Two photos of Rheinfalls and one of the border police checking two passengers on the train.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009 TUESDAY

This morning we decided we’d waited long enough to renew our yearly transportation passes. Our old ones expire on October 2, 2009, just four days from now. We filled out the forms that were mailed to us, drew the rest of the money from our ATM, and tried to go to where we registered to get our verification of our address form officially stamped. Rather than close at the normal 12:00 hour for their noon break, the office closed at 11:30, a half hour early. Now what to do? We decided to go to the transportation office in Glatt Zentrum anyway and see if we really needed the address verification or not. As it turned out, we didn’t; everything went smooth a silk. Maybe it was because we had to fork over $4350.00 and, when they’re getting that much money, who’s worried about the small things. At least that’s one thing less we have to worry about unless we don’t get the cards in the mail before October 13; that’s when our temporary passes expire. Once that was done, we didn’t have too much time to waste so we quickly stopped into Migros on the way home to get a few things for tomorrow and then continued on to home.

I had an appointment with Brother Klaumunzner in the mission home at 2:00 to prepare everything to get a Swiss driver’s license. In Switzerland we are allowed to use our USA license for a year and then we have to get one of their’s. Diana wasn’t excited about going with me just to sit while I got my eyes tested, answered medical questions and filled out the application, so she stayed home. I went to the mission home, took care of all that needed to be done and then took the trams to the Driver’s License Bureau. It was almost exactly like ours at home except we didn’t take numbers; we just stood in line. After a long wait I finally got to a window and presented my papers and expressed my desire to get a Swiss license. No soap!!! Bureaucrats are the same everywhere. She insisted I needed my original registration document (visa) and I only had a zerox copy. When we went in to renew our registration, they kept our original visa, stapled it to our application and gave us a copy. I asked them if that was good enough for everything we may have to use it for and they said yes. Liar, liar, pants are on fire! We had to supply more documents for the visa renewal and so we don’t have an original one yet, and we don’t know if what we gave them they accepted, or if they’ll want more. The people at the government office windows just take the applications/documents and then tell us we’ll get something in the mail in two to four weeks. Our first year is up on October 1st so we won’t know if they’ll extend the deadline because of them taking our original visa or not.

We started out this morning at 11:15 and I got back in the afternoon at about 5:00. We still had to get out to Volketswil to take Patricia Hungerbuehler’s birthday card/ gift to her as well as invite her, Marija Friederich, Andreas Odermatt and Rene’ Hartmann to conference Sunday and be back for Institute at 7:45. We got things together, hopped the tram/train and traveled to Stettbach, but missed our train by two minutes. We waited the half hour and caught the next train to Schwerzenbach, the train station at Volketswil. We took the bus to Zentrum, got off and walked to Patricia’s apartment. She wasn’t home and, when we wanted to put her gift/card/invitation in her mailbox, it was jammed full. She must be on vacation or something. Working at it, we finally got everything in and shut the door. Next, we walked to Marija’s and rang her bell. She and her dog came to the door and, when the big dog wanted to get out and wouldn’t quit barking and jumping, she grabbed it and threw it back into the apartment and quickly shut the door. We talked for some minutes, but she told us in no uncertain terms she wasn’t coming to conference and she didn’t care to talk about the Church any more. She kept the invitation though, and we went on our way. We’ll have to pray and feel really inspired if we come back very soon. We caught the bus to Rene’s, but he wasn’t home so we left the invitation anyway. When we got to where Andreas lived, it appeared he had moved. We’ll have to try and track him down. Many months ago Andreas told us he wasn’t interested in the Church any more, but we wanted to invite him to conference anyway. After that we came home, but didn’t stay but a few minutes.

We arrived at Institute a few minutes late, but in time to sing the last verse of the opening hymn. That, in itself, was a small miracle. The lesson this time was on different ways we communicate with Heavenly Father, and Him with us, prophets, seers and being prepared. Following the lesson was the usual social in the cultural hall. Two different kinds of Swiss style potato salad, wieners, bread and pudding cups we on the menu tonight. It’s a good thing they have these socials after, because we didn’t have time to have dinner before coming.

Suwang likes to seek us out to talk with us as she never gets tired of talking. She told us about money problems with her ex-husband as well as a hundred other things. We talked to a new young woman, Terrah Austin, who is here from California to be a nanny and go to the university for a year. Since we go the same direction when leaving the Church, Suwang walked with us into the foyer. She talked some more about the money problems she was having and she asked us to pray for her about it. We three went into the chapel and had a short prayer asking the Lord to bless her, her son, Danek, and daughter, Halina. And then we walked home.

We thought everything was done for the day except to finish writing this entry, but at 10:30 we received a call from Elder Harris. He and Elder Nilsson have a meeting with Pres. Matern and Pres. Bolt again tomorrow afternoon and they need our computer to write their report. He asked if they could be here at 8:00 in the morning to do it. What else could we say, but yes? That’s a bit early, but we’ll manage.

The tender mercy for today is that the Lord is always ready to listen to our prayers if we have enough faith to pray. Elder Dockstader, who was really ill at home evening last night, was feeling better today.