These wonderful frescoes are on many buildings throughout Switzerland; Diana hanging from a coat rack in Castle Minot; the last photo is overlooking the Rhein River with part of the Minot Castle.

OCTOBER 2, 2009 FRIDAY

Diana’s project this morning was to make two batches of Hazelnuss Staenglis (hazel nut stick cookies), for Sunday’s between conference get-together. Both batches have ground up hazelnuts in them, but in addition, one had coconut in it and the other almond slivers. Diana likes the one with coconut best and I like the one with almond slivers in it the best. Hers is not cooked quite so hard and mine is crunchy. But, the best thing about them, both are really really good. There are a lot of members who live far away and, rather than stay at the Church, we invite them here for a quick snack. Missionaries also don’t have anywhere to go, so maybe some of them will come here too. Last conference we had wall to wall people, but it was kind of fun. I helped her a bit and then got busy with my project which was to deliver invitations to neighbors inviting them to conference.

I already had about a hundred invitations when I left the apartment so I went the direction away from the Church stuffing mailboxes. When I ran out, I turned around and walked to the Church and made about a hundred more; that’s all the copy paper I had with me. I should have brought more. I went back out and delivered those until I ran out and then I went back home. While I was home, Elder Hutcheson called and we made plans on what we were going to do together next week. They want to go on Friday to Romanshorn, catch a ferry and cross over the Bodensee to Friedrichshafen and visit the Blimp Museum. After that we’ll try to find another ferry to take us to Konstanz and, if we can’t, we’ll go back over to Romanshorn and then take a train to Konstanz. Then we’ll shop and go home.

I got some more copy paper, went to the Church and made another couple of hundred invitations. I spent the next couple of hours stuffing mailboxes. While I was doing that I saw Tito, the son of the woman we met yesterday, walking by with some other school kids. He recognized me and we said hello to each other as he went by and waved too. When I ran out of invitations, I was close to COOP so I went there to see if we could find something for a gift for Elisabeth Kalt’s birthday party Sunday. On the way I ran into Gabriella pushing Siskea in a stroller and Julian in a backpack on her back asleep. I invited her to conference, but she said she’d probably watch it on the internet. COOP didn’t have anything suitable for a present so I went back home.

Our apartment smelled so good when I got back. Diana had really been working hard at baking. We spent a little time on the computer looking up our train connections for tomorrow morning to go to Bern for ward temple day. The session starts at 9:30 so we will have to catch our train in Zurich at 6:58. That means we have to be up by 4:45 to get ready and be on the tram by 6:15. There must be a better way.

We had to be at the Church by 3:00 to help Norma decorate the gym for the Single Adults dance tonight. Before we went there, however, we walked over to Kofie Bobie-Ansah to deliver a birthday gift and invitation to conference to him. He is the inactive member to whom we taught two lessons probably nine months ago who is now a Pentecostal minister. We want to keep reminding him where the true Church is and hope he’ll come to conference. He wasn’t home so we left it on his door and then walked over to the Church. Norma, Heinz & Lily Locher, Felix Locher and Elders Nilsson & Harris were already there and we were fifteen minutes earlier than when we were asked to be there. Oh well. We pitched in and helped set up tables and decorate for an hour or two and then came home. Elders Nilsson & Harris came over a little later to see if they could find something on LDS.org to help them with a lesson for Agnes. Diana made her hazelnuss staenglis this morning and I made my two loaves of banana bread tonight. Too bad we have to save it all for Sunday. While at the Church, Heinz mentioned that Bro. Wichtermann may have room in his car to ride to the temple, if we wanted to call him. We called him and he did, indeed, have room so we’ll meet him at the Church at 7:15.

The tender mercy for today is that I saw Tito again and he recognized me and waved. It’s good to have a little friend.


A photo of the place where we bought our tickets and got on the boat to go to the Rheinfalls.