E. Harris & E. Richeson holding the broom with E. Nilsson going under; BBQ at Charlottes; Missionaries watching fireworks.

Allesandro & Charlotte naming the county flags in Switzerland while at the BBQ. Those who attended the BBQ were Elders Harris & Nilsson, Elders Carrier & Vincent, Elders Pine & Richeson, Norma & Allesandro, Diana & I, and Charlotte & her five cats.

AUGUST 1, 2009 SATURDAY

SWITZERLAND’S INDEPENDENCE DAY

Today the Swiss celebrate their Independence Day. All of the stores are closed and, other than that, we’ve not heard too much going on. We’ve seen the same traditional fireworks tents set up by vendors to sell fireworks just like at home. We’ve heard a few firecrackers, but not even close to what we hear starting a few days before July 4th and culminating on the 4th. We hear there will be a lot of fireworks going on tonight all over Zurich, and we suppose, all over Switzerland and Charlotte wants to take us up on the mountains surrounding Zurich somewhere so we can watch them all. She has prepared a celebration at her home and invited a lot of missionaries and people to come after which the fireworks will begin. We’re supposed to be there right now (3:30) to help decorate, but we had to take a break for a little while.

We invited Priscilla, her friend Eva, Norma & Allisandro and Elders Harris and Nilsson to come over for lunch during which we were going to present her with her Baptism Remembrance book as a surprise. Unfortunately her friend didn’t come, but the rest of them did. We started cooking and preparing about 9:00 and just finished by the time everyone arrived. I made the chicken pot pie while Diana made the salads, shredded carrots with shredded apples and raisins, and a chocolate mousse with fruit cocktail, bananas and peaches. Heated up croissants, rolls, sliced bread, Sprite, Kool-aid and punch rounded out the meal. Diana had already made a cheesecake yesterday so that was one thing less to do, just put ice cream on it and serve it up for dessert. We wanted to take a photo of everything, but we forgot so you’ll just have to imagine the best you’ve ever tasted and drool. The bottom crust on the chicken pot pie didn’t get all the way cooked and when Priscilla asked if it was a cheese layer, I told her it was. I didn’t want to tell her it was dough that hadn’t quite got cooked and it did taste and chew like cheese, so will I be punished for this white lie?

After the meal was over Elders Harris, Nilsson and Norma gave a lesson on Prophets and how important they are. Diana added some wise counsel as we went through the discussion. Then came the big moment, presenting her with the book of remembrance. At her baptism all those present wrote their testimonies/thoughts on sheets of paper and all of these were mounted in the book along with many photographs taken of her and others on that memorable occasion. As you can imagine she was thrilled to receive it and was overcome with emotion. She said she would treasure it and would never forget the Elders and Sister Larson who taught and baptized her. What a great way to spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. And we think we accomplished one of our goals which was to find another friend, Norma, for Priscilla.

We cleaned things up and then Diana took a short catnap while I wrote our daily journal up to this point because I knew we wouldn’t get home until later tonight. I also wrote our correlation report and when I woke Diana up, we went over it again together and she reminded me of a couple of things that we added to it. We told Charlotte we would come over and help her at 3:00 to decorate for the celebration tonight at her home, but Elder Harris called with a question for us and during the conversation, he told us they had everything done so we didn’t have to go until 5:00. Charlotte grilled pork ribs for us and had a yummy traditional Swiss potato salad. For dessert she made a traditional fruit torte with plums on some and apricots on the other. After we played a game which tested our knowledge of things in general, but they were questions oriented to Europeans. We didn’t do very well; we only got three out of ten questions right.

We were mostly killing time until it got dark enough to go see the fireworks. We had intended to go up on a mountain somewhere, but we decided it would be too late before the fireworks started. The missionaries asked Pres. Matern if they could stay out late tonight, but his answer was to look in the handbook and see what it said about when to be in their apartments. The rule says 9:30. He didn’t give them a yes or a no, but left it up to them to decided if they wanted to stay out or not. Being the kind of missionaries they are, they decided they would be obedient to the rules. However, Norma and Allesandro brought some fireworks with them, kind of like we can buy at home only a little better, and we lit them off before we went home. By the time it got full dark we were home and nothing much was going on around where we live. It’s 10:20 right now and there is fireworks and explosions going off everywhere now. It’ll probably take awhile before things settle down so we can go to bed and have enough quiet to go to sleep. It’s legal to set off fireworks until midnight because of an exception the government made to the law that all noise has to cease at 10:00. They are very strict about this law and if someone violates it, they get reported right away. But not tonight.