OCTOBER 18, 2009 SUNDAY

By 8:00 we were already at the Church for our missionary correlation council. Our WML was there by 8:15 and today George Wimalasuriya was there. His work situation changed so from now on he’ll be coming again. Elder Nilsson presented our plan to organize a Christmas fireside which would combine teaching the first discussion with musical numbers in between. The purpose of the fireside would be for members to invite neighbors, less actives and friends and missionaries to invite investigators. It would give members a chance to display their talents and the Young Single Adults, many who are returned missionaries, the opportunity to teach about Heavenly Father, his love for us, prophets, Christ, the apostasy and restoration including Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It’s been my experience that the one who presents an idea is the one who ends up with the work. So it was that Elder Nilsson received the assignment to put together a sample program for further discussion and approval.

By the time that subject was completed, the other members of the council had arrived and we went through each of our investigator progress reports. For our part we discussed our meetings with Sister Gianatti, Walter Burri and Liz Bouso. We gave updates on what was happening with Elisabeth Kalt (contacting her guardian), Cornelia Schaer (moving her furniture), Werner Buehlmann (birthday today), Charles Aboussou (invited to Church), Marc Kummer (invited to Church) and Verena Bosshard (birthday Thursday). Both sets of Elders gave their reports. They’ve been working really hard and expected quite a few investigators to come to Church today. We inform the council who we think are coming and ask them to give them a hearty welcome. However, the Swiss are a closed people and it’s hard for them to open up and express friendship to new people although they try. It’s really the members from Latin descent who welcome new investigators with open arms.

Following this meeting we went to RS and Priesthood. Cornelia came to all three meeting today which was good to see. In Priesthood we discussed Chapter 44 in the Joseph Smith Manual. Relief Society covered Chapter 43. In Sunday School Edi Fuhrer gave the lesson on spiritual and temporal preparedness. He is an amazing teacher and makes the lessons so interesting. He speaks slowly and clearly and doesn’t ry to overwhelm anybody with big complicated words or sentence structure. We wish he would teach every Sunday.

In Sacrament Meeting there were at least five investigators as well as our families we’re working with. We were saddened to see that Priscilla didn’t come for the second week in a row. We later found out through Elders Nilsson & Irick that she’s having depression problems and well as health and family problems. Satan’s working overtime to win her back. We thought maybe Liz would come, but she didn’t. She said she would for sure come next week for conference.

The first speaker was Melanie Lechmann who spoke on the commandment, love one another. Peter Martin spoke on John 14:15, if you love me, keep my commandments. Elder Nilsson sang the interlude song and then Erik Hanson, our High Councilor, bore testimony of the Atonement and resurrection of Christ and related his experience as he visited a Catholic funeral of a friend. He also told the conversion story he read in the last issue of the Liahona. His last point was that when we pray for something, we need to be ready to act on the answer we get. The Lord knows who we are and what we need.

Following Sacrament Meeting we went home and fixed Elders Nilsson & Irick and Agnes some lunch and got things ready to go visit Bro. Buehlmann. We wrapped a bag cookies and a bag of chocolates, iced the banana bread loaf and took off. We thought Agnes was coming with us, but she left and went home. We had a good visit with Werner although it’s hard to follow what he says because he is in and out of reality due to his brain injury years ago. His son and his wife were there also and we got to talk to them a little. We lit the candles on the cake, but he wouldn’t blow them out; he wanted to watch them burn. We really wanted a piece of banana bread, but when we asked him if he wanted a piece, he said he would rather save it for later. We stayed about 45 minutes, but then felt we should go so his son & wife could visit them in private. On the way home we stopped at the Weiss’s to wish Michael happy birthday. Unfortunately he was in England for a couple of weeks to study English as a requirement for part of his school work. We had a nice visit with Anita, his mother. After that we came on home and Diana got ready for our trip to Klosters tomorrow with Pres. Bolt and Kathi while I baked two loaves of banana bread, one of which we’ll take with us.

We got a call from Rebecca and got caught up on all what’s been going on with her, Jared and Mack. It was fun to talk to them and to see how active Mack is. Elder Knight, our new district leader, called and got our weekly statistical report and gave me my district meeting assignment. He was nice to Diana and didn’t give her an assignment this week.

The tender mercy for today was that we were able to visit Werner who seemed to really enjoy our visit.