Crows in a roundabout; kids and goats normal preceed the cows when they bring them down from the mountains; the last photo is of typical Swiss country, but wouldn't it be nice to have golf clubs and play golf all over the place?

More yodeling. I can't make my voice do the yodeling. Maybe with a lot of practice, but don't count on it.


SEPTEMBER 14, 2009 MONDAY

There was no hurry to get up and get going this morning because our P-day plans got changed. Elder Harris has relatives in Arosa near Chur that he has never met and had made arrangements to go visit them. We were all going to go with him except we were going to see the country while he visited his relatives. For some reason the appointment was postponed by the relatives and so the missionaries decided to get together play soccer from 12:00 until 3:00 and then meet Charlotte and go into Zurich for the “Knabenschiessen.” As explained to us it was kind of like a small carnival of sorts with some shooting contests, ferris wheels, rides and other booths for games and buying stuff. Rather than do that, we decided to ride the train to Konstanz just to wander the streets, look in stores and maybe find something interesting. After we got to the Zurich Bahnhof and were walking down the platform to get on our train to Konstanz, we ran into Elder Middleton and his companion who were on their way to meet with the missionaries playing soccer. It was a joyful reunion with him as we hadn’t seen him for some months. He was Elder Pine’s companion here in our district when we first arrived last October 1st.

We arrived in Konstanz okay and were successful in wandering the streets. We window shopped and looked around in some stores just having fun and enjoying the day. We found some “singing magnets” which are small oblong magnets that when tossed together into the air, they buzz until you catch them again. At home another name for them is “snake eggs” because they sound like the tail of a rattlesnake when it’s alarmed. They were only 1.99 Euro so we bought some for Christmas presents later on. Diana found her some replacement shoes and we bought the game we played with Fabian the other night. The name of the game is Carcassonne which, Fabian said, is named after a city in France. We had such a good time that when it came time to go back to Aldis to buy a few groceries, we got turned around. We thought we knew where we should go, but it turned out to be the wrong direction. We asked a few people, but got varying answers. We followed one man’s directions and ended up at the train station in Kreuzlingen and not Konstanz. We could have stayed at Kreuzlingen and caught the train there to Zurich, but we wanted to buy a few groceries at Aldi. There was a Denners close so we stopped in to see how their prices were, but they seemed more expensive than the one in Schwamendingen. We asked some security people at Denners and they gave us the right directions. When we got back to the shopping mall where Aldi was, we only had ten minutes to quickly run in and grab a few things and then run to the station. The train came in as we got there, but we made it with a few minutes to spare.

We arrived home by 6:00 and had time to relax a little. Diana cooked some hamburgers that tasted really yummy. Where does the word “yummy” come from? We tried to call Tony Dkere to remind him of our FHE appointment, but he didn’t answer his phone. We hoped he didn’t answer because he was on his way to meet us, but he didn’t show at the Church, our meeting place. That was a disappointment, but we will keep working with him. From there we walked over to the Bolt’s home for home evening.

We were excited to see Neide and Marcello there. Neide hadn’t been participating for some time and this is the first time Marcello was there. Suki also made an appearance after being absent for over six or seven months and we were so glad to see her. Bordo Ruckauer, a return missionary from Germany who’s rooming with the Bolts, was also in attendance. The other regulars were there including Hitsch & Kathi, Irene & Joerg, Charlotte and us. Joerg gave a lesson on not letting the things of the world overpower the spiritual things and serving the Lord. We need to make time to read, ponder and pray and shut out the noise of the world. We are just too busy mostly with good things, but we should organize our time and prioritize rather than letting life just sweep us along.

Suki brought some drinks including a big bottle of Coca Cola. When no one drank any, she asked why. A discussion ensued about drinking coke, that it wasn’t exactly a commandment not to and that it’s a personal decision to drink it or not to drink it. Elder Packer gave a talk on the Word of Wisdom and his counsel was to avoid the very appearance and to avoid habit forming substances.

Charlotte was in charge of the game and she brought the three dimensional wooden puzzles to put together. We were given one which we were never able to solve before time was up. We finally could see how it went together, but wasn’t able to get it done. Dessert was a piece of lemon pie and a sweet cake muffin. After that the evening came to a close and we all went home. Home evening is such an inspired program and we hope that everyone who reads our journal makes it a habit to have their own. We look forward to it every week.

After we got home I wrote this journal entry while Diana made another couple of plaster Santa boots for the kids in Nelly Rathgeb’s kindergarten to paint. She wants to make enough for all of the kids to have one. Elders Dockstader and Richeson have an appointment to go over to her school Wednesday morning to help out like we did a couple of weeks ago. Diana wants to have the boots made so they can take them to Nelly when they go.

We decided the tender mercy for today is that we have great and wonderful children who love us and love and support each other and are doing everything they can to serve the Lord and raise good families.