Frescoes like these are on many buildings, this one in Konstanz; Diana's hamburger kebap; E. Carrier, E. Richeson behind post, S. Hewitt, E. Pine, S. Stoddart, E. Vincent, E. Larson on the bus coming back from our Luzern district meeting.

Film clip of my Hawaiian kebap being created.


AUGUST 11, 2009 TUESDAY

Our district meeting today was in Luzern and when that happens, it takes most of the day to get there, have the meeting and get back home. We left our apartment at 8:15, met Elders Carrier & Vincent, Richeson & Pine at the Zurich main station and traveled by train to the Luzern station. From there we took a tram and ended up at the end of the line and then we walked the last leg to the church where we met Sisters Hewitt and Stoddart. We had a great meeting during which we reviewed the assignments we were given to work on at zone conference last week. Diana gave us a lesson on the chapter from Preach My Gospel on recognizing and understanding the Holy Ghost. She does so good about explaining things and had some inspirational experiences to tell. She told the story of a teacher (couldn’t remember his name) who told the story of wanting to visit his sister in another state. He got her address and directions how to get there, but then lost them on the way. He didn’t have a phone, didn’t have her address or number anyway, so the only way he could think of to find her place was to pray. After the prayer he felt inspired to drive and a voice told him where to turn and how to go and then finally to stop. When he got out and went to the door of the house where he stopped, it was his sister’s home. Diana always does a great job. Sister Stoddart gave us a health tip. She had us bring an extra pair of socks with us today. She had us sit in a circle, take our shoes and socks off, smear the soles of our feet with vaseline after which she gave us saran wrap to wrap our feet. Then we put on our socks over the whole mess and left them that way during the rest of the meeting. This treatment was supposed to soften your feet and make them feel good and, when your feet feel good, the rest of you is supposed to feel good. Did it work? We can’t tell yet. I had the game which was “know the apostles.” First I had them tell me all the names of the living apostles so we could list them on the board. Next, I read the ordination dates, professions, hobbies and interesting facts about each one and they were supposed to guess which one belonged to which description. Most got 4-6 right, but Sister Hewitt, who won, got 11 out of the 15 right. Elder Vincent was next with 9 right. Elder Pine gave an inspirational story about a rich father taking his son to stay on a farm for a day or two to have his son appreciate how rich they were and how nice he had it. Instead, the son saw how rich the farmer was and how poor they were and taught his father a lesson that it isn’t the riches of the world that count, but family, friends, service to others, etc. are what makes one truly rich. At the conclusion we had what is called a “Big Prayer.” Each companionship gives the one saying the closing prayer the name of one or two people they would like to have included in the prayer. After the prayer we had ice cream sundaes for a treat.

It has become a tradition that when we go to Luzern for district meeting, we have to go to our favorite Kebap (pronounced “Keybobs”) place for lunch. I got the Hawaiian Kebap and Diana got a pocket hamburger. Both are delicious. This time I took a few photos and a film clip of how they make them. We spent a little too much time there and couldn’t walk fast enough to the train station and missed it by five seconds. At each door of the train there is a button surrounded by little lights that you push to open the doors. When the lights are on, the door is active and you can get in, but when they go out, they’re locked. The lights went out just as one of the missionaries reached to punch it. It wasn’t a real big problem because the next train came a half hour later, but it just put us later getting home. A couple of the missionaries never missed a beat and spent the time street contacting outside of the station. We ended up getting home by 3:00 in the afternoon.

We went back out in the early evening to see if we could find Carolyn Maurer and Barbara Pastore home, but neither of them were. Carolyn had a birthday a couple of days ago, but we weren’t able to get there for some reason or another so we took her birthday gift with us and left it in her mailbox. We left a note with Barbara asking her to call us. On the way home we stopped at Migros to buy some milk that was on sale and we bought some other stuff to make dinner one night while we are with the Bolts in Kloster helping them build their home. We came home and dropped of the food and then walked over to Joerg and Irene’s apartment and watered their plants like we promised them while they are on vacation. Roxsan skyped us again and we talked with her and her kids for about a half hour and now all is quiet (except for the ever present noise from the freeway) and once we finish writing our journal we’ll slowly slide into bed and oblivion.