L: Irene's sister, Joerg Moeller, Irene Russo (in pink). M: Elder Jensen, sister, Irene, Joerg, Diana. R: Robert

JUNE 14, 2009 SUNDAY

Correlation meeting this morning was way good. Just so you get a flavor of what our part in it today was, we listed the people we put on our weekly progress report and some of what we discussed. The Ward Mission Leader takes this information back to PEC and Ward Council to discuss how the ward can assist the missionary work. Cornelia Schaer has come to Church ever since we first visited her two months ago. We just need to be able to teach her a little more often. Suki Ehrensperger is not happy at work and is quitting so she needs love and support and help to find another job. Gabriella Rodrigues has been to sacrament meeting the last two weeks, came to Elder Pine’s party and we expect her to come today, except her daughter was ill and that may be a problem. She needs home teachers and visiting teachers. We need more opportunity to teach the family. Margarita Maurer has been coming to church regularly for the last few weeks, but still has knee pain. Elders Pine & Jensen will try and make an appointment with her this week. Elisabeth Graf was cordial on the phone, but didn’t want any more contact with the Church. Tony Dkere was not at home for our appointment to meet him, but we called and made another appointment for Tuesday. Angela Campbell came to Church last week and we arranged with her to help us get in touch with her husband, Emeka, next time she sees him. We also informed the committee that Angela had composed another song and would like the opportunity to sing it in a Sacrament meeting. We invited Charles Aboussou to come to church today, but he said he’d be in Glaurus visiting his daughter. We’ll invite him again to come next Sunday. Silvana Gianatti invited us along with the Lochers and Helena Roffler to have lunch with her on Wednesday. Heather Scheidegger called to tell Diana they wouldn’t be coming to dinner with us because she had to tend a sick granddaughter and they were also going to Utah for a three month vacation and had to prepare for that. When they get back in October, we’ll invite them again. We helped Suwang Stefaniak move some things from her basement to her apartment and will visit her on Thursday.

Following correlation meeting Brother Kim Barry, an American member of our ward, caught me in the hallway and told me of his experience he had a few days ago. He said he was on a flight from Boston on his way home here and over the ocean a fire broke out on his plane. They couldn’t turn back so had to go on to Halifax for an emergency landing which was a long way away. They made it safely down, but he said it had traumatized him to such a degree that he asked the bishop for permission to have a blessing. I assumed he had asked Bishop Schwendener to perform the blessing and just wanted to tell me about the experience. We went on into priesthood opening exercises and then went to class. After priesthood meeting was over he again approached me near the bishop’s office and asked me when I was going to give him the blessing. I finally realized he had asked the bishop for permission for me to give him a blessing. Just as I was looking for someone to help me, Bishop Schwendener came and offered to help and use of his office. Kim’s wife offered a prayer, Bishop Schwendener annointed and I sealed the anointing and gave him a blessing. It’s a great as well as humbling experience to use the Priesthood to bless the life of someone else. He felt somewhat better after, but still went home to rest and get his nerves back under control.

I knew Diana didn’t know where I had disappeared to, but I had a good idea where to look for her. I found her in the Gospel Essentials class where Elders Harris and Nilsson were teaching three investigators the importance of prophets and then showed the “Restoration” video which is the story of Joseph Smith. The three investigators are a mom and a daughter and son. The elders have been teaching them for about a month and a half and we hope they’ll be baptized soon.

Sacrament meeting was faith-building as usual. We were sad the Rodriguezes didn’t come, but her daughter was pretty ill at Elder Pine’s birthday party and she probably hadn’t recovered yet. However, Cornelia came as well as Neide and Suki. Charlotte was ill with a cold also.

After the block of meetings we were invited to go to Irene & Joerg’s for lunch with the other four missionaries. Irene’s sister was here from Washington DC and she wanted to get together with the missionaries. At home she invites the missionaries to her home all the time. She even brought us a few things from the USA that Irene told her we may want. We tried to pay her, but she wouldn’t let us. We had a nice lunch of a yummy salad, turkey broccoli rice casserole and jello with a brownie for dessert. All very delicious. After it was over we practiced the “teach to find” principle the missionaries use in proselyting. Each received a small piece of paper on which everyone wrote a gospel principle. They were collected, scrambled and then everyone drew one. The object of the exercise was for the first person to teach the principle he drew to the 2nd person, ask a question, answer it, and bear testimony. The 2nd person would then bear testimony to the principle taught him to the 3rd person and then teach the principle he had drawn, ask a question, answer it, and bear testimony. And so it goes until everyone has had a turn. In actual contacting/teaching the two missionaries would bounce back and forth between them until they have an appointment or a telephone number or, worse case scenario, declines. All members should practice the “teach-to-find” concept so they’d feel comfortable in talking to friends, families or whomever.

Before we left to go home we talked to Irene, who has a stake calling, about a request Jan Tolman made to help her collect pioneer stories from the sisters here as well as collect photos of Relief Society presidencies, service projects and homemaking activities the Swiss are involved in. She probably would like the same information from our friends in Geneva and Argentina, and my sister in Korea. She has put up a blog site, www.ldswomenofgod.com/blog, for RS sisters and welcomes anyone to visit it. We decided to put her actual words in our journal so anyone reading this can help her out.

“Diana, I need a favor from you. You may or may not know, but I started a blog about the Relief Society www.ldswomenofgod.com/blog about a year ago. I have gathered all the history about us Mormon women in one place, so sisters can learn about the great heritage of Relief Society and the great women of our past. It’s been very rewarding doing this. Here’s the favor: Would you take some pictures of some of the sisters and send them to me? I want smiling faces, or service projects, or whatever you can get. You can even be in the picture if you want. Tell me some of the activities the Swiss sisters are involved in, humanitarian, self-improvement, etc. And for those who know English, share my site with them. Now that I have more or less covered the past, I hope to collect present-day sister information. If you have access to several wards, could you gather pictures and activity information from them as well? Hey, and if there is a remarkable story: faith promoting, woman heroine, Swiss Mormon Woman history of any kind, I would love to share it on my site. Hopefully, this isn’t too huge of a favor, just get me what you can. I’m really hoping to get an international perspective. And be sure to look at the site yourself. You are welcome to take anything from there and share it with the sisters.”

This evening we called the Lechmanns to see if they were home. They weren’t, but a little while later they called us back. We asked if we could bring something to Melanie for her birthday. It took about a half hour to get there and we had a nice visit. They are a young couple who moved into the ward just after we did. They are from the St. Gallen area, were married just before they moved here, he’s going to medical school while she works in a hospital. He also served a mission in Berlin.

As usual, we finish up the day writing our journal, writing our report, reading etc. Hopefully we’ll get skyped, and we’re sure we’ll get a call from Elder Norris for our weekly stats.