Klosters looking down from the top of the mountain; moth on a flower; the front of Hitsch's home in Klosters.

AUGUST 22, 2009 SATURDAY

This morning we got up, got ready and were just heading out the door to go to help Suwang when the phone rang. It was Suwang calling us to tell us she was trying to make other arrangements to get her clothes to her Bishop for him to store them for her. She takes forever to get to the point and she is really hard to understand, but finally she said she would call us back and let us know if we needed to come. While we were waiting, we cooked potatoes and chicken and worked on other things to get ready for the dinner tonight. We wanted to invite someone over for lunch tomorrow too, so we called Irene & Joerg and Rolf & Krista Aeberli to see if they wanted to come. Irene said they would be delighted to come, but Rolf said he had to wait until his wife came home, but would call us later. Finally Suwang called back and told us she didn’t need our help today. Good! We continued preparing for the dinner tonight.

We had two reasons for the dinner tonight and some of the specific people we invited. Elder Pine is going home on September 4 and we wanted to have him and his companion over one more time. We used Elder Pine’s going home to invite Margarita Maurer and Markus & Dora Wachter so we could fellowship them and possibly teach and invite them to come to Church. Margarita and Dora are less active and Markus is not a member, but we’ve taught him several times. We called the Wachters several days ago and Markus said he’d call us back and let us know. He never did so we called him this morning. He said Dora had something going on at work and so they wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. Elder Pine was going to bring one of the YSA’s with him to work on Mitcio, the Wachter’s son, but since the Wachters weren’t coming, he opted out. Elder Pine asked if Elders Carrier & Vincent could come in his place and how could we say no to that? So these are the people who came to our tiny apartment tonight: Margarita Maurer, Denise Maurer and her daughter Ashley, Elders Pine & Richeson, Nilsson & Harris and Carrier & Vincent. In addition Margarita brought a little boy she was tending. So all total, us included, we had twelve people for dinner tonight.

Diana wants to do chicken pillows tomorrow and so we had to go into Migros and buy some croissants, chicken and a few other things such as makings for salad and some fruit. We did that and came back home and continued getting things ready and pre-make some things for tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll have little time because people will be coming over right after our meetings are over.

Everything was ready by the time everyone arrive. The Maurers were about a half hour late and they apologized profusely. After the blessing we started with a green salad followed by Diana’s delicious potato/mushroom soup. The main course was the chicken casserole followed by brownies and ice cream for dessert. The casserole was good, but it was a little juicy. Even though we had several more people than we had counted on, we had plenty to eat and some left over. Elder Vincent gave the spiritual thought which was difficult for him to do in German because he’s only been here a few weeks, but he did a good job. We accomplished our goal in that we were able to renew our friendship with Margarita. We asked her to say the closing prayer and were pleasantly surprised when she accepted the invitation to pray. She said a beautiful heartfelt prayer and we’re sure our Heavenly Father was pleased as was Denise who had tears in her eyes when her mother was finished. We told Margarita we’d see her in Church tomorrow and after a little bit of a surprised look, she said she’d be there. We were thrilled to hear her say that. Margarita invited us and the missionaries to her home next Saturday for dinner so we’ll be able to keep in contact with her. She is just such a sweet lady.

We left the memory book out that Rebecca had made for us and everyone just loved it and thought it was a great gift. Elder Pine wants to know how to get one made of his family too. We’ll have to ask Rebecca how one goes about doing it.

It is a lot of work to prepare dinner for twelve people and the tender mercy today is that we’re still alive and get to do it all over tomorrow, but this time for only nine people. Also that the Lord gave Margarita the courage and desire to say the closing prayer. We’ve asked her before, but she’s always declined.

Even though it doesn't seem like we do much or accomplish a lot, at the end of the day we're dead tired and we hope we've done a little bit of good.