Ruth & Bruno Diethelm, Pres. & S. Matern and Diana; chicken & noodles/carrots; dessert.

DECEMBER 23, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Besides doing our wash this morning we wanted to buy everything we needed for the Christmas morning district breakfast and anything else we needed for gifts to give to less active members when we go caroling tomorrow afternoon. We made a quick trip into Schwamdingen for eggs, potatoes and other things to make a hash brown casserole and to buy bags of clementines and packages of a special kind of dates. About 1:00 Elders Irick and Nilsson came over to develop a list of people we thought would benefit from a personal visit from us missionaries. However, when we finished with the member list, we had selected way more than we can possible get to in one afternoon although we’ll do our best to visit every one of them. Among the list is three of our investigators, Valerie Otte, Elizabeth Jakob and Elizabeth Bouso. As long as Elders Nilsson & Irick were here at lunch time, Diana cooked them French toast and let them use some of the maple syrup she made for Christmas morning. Both said that the maple syrup was the best they had ever tasted. Following lunch we finished planning the menu for the breakfast, who was going to bring what and who besides the missionaries we wanted to invite. By the time we completed all of that we didn’t have a lot of time left to get ready to go to the Diethelms for dinner. President & Sister Matern were already at the Diethelms when we arrived. The Diethelms have never been in a hurray to start a meal when we’ve been invited, but like to sit around and talk for awhile. Ruth not only cooks very delicious meals, but the presentation is like directly out of a five star restaurant. The conversation during and after the meal concerned mostly the experiences Bruno and Pres. Matern had while Bruno was a bishop and Pres. Matern was a stake president. They discovered both had traveled to Salt Lake City to attend the same General Conference even though they didn’t know each other at the time. They talked about their excursions to Southern Utah and how wonderful the scenery was throughout the canyonlands and Lake Powell.

During the meal we received two phone calls; the first from Sister Neidhart and the second, from Elder Knight making his midweek “are-you-alive-can-I-do-anything-for-you” call. Sister Neidhart wanted to let us know the lady who came to the ward party and to Church with her, wants to watch The Testament because she’s been reading in the Book of Mormon every day. She just needs to set up a time and we’ll be glad to show it to her and answer any questions she may have. She was also excited the Jona, her son on a mission in Paris, had permission to call her on Christmas, but she doesn’t know what time he’ll call

We were thankful that Brad skyped us just to say hello, but he also gave us an update on the remodeling of their new home. They’ve made a lot of progress and hope to be in it before the first of the year. We also saw Nathan and Mayleah and heard Roxsan, but we didn’t see her.