Diana butting heads with the battering ram; Robert, you see only half of the bells; bear statue at the gate to the Einstein Museum

Film clip of the Zeitglockenturm in Bern.


AUGUST 5, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Wash day once more. When will the scientists invent clothes that don’t need to be washed, dried and ironed? It takes until noon to get it all done, but in between running to the washer and taking them in and out of the dryer, we do our studying and lesson preparation. I worked on my lesson for the High Priest Group while Diana read in the German Preach My Gospel handbook. Since the AP’s attend four zone conferences this week, one on Monday P-day, they used today as their P-day and wanted haircuts. Diana had lunch prepared and on the table when Elders Pine & Richeson came over at 12:30. After lunch I cut both of their hair; when one was getting a haircut, the other was on the computer.

When they left at about 3:00, we got ready and just as we were looking up addresses on Google Maps for where we wanted to go, Roxsan skyped us to talk about a house she’d found to buy. Soon after she hung up, Rebecca called about the same subject. President Matern called too and made an appointment for Saturday at 10:00 to get his hair cut. By the time we finished talking with them it was cool enough outside to go see if we could find someone to talk to. The first one we went to was Sarah Otte’s mother. Sarah is the one we went to a week or two ago to take her a birthday present. We found out she lived in Luzern, but didn’t get an address or phone number because she said she already knew the sisters who work in Luzern. We rang the doorbell and Mrs. Otte stuck her head out of the 2nd story window. She recognized us and was glad to give us Sarah’s phone number, but she didn’t have her address. After we had the phone number we asked her if she had ever talked to the missionaries. She replied she had her own Church, but we persisted and gently asked her if we could visit with her anyway. Surprisingly, she said, “sure, why not?” She let us into the building and then into her apartment. She had a lot of different knick knacks, dolls (witches, clowns and dolls) hung around her apartment and numerous large and small fans decorating the walls as well as a couple of large tapestries. We spent about 20 minutes as she took us on a tour of her home then we sat down and got acquainted.

We talked about religion, of course, and she told us a little about her church and some others that she didn’t approve of. Diana felt inspired and all of a sudden had the gift of tongues and taught her in German for about ten minutes before I could get a word in edgewise. Mrs. Otte believes in Christ as our Savior and that you need to be baptized. She had a lot of religious booklets between bookends on a chest of drawers and we asked her if she had a Book of Mormon. She emphatically said she didn’t and didn’t want one either. She pulled an anti-Mormon brochure out of the row of booklets and read a paragraph which, if it were true, we wouldn’t want one either. During the course of the conversation we bore testimony of Joseph Smith, restoration of the gospel and true Church, the need for the Priesthood, the organization of the true Church and so on. Towards the end on our visit she asked us if we knew William Branham, a preacher who gave a talk on January 16, 1963, in Mesa, Arizona. When we answered no, she got a pamphlet out of the row of them and gave it to us. We told her we would read it, but she would have to do something for us. We got a Book of Mormon out of our backpack and made a deal with her. We would read hers, if she would read the underlined verses in the Book of Mormon. We bore testimony that we believed in the bible, but we also believed in the Book of Mormon and if she would read the underlined verses, she would understand that we believed in Christ as our Savior and Redeemer and she would understand why we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. She agreed to do it. Quite a change from emphatically not wanting one to agreeing to read from it. We talked a while longer, had a prayer, arranged to come back after her vacation and then left.

Next we went to the apartment of Luisa del Carmen Chavez-Munoz who was listed on our member list as someone who didn’t want us to contact her. As we’ve written before we are rechecking everyone again to see if their hearts haven’t softened and are ready to respond to the call of the prophet to come back. She wasn’t ready, but maybe someday. The next one we went to was Frau Peyghambari, the ex-wife of Ali Reza who we met there months ago. He didn’t live there any more, but was there celebrating his birthday. At that time he didn’t have time to meet with us, but we gave him our phone number and he said he’d call us. He didn’t, so we went there today to see if we could get his phone number and address from his ex-wife, but no one was home. It was almost 8:30 so we thought it time to get on home. We made it home by 9:00 and just in time to get our mid-week check up call from our district leader. Yep, all’s well. We called the sisters in Luzern and gave them Sarah’s phone number and a short history on her. Sarah is 26, divorced with one 7 year old son. She’s going with a 50 year old man who is still married and has two kids of his own and he’s her boss at work. She thinks she’s going to marry him. Her mother says she is not religious any more and she is really worried about her. She is grateful we are going to send the sister missionaries to see if they can help her. And so ends another day.