Swiss chalets in Murren; sardines in the gondola going up to the Schildhorn; Junfrau in the background from the terrace on the Schildhorn.

Alpen horns we listened to while at Mauersee (Greifensee) today.


JULY 31, 2009 FRIDAY

Last Tuesday before our district meeting Sisters Hewitt and Stoddart put some food in the Church fridge intending to take it home with them. We even reminded them after the meeting, but they still forgot and left it there. About noon Elders Nilsson and Harris called and said the sisters remembered the food in the fridge, called them and told them they could have it, if they wanted it. They went over a picked it up and then called us to see if they could come over here to cook it and eat it during their lunch break. They arrived a few minutes later and did just that, cooked it and ate it. While they were here we went over the member list a little and finished planning our noon meal tomorrow. We’ve invited Priscilla, her friend Eva, and Elders Nilsson and Harris to come, but we wanted someone else also so Priscilla could get to know more people in the ward. We decided to call Norma, who can speak English with Priscilla, to come too. She said she could come and would bring Allesandro with her..

When the Elders left, we left also to visit Rene’ Gysler who had a birthday today. He wasn’t home so we left the card in his mailbox. While we were in the neighborhood, we also went to see if Hanna Roth had changed her mind from the last time the missionaries went by. On our member list the missionaries who were here in 2007 wrote a note that said she didn’t want any more contact with the Church. Well, she was home and she hadn’t changed her mind at all. The reason we ‘ve decided to recheck all the ones who have this notation by their names is that last week we took a birthday gift to Sarah Otte and we had a good conversation with her. We thought maybe others would be willing to talk to us too. Not this one.

Our next stop was clear on the other side of Zurich and it took us at least an hour and a half to get there because the tram/bus connections weren’t very good. Cinthya and Max Frioud had their baby on July 13 and we wanted to go visit them. They are thrilled to have this little baby. This is their fourth try, the others having miscarried. They named their little girl Aline. Unfortunately she stayed asleep the whole time we were there so we just got a peak at her in her crib while she was asleep. But everything is fine with them.

By the time we left them it was 6:00 and we still had to do a little shopping for tomorrow’s lunch. Tomorrow is August 1st, the day Switzerland celebrates their independence. We think all of the stores will be closed tomorrow and we were also afraid they would close early tonight. We visited a store in Ebmatingen and then had to carry the groceries all the way back on the bus and tram to Schwamendingen. COOP was still open so we got a few more things there and then went home. We dropped off the groceries and then went back out to go to Affoltern to take a card/gift to Caroline LaJacono. We contacted her many months ago, but she didn’t want to talk to us so we just put the card and gift in her mailbox and left. We just wanted her to know we hadn’t forgotten her. Who knows, maybe someday she’ll decide to come back.

When we got home, Diana baked a cheese cake for tomorrow while I started writing our journal. In the middle of doing that first Rebecca skyped us and right after, Monica and Roxsan skyped us. Among other things, the main topic of conversation was about homes they were looking at. They need to find one for us to exchange with the one we are selling.

Diana wants to say that, with the exception of a few hot days, this has been an exceptionally pleasant July, the days not being too hot and the nights cooling off nicely. The Swiss say that July and August are normally the two hottest months of the summer, but we’re hoping it continues just like it is.

Dinner with the Maartins on Greifensee, Daniela, Peter, A daughter, Elders Harris and Nilsson.

JULY 30, 2009 THURSDAY

The first thing we needed to do today was try and get the electrical working again. I replaced all the fuses and tried that first. Didn’t work. I took the outlet apart again, checked all the wires to make sure they were all solidly connected and that none of them showed signs of arcing. I put it all back together and crossed my fingers. Didn’t work. The last option was to go buy new fuses for the stove/boiler breaker. There was also a small 10Amp 220 Volt fuse that looked like an old car fuse that I unscrewed out of the outlet, but the wire was still intact so I didn’t think I needed to replace it. I took it with me anyway when I went to the store, and I bought replacements for it and the other one. I also bought a couple of packages of hamburger patties that were half off and a bag of fresh hamburger. When I got home, the meat went into the freezer and the fuses into their respective spots. Low and behold, even though the small one looked good, it was the culprit. As soon as I replaced it, everything worked. Problem solved until the next time. I bought a package of five so we still have four as backups.

Rather than going out during the heat of the day, we do our studying, reading and lesson preparation and then go out in the later afternoon and evening when it is cooler. We wished we could go all day, but these old bones and muscles only last so long so we have to kind of pick and choose what we do and when we do it. We made some calls and set up an appointment with Sister Frioud for tomorrow and checked on Isobella Daly who just had her baby a week or so ago. At about 4:30 just as we were going out the door we got a call from Elder Harris who said Daniela & Peter Martin invited them and us to dinner at their campsite on Greifensee, but we had to be at the Oerlikon Bahnhof in 19 minutes to catch the train to Dubendorf. We made fairly good connections and arrived just before the train pulled in and by the time we went down the stairs and back up on platform #2, we barely had time to step inside and the doors shut. Daniela met us at the Dubendorf Bahnhof and drove us in her car to their campsite. Her two daughters were there, the oldest active and the younger one (17) not active. We had dinner sitting outside under a canopy and it was really nice, quiet and cool by the lake. We always give a spiritual thought when we’re invited to dinner and this time Elders Harris and Nilsson gave one from D&C 27 on the armor of God and how important it is to protect ourselves from the ways of the world. After we finished we strolled down to the lake and walked out on a small dock where a husband and wife were fishing. We started up a conversation and discovered they were vacationing from England. They said they were acquainted with the Church, but when we asked him if he had talked to the missionaries, he replied in the negative. He said he wasn’t religious at all to which we responded he could change that. We didn’t get anywhere with him, but we made some friends.

Elders Harris and Nilsson had to visit the little boys room so I wandered along with them to the restrooms. While I was sitting on a bench waiting for the elders, a man came over to me and stooped down to look at my name tag. I asked him if I could help him to which he replied, “no,” and then went back to the group he was with. They kept looking my way so when the elders came out of the restroom, I went over and handed one gentleman a pass-a-long card so they would know who we were. He said thanks, but the one who came and looked at my name tag grabbed it away from him and threw it back at me. However, by this time I was past and walking away and just kept walking. It appeared the one I had given it to was a little unhappy at the other, but what went on after I have no idea.

At 9:00 the missionaries had to leave to get back to their apartment by 9:30, but they would have never made it without a ride from the Martins. Peter was good enough to drive us all home and we arrived at 10:00.

All of these are on our trip up to the Schildhorn with the Jungfrau in the background.

JULY 29, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Today was wash day again and this time we washed both whites and darks. By the time Elders Pine and Richeson got here at 12:30 we had most of the wash washed and dried and lunch on the table. We’d also gone over our member list and had a list of people and addresses ready whom we wanted to visit after lunch was over. Lunch was Mexican beans over rice and for dessert we had the bread pudding with a carmel sauce topping and ice cream. The beans/rice dish is always good and the bread pudding was delicious too and didn’t taste a bit like Bounce anti-static dryer sheets.

After lunch Elder Pine drove us all over Zurich and the outlying suburbs to visit people on our list. To do the same thing on buses/trams/trains would have probably taken at least three different days. The first person we wanted to visit was Gabriella Rodriguez. She was home with her two little kids and her mother was visiting her. We had a nice visit with them and found our little Julian is teething and some of the family had been ill and that was the reason they hadn’t been to Church. We invited her to come next Sunday and reassured her that she needn’t worry too much about noisy children, that she didn’t have to immediately jump up and take them out when they made a noise. These are the other people we went to but none them were home: Gerde Schroeder, Remy Maurer, Ali Madouri, Charles Aboussou, Thomas Otth, and Patricia Hungerbuehler. We called Brigitte Roffler but she wasn’t feeling so good so we didn’t go there. Felix Locher was home, but he was in the middle of washing or something and asked us to come back another time. Our last stop was Tony and Julienne Viegas-Hawes where we spent about an hour. They are an active family who told Elder Pine he could have a couple of Tony’s suits he’d grown out of, if they fit him. Since we were in the neighborhood, he wanted to stop and try them on. Tony is also the one who emailed our property disclosure forms to the person we’re selling one of our home to. We had a nice visit with them; Elder Pine tried on the suits and discovered he was too tall for them; and I picked up my documents. Their kids, Loic and Jasmine, are fun little kids, but Loic is like a rubber noisy ball bouncing off the walls and generally making all kinds of noise. Julienne is going to Brussels tomorrow for a funeral leaving Tony alone with their two kids for about five days. Today was Tony’s last day of work where he was working, and he starts a new job next Tuesday.

It was almost 6:00 when we left there, quickly stopped by Felix Locher, and then went on back towards home. Elder Pine and Richeson were in a hurray to get on the road to Singen, Germany, where they needed to pick up the Zone Leaders and bring them back to Zurich for a pre-zone conference council with Pres. Matern tomorrow. So rather than take us all the way home, we got out at Klusplatz and took the tram. We should have gotten out at Kunsthaus to switch trams, but for some reason we were asleep at the switch and passed it by. No problem, however, because we just went on to Central and switched to tram 7 and then rode home.

Before we left to go visiting, the electrical outlet the dryer was plugged into went out. We didn’t have time to look at it right then so we ran an extension cord and hooked it up to get it and the fridge going again. We left a load of towels and socks in the dryer to finish drying; the dryer shuts itself off when the clothes are dry. When we got home, we discovered the fuse had blown. The hall and bathroom lights were out as well as the dryer and fridge. The clothes weren’t dry either. I changed the fuse and got the hall and bathroom lights going as well as the dryer and fridge again. I took the outlet apart where the dryer usually hooks in, but after an hours worth of work, it still wouldn’t work. We’ll just have to continue using the extension cord to keep the fridge running as well as making it so we can use the microwave too. We’ll report the problem to the building manager.

Elder Carrier made his district leader Wednesday evening call to make sure we were still among the living. Diana told him we were and so all is well.

All of these photos are of the area around the Schildhorn. The towns in the valley are of Wengen and the one on the right is Murren.

This video clip is from the terrace on the Schildhorn.


JULY 28, 2009 TUESDAY

No stress this morning because we didn’t have to be anywhere until 10:15 for district meeting. We needed to go over our assignments which was to talk about life’s lessons we’ve learned as it relates to marriage and just life in general. Diana talked mostly about marriage relationship and I talked mostly about life’s lesson in general. We also had another assignment Elder Carrier gave us last night over the phone that the ZL’s wanted for Zone Council on Wednesday. He asked us for four things. First, identify one positive attribute that our companionship has. Second, identify one attribute we need to work on. Third, discuss our relationship with ward members and how we work with them to further the missionary work. And fourth, list and give a short progress report on investigators and other people we are working with. It would have been nice to have had a little more time to work on it, but we turned in at district meeting what we could put together on such short notice. The first three were pretty simple, but the fourth needed a little time to write the progress report. The answer to the first is that we never give up. The answer to the second is better communication. This is the first district meeting with Elder Carrier as our leader. We miss Elder Norris, but we’ll get used to Elder Carrier as our leader. We already know him since he was Elder Norris’s companion. We met his new companion today, Elder Vincent, whose only been out in the field a week and a half.

We spent part of the afternoon going over our member list and getting everything updated as well as identifying people we want to visit tomorrow with Elders Pine and Richeson. The plan is for them to come over and get haircuts, have lunch, go over the member list and bring them up to speed and then go out visiting and contacting those we have identified to visit and/or contact. It should be a productive afternoon, if we can find anyone home.

Later in the afternoon Elders Pine and Richeson called to see if they could use our computer to send an email to Sister Klaumunzner at the mission home. It seems they are a day late in getting their article written for the Mission newsletter and, rather than spend the time going to the mission home, it was easier and more time efficient to write it and send it email. We think they also wanted to avoid Sister Klaumunzner who is a little unhappy with them for being late.

After they left we got our stuff together and left to find Barbara Pastore. For some reason we got mixed up and thought she may have moved because we sent Elders Pine and Middleton there some months ago and they told us that she had moved, that she wasn’t at the address any more. But something kept nagging at us until we had to go check for ourselves. We found the address and her name was on the doorbell, but she wasn’t home. We left a note asking her to call us so we could come meet her. We’ve never gotten a call from anyone we’ve left a note with, but we keep trying anyway.

We returned home and continued getting ready for tomorrow. We also baked the bread pudding mix our girls sent us some months ago. The last thing besides writing this journal entry was Elder Carrier called to get the last of our report verbally over the phone. Now it’s time to get to bed.

Eiger, Moench, Jungfrau; photo from Murren; Robert & Diana in Murren w/Swiss Alps.

Video clip of Daniela Martin yodeling in FHE.


JULY 27, 2009 MONDAY

At 5:30 Diana’s eyes popped open when the alarm on my wristwatch went off, but I slept through it. I didn’t set the alarm intentionally, but sometimes the buttons get pushed without me knowing it. She got up and made some sandwiches for our excursion today. I was up at 6:00 and helped with the preparations and we were ready to go by 7:15. We caught our tram and met Charlotte at the Zurich Bahnhof and we were off on our latest greatest adventure. We traveled to Bern, changed trains and continued on through Spiez to Interlaken East, changed trains again and stopped at Zweiluetschen, then continued on to Lauterbrunnen. At Lauterbrunnen we were going to take the bus to Murren, but then we saw a gondola and took it instead. It was a large one holding 100 people, but we’re sure they crowded in more than that. The ride was spectacular and very steep. Our Swiss Pass (GA) got us to Murren without any additional charge, but from there up to the Schildhorn we had to buy a ticket. We were prepared to pay whatever it cost knowing this may be the only time we would get the chance to come here. However, with our GA we got half off the normal price of 75sfr. each, but then the gal at the ticket window asked us if we had a Migros card. We said we did and she told us with the Migros card, the second person gets to ride free. So, for the price of ½ ticket (35sfr.) we were both able to ride to the top. We found out that Migros (our grocery store) has a promotion going on until the end of August that when you have their card, the second person gets a free ticket anywhere in Switzerland. What a deal!!

We took the gondola from Murren up half way where we had to change to another one. We finally reached the top. We got out and climbed some stairs and finally came out onto a big terrace where you could walk all around in a large circle and see the panoramic view of mountains as far as the eye could see in some directions, but the view was blocked by the Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau in the other. The weather was clear which is an anomaly in Switzerland, especially high up in the mountains where we were. We could see the city of Thun in the distance as well as the Thunersee (Thun Lake). There was a rotating restaurant in the middle of the terrace so we decided to go in and order a drink so we could sit in it while it went around. We ended up ordering tomato soup and bread as well as a drink to celebrate the occasion. It was pretty crowded and we had to wait over a half an hour to get served, but the time went quickly while we looked out the windows. The windows had 007 written on them because this is where one of the James Bond movies was filmed, something about In His Majesty’s Service or something like that. The floor where the tables were rotated while the outside windows/ wall stayed stationary. We stayed as long as we could and then made the return trip home arriving back in Zurich at 6:00 pm. We had just enough time to stop at Migros and buy some soda pop, cake and ice cream for dessert for FHE tonight. We weren’t assigned to do the dessert, but during the day we discovered Charlotte got mixed up on her assignment, which was to bring the dessert, so rather than bother her with it, we decided to do it ourselves. She already does so much for us and the missionaries already.

Those who attended FHE tonight were Neide, Denise Maurer, Norma Bachmann and her son, Allesandro, Charlotte Stoeklin, Fabian Streit, Daniela Martin, Elders Harris & Nilsson, Elders Pine & Richeson, and us; quite a house full for our little dinky apartment. Fabian gave our lesson which was on the pioneers and the trouble and trials they went through for the sake of the gospel and building Zion. Sister Martin sang a couple of songs which included Swiss yodeling. She also wanted to get our FHE group together and teach a song in Swiss German to sing in sacrament meeting. I told her I was all for it if she could get permission from the Bishop. She was so excited so called Bishop Schwendener on the spot, who disappointed her. She still wants to get us together and sing it during the next talent night. We had our game and then dessert and the evening was over. Everybody left except Norma, Allesandro and Daniela Martin. Diana spent some time talking to Norma and giving her some good counsel. While she was doing that, I showed Allesandro his baptism photos on our laptop and even printed him out a couple so he would have them. Diana also gave him a sunstone that he was just dying to have. They left about 10:00 and then all of a sudden a thunderstorm started. Loud ear-splitting thunderclaps came one after another and lightning has been going on for over an hour now. And so the day comes to an end.

Switzerland has a lot of tunnels to drive through rather than go over the mountains. The cow photo is a new one we found. There is another one at the Altersheim Bombach that I forgot to take a photo of when we visited Elisaeth Kalt. Next time I'll get it. We see an occasional cow statue as we travel around, but mostly we're on a train and can't get out to get a photo. Robert looking over Zurich from Altersheim Bombach.

JULY 26, 2009 SUNDAY

In correlation council we reported on our activities for the last week mentioning Elisabeth Kalt and Josefina Bader among other people. Brother Daehler and George, the Ward Mission Leader and his companion, didn’t come, but the rest of the committee and Pres. & Sister Matern came at 8:30, their normal time.

We always watch for investigators and members we’ve been working with to be sure we greet them and make them feel welcome. Cornelia, Daniella & Julio, Suki and Rolf didn’t come today. We didn’t see Priscilla come for Sunday School, but we found out later the bishop had snagged her and talked with her in his office during class time. Hildegunde Schroeder, who told us she would be to Church today 100%, came and made sure we saw her. She really is a sweet lady, just needs a little more support and commitment. She brought us a thank you note from her daughter, Gerde, who we took a birthday present to a couple of weeks ago. Brigitte Roffler attended Church also and we made sure we spent a little time with her. Suwang came too, and enjoyed the services. After, she likes to talk a lot and it’s hard for us to get away to be able to talk to other people too.

During sacrament meeting little Nikolas Sigrist sat between us and we were able to keep him down to a quiet roar. We love this little guy. Christian Wichtermann was the youth speaker and then came Denise Maurer and the concluding speaker was Bruno Diethelm. But the best part of sacrament meeting after the Sacrament itself, was the confirmation of Priscilla who was baptized last Sunday afternoon. I was asked to stand in and Elder Nilsson confirmed her a member of the Church and gave her the Gift of the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of hands and by the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood. The whole sacrament meeting was a complete spiritual experience and we felt sure the investigators must have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the truth of the gospel and the holy ordinance.

After the meetings we went home and Elders Harris and Nilsson came with us to work on the Book of Remembrance for Priscilla, and a little bit later, Elders Pine and Richeson came to complete their daily planning which always gets postponed until later in the day on Sundays. While they were here, we got out sandwich makins’ for a “make your own sandwich” lunch. They left around 3:00 and we’ve been cleaning up, preparing our next district meeting assignment, reading lessons for next week, doing our own planning for the coming transfer period and, yes, even taking a nap, oops, I mean she’s resting her eyes and just being comfortable. I also dropped off for a moment or two. Diana also spent quite a bit of time working on Priscilla’s book of remembrance to help out the missionaries get it completed. We’ve invited Priscilla over for lunch on Saturday and we want to give it to her then. We printed out some photos of her baptism and used up all the color ink in the printer so we need to buy another cartridge.

Elder Nilsson called later and asked us if they could borrow a key for our apartment so they can come and do their emails while we are on our excursion tomorrow. After they came and picked up the key, we left to go see if we could find and visit Sarah Otte, a less-active member who has a birthday today. A note on our member list said the missionaries had contacted her in 2007 and she told them then she didn’t want any more contact with the Church. We decided we would go contact her anyway. We found the address and the apartment doorbell had her name on it and also another Otte name, and rang the bell. At first no one answered, but then a young lady came out on a second story balcony and it turned out to be Sarah. We told her who we were and she told us to wait and she would come down to the door. We spent 15-20 minutes talking to her during which she was very friendly. She is 26 today and said lives in Luzern now and was here in Zurich visiting her mother. She was baptized about three years ago. She’s not married now, had a son 7 years old named Lee, and has a boy friend who she says she may marry, if everything goes the way she wants it to. She said she knew the sister missionaries in Luzern and they had visited her. When we got back to our apartment, we called the sister missionaries. The two that are there now didn’t recognize Sarah Otte’s name which was a disappointment. Sarah’s name wasn’t on their ward’s member list either because her records are still in our ward. Sarah asked us if we knew Jona Neidhart, which we do; she said he is writing to her while he is on his mission. That’s another angle we can use to find Sarah’s address because we have Jona’s email address too. We’ll ask him if he knows where she lives and, if he doesn’t, maybe he can ask her and then give it to us. Someway we need to get her membership record to the right ward.

P.S. None of our kids have skyped us yet tonight.

Diana overlooking Zurich; E. ??, worker, E. Vanuitert, worker, E. Roy; E. Larson, E. Vanuitert, Bother Manfried Herb, E. ??. Sorry, we'll catch his name later.

JULY 25, 2009 SATURDAY

This morning we got up and were getting ready for the day when we received a call from Elder Richeson, the new AP companion to Elder Pine. He asked us if we really needed the car by 9:30 or could they bring it by a little later. Well, there went our carefully laid plans for leaving a little early in case we got lost or ran into trouble driving to Freiburg, Germany, this morning. Elder Richeson said the display board and table they use for posters and proselyting materials while contacting at places such as the Oerlikon train station, was not where they thought it was and so they needed the van to go to Frauenfeld to pick it up. He said they would have the van to us at 10:00. That would still give us time to get to Freiburg to meet Brother Manfried Herb at 12:00 noon. But then he called back and said they would meet us at our apartment at 9:30, pick us up, drive to the Zurich main train station, leave us, the van and the display stuff to wait for Elders Zenger & Ivie to arrive and pick up the display stuff. That meant we would still have to drive through downtown Zurich and that was one of the things we wanted to avoid.

Well, everything happened as explained in the above paragraph except we had to wait 10-15 minutes for Elders Zenger and Ivie to arrive. While Diana waited in the van, I went into the station to look for the Elders. I waited around for awhile and then finally spotted them walking away from where I was. I chased them down, and if I hadn’t, who knows how long we would have waited for them to find us. As soon as Elder Pine parked us at the bahnhof, he and Elders Richeson were gone like a shot. Once Elders Zenger & Ivie arrived and picked up the display stuff, we left too, only about an hour later than we had wanted to leave. We plugged in the address in Germany, but with all the roads going every which way, even with Tom Tom it took us a few false starts and U-turns to get headed out on the right street. Once we were lined out, the drive was a breeze. Things went smooth all the way there except we ran into one detour we had to figure our way around. We love it when that happens. The Lord was with us because we arrived right at 12:00 sharp. Brother Herb and four missionaries heaved a sigh of relief when we pulled in. They already had everything ready to load to take to a business for some reason or other so we loaded it up and followed Brother Herbs car to the business. Once we arrived we unloaded it and some dock workers put it on a cart and took it into the building. We returned to the apartment and loaded the rest of the things into the van and then followed Brother Herb to the Church house. Part of it was unloaded there and some more was taken out of the Church and loaded into the van. We had our eye on a larger microwave, but one of the Elders spoke up and asked for it. Brother Herb was good enough to let them take it to their apartment because theirs was really small (like ours). We felt the missionaries had first dubs on anything so we just kept quiet. When everything was loaded, the van was chuck full. We really enjoyed working with the four Elders and Brother Herb.

Before we left to go back home, we walked around the corner and did a little shopping in a grocery store. Prices are always much better in Germany than in Switzerland. We still don’t know exactly how much of what we can bring across the border; we’ve not been stopped yet after we’ve gone shopping, thank goodness. There’s some sort of limit on meat products, butter and we don’t know what else. We asked Brother Herb if he knew what the restrictions were. He replied, “Just stick it under the seats. The Swiss will be glad they won’t have to slaughter their cows.” We finished our shopping and headed for home. When we got to the border, we thought, because our van was loaded to the gills, they would stop us, but they just waved us on through. We had an uneventful trip back home.

Pres. Matern told us we could have anything in the apartment we wanted and Diana decided she wanted one of the chest of drawers. There were a lot of boxes of odds and ends, dishes, silverware and such along with a hair cutting clippers, etc. We stopped at our apartment and off loaded the chest of drawers and then I went through the boxes picking out some things. I carried the boxes of plates/dishes/silverware etc. and put them in our basement storage to look at later. We also kept the hair clippers and a few other things. Once these were off loaded we continued on to the mission home to put the rest in the garage where they keep extra stuff for missionary apartments. While we were there, we gave Pres. Matern a birthday card/gift (box of cookies) and wished him a 71st birthday. Once again we had to brave the traffic and drive the van back to the Church parking lot and leave it for Elders Pine and Richeson. First I dropped Diana off at our apartment and then after parking the car, I walked home.

It was already 6:00 and that’s when we should of been to Priscillas for the BBQ she invited us to. We got a call from Elder Nilsson right at 6:00 asking us where we were. We could only offer an apology for being late and told them we’d be there in about 30 minutes. We did Superman proud, changing in a wink, and we made it to Priscillas by 6:30. She had a way good BBQ with pork/chicken/shrimp shish kabobs (sp), a yummy potato salad and a green salad that was delicious. For dessert she had a fruit salad with chocolate chip cake.

Priscilla invited a friend from work to dinner also. After the dinner Elders Nilsson and Harris taught a lesson about the Gift of the Holy Ghost because Priscilla will receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost tomorrow in Sacrament meeting. They gave a really good lesson and then we continued to talk about the Church, latter day prophets and the Book of Mormon. We tried really hard to get through Eva’s hard shell, Priscilla’s friend, but she resisted our efforts. She said she could see the goodness in the eyes of the missionaries and acknowledged she felt something, but she wasn’t willing to take a Book of Mormon nor the Joseph Smith pamphlet. She’d had some bad experiences in her life and she just wanted to stay with what she knew right now . But, at least she was willing to talk about spiritual things which is a step forward since the missionaries had met her for the first time a few days ago when she was unwilling to talk about anything religious. What was really good is the testimony Priscilla expressed many times during the conversation. We finally had to leave because it was 9:30. We rode the bus back to the Oerlikon Bahnhof and when we were crossing the street to get on bus #62, we ran into Neide. She was happy to see us and insisted we ride home with her in her girlfriend’s car who was waiting for her around the corner. So we hopped in and soon we were home. On the way they played Latin music which was fun to listen to.

This photo may be a repeat; Grosse Scheidegg; river in Freienstein.

Film clip taken from Grosse Scheidegg.


JULY 24, 2009 FRIDAY PIONEER DAY

This morning we were at the mission home at 10:00 to help with moving some more furniture around. President Matern wanted to move out some cabinets and shelves from one of the upstairs bathrooms that looked good to us, but were made out of cheap material (pressed board). After doing that we brought up a cabinet and a shelf unit that were made out of very heavy solid and thick oak. The top needed a little refinishing, but that’s his worry. Moving stuff around like that will make old people out of us really fast! In addition to that we filled the van with old beds, furniture, boxes, and various other stuff and took it to the garbage sort center not far from where we live. We made a return trip to the mission home and filled the van up with more excess furniture, but in better condition. Pres. Matern and Brother Klaumunzner thought the Salvation Army would accept these, but they turned their nose up at it and told us to keep it. Although we didn’t want to, our only option was to take it to the dump and get rid of it. After the first trip Bro. Klaumunzner took us by our apartment to drop off some new carpet pieces Diana wanted to carpet our hall with and also to put under our table in the living room. After the second load he dropped us off so we didn’t have to ride back home on the tram. We also salvaged a couple of pictures to go on our walls; one was of the Salt Lake temple and the other was a picture of the 1st Presidency. We finished around 2:30 in the afternoon.

Yesterday we received a notice in the mail that we had a package at the post office ready for us to pick up. I went over there and got it and it turned out to be a package from Monica and her family. We were excited to get it and Diana is in seventh heaven now because she has some black licorice. They also sent us two interesting liquid-filled balls, some vitamins, Ibuprofen, and a cake mix. Thanks for everything!!!!

We took time to fit the carpet in the hallway, but Diana wanted to scrub the carpet under the table that would be under the new carpet rather than just put the new over the old. This whole process took the rest of the afternoon except we made a few phone calls. We talked to Remi, Carolyn Maurer’s son, but found out his mother, Carolyn, is on vacation for a couple of weeks. We have yet to meet her. Diana called Susan Serfoesoe, but she didn’t have time to talk because she was on the other phone and said she would call her back, but she didn’t. We called Hildegunde Schroeder, who promised us again, that she would be to Church next Sunday, cross my heart and hope to die.

We have been assigned to drive the van to Freiburg, Germany, tomorrow to pick up some furniture left behind by the Horlacher’s who went home last week after having served their missions faithfully. We are hoping this trip goes better than the last one. Driving around today Brother Klaumunzner had me get out of the van every time he had to back up just to make sure he didn’t back into anything. It was a good object lesson for us and we will for sure do the same thing tomorrow. He gave us the name of the contact person to call to make arrangements to meet him tomorrow, but when I wanted to do that, I couldn’t find the paper he wrote it on. I had to finally call Bro. Klaumunzner and get the information again. I called and made arrangements to meet the person in Freiburg at noon tomorrow. We are also supposed to drop off a small table to the missionaries in Baden on our way through, but they haven’t answered their phone yet.

We made arrangements with Elder Pine to gas up the van, pick up the table and park it in the Church parking lot for us to get in the morning. He called late tonight and informed us they would bring it over in the morning at 9:30 which is okay by us. Just so we don’t have to drive through the middle of Zurich during rush hour.

Rebecca skyped us wanting to know where she could get some cultured marble to put in a tub surround in one of her bathrooms. We told her she could have some we have stacked in our barn, but to be careful getting the pieces out that she wants and also to make sure she has it supported good for when they cut it to fit, otherwise it will break fairly easy.

While Diana was talking to Rebecca, Suwang called to tell us her cat got scared a few days ago during the thunder and lightning/rain storm and hadn’t come home for a few days. She was worried it would get cold, starve and die. She asked us to say a prayer for her that she could find her cat; she was going out to look for it as soon as we hung up. She also said she received a blessing from her bishop to help her not be afraid when she gets an operation to fix her lung in a few days. As soon as she hung up we said a prayer that she’d find her cat. Not a half hour later she texted us that she had found the cat and thanked us for helping her. The Lord really does answer prayers!!! But we already knew that.

Hi Andrea! It's good to hear from you again. You need to bring us up to date on what's happened and happening in your life. Don't be a stranger any more.

JULY 23, 2009 THURSDAY

Elders Evans and Murdock called us yesterday and asked if they could come by today to get a final haircut before they leave to go home. We both also were getting pretty shaggy so before they came, Diana cut my hair and I cut hers. We both look pretty good now. To fill the time while we were waiting for them, we worked on updating the member list that we keep notes on so we know what we’ve done with what member. It comes in handy when we go to visit someone or, review it to determine who we need to contact next, etc. We haven’t updated it for a month and now it’s harder to remember what we’ve done. We have the correlation reports and our daily planner to help us though, so we don’t have to totally rely on our imperfect memories. We also took time out from our missionary work to review and sign a contract we received by email on the sale of one of our properties. This took a little bit of time and then we had to determine how we could get it scanned and emailed back to him. We decided we’d ask Elder Evans if he could do it when he went to the mission home after his haircut.

The two Elders were supposed be here by 11:30, but they had some connection problems and didn’t get here till 1:15. They only had a few minutes because they had to be at the mission home at 1:55 for interviews with the President. While I cut one’s hair, Diana fed the other, and then we switched. We got everything done and they were off in plenty of time.

As soon as they left, we left too, to find and visit Sister Elizabeth Kalt. She was on Pres. Ryser’s list of people she didn’t know and she’s been in the ward most of her life. It’s sad to realize someone can be forgotten for so long. We went by tram and bus and tram and finally reached the old folks home on Limmatstrasse in Zurich. We went into Altersheim Bombach and asked the person at the desk if Elisabeth lived there. She pointed to a lady in a wheel chair sitting by a table and said that was her. We went over and introduced ourselves and had a good conversation with her. She is only 50 years old, but has physical and some mental problems as well as epilepsy. She complained of pain in her left shoulder and arm repeatedly. Her mother lives in Germany and she has a brother and sister who live in Aargau, Switzerland. Before we left we asked her if we could do anything for her or bring her something. She only thing she asked for was a bible. We told her we would bring one, but we gave her a Book of Mormon to read too. While we were there, we were checked twice by different employees asking what we were doing there. Both times we told them and when they asked Elisabeth if she knew us and was okay with us visiting her, she said yes to both of them. We had a prayer with her and then we left. She said we could come back and visit her again.

When we left it was raining again so we got on the tram and rode it to the end hoping it would quit before we got back to where we needed to connect with another to go to our next planned stop. It never stopped and only got worse, so we decided to go home and check our emails for a response from the developer whose buying one of our properties. We asked Elder Evans to scan and email him the signed contract when he got to the mission home, and we needed to see if he had gotten it. I emailed Mr. Woolstenhulme a query if he had received it and then we waited for a response. He finally answered us that he received it. While we were waiting, Elder Harris called to see if we were home because they were bringing us some mangoes Priscilla had bought for us. They arrived and, of course, we fed them some pie and ice cream as well as some gipfelis leftover from the baptism and a couple of rootbeers. They couldn’t stay long because they had another appointment. Diana called Priscilla and thanked her for the mangoes and told her they were absolutely delicious. They really were the sweetest mangoes we have ever tasted. She ordered in two cases special, one for us and one for the Elders, from an Asian store where she knew the manager. She also invited us to a BBQ at her home Saturday evening and she said she would provide everything herself. She is also going to have an investigator friend there for us and Elders Harris and Nilsson to teach.

Jungfraujoch trail; Our Schwamendingen district before transfers on July 23, 2009; glaciers on Jungfrau.

E. Jensen waving flag and Alpen Horn players; train going up or down from Jungfraujoch.
JULY 22, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Today is like any other except that they all go by so quickly . We received a list of sisters from Sister Ryser last Sunday and it had around 30 or so members that she wanted information about. This is the first day we’ve had time to work at getting information on each sister. After going over our records we still had a few loose ends that we needed to check up on. We finally were able to find out about Sister Kalt who lives in a hospital on Hellen Keller strasse. When we visited there some time ago, they told us that they had to move the patients out and do some remodeling, and when they finished, they were going to move them back into there rooms? They didn’t have the address of the new place where she was staying, only that they thought it was somewhere in another zip code. We never could get a hold of anyone that knew of her. Now today, we called the hospital and they gave us the address of the place that she is at and it is not to far away. Only a tram, two buses, and five minutes by foot. Great! We were going to get right on it but------ who should call but the AP’s. Elder Jensen is being transferred to Germany tomorrow and he wanted to download some of the pictures off our computer before he leaves tomorrow. We were already on our way, so instead, we stopped off to pick up a few more Swiss flags and some ham for sandwiches tomorrow. Elder Evans is going to come over around lunch time for a final haircut before he leaves for home on Friday. He said he would have time for a light lunch. So in lieu of our tight schedule, we decided to go back home so that Elder Jensen could use the computer and we would do our visits after they left.

So back to the program; we went to search out the member, Berena Hasler, on Pappel strasse in Dietlikon. We found the name of the person that she was supposed to be staying with, V. Zancanato, on the doorbell, but her name was not there. There was the name of another person we didn’t recognize. We believe that she used to live there, but someone else may have taken her place. Just speculating. We did talk to some people sitting outside and they knew V. Zancanato, the person that lived there, but they knew nothing about Berena. Then we stopped by Patricia Hungerbuehler’s but that member is just never home. We then went to another member, Rene’ Hartmann, who we havn’t been able to contact yet either. Today was no exception, still no one home or, no one will ever answer the door. So all of our chasing around was fruitless except for a man we met on the train. He was from Portugal and was over here on vacation. We chatted with him and told him that we were missionaries and were able to give him a Joseph Smith brochure. So that was another part of our success story for the day.

We also got in touch with Sister Josefine Bader, but that did not go so well. We have been trying for months to contact her either by phone or by visits to her home. She said that she left our Church 20 years ago and returned to her former church. She thought her name had been removed from the records. She said that she really didn’t want to visit with us and that she was happy just to be on her own. We felt bad that she wouldn’t let us come visit her.

Today we also were also able to talk to Neide; she has been ill, but she said she was feeling better, that she hasn’t had a fever for the last three days. She said was planning to go to the airport on Friday to see Elder Evans off as he leaves for home.

We didn’t get a chance to go find Sister Kalt this afternoon because by the time Elder Jensen and Elder Pine had finished getting the photos from our computer, it was too late. We didn’t want to arrive during her evening meal. Tomorrow we’ll have time to try to find and visit her as well as the other member, Barbara Pastore, who we had planned to try to find.

E. Nilsson giving young man BM; Alpen Horns

JULY 21, 2009 TUESDAY

This morning our main concern was to have all the food we needed to make lunch for the missionaries during our district meeting today. We waited too long last Saturday to get the few things we needed and Monday we started early before the stores opened and didn’t have time all day long either. So this morning I was up and went into Schwamendingen. The first stop was to the ATM to withdraw the rest of our money for the month and then I was on the doorstep of Migros waiting for when they opened at 8:00. I quickly bought some lettuce, cake for strawberry shortcake, ice cream, nectarines (not for the missionaries, but for us), carrots, noodles and some cheese. Then I went to the little Greek grocery store to buy a couple of loaves of bread that we like and some Swiss flags to use as transfer presents for the missionaries leaving for new assignments. When I got back, Diana had put everything in bags ready to take to the Church where we would prepare everything. We added what I had bought, got the laptop and went to the Church. When we got there, we prepared everything we could so it wouldn’t take too long to actually put it together when lunch time came. Charlotte had given us some surplus meat cutlets in gravy that we cut up into pieces to put over noodles. We cut up all the veggies/lettuce for the salad, cut up and seeded the watermelon, made the Kool-aid, got the table out and set and etc.

The meeting was good as usual and we received some good instruction and motivational talks. This was the last meeting that Elder Norris would be our district leader because he’s being transferred Thursday to Germany. This was also Elder Jensen’s last meeting with us because he’s also being transferred to Germany on Thursday. At 11:30 we went to the kitchen to get everything cooked and ready while the missionaries played some games. We cooked the noodles, heated up the corn, made the cut up meat and sauce into a gravy, mixed the salad, sliced the bread, and put everything on the table. The missionaries gathered around and we had lunch. For dessert we brought out the watermelon and also served strawberry shortcake with vanilla ice cream and cream topping out of a can if they wanted it. It was all very delicious and we had many compliments.

While lunch was going on and for awhile after, the missionaries were exchanging digital photos using our laptop and the two computers in the Institute office. Elder Norris downloaded all their photos onto our computer in order to have one super back-up for all their photos in case something happened to someone’s camera or card. They finally got through with our laptop and we went home. But the work continued in that RS Pres. Sister Ryser gave us a list of sisters of whom she wanted to know the status of. We went over this list once before four or five months ago, but she wanted the update anyway.

We had a meeting with Elders Pine and Jensen at 5:00 scheduled at the Church, but we got a call from him at 4:30 asking us to meet them at the Stettbach train station as soon as we could get there. We hurried, got ready and left. When we got there, they got on the tram with us and we all rode it back to our tram stop at Schoerlistrasse. We still didn’t know what was going on or what the fuss was about. We ended up back at the Church at 5:25 where all the other missionaries from our district were. Without telling us yet what all this was about, we left the Church in a group and went over to Charlotte’s where we also had an appointment at 5:30 scheduled. When we rang Charlotte’s doorbell, she came from around the corner of the house and waved at us to come to her. When we got there we heard some Alpen Horn music being played in the back yard and discovered she had arranged for three people from a family who play Alpen Horns to come and play for us. We had mentioned we were dying to see and hear these horns being played and Charlotte arranged these people to come free of charge to do it for us. They belong to the Salvation Army and play for old folks homes and other charity causes and it was really nice of them to do it for us. Hopefully, in exchange, they’ll receive the Gospel which is a priceless gift from our Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ. After they finished playing we all talked to them and thanked them. A little later Elder Nilsson came over and asked if anyone had the brochure comparing the Bible and Book of Mormon. We not only had that, but also a marked BM with two other important brochures in it. He took it and went back to the young man and gave it to him and talked to him and his sister for some time. His sister left after awhile, but the young man stayed and talked with all of the missionaries while eating the munchies that had been prepared. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the association with the missionaries.

We finally went home and were able to talk to Roxsan and her kids and later, to Rebecca and Mack on skype. While we were talking with Rebecca, Priscilla called us just to say hello and to let us know she was still doing okay. We got another call from Charlotte asking if we were home and could we have a visit. We told her we were home and, if she wanted to come over, she could. We couldn’t imagine what would be so important or necessary to visit us this late. But, when our doorbell rang, we got another surprise. Instead of Charlotte, it was Fabian who had just arrived from Kosovo where he’s serving in the Swiss Army. We weren’t expecting him until middle August, but he was here to get some arthoscopic surgery done on his knee. It’s late again and so we close this entry.

E. Harris & Priscilla; E. Nilsson, E. Harris, Priscilla, Diana & Robert; E. Larson, Priscilla, S. Larson

JULY 19, 2009 SUNDAY

We had the normal meetings today starting with our correlation meeting at 8:00. At the beginning of our High Priest class Brother Ryser assigned people to give the lessons for August. There were fewer than normal there today because some were on vacation so Brother Ryser got desperate as asked me to teach the class on August 9th. I struggled last time I gave the lesson, but it didn’t scare him off. Pres. Bolt gave the main talk in Sacrament Meeting and the thing that stuck with us is the demonstration he made to emphasize a point. He had a stalk of wheat and explained the stalk is important to grow the head on, but the head is the most important because it contains the fruit or kernels. He took a pair of scissors and cut the head off and laid it on the podium and held up the bare stalk. Pres. Bolt said most of us take the stalk home and leave the head in the Church. In other words, we come to Church and go through the motions and don’t remember what we learned or what we were taught when we go home. Something to think about.

After Church we were invited to go to the Moeller-Russos for lunch. Elder Jensen is being transferred and they wanted us to all be together one more time before he left. The main dish was something similar to Shepard’s Pie and was really good. It’s sad to see Elder Jensen go, but he’s excited to be going to Germany for his next assignment.

After that we went home and got the brownies and banana bread ready and took them to the Church for Priscilla’s baptism. Again there were a lot of people who attended the baptism and it was a very nice spiritual service. Diana led the music and I was one of the witnesses. She also was the escort for Priscilla, helped her change clothes, sat with her during the service and helped her after to get changed. She bore a tender testimony after she was baptized. She’ll be confirmed next Sunday in Sacrament Meeting. We were there a half hour before it started at 5:00 and we finally got home at 7:30. Before we left we invited her to come to FHE tomorrow night, but she said she was very busy. I spent the rest of the night translating the story about the ten virgins for tomorrow’s FHE lesson which didn’t leave time to write our journal entry. That why we wrote it tonight, Monday.



JULY 20, 2009 MONDAY

Today for P-day our district and part of another went to the Maennlichen, a small peak at the base of the Moench, Eiger and Jungfrau, and hiked from there to the Kleine Scheidegg which took them about 2 hours. However, we wanted to go to the Jungfraujoch which is the highest pass in Switzerland. The train we were riding in, unknown to us, was going to divide in two, one half going to Grindelwald, the jumping off place to catch a tram to the Jungfraujoch, and the other to Wengen, the jumping off place for the rest of the group to get to the Maennlichen. We sat by a lady who told us we had to make sure we got out of the end of the train going to Wengen and get on the other end going to Grindelwald when we got to Zweiluetschinen. We were able to do that and the train split and we both went our separate ways. We also met a couple from Chicago and had fun talking to them. He said he had a brother-in-law who was a member and he had “worked them over petty good.” When we got on the train in Zurich to begin our adventure, we sat by a lady, Anita Bucher, who turned out to be the neighbor of Urs and Rita Wichtermann. Before she got off we gave her a brochure introducing her to the Church even though she said the Wichtermanns had talked to her about it.

We got to Grindelwald and the train to the Jungfraujoch was already waiting there with only a few minutes before it was going to leave. We hurried into the ticket office, but got behind a lady that seemed to have all the time in the world and a hundred nonsensical questions. Needless to say, we ended up just a few seconds shy of making the train so we had to wait a half hour for the next one. This made it so we had no time to even do anything when we arrived at the Jungfraujoch pass other than get out and then get back in the train and go back down.

So we bought the tickets knowing we wouldn’t have any time, but we’d come specifically to go there. We had the idea we could at least get out and enjoy the view for a few minutes. The scenery was magnificent on the way up as you can see by the photos and film clips, and we enjoyed it immensely. We arrived at the halfway point, Kleine Scheidegg, where we agreed to meet the rest of the group at 2:15. We thought we still had time to get to the top and back down in time to meet them there. We continued on up and soon we entered a tunnel and remained in it until we got to the top. Not exactly what we anticipated at all. We should have realized that would be the case because the mountain is covered with snow year round. There were a couple of stops where there were window outlooks you could look through and see the beautiful mountains and glaciers. When we got to the top, we exited into an underground terminal and it looked like it would take longer than we had just to get somewhere to see something. The train going down was waiting and ready to leave in minutes and so we just got back on and returned. Of course we got to Kleine Scheidegg after the rest of the group had left and we never did catch up to them. We arrived back down at Grindelwald, caught our train and went to Interlaken East where we changed trains and traveled to Bern where we again changed trains and ended up back in Zurich. We quickly jumped on Tram #7 and rode home getting there at 7:00, the time we should have been at FHE. We hurried and got the few things we needed and went to FHE at the Moeller-Russos, getting there 10 minutes late. Not bad for how things went today.

For the spiritual thought we went through the translated story and lesson about the ten virgins and passed out a copy of the painting to everyone. They had a lot of fun reading the translation I had made, but they understood the points of the lesson. I tried to find a German translation on the internet, but couldn’t find one. Irene told us there is one already in German and it would have been so much easier, if we had known that and could have found it. Daniela & Peter Martin attended tonight and she sang a few songs which included the Swiss type yodeling. We would have like to have filmed it, but in the rush, we left our camera home. Too bad. But Diana invited them to come next Monday and do sing songs again so we can film them. Norma & Allessandro Bachmann and Denise & Ashley Maurer were with us tonight too. The Bolts and the Moeller-Russos won’t be here next Monday so we’re going to be the ones hosting it in our apartment. All in all it was a good day.

Some more of the hundreds of cows in this shop; Spiez overlook; Grosse Scheidegg.

JULY 18, 2009 SATURDAY

Last night after we went to bed there was sporadic lightning and thunder and it continued raining all night and most of today. It finally let up in the late late afternoon. Mostly today we worked on translating the 10 Virgin parable, making brownies, making banana nut bread, contacting people by phone and writing our weekly progress report. The brownies and banana bread are for the baptism tomorrow afternoon. The parable is for FHE Monday evening. The report is for tomorrow’s correlation meeting. And the contacting is what we do.

Elders Harris and Nilsson came over this morning to finish making the programs for Priscilla’s baptism tomorrow. It takes a lot of coordination to get all the details for the program worked out as well as create and print the programs to be handed out at the baptism. It’s work they are glad to do and they wish they had more of the same. Elder Norris was supposed to call us to let us know what he wanted for lunch at the district meeting Tuesday. When he hadn’t called by the afternoon, we called him. He told us he couldn’t decide so he called some of the other missionaries for their ideas. All he found out was that some didn’t want chile and one of the sisters couldn’t eat spaghetti. So we were on our own to figure it out. We’ll probably use the gov’t. surplus food Charlotte gave us a while back. It’s already cooked and frozen pork cutlets in gravy which we’ll heat up and put over noodles. We’ll also include a vegetable, salad and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Sounds good to us.

We haven’t been to the store for a long time and we needed some eggs, bread and some other things, but we waited until too late to go into town. All of the big grocery stores were closed, but we found the little Greek market was still open. We bought some tomatoes and a cucumber for the salad (we already had lettuce), a watermelon, a couple of T-shirts with the Swiss flag on them, a small Swiss flag, a loaf of bread and a can of black olives. Charlotte came over for a minute, too, to tell us she wouldn’t be to Church tomorrow because she would be out of town visiting a friend. She told us she was going to introduce the Church to her and to pray for her. She also brought back our salad bowl and dressing we left there the last time we were over. She also wanted to make sure we had Tuesday 5:00 reserved to be at her place, but she won’t tell us why. She says it is a surprise. She wanted us to know she has our next Monday P-day all planned out for us too. Elder Pine wants us to meet him at the Church at 3:30 on Tuesday, but he won’t tell us why either. What’s all this secrecy about?

These are the people we contacted and today:
Renatus Raschle - He promised us he’d come to Church, but he’ll be on vacation for 2 weeks.
Cornelia Schaer- We want to teach her some more, but she comes to Church every Sunday now. She paid her tithing last week and, before she did, she said she didn’t have many appointments at her business. Today she said she had a good week and was pretty busy all week. Blessings come when you pay tithing.
Verena Bosshart - She was very ill last week and this week she has a cold. We’ll visit next week.
Susan Serfoesoe - Invited her to Church; she said she would come to sac. mtg. and bring a friend.
Charles Aboussou - We wished him happy B-day and invited him to Church, but he’s going on vacation to Germany for a week.
Sandra Buchser - Called to wish her a happy birthday and also to ask her to visit Gerde Schroeder who lives close by and has been having a struggle with depression.
Suwang Stefaniak - Called just to check up on her and we found out she will get her operation in the middle of August to fix her lung problem. She misses us so we’ll try to visit her once in awhile.

Others we have on our report are Hildegunde Schroeder who promised us she would come to Church tomorrow, and Brigitte Roffler who needs some attention. Elders Harris and Nilsson will report on Priscilla Wegmueller.

Diana & Charlotte sitting on the bench at Spiez waiting for our train; Swiss like cows and sell them everywhere for souvenirs; overlooking Spiez.



video from bus leaving Grosse Scheidegg and going towards Grindelwald.

JULY 17, 2009 FRIDAY

For Priscilla’s baptism Sunday afternoon Diana has been asked to give her testimony and I’ve been asked to be a witness. We also volunteered to give the lesson in family home evening next Monday evening. Today we felt we needed to work on our assignments so we’ll be sure to be ready when the time comes; it’s so easy to put things off and then things come up when you least expect them and bingo, the time for preparation is past. Diana wrote her testimony out in English and then translated it into German. I helped her polish it up a bit, but she did a pretty good job on her own. Our lesson for FHE is going to be on the parable of the ten virgins using the painting by Gayla Prince and the written description of it’s meaning. Rather than try and translate the written text myself, I found a translation program and downloaded it onto my computer. The program helped a lot but, as anyone knows who has used such a program, there’s still a lot of work to do to make it right. I only got about half of it done today and I hope to finish it tomorrow. Later on while I was still working on my translation, Diana called Suke Ehrensperger and Gabriella Rodriquez to see how they were doing. Suki hadn’t been to Church for several weeks and also didn’t answer her phone when we tried to call before. Today she answered and Diana was able to talk to her for awhile. She said she has been depressed and didn’t want to come to Church and have to act happy. Diana is good to cheer people up and we’re hoping she’ll come this Sunday and also to the baptism. Daniella said she has been busy with her kids and didn’t feel like coming, but Diana told her we’ll see her in Church Sunday and invited her to the baptism too. We hope she comes. We also texted Neide a “hello, how are you,” but she didn’t answer back.

Elder Norris called this afternoon to give us our district meeting assignment which is to bring the treats, only this time “treats” means to bring lunch for everyone. This is the last meeting before transfers and so it’s the “Omega” district meeting. It’s mostly a normal meeting, but it will last a little longer and have some special things added depending on what the district leader can think up and plan. This transfer Elder Jensen is going to Germany and Elder Richardson is coming to take his place and he and Elder Pine will be the assistants to Pres. Matern. Elder Norris, our current district leader, is also being transferred to Germany and so this next meeting is his last one here. His companion, Elder Carrier, will be getting a brand new “Golden” who arrives in the mission next Thursday and he’ll also be our new district leader. Everyone else stays put. We told Elder Norris we’d cook his favorite food for lunch, but he has trouble making snap decisions so he said he’d let us know tomorrow what he wanted.

Elder Pine called and asked if he and Elder Jensen could come over about 2:30 (they didn’t show up until 3:30) to do their weekly planning with us. In code that meant they’d like to come over and hope we’d feed them something. They arrived and went right to work with their planning and Diana went right to work cooking them lunch or dinner, or is that linner? At any rate they got hamburgers, wieners, left over macaroni salad and root beer. We had to leave, before they got finished with their planning, to visit our birthday people for today, Charles Aboussou and Gerde Schroeder. Charles is less-active and we were hoping to catch him home. It was raining heavily and we thought everyone should be home, but he wasn’t. We left his gift sitting by his door. We expected Gerde to be home, but she wasn’t either. Her mother, who lives close by, said she never goes anywhere and we were hoping to cheer her up. By the time we got home we were somewhat wet, but this time I wore my raincoat and the umbrella mostly protected Diana. Still, it’s impossible to stay dry.

About 8:30 Elders Harris and Nilsson dropped by to get some help finishing up some details in planning Priscilla’s baptismal service. They needed the computer to download some music for a musical number they hope someone will sing. They also made a couple of phone calls to the ward mission leader and someone else. All in all it’s been a pretty good day.

These photos are of scenery on our Grindelwald trip. The photo with the flag in it has a sign on the building that says "glacier gorge" and the white along the top of the photo is an actual glacier.

JULY 16, 2009 THURSDAY

Yesterday was our normal wash day, but since we were in the temple, we had to postpone it until this morning. We put the wash in at 7:00, took it out at 8:05, put it in the dryer at 8:10 and got it out of the dryer at 9:00 which put us a little behind in leaving for our appointment with Brigitte Roffler at 10:00. In between I started writing yesterday’s journal entry, but didn’t come near finishing before we had to leave. Brigitte lives clear out in Freienstein which is beyond Embrach quite a ways. She lives in a group home which was a little hard to find, but after asking a couple of people for directions, we finally made it by 10:30. We had a nice visit with her and tried to give her some encouragement in dealing with her circumstances and disabilities. She feels isolated and shunned and not well accepted by residents of the group home, where she works and even at Church somewhat. Even though she thinks and talks a little slow she has the desire to improve her circumstances and her life. She has goals she’s working towards and later today was going into Zurich to meet with some people at an occupational help center with the hopes they could help her find job training and maybe even a better place to work. The Relief Society President visits her regularly, but her visiting teachers and her home teachers don’t. We will discuss this situation in mission correlation meeting Sunday morning to see if things can be improved for her.

We got back home about 3:30 and I finished writing our journal entry for yesterday while Diana caught up on her reading etc. At about 5:00 we left to visit Hildegunde Schroeder to invite her to Church and take back the umbrella we borrowed a couple of months ago, and also Sandra Buchser to take her a belated birthday present and card. Her birthday was yesterday, but our day was so full we didn’t have a chance to stop by. Hildegunde was home and we had a nice, but quick, chat on the door and she promised us she’d be to Church Sunday. We asked how her daughter, Gerde, was doing and she told us she had lost the will to live and didn’t see any future for herself anymore. We could tell she was very worried about her and she said she had done everything she could think of to help her. We told her we would go visit her tomorrow which is also her birthday, and try to cheer her up. After visiting with Hildegunde, we tried to find Sandra Buchser’s apartment which, according to our member list, should have been in the same building. It wasn’t, so the best idea Diana had was to visit the Diethelms, who lived a few stories up in the same building, to see if they knew where Sandra lived. We had a quick, but lively chat with the Diethelms who gave us Sandra’s correct address. Fortunately, it was on the way back home, but she wasn’t home. We did the usual and left the gift in her mailbox then went on back home. We had just a few minutes to cool off (it’s been very hot today), print a photo of Priscilla and Elders Harris and Jensen from the computer and then leave for Oerlikon to meet those same elders. We met up with them and continued on to Priscilla’s apartment, but at Oelikon when we got off the bus, we ran into Charlotte coming back from her hiking trip today. She gave us a set of drink coasters with pictures of Switzerland on them.

The purpose of our visit tonight was to teach Priscilla about the ten commandments, fasting, and prayer. The discussion went without a hitch and after it was over, she finished filling out the baptism form so it would be all done for Sunday. She got it all filled out except for a few dates she’ll have to look for. As we were going back to the bus stop at Oerlikon Elder Harris told us what our assignments for the baptism were. He asked Sister Larson to give her testimony and I’ve been asked to be a witness again. Everything seems to be falling in place and everything should be ready for Sunday. We also ran into Agnes and her friend and invited them to the baptism too.

Charlotte called in the middle of the lesson with Priscilla and wanted to talk to E. Harris, that it was absolutely urgent. After the lesson was over and we were on our way home, we asked him what was so urgent. He told us that Charlotte said that she wanted us all to keep next Tuesday evening open , but that she couldn’t tell us why yet. We came on home and that was it for today except for our journal entry and some reading.