some more and then we gave them the lesson on the 10 virgins and gave them a photocopy of the famous painting. There is so much to think about and consider when contemplating if you are a wise or an unwise virgin (virgin means a member of the Church). We began and ended with a prayer.

When we left it was still raining and Sister Humphries gave us directions to get to tram #6 by walking downhill which was a relief for Diana. We made it back home by 10:20 and had started writing our journal when Monica skyped us. We talked with her for awhile which is always fun and then hung up.