Me cutting E. Richeson's hair; Sunday lunch with E. Irick, Diana, Tony Dkere, E. Richeson, Agnes, E. Nilsson, Madeline and you can't see E. Dockstader and Fabian; I was at Migros Saturday and they gave away a rose and a heart shaped chocolate. I brought them home and put the rose in an empty catsup bottle with the chocolate in the open cap and gave it to Diana. When the missionaries saw it today, they thought it was funny and E. Richeson said it was so "redneck." Diana thought it was sweet and gave me a hug.


The video clip is in or apartment during our after conference fellowshipping lunch. I also took a tour of our apartment again.

OCTOBER 25, 2009 SUNDAY

We didn’t stay up last night to listen to BYU play TCU but, I woke up and checked the score just at the end of the 3rd quarter and the beginning of the 4th quarter. The score was 7 to 31 TCU and BYU just turned the ball over, so I went back to bed. We were up again by 6:30 to put the casseroles together and get them ready to put in the oven midway through conference. It took longer than we’d hoped and we had to rush to get to our correlation meeting. We are almost always the first ones there and then have to wait for the others to come, but this time we arrived at the same time as they did, fifteen minutes late. We had a good meeting and reported that Tony Dkere and Liz Bouso were coming to Church today and that arrangements had been made to pick up Werner Buehlmann. We also reported we had a meeting set up with Valerie Otte and Friede for next Saturday, and mentioned we’d called Hildegunde Schroeder and Marc Kummer to invite them and had visited Verena Bosshard.

Following the meeting we went into Sacrament Meeting which was held before the session of conference was broadcast. We were thrilled to see Tony Dkere being greeted at the front door by Bishop Schwendener. We were in time to greet him and introduce him to the bishop and to introduce him to other members who were in the foyer. It was heartwarming to see members approach him to be introduced and then to make him feel welcome. We tried to greet as many members and investigators as we could and then we sat with Tony. Just as the meeting began, Madeline, a lady who we mentioned last Sunday, came and sat down by Diana. Good faithful Brother & Sister Locher picked up and brought Werner Buehlmann and we could tell Werner was happy to be in Church today. Werner told Diana he had a flower for her, but that Bro. Locher had forgotten to bring it. Bro. Locher apologized for forgetting it. The meeting was only long enough to conduct ward business, administer the sacrament and a testimony from Bishop Schwendener. When it was over, all the people who wanted to listen to the English broadcast went into the Primary room. German speaking people stayed in the chapel. We were disappointed that Liz Bouso didn’t come today. We thought sure she’d come because she told both us and the missionaries she would, but maybe the rain persuaded her not to. But Hildegunde came and we made sure we said hello to her. She just needs periodic encouragement to get the strength to come, but once she’s here, she really enjoys it.

Part way through conference I ran home in the misty rain and put the casseroles in the oven and, by the time I was ready to go back, it was raining hard. I went back up to our apartment and got me an umbrella and two others in case the people coming home with us after Church didn’t have one. The talks were wonderful for us as well as our investigators and Tony. Elder Holland’s testimony of the Book of Mormon was particularly powerful. We had just given Tony a copy of the BM last Friday and he had it with him today. We weren’t in the German side so we didn’t see if Cornelia or Neide were there, nor Gabriella. Charlotta wasn’t either, but we knew she was home fighting the flu. We didn’t see Marc Kummer either. After the conference was over and before we left, Tony talked with Chika, a black member, and exchanged phone numbers. That’s one more connection to the Church for Tony.

We didn’t really know who would be coming for lunch, but we made enough for an army. The four missionaries came as well as Agnes, Madeline, Tony and Fabian. We also invited Bishop Schwendener & his wife, Danielle, but he said he had interviews and would come if things worked out. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it. We also invited Suki, who said she was too tired to come, and George, who declined because he doesn’t eat eggs, meat and other things that were on our menu. We had a good time together and besides just good conversation, we mixed in a little from the conference talks as well. These informal gatherings are a good way for people to get to know one another. We found out that Madeline is from Cameroon and Agnes and Tony are from Nairobi. We took this opportunity to invite Tony to come to home evening at the Bolts tomorrow night and he said he would come. He asked us if it would be okay to bring a friend, if he wanted to come. And this is how the gospel is spread, from one person to another.

We had so much casserole left over we sent enough home with the missionaries for them to have another meal. We still have one more complete casserole that didn’t get cooked because there was no more room in the oven. We put it in a container and froze it to use another time. We also have enough for us to make one more meal. Holy cow!! It seems our food kept multiplying, just like the fishes and the loaves of bread. For dessert we served them brownies, banana bread and vanilla ice cream. We even put some on a plate along with some salad and took it to our 92 year old neighbor, but when she finally came to the door, she said she was sick and didn’t want anything to eat. We asked her if there was anything we could do for her. She said she couldn’t go out and would we go to the apoteke (drug store) and get her some medicine tomorrow. She showed us what it was and we’ll try and get it for her tomorrow.

Priscilla called while everyone was still here to tell us that she had decided to go to see her mother in the Philippines and had arranged a flight for tomorrow afternoon. That is good news because it’s just been tearing her apart to be here, when she knew her mother was dying. She’ll be gone for three weeks and we hope she comes back happier than when she leaves. The four missionaries decided to go to her home this afternoon and wish her well and send her off with a song, ‘Till We Meet Again. After they left we cleaned up and then reviewed the day’s experiences. The Spirit was strong in the meetings and we’re sure those present felt His love for them and, we can’t help but feel, that it will help them in their lives to make a decision to be baptized and/or remain active.

Normally we pick out just one or two things where we felt or recognized the tender mercy of the Lord in our’s or other’s lives, but today we feel that the whole day was a tender mercy. As we read through this journal entry, we see the hand of the Lord in the lives of so many people and we are just blessed to be a part of it. We truly felt the Spirit all day long as we saw people greeting and talking to one another, listened to the talks, the many acts of kindness one towards another, people having the courage to come to Church and so many others that it would be hard to mention them all. The Lord really does love His children. These are the experiences that makes serving a mission all that much more special.