Diana and a store display; a street in Appenzell & notice the signs above the doors of the shops; Robert & Charlotte standing in front of a fountain in St. Gallen.

AUGUST 25, 2009 TUESDAY

This morning before district meeting I read over the stories again that I was going to use for my teaching assignment there. “Footsteps in the Sand” is a well-known poem. The other poem, “Buttprints in the Sand,” is probably not so well-known, but it’s meaningful just the same. The last story was about an ancient legend in which a castle of valiant knights protected the people of a forest plagued by dangerous giants. The morale to the first poem is that the Lord is there to help us all the time and carry us, if needed. The morale to the second story is that if we don’t do our part, the Lord gets tired of carrying us and drops us on our butt which leaves a butt print in the sand. However, he always picks us up again and carries us until we have to learn another lesson. The morale to the last story is that we need to stand our posts (callings) and perform our duties no matter how insignificant or great we think they are. There is a reason why we are where we are and we need to do the best we can until we are called to serve somewhere else.

We walked to the Church at 10:30 and soon the meeting began. Diana’s assignment was to choose the opening song and say the opening prayer. She chose “Sprachst du dein Gebet?” (Did You Think to Pray?) She offered the opening prayer in German and her prayer German is almost flawless. She has worked really hard at being able to pray in German, first of all because she is talking to the Lord and second, she doesn’t want to distract people by stumbling through the words. After she got through and the announcements were given, Elder Carrier called on me to give my part. Diana said I covered all the points that I had rehearsed, so that was good. The rest of the meeting was inspirational and fun.

Following the meeting, Elders Carrier and Vincent came home with us to get their hair cut. I started with Elder Vincent who had the weirdest hair I’ve ever seen, and I’ve cut literally many thousands of heads of hair in my lifetime. His hair grows every which way. I should have taken a photo and next time I will. However, when I finished cutting it, it looked quite nice. Elder Carrier also has cowlickey hair, but not nearly so bad. While I was cutting their hair, Diana was putting together a hot lunch for them using leftovers from our dinners Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. The leftover casseroles seem to be better after they’ve sat for a day or two. Why is that? She also whipped up a chocolate mousse fruit salad which was yummy. By the time they finished and we talked for awhile, Elders Harris & Nilsson arrived to use our laptop to write their zone leader report for a meeting with Pres. Matern and Pres. Bolt tomorrow evening. We also gave them the same things to eat, but they ate very little because they wanted to get right on writing their report. They were only able to get it half done before they had to leave for another appointment. They’ll be back tomorrow evening at 6:00 and hope they can finish it for their meeting at 7:00. These two are the hardest working Elders we know.

Soon after they left, we left too to take birthday cookies to Chika Thank God Mgbariki; odd name, but his just the same. His parents must have been really thankful for him. We were going to ask him how he came by his name, but alas, he wasn’t home so we left the cookies and his card in his mailbox. We’ll see him next Sunday. Today was Kurt Kummer’s bithday, but last Sunday he said he would be gone all week.

By the time we were on our way to Chikas, it began to rain and it didn’t let up until sometime later during Institute. We thought we had plenty of time to get to Chikas and back in time for Institute at 7:45, but we ended up being about fifteen minutes late. We left our apartment at 5:30 so you can see how long it takes to be able to visit just one member. It’s good to see Institute start again and the young single adults started right in where they left off. All of them, and there were a lot, were happy to see each other again after the long summer vacation. All of the English speaking young women, who were working as nannies last year, were gone. Sarah, Aleah and our favorite, Paulina, are gone never to return again. They left for home soon after Institute closed for the summer.

Diana’s tender mercy for today was seeing Brigitte on a passing bus while we were waiting at a bus stop for our own bus to come. When she saw us, she jumped out of her seat and stood at the door waving at us as her bus went by. It makes us think how much we can affect someone’s life even when we don’t realize it. Just doing little kind acts can mean a lot; a smile, a handshake, a few word of greeting is all it sometimes takes to lift someone’s spirits.