Norma

Thanksgiving at Norma Backmanns.

NOVEMBER 27, 2009 FRIDAY

This morning we had an appointment to go help George’s ex-wife again, but this time it was to help clean the old apartment. We arrive at our appointed 8:30 and rang the doorbell. Finally a man groggily opened the door and let us in; he had been sleeping in one of the bedrooms. Vera nor George were there, but Vera came about fifteen minutes later and kind of told us what she wanted us to do. She puttered around for a few minutes and then asked us if we needed anything and then left to go buy something or other. We suspected there would be a lot of work to do to clean it up, but we expected she would have had all her remaining stuff moved out to her new apartment, but alas, it wasn’t. We’re not ones to waste time when there is a job to do, so we cleared out the back corner bedroom and got to work. The one wall was windows from ceiling to floor and wall to wall with a door opening onto the balcony. The windows had all kinds of things stuck on them including old paint and picture of a dragon that was painted on with some sort of plastic paint and dried egg where they had been egged at one time or another. We scraped all of it off, which was a job in and of itself, and then washed and shined the windows. We started to wash the dirty walls, but Vera quickly told us we didn’t have to do that because she was just going to paint over them. We at least cleaned spider webs from the corners and then swept and mopped the floors. One of her kids must of painted something in there because there was quite a bit of paint spots on the floor that we had to scrape off. The last thing we did in that room was to wash the window casings and frames, wash the mop boards and then the door and door frames. When that was done, we moved to the next bedroom and started all over, but without having to scrape anything off the windows. While I finished off the insides of the two bedrooms, Diana cleaned and swept the huge balcony and then gave one of the bathrooms a quick once-over. We promised her two hours and we gave her all of that and a little more, but we had other things to do today, too.

We hurried to the bus stop and traveled back home to meet Elders Nilsson & Irick so we could cut Elder Nilsson’s hair. They expect us to be punctual and, when we were a few minutes late, they gave us a call to see where we were at. We told them we’d be there in two minutes which we were. We had an hour to cut his hair and then be on the tram for our meeting point in the Zurich bahnhof to meet Charlotte, Agnes and all the other missionaries going to Winterthur for our P-day activity. Diana prepared a lunch while I cut hair. Food and hair we’re flying in order to get it all done in time. We managed to be on the tram on schedule and met up with the others at the appointed place. Agnes was the last one to get there and then she had to buy her ticket in one of the automated ticket machines. They were still trying to figure it out when I noticed we only had two minutes to get to the train. After warning them Diana and I didn’t wait for the others, but took off. The only trouble was, we got on the wrong escalator, but had to ride it to the bottom and then back up to the top. We were just in time to meet the last half of the missionaries hurrying to the right escalator and we joined with them. We all arrived at the train just in time to wave to the first half of our group who made the train. We were left standing on the platform. Now what! Elder Vincent was a little excited because his companion was on the train and he was still standing with us on the platform. We calmed him down and told him he wasn’t alone and we’d see he got hooked up with his companion in Winterthur. We went back up to the main floor, found another train leaving in 15 minutes, took it and after the twenty minute ride we were all back together again in Winterthur. That was our excitement for the day. We got on the tram and went to the “The Swiss Technorama Science Center” that all of the missionaries wanted to go to. It’s always closed on Mondays, the normal P-days, so this is the only time they would be able to go there.

In the Technorama were inter-active displays where you could experience for yourself the many different science principles. They had displays involving mechanics, high voltage, electricity, magnetism, perception, mathmagics, water, nature, chaos, light, vision, spatial imaging, the sound of wood, faces and mirrors, and automation. There was also a youth laboratory and a section on models of trains, planes and boats. There were hundreds of things one could try and experience. We only had two hours so we didn’t really get into any of the many inter-active things a person could do. In order to understand the principle, what was happening and what you were supposed to learn, you needed to read the card at each display. We didn’t have time to do that so it was not a very exciting activity for us. Upon entry each of us received a brochure explaining the many things that were available to see and do and, if we had of had that before we got there, we could have planned what we wanted to go see and do. Admission was also expensive, 22sfr. each and we paid for Agnes as well. When we left, it was raining as usual and we didn’t bring an umbrella this time, but we are used to the rain by now.

Going home was not near as exciting and we made it without any real trouble. As soon as we got home, we put the already prepared sweet potato casserole in the oven to heat up to take to the Thanksgiving dinner tonight at Normas. While it heated up, we changed and got ready to go and then packed it in one bag, the pumpkin pie in the other and the three bottles of apple and grape drink in my backpack, grabbed the umbrella and we were off on the hour tram, bus ride and hike to Normas. We arrived only a few minutes late.

We had a wonderful dinner of roast turkey, creamed spinach, cooked carrots with rosemary seasoning, cranberried ham, potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes and then for dessert, pumpkin pie, carrot cake and chocolate pudding. But the best part of it all was the company, Norma, Rosa, Jana & Ted Parkins with their two daughters, Aubrey and Kaitlin, Elders Knight & Vincent and us. The Parkins moved into our ward a few weeks ago and this was a good opportunity for them to meet some other members and get acquainted.

We arrived home at about 10:45 and finally were able to take a rest. It seemed we had been going every minute the whole day long. We usually write our journal entry every evening, but just couldn’t muster the energy tonight to do it. And so goes another P-day.

The tender mercy we want to mention today is the Parkins family expressed appreciation for being included and for the opportunity to get to know everyone on a more personal level.