Diana & Charlotte making an angel out of plaster; stars we were making out of paper; Ewa & Martin Neidhart and Elder & Sister Larson having lunch together.

DECEMBER 12, 2009 SATURDAY

Joerg walked over here this morning in the rain to get his haircut at 9:00. Irene sent a package of marshmallows and a ziplock back full of single serving Crystal Light lemonade drink mix as a thank you for the haircut. His hair is not that difficult and we had a good conversation while we did it. He described the new job he just got as a home decorator which is his professional line of work. We expected Elders Dias and Dockstader at 10:00, but instead we got a phone call asking if they could come a little later at 11:00. Today was their P-day because they had to be at all the zone conferences during the week and they were spending it at the chapel playing basketball. We filled in the time by doing our reading and marking a Book of Mormon, but as 11:00 rolled around, we got another phone call asking for an additional extension. After another phone call they finally arrived a little after noon. When Diana realized they wouldn’t get here until noon, she guessed they’d be hungry so she made lunch for them which was fried potatoes with bratwurst, carrots, peas and eggs mixed in. It was much better than the Australian omelet we made a few days ago. While they were eating, they explained that each time they were about to leave to come here, someone would come and challenge them to another game. They just couldn’t break away until they ran out of gas.

Somehow the conversation got on to politics. Elder Dockstader is a staunch Democrat and he tried to defend Obama, but he had a hard time doing it. He gave it a good try, however. I cut Elder Dias’s hair which was just a simple butch haircut. He warned me he had difficult hair to cut, but his idea of difficult was much different than mine. Soon after they left, we went over to Charlottes to help her make ward Christmas party decorations. We worked on cutting thin strips of red and gold paper and folding them in a certain way so that when they were glued together, they made stars. We worked on them for a few hours and then Charlotte cooked roesti (hashbrowns) with cut up beef in gravy for dinner. After we finished Diana showed Charlotte how to make plaster and put it into an angel mold (cookie cutter) and the leftovers into a thin cat food container cap that was in the shape of a cat head. We’ll see how they turned out the next time we visit. Diana took her some finished plaster Santa boots for her primary kids to paint for Christmas, but there wasn’t enough. They were trying to make some additional pieces so there would be. She also helped her iron some Church tablecloths so they could be taken back over to the Church to be stored for the next time they would be needed. We all went back to work folding paper and making stars. She always asks questions about the Church and this time we discussed the Priesthood . The subject came up because we mention Sister Frioud was having her baby blessed tomorrow in sacrament meeting. About 8:00 we left with the tablecloths and went to the Church and dropped them off. Bea Rothmund was there preparing to set up a Christmas tree in the entry foyer. It would have been an impossible job for one person to get the tree in the stand and she was glad we came at just the right time to help. We got the tree in place and bolted down and then helped remove the sleeve so the branches could spread out. After that we came home, Diana to make some brownies for tomorrow’s baby blessing (Aline Frioud) and me to write this journal entry. The last thing we did was to call Elder Nilsson and give him our progress report for the correlation meeting in the morning.