Here we are standing at a bus stop to go home after lunch today. This is what they typically look like out away from the city center.

NOVEMBER 13, 2009 FRIDAY

No trouble here on Friday the 13th! Our day went along as normal. Sister Helena Roffler invited us to lunch today with her, Heinz & Lily Locher and Silvana Gianatti. Missionaries are expected to give a spiritual thought on such occasions and so this morning we prepared a lesson for Silvana to give her after the lunch. The last time we met with Silvana at her home we taught her the Plan of Salvation, but never got finished. We felt we needed to start from the beginning again and re-emphasize that we were taught the Plan by our heavenly parents and EVERYONE that is born onto this earth said “yes” to His Plan. We accepted Christ as our Savior and we shouted for joy that we would have the opportunity to come to earth and have this experience. Those that said “no” and followed Satan were thrust out of heaven and won’t have the opportunity to receive a body. We just need to help them recognize and feel the spirit and that connection with Heavenly Father. We also wrapped the poppy seed cake in tin foil we made for Sister Roffler and got it ready to take with us. We left our apartment at 11:30 so we could arrive there at noon.

We were the first to arrive and when we did, we realized we didn’t have the loaf of poppy seed cake anymore. Holy Cow! We left it in a bag sitting on the tram seat; how could we have done that? We told Sister Roffler our sad story and apologized, but told her we would make her another sometime. Shortly after Sister Locher and Sister Gianatti arrived. Soon after Brother Locher arrived. He spent the morning assisting a kindergarten class on an excursion into the woods to renovate bird nest boxes and get them ready for the birds to use next spring. He personally made 30 new boxes that they set out and they renovated another 200. The lunch was especially good consisting of salad, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and carrots, and string beans. Dessert was chocolate chip cupcakes and fresh pineapple slices. Before lunch was served we noticed a fig tree outside her picture windows that still had figs on it in various stages of ripeness. She said that none of them were any good because when the cold sets in, the ripening process stops. I went out an picked a few anyway and tried them. They weren’t as sweet as they could have been, but they were still good enough that I enjoyed them.

After the meal we launched into the lesson and Silvana surprised us with an answer to our first question. We asked her what name we use when we talk to God? She answered, Heavenly Father, but said he is the same as Jehovah, right?” It took us a little while to help her understand that Jehovah was the Son of Heavenly Father and the same person as Jesus Christ. From there we went on with the lesson until she had to go to a doctor appointment. Our purpose today was to help her understand that she was taught the Plan of Salvation in the pre-earth life, voluntarily came to earth, that God calls prophets and apostles to lead and guide us, that he has given us the Light of Christ to help us know right from wrong, that since she is baptized, she has the Gift of the Holy Ghost, that the Church is organized and we can partake of the Sacrament every Sunday and so on and so forth. We wanted her to understand that all these things are there to help her, along with the scriptures and the blessing of communicating with Heavenly Father through prayer. But we emphasized she has to do her part. She needs to have the desire to know the truth, study, ponder and pray. But there is still more she has to do and we emphasized this as well. She must live what she knows and she must exercise her faith and be willing to act on the answers and feelings she receives from Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit. That means she must actually read the Book of Mormon, attend Church and live better as truth and light are revealed to her. If she does this, the confusion and doubt will disappear and will be replaced by a burning testimony of Christ and His gospel. We’re not sure she got it all, but the Lord is patient with all of us and we’ll be patient with her.

When we got back to our apartment, we made some phone calls hoping to catch someone home, but didn’t. Later on in the afternoon I took my cleaning to the big super COOP store in Oerlikon that has a cleaners in it while Diana stayed busy at home. Keeping a suit clean while wearing it everyday is a little bit of a trick, but I was pretty successful for a long time. When I got back, we started writing our journal when we were interrupted by Elder Nilsson & Irick who came to pick up the DVD they burned on our computer yesterday. They didn’t stay long, but said they would be back after their meeting if the invitation for hot chocolate was still good. We said it was. About an hour and a half later they came back with Agnes and a recently returned sister missionary who helped them team teach Agnes. We fixed them hot chocolate and gave them poppy seed cake and banana bread as well. The missionaries have been working with Agnes a long time and we’re hoping that she will decide to get baptized soon. She says she knows the Church is true, but just wants to be sure that she can live the gospel before she commits.

About 9:30 Suwang called to invite us to lunch next Tuesday, but also told Diana of a problem she was having with one of her neighbors in her apartment building. Suwang said she is trying to be friendly with all her neighbors and one male neighbor took it as a come on and won’t leave her alone. So Diana said we’d come visit her tomorrow to try and help her figure things out.


We can only hope that one of the tender mercies today was that the Lord had us leave the poppy seed cake on the tram to be picked up by someone who needed it more than Sister Roffler did.

We also looked at our emails late last night and saw one from Roxsan asking for advice on buying a home she’s been looking at. Now that our rental property looks like it will close within a week or so, she’s more serious about making an offer. We were just getting ready to go to Sister Rofflers when Roxsan skyped us. For some reason she woke up at 3:00 am her time and caught us before we left. We were able to discuss some important things that were time sensitive regarding the offer on the house and answered some other questions about pecan rolls and making fondant.