JUNE 1, 2009 MONDAY

Today was P-day and also a Swiss holiday called Pfingsten which you can read about in Acts 2, the day of Pentecost. All the stores close again except the restaurants and all the stores at the Zurich main train station. We had it in mind to go visit some of our hard-to-find-home less-actives today because just maybe we could catch them home during the day when they weren’t working. We never got the chance. Elder Harris called this morning and asked us if they could come use the computer for their emails. We told them we’d be home at 10:00 and they could come then. We needed some tools to help the Rodriguez family and Pres. Matern said they had a couple of boxes of tools they were just going to send to the brockenhaus that we could sort through and take what we wanted. We left this morning at 7:30 to go to the mission home to pick up the tools and got back at 10:00. We met Elders Jensen and Pine at the mission home and they asked if they could get haircuts this morning too. We’d already made arrangements to give haircuts to Elders Harris & Nilsson so that made four. Later on Elder Norris called and asked if he and Elder Carrier could use our computer for emails because all of the email cafes we closed for the holiday. When they got here, we saw they needed haircuts too, so that made six. On top of that Elder Jensen insisted I not cut his hair too short so I followed his instructions to the letter. When I got through with the last one, he looked sheepishly into the room and asked if it would be possible to get it cut just a little shorter. I should have known to cut it short the first time because he did this same thing a few times ago. Next time I’ll just cut it the way I want to so I won’t have to cut it twice. I’m not really complaining; we love all of these young men.

Fabian Streit is back in town for a week on leave from the military and yesterday Elder Jensen asked us if we’d host him for dinner before our normal 7:00 family home evening. The FHE was going to be at our apartment anyway because most of our group are away on vacation. So we invited Fabian, and the others who were in town from our FHE group including Elders Pine, Jensen, Harris, Nilsson, Solange and Suke. Since Elders Norris & Carrier were here and didn’t really have anything going for the evening, we invited them to stay also. Suke didn’t come so that made a grand total of 10 for dinner and FHE.

When the haircuts and emails we finished, the missionaries left to go to the Church and play indoor hockey, or soccer or whatever it is they play while we started getting dinner ready. We put a pork roast into the oven and made a salad. We had a birthday person to visit so we changed and went to visit Corrina Diethelm. Unfortunately she wasn’t home so we left the present and went back home. We finished getting the meal ready and everyone started arriving. The only one that was late was Fabian, but he brought some Berliners for dessert so we forgave him. Our meal consisted of pork roast, potatoes and gravy, broccoli and cauliflower with a hollandaise sauce, pickled turnips (not very many of these got eaten), salad, peach and cherry punch and brownies and Berliners for dessert. We had to make do with what we had in the fridge/freezer because the stores were closed, but it turned out great.

After the meal Fabian was just dying to show us photos of his military assignment in Kosovo along with some of the things he was responsible for. This took more than an hour, but it was kind of interesting. He also showed us a photo of his girlfriend he intends to ask to marry him. Next we had a spiritual thought/lesson given by Elders Jensen & Pine. The lesson was on the Jaredites after having been in the wilderness for four years after the Tower of Babel and why the Lord wanted them to go to the promised land. He wanted them to go there to make progress and grow and develop. They made the comparison that sometimes we get content with where we are in life (our wilderness), satisfied with what and how we are doing. However, the Lord wants us to go to the promised land to make progress, to grow and develop too. We need to not just be satisfied with sitting in the wilderness, but move out across the scary waters of life to get to that promised land, Eternal Life.

After that we played a game that we’d played before, but it was still fun. Suddenly, Elder Norris noticed it was after 9:00 which made it impossible for him and his companion to get home in Dielsdorf by the curfew. The AP’s had the car tonight so they offered to drive them home. We had a closing prayer and everyone left but us. We had to stay and clean up. Diana was assigned treats for tomorrow’s district meeting so she decided to make rice crispie treats tonight. She also offered to feed the missionaries lunch tomorrow after the meeting so she organized what she needed for Mexican beans over rice. While she did that, I got the garbage out and wrote this journal entry. Even though I write it, we read it together after it’s done and Diana gives her input. I revise it to include her comments and then post it.

Yesterday I wrote some emails to family and friends and we got some responses already. I hope I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings or make anyone feel guilty and that they have to write. It’s just that we love you all and feel a little disconnected if we don’t hear from you once in awhile. We understand that life is busy and we hate this computer as much as anyone, but we also love it because it bring you closer to us.