In this blurry photo is a huge pile of beets. I'm glad we didn't have to dig and top them ourselves like we did when we were young. Middle photo is Elders Richeson, Irick, Dockstader and Nilsson at our fondue lunch Sunday. In the last photo is Diana, Charlotte, Elders Irick, Richeson, Nilsson, Dockstader, Fabian, Joerg, and Bodo at our home evening tonight.

NOVEMBER 2, 2009 MONDAY

Today was P-day so we weren’t in a hurry to get out of bed. Charlotte wasn’t available today so nothing in the way of an excursion was organized. We decided we’d go to Konstanz for lunch and then do some shopping in the mall. It was a cold drizzly overcast day so it was hard to get any good photos on the way. My goal on the train ride up and back was to get a photo of the big piles of sugar beets in the fields ready to be loaded and shipped to processing plants. I got a lot of photos, but they were all blurry.

When we arrived in Konstanz, we exchanged some franken for euros and then went across the road to the mall. Just as we got inside the mall doors, Diana realized she had lost the scarf she had around her neck. I hurried and retraced our steps and found that someone had picked it up and put it on the bus stop bench out of the rain. I silently thanked the person who’d done that, picked it up and went back to the mall. The first thing we did was go to the little Thai takeout and bought lunch. It was good as usual and we planned to buy another take out box for each of us to take home for dinner tonight. It was interesting watching the people while we were eating. When we were finished we walked around the mall until we found an interesting store to go into. We mostly look because we realize we aren’t going to be able to take much home with us. In one store we found a measuring cup we needed to replace the one that we cracked awhile ago. We glued that one together, but it still leaked. Then we put tape over the glued crack and it still leaked. Go figure! Anyway, we bought it because it had both cups, ounces and milliliter measurements on it and it is soft plastic. That means it won’t break, if we drop it on our tile floors. We’re finally catching on to the metric system. There’s 10 deciliters in a liter, 100 milliliters in a deciliter.

We ended up in LIDL and slowly worked our way around the few islands, looking at all the food and other items they carry. The time slipped away so fast and when we looked at the time, we only had about twenty minutes to finish and get to the train station. We wait until last to go through the refrigerated/frozen food section, but it seems we goof around too long before we get there. That’s the most important part of the store for us and we always run ourselves short of time. We hurried and loaded in some butter, buttermilk yogurt, some pork chops and sausage, made it through the check stand, packed it all into our bags and quickly hurried to the bahnhof. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare. But, we didn’t have time to order our take out meals to take home with us. Maybe next time.

Our trip back to the Zurich bahnhof was uneventful, but quick and then we walked to our tram stop and waited in the rain for our tram. As we were riding it home, Marc Kummer got on at one of the tram stops. We’d been trying to call him for a few weeks and here he was, right in front of us. When he got on we noticed he was limping pretty good and when we talked to him, he said he’d caught his foot in something and had sprained it really bad. We expressed our concern for him and that we hadn’t seen him at Church or home evening like he promised. He responded that he hasn’t been able to get out much because of his hurt foot. We reminded him that tonight was home evening, but he said he wouldn’t be coming. We told him we missed him and that he was always welcome when he decided to come. We invited him for stake conference next Saturday and Sunday too.

As we got off the tram at our stop, we saw Liz get on it at the other end. We tried to hurray down there to say hello, but she was too quick and the tram door shut. We waved as the tram took off, but Liz never looked our direction and didn’t see us. We’ll try and call her tomorrow again and, if she doesn’t answer, we’ll send her a text message to have her call us.

We got home, put our groceries away and then went over our lesson again for home evening. Elders Nilsson and Irick called and then dropped in to send and email setting up an appointment with one of their investigators. After that, we gathered all our stuff together and we all walked over to the Bolts for home evening. The evening went well except that Fabian was involved in a small rear end collision (his fault) which caused him to be a little late. We gave our lesson and we think we discussed all the points we had prepared. We dressed Bodo in the armor as we read about it, we discussed what each meant in protecting us from the fiery darts of the wicked. When he was fully armored, we had Elder Richeson stand next to Bodo and then gave everyone else a foam ball or bean bag to throw at them symbolizing the fiery darts. It was clear that Bodo was better at protecting himself than was Elder Richeson although some who threw at E. Richeson didn’t hit him anyway.

For the game, many small things (some better than others) were placed in the center of the table. Everyone in their turn rolled one die and if he rolled a six, he was allowed to take an item. The person rolling a six could either take from the middle or take an item someone else had taken. After five minutes it was changed to the number one and reversed the order of who rolled the die. When another five minutes had passed, the game was ended and everyone kept was he still had left. Those without anything chose something from the middle.

Today Fabian had his interview with the US Consulate in Bern and passed, so he for sure is getting his visa and will be flying out to the USA next Monday. Before we left to go home, each of us took a turn and said something nice to him. Someday we may see him again on the other side of the ocean. The car he wrecked was a rental car, but he had bought insurance to cover it.

Elders Irick & Nilsson planned to make pancakes for the Walders, the members from whom they rent their apartment. But they didn’t think ahead to buy the ingredients they needed and now it was too late to do it tonight. Elder and Sister Larson to the rescue. Sometimes we wonder how these missionaries survive. We hurried home, printed off a recipe for waffles, gave them some pancake syrup and some baking soda and baking powder. They had the rest of what they needed.

The last thing that happened today was getting a call from Sister Neidhart reminding us that we were going to help her neighbor move tomorrow. Thanks for the reminder. We in turn called Elder Richeson and Dockstader who had also forgotten. We got everything lined up and we hope everything goes well tomorrow morning.

The tender mercies today were that someone picked up Diana’s scarf and put it in a dry place where it could be found rather than simply taking it with them. The other one was the Lord arranging things to bring us and Marc together so we could talk to him and encourage him to come back into activity. Another one is that Fabian was hurt in the accident and didn’t even reinjure his recently operated knee.