The first photo is soft books for small children made of cloth with animals or whatever that can be pulled off and put back on with velcro. The second is Swarovski crystal Swiss cows, large and small. Third is the Swarovski tree decorated with crystal ornaments.

DECEMBER 1, 2009 TUESDAY

Morning came way too soon, but when it did, the eyes popped open and we realized we were still on this good earth and still have time to make progress. Our goal is to keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ and not let them waver or our resolve weaken, but moving forward with faith and hope. This morning at 10:30 was our first district meeting following transfers last Thursday. We said goodbye to Sisters Robinson, Miron and Wellborn and also to Elder Richeson last week. Today we welcomed Elders Dias, our new Assistant to the President, and Elders Harris & Baird who took the place of the Sisters in Luzern. Elder Knight apologized for forgetting to call me with an assignment for this meeting, but he remembered to call Sister Larson with hers last Sunday. We had a good meeting, but the best part was Diana’s German tip and game. One of the difficult things about the German language is that every noun has a gender (article), male (der), female (die) or neuter (das). It is imperative that you get the gender/article right in order to master the language. She created a list of nouns and the tip/game was for the person whose turn it was to state the right article for the noun. She read a word and the Elder answered with the article he thought was right. Any other Elder could challenge him and, if the Elder was right and the challenger wrong, the challenger had to go to the last place. And visa versa, if the Elder was wrong and the challenger was right, the Elder would go to the end of the line and the challenger would take his seat wherever it was, and the rest would move up one spot. This game showed that we all needed work on memorizing the articles because we got quite a few of them wrong.

Following district meeting we came home, got a birthday present and went to visit Gitta Kummer. It was her birthday yesterday, but we weren’t able to visit her. However, we called her and made arrangements to come by today. We had a nice visit with them, but couldn’t stay long because Norma was coming at 2:00 to get her hair cut. We were fifteen minutes late getting home and since she wasn’t there, we thought Norma may have got tired of waiting for us and gone home. We called her cell phone and she told us she had missed her train, but would arrive in a few minutes which she did. Diana got busy and cut her hair while I did some work on the computer updating the member list. As soon as she left a little after 4:00 we got the present for Kaitlan Parkin, the daughter of the new family in our ward, and started our trip to Nuerensdorf, a journey of over an hour and a half. Our connections this time were bad and we had to wait as much as twenty-five minutes between buses. By the time we got there it was dark and we had never been to Nuerensdorf before so we were in strange territory. The drizzling rain and slush on the sidewalks and roads didn’t help any as we walked from our bus stop to the Parkin’s home. When we got there, they were surprised to see us, but little Kaitlin was happy. We sang happy birthday to her and Jana took us on a tour of their huge apartment. Jana invited us to stay for dinner, but we couldn’t stay long because we had to be back in Schwamendingen for Institute at 7:45. She gave us each a slice of pumpkin bread to eat on our way back home and it was really moist and delicious. On our return trip we took the bus to the Bassersdorf Bahnhof and then took a train to Oerlikon. From there we took our usual bus #63 and then tram #9 to home. The last part of our journey is always the hardest, climbing the two long flights of stairs, hiking up the long ramp to street level and then the final two flights of stairs to our apartment.

We got to rest for about a half hour and then to Institute we went. Elder Irick gave the spiritual thought during opening exercises and Patriarch Koch was the instructor for our class. The topic was Alma chapters 8 through 11. We always have a good time talking and visiting with the missionaries and Young Single Adults. Agnes came, too, so that was nice, but we missed Suwang. By the time Institute was over we were glad to go home and call it a day. We started out the day by going to district meeting at 10:15 and got home from Institute a little before 10:00, a long day by anybody’s standard.

It seems the Lord helps everything work out. For instance, today we were late getting back home from the Kummers and, did Norma just happen to miss her train so she didn’t arrive at our place before we did? I think we had some help on this one and, all of us are helped more than we think, each and every day, but we just don’t take the time to recognize it.

Another tender mercy was the two packages we got from Monica and her family. Licorice twists for Diana and licorice nibs and snaps for me. There were also some turkey roasting bags, photos of Remi, Jade and Robby and a note from Monica. Thank you all.