Nelly Rathgeb & Diana with two of the students; a little girl took my camera and took photos of Diana and me at the kindergarten.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 THURSDAY

This morning we went to the city office in Oerlikon to renew our visa & registration where we did it a year ago. After getting half way through the paperwork the clerk decided we were at the wrong office. We told him this office was where we did it last year, but he was very emphatic that we go to the other office in Schwamendingen. He also told us our photos we had very painstakingly made were too small and pointed to a photo machine and said we could get our pictures taken there. The only trouble was the photos cost 10.00sfr. for each of us. We decided to go home and try our computer again. We readjusted the size and printed some more out. Before we went to go back, we got three birthday presents and cards and took with us so when we got through at the city office, we wouldn’t have to go back home to get them. We had three birthday people to visit this afternoon.

We went to the Schwamendingen office and things were going along pretty good until the clerk saw the photos. This time they were a smidgeon too big. We didn’t have time to go back home again so we decided we’d try again tomorrow. We hopped the tram to Stettbach and then changed to bus 787 and traveled to Zentrum Glatt where we switched to bus 759 to go to Wallisellen where Christa Aeberli lived. After we were on the bus we remembered we left our umbrella on bus 787 and it had begun to rain. Just great! There was no way to retrieve it even though our bus stopped next to it at a stop light before it went a different direction. We continued on to our stop, got off and walked to Christa’s home, but it had stopped raining by this time. It was uphill all the way and when we got there, we had to rest a while before we rang the doorbell. No one was home so we left the gift/card by their door and returned to our bus stop. We stopped in the Schoggi Huessli, the chocolate outlet store not far from our bus stop, and bought a few items, one of which was a gift for Dora & Markus Wachter with whom we had an appointment tonight. Chocolate is like a magnet to us, but this time we are going to ration it instead of chug-a-lugging it.

When we came out of the chocolate store, it was raining pretty hard, and we without an umbrella. We walked to where the bus stop should have been, but it had been moved because of construction. However, a bus was sitting there so we asked the driver where the bus stop had been moved to. He told us and we walked through the rain getting there just as the bus came. As we got off at Zentrum Glatt to change buses, we saw our bus 787, the one with our umbrella on it, coming the other way. We took off like a shot to get to its stopping spot and got there in time to get on, retrieve the umbrella and get off again before it took off. Great! We had our umbrella again.

From here we went back to Schwamendingen, changed to a bus for Oerlikon, changed buses again and finally arrived close to where Andreas & Florian Brantschen, twin brothers, lived. We had a little trouble location their apartment building, but we finally did. This time Andreas was home and we actually were able to give a birthday present & card to a live person. Andreas is active, but Florian is not and we have never had the pleasure of meeting him. We returned home, took a little breather, and then left for our appointment with the Wachters.

When Dora invited us last Sunday, we agreed she wouldn’t prepare dinner for us, that we would just come to visit. It didn’t work out that way because she just had to fix something although it was only a one course meal with a slice of ice cream and cookies for dessert. It was a delicious Bolivian dish of chicken in a sauce over sticky rice. After that we had good conversation and then gave them a lesson on TIME. Last time we were here his biggest defense was he had no time to read the Book of Mormon, the bible or to go to Church because he had to work to support his family. We read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11, Alma 12:24, Alma 34:32, and Alma 42:4 and discussed each one as we read them. Nothing seemed to have a great impression on Markus, but Dora helped us by supporting what we were teaching. She said she had missed out on a promotion at work because she had not prepared enough in learning the German language. In the same way we could miss out on being in the Celestial Kingdom if we don’t prepare enough while here on this earth. She committed to being more active in coming to Church because she didn’t want to miss out on the eternal blessing by not being prepared. The last visual aid we used was a chart with the words No Time For God as a heading and with a picture by each of these phrases: Too Young, Too Much in Love, Too Worried, Too Busy, Too Old, Too Late. Then on the bottom were these words: God has time for you! Take time for Him while there is still time. Finally, something made an impression on Markus. He got really excited about this chart saying that all of it was true, and nobody could argue against it. We think he realized that his argument about having no time was just a lame excuse. He finally agreed that people can make time for what is important to them, including himself. We gave him the chart and he said he was going to take it to work and show it to his co-workers just to get their reaction. He was really excited about doing this. Before we left we invited him to bring his family to Church and had a prayer. He had to go pick up his two sons from soccer practice so he drove us home because it was on the way.

We got home and were writing this journal entry when Roxsan skyped us to say hello and give us an update on our hazard insurance policy. It seems a problem has arisen that jeopardizes our coverage on all our rental properties, but she’s on top of it and will get it all worked out. Again it’s late so we’ll say goodnight. But first, the tender mercy of the Lord for today.

After having left the umbrella on the bus the rain quit and we were able to walk the ten mintues up to and ten minutes back from Christ Aeberli’s home without getting wet. And, if we would have carefully planned it, we couldn’t have been more exact in meeting the very bus at Zentrum Glatt that we had left it on. The Lord has been working overtime to bless us and even though an umbrella seems insignificant, it was important to us and so important for the Lord too.