These are photos of the Rheinfall we took last fall on one of our P-days. We need to get some winter photos.

JANUARY 31, 2010 SATURDAY

Today there were many things on our plate that we absolutely had to get done in preparation for an appointment with Kofi Safo-Adu this evening and for tomorrow. We had to polish our talks and practice for sacrament meeting and then write our progress report. We also needed to do some research and locate some scriptures for Brother Hoenli to help him understand that God is omniscient, the he possesses all knowledge and is not still learning. However, first we had to go to the store to get some veggies for Diana to help her with her commitment with Sylvain Gardedieu. I walked to ALDI and I was looking for a close bus stop so Diana would be able to come with me next time and I noticed the underground entrance to a train stop. I went over and took a look and saw the train schedule posted, but I couldn’t find the name of the station anywhere. I noticed a lady standing not too far away with her dog so I went over and asked her. She was very helpful and in return I offered her a Book of Mormon which she accepted. I continued on to ALDI, made the purchases and walked back home.

We looked on the internet to find some helps for the English reading class we were going to have with Kofi tonight and found a helpful site about Phonics. When we printed the phonics rules out, Dennis Doyle’s name appeared at the end as the creator of the site. How’s that for a coincidence. Dennis and Mary Kaye are presently serving in the Switzerland Geneva Mission and he is helping us, without his knowing it, with what we are doing here.

Giving talks for both of us is not an easy thing to do, especially in the German language. We both worked on them most of the day, but we got some other things accomplished, too. Our landlord has been bugging us to come visit him and today we thought would be a good time to do it. He wanted us to come watch a skiing competition of TV with him. We’d invited him to come to Church Sunday so we thought we would reciprocate and do something with him in hopes he’ll come tomorrow. We watched TV with him about an hour and then we left. He said we could come watch his TV anytime they weren’t home, just walk in and sit down. Neither they nor we lock our apartment doors because the outside building door is always locked and we are the only ones who live here.

We made some phone calls today to Silvana Gianatti, Sylvain Gardedieu and Walter Burri. We called Silvana just to let her know we were thinking about her and to remind her about our agreement that she would come to General Conference in April. She was happy to hear from us, but said she just didn’t feel ready to attend the conference. That was disappointing, but we still have time to work on her. We made a lunch appointment on April 10 to celebrate Diana’s birthday. Walter Burri didn’t answer his phone, so we’ll try calling him tomorrow. Sylvain didn’t answer his phone either so Diana left a message of encouragement for him to listen to. Charlotte called us and invited us to come on Monday P-day to have lunch with the other missionaries and to celebrate hers and my birthday, even though hers was on January 27 and mine is on February 2. So for my birthday I get to do at least four haircuts of missionaries who will be there to help celebrate with us.

We called Kofi to see if he was still coming to the English reading class and at the same time try to convince him to come to our home instead of the Church. He didn’t want to come here so we agreed to meet him at the Church at 5:30, which we did. He said he only wanted to spend a half hour with us, but we ended up spending two hours instead. He has what seems to us to be a third grade reading level, can sound most words out, but reads really slow. He knows what most words mean, but needs a dictionary to help him with definitions. We offered to get him a dictionary to help him. We gave him a copy of the printed out phonics rules and went over them with him. He’s going to need some time to digest this information, but we’re sure it will help him with his reading. By the time we were finished it was way after dark and very cold. The road down from the Church to the bahnhof was snow-covered and icy, but we made it without too much trouble. Saturday evenings our bus only runs every twenty minutes and we just missed it. However, all good things come to and end and we finally made it home.

We spent the rest of the evening still working on our talks and writing our progress report. And finally went to bed at 11:30, which was too late to write our journal.

A tender mercy was that Kofi offered Diana his arm to hold onto walking down the steep road from the Church and as soon as I had locked the door, she had me on the other side. With both of us it helped her feel more secure about not slipping.

Building in the old town; Me on the stairs to Heaven; One of the remaining towers of the old wall surrounding the city.

JANUARY 29, 2010 FRIDAY

As part of my morning walking routine we have included finding less-active member addresses so that when we go out later, we don’t have to wander around looking, but can walk directly to them. It gives me a purpose to go walking and helps Diana, too, who still has a little difficulty with her knee and so the saved steps helps her out. It was lightly snowing again this morning, but this time I wrapped a scarf around my neck which made it a little warmer. It wasn’t long before I had it up around my ears to keep them from freezing.

I had three addresses to find and at the first one Franca Flammia had moved. A cleaning lady was there and when Franca’s name wasn’t on any of the doorbells, I asked her if she knew where she went. All she knew was that Franca had moved and we’d have to check with her father for the new address. This is another item for our correlation council. I found the next two addresses and then walked back to the bahnhof. By this time I was fairly tired and needed a rest so I caught the bus back home instead of walking. We spent a little time working on the internet trying to find out how to find the bus schedules and where they stopped throughout the city. We think we finally found out how to do it. On the internet white pages there are several tabs we hadn’t used before. One of them was “maps” so we clicked on it and in the box we typed an address. Up popped the map of Schaffhausen with the address circled and, what we have wanted, was also there: the bus icons which, when clicked, showed which bus and the name of the bus stop. Now it will be so much easier to find the addresses in Schaffhausen, we hope. We’ll have to see if this system works as well for the outlying towns that are in our area. In the white pages while looking for Anna Thoenings’s building again, the one we thought was under construction, we found a number of the rest home right by it. We called the number and asked the receptionist if Anna Thoening lived there. She said she lived there until she died a few years ago. So that really is a dead end and we no longer have to worry about Anna.

We were hoping the snow would quit. It didn’t, but we went out anyway to visit the people at the two addresses, Elvira Buergi and Maria Ryter. The nearest bus stop was a few blocks from Maria Ryter which wasn’t so bad. We rang her doorbell and got to talk to her over the speaker. She was pleasant and seemed young and had kids who were in school. She said it wasn’t a good time to visit her right then and could we come back next week. We persisted and were able to make a specific appointment for next Wednesday at 3:00 pm. We went away from there happy that we would be able to meet with her. We walked back to the bus stop and, while waiting for the bus, talked to a lady until her friend came after which they kept up a conversation between them. However, as the bus came, we gave them both a copy of the Joseph Smith testimony and asked them to call us after they had read it.

We got on the bus, went three stops and then walked the few blocks to Elvira’s home. We rang her doorbell and an old guy came to the building door and opened it to see what we wanted. Before we could say much to him, Elvira came to the top of the stairs and, as soon as she realized who we were, she very curtly told us she had no interest and for us to leave. We asked her why to which she replied the Church had left her and her kids in a mess and was so angry she just wanted us to leave. We didn’t get a chance to talk to her about what the problem had been or how to resolve it. Those kinds of encounters make us sad to see how some people can’t forgive and so jeopardize their eternal welfare. From there we walked to the next bus stop, rode back to the bahnhof, switched to our #5 bus and went home.

Elder Nilsson called today to find out about a less-active member they’ve been trying to contact. He wanted to know what the best time of day was to find her home. He also mentioned that Priscilla had been asking about us and requested that Diana call her. He also had some great news. He said that a couple of Sundays ago Walter Burri, our old friend, came to Sacrament Meeting. He rode his bike from Dietlikon to Schwamendingen and came into the Church and asked if the Larsons were there. Elder Nilsson recognized Walter and greeted him and made sure he got welcomed. He said Brother Locher sat with him throughout the meeting. Walter told Elder Nilsson he had been promising us for a long time that he would come and he wanted to keep his promise. We were elated to hear the news, but sad that we weren’t there to greet him. We hope the members and missionaries will keep working with him. He’s had so much pain in his life, but through it all he’s maintained his faith in God and is grateful for his blessings. He has just lost his focus and needs help to regroup. Elder Nilsson also said Cornelia is letting the missionaries come teach her now which is really good news. He reported also that they met with Tony Dkere and gave him a lesson after which he promised them he’d come to Church the next Sunday. They called him at 8:30 Sunday morning and he said he’d be to Church, but he didn’t come. How can we build a fire under this guy?

We spent some time this evening trying to eliminate the build-up of emails and people are probably sick of getting the ones we forward. We’ve thought of just deleting them all and starting over, but some of them are inspirational that we wouldn’t of liked to have missed. Besides, this is the only diversion we have. While we were doing this, Sylvian Gardedieu called on the phone and said something extraordinary. He said he had heard (from his wife Sylvia) that Diana needed help giving up sugar and in the process lose some weight and that maybe if he made a covenant with her to quit drinking, it would help her to stop eating sugar and sweets. He asked me how to make that happen and I told him he’d have to speak with Diana. I gave the phone to her and they talked about it and the final agreement was that he would stop drinking and she would stop eating sweets. They made sure they had each other’s phone numbers and agreed to be able to call each other anytime when they needed support to get through a particularly bad time. Diana had already planned to approach Sylvain with this proposal and for the last week has tried to not eat anything with sugar in it to prepare for it. Sylvain, on the other hand, said he quit drinking alcohol a few days ago and wanted to stay alcohol free. He has tried to quit drinking many times before and hasn’t been able to, but this time, he may have a stronger incentive because he’ll be helping someone else. What he does will have a direct affect on what Diana does. When serving others, you reap the blessings and become stronger. After that Diana called Priscilla and talked to her. Priscilla is having problems with health and depression and hasn’t been able to work much. We said we’d keep her in our prayers and exercise our faith in her behalf.

Our tender mercy today is we got skyped by Roxsan and got to see all of her kids, Rees, Drayson, Mayleah and Nathan. It was good to get caught up on the goings on at home.

Another cow in Schaffhausen; Front is Dorothea Jarmann, Christina Kusz, Irma Pietroboni, and Greta Troesch (with blue scarf).

JANUARY 28, 2010 THURSDAY

We came out of a deep sleep this morning when the phone rang at 7:00. It’s exciting when that happens because the phone is in the next room and we have to race in there and get it before the answer machine gets it. Elder Vincent called to say good morning and just to see how we were getting along. Shortly after he hung up Brother Klaumuenzner called to tell us we had permission to go buy a hand mixer and the mission would pay for it. When moving furniture the other day, he asked if we had everything we needed. We told him we didn’t have an electric mixer, but we could do with the old hand egg beater that was here. He said he’d look for one for us. He was a good as his word. He gave us two options to go look at in local stores here and we could choose the one we wanted.

We decided we wanted to take banana bread to our meeting with the older single sisters this afternoon. For that we needed bananas and so I included going to the grocery store in my walk this morning. Before I left we called Charlotte and wished her a happy birthday. We thought it was tomorrow, but we found out it was yesterday so we were a day late. After looking at the email clip from the Doyles we promised not to complain about the cold here again, but needless to say, I bundled up a bit. At the end of my walk I bought some bananas at COOP and a few other things we needed including some elbow macaroni for Diana’s game this afternoon. I also bought a hand mixer for 39.90sfr from Migros. On the bus on the way home I met a man from New Zealand who has lived here for two years, but is moving to Boston tomorrow. We had a good short conversation during which he said he was familiar with the Church, but wouldn’t accept any literature, even to read on the long flight tomorrow.

While I was gone, Diana received phone calls from Verena Bosshard, Ruth Diethelm and Neide Graf, all friend from the Schwamendingen Ward. Ruth & Neide were visiting teaching Verena and they made a call together, passing the phone from one to the other. They all said that they missed us which was nice of them.

Back home we made the banana bread, Diana got all of her stuff together for the game and I finished getting my lesson prepared. When all was ready, we went to the bahnhof and met Christina Kusz, Dorothea Jaermann and Greta Troesch. We had to wait for a few minutes for the bus and then we all got on and rode the half hour to Schleitheim where Irma Pietroboni lives. She invited us in and we got a little bit acquainted and the launched into our home evening. Christina and Irma are fairly new to the Church and, since they all live alone, don’t normally have home evening by themselves. These sisters meet once a month to have one together. We started with a song and a prayer and then I was first with the lesson. We discussed the talk, That Your Burdens May Be Light, given by Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy, that is published in the November 2009 issue of the Ensign. We had a good discussion about the burdens that we carry and that they are a blessing to us if we have the right attitude, repent and follow the commandments. Elder Clayton started out his talk by describing an older man in the Peruvian Andes carrying a load of firewood on his back and used this as an illustration of the burdens we all carry around. We used a picture Roxsan sent us of a man burdened down with all kinds of things so much so that he could only look up at the “Iron Rod” but couldn’t reach it. When we got through with the lesson, Irma served us some hot fruit tea and a piece of cake. That out of the way Diana started the game. She used the concentration game she made some time ago for a home evening in Schwamendingen. She made them out of cheap cardboard coasters, gluing pictures on them she cut out of magazines and advertisements. She spread the tiles out on the table with the pictures face down. Everyone had fun turning two tiles over, when it was their turn, to try and match them up. After all the pairs had been match up and everyone was feeling pretty good about how many they had collected, Diana told them the rest of the game. She asked them to related the picture on each set they had to a gospel principle. Everyone did a wonderful job giving good short spiritual thoughts. They thought that was the end of the game, but Diana had another surprise for them. She gave them something to represent what was on their tiles. For example, one tile pair had a picture of Charmin toilet paper. She gave her a roll of toilet paper. Another picture was of a package of elbow macaroni, the one who had this tile got a small package of macaroni. Another was of a dog and this person got a plastic dog doodoo sack. These are only examples, but it would be easy to make the game yourself and play it at your own home evening. They all thought it was hilarious to get a prize for each of the matches they had made, especially the silly prizes like the doodoo bag. After the closing prayer we walked back to the bus stop, waited for the fifteen minutes, and then rode back into Schauffhausen. From there we said our goodbyes and went home on our bus. Dinner was some delicious mushroom soup Diana made for us and then we spent some time trying to wade through all the emails in our inbox. We stopped at 70 to go to write this journal entry and then to catch up on our friends’ journals. We’ve missed a lot while we were off line.

The tender mercy today was spending some time with some wonderful older ladies who have great testimonies and are the backbone of the branch. The oldest is Geta Troesch who is ninety and has over the years served as Relief Society President in either the branch or the stake for more than thirty years.

JANUARY 27, 2010 WEDNESDAY

It just seems to be so blistering cold right now and it was kind of snowing again, but it didn’t keep me from my walk this morning. During my walk I re-checked to see if Joseph Carci lived at the address on our member list. Bishop Flammia said he did and that he lived in the apartment without a name on the doorbell. Well, all of the doorbells had names on them and I asked a lady who came out of the apartment building while I was there, if she knew the man. She said he didn’t live there. Okay, so on to the next address. I found the address and the name, Afae Samual, was not on the doorbells either. This time the apartment door was ajar and I went in and checked each apartment door, but could not find him. Later on in the day we called the phone number for each of these two people and got no good result. The number for Joseph was not a working number and the one from Samual was blocked. We checked the internet phone book, but found neither because both were cell phone numbers. We also put in the names and then the addresses, but still couldn’t locate either of them. We’ll discuss the results in our next correlation council which is in a couple of weeks.

We went down into the cold basement to get on the internet and post our yesterday’s journal and catch any emails that might have come. After that we started to document a history/progress report on what we’ve learned about each less-active member and investigator and what we’ve done in working with them so we can keep track of who’s who. We did our studying and reading and getting the lesson prepared for tomorrow’s meeting with the older single sisters. We also were hoping our computer guy would call to let us know he was coming. No such luck.

Early this afternoon we picked two less-active members to go visit, Anna Thoening and Elvira Bueergi. We took #4 bus and using our GPS while riding it, found the bus stop for Anna, but continued on up the hill to see if we could find the stop for Elvira. We thought maybe the bus would go up to the end of the line and then turn around a come back the same route to the bahnhof starting point. Instead it made a big circle and never came back the same way. Elvira’s address is not so close to a bus stop so we have to make sure we have enough time to walk there when we decide to visit her. Today we didn’t try because we had to meet Franz Maier at the bahnhof at 4:00. At the bahnhof we got off the bus, went across the street and got on the next #4 bus to take us back up to Anna’s bus stop. When we got there, we got out and tried to find building #36 on Buergerstrasse. We walked back and forth while looking at the Tom Tom and finally realized building #36 was the one under construction and had no number on it. It looked like the old building had been torn down and a new apartment building was under construction. Our member list had a number listed by her name so we called it. An old guy answered who said he had never heard of Anna Thoening. Another dead end for now. While waiting for the bus to come back we met a lady from Thailand who said she was Buddhist, but she still took a Joseph Smith pamphlet and another brochure about the Church as well.

From there we went back to the bahnhof and met Franz Maier. We didn’t know what he looked like, but he recognized us as missionaries and introduced himself. After getting a little acquainted he led off to a COOP where we went in and up four floors on escalators and then climbed the last flight of stairs to a restaurant. He was an interesting man and, in spite of what he said about not wanting to talk about the Church, every once in awhile we got on that subject. He mostly wanted to talk about politics be it American, German, Swiss etc. and the condition of the world in general. I asked him why he wasn’t active in the Church and he said it was because he knew everything and then why should he keep coming to Church. We kept the conversation going for an hour and a half and he was disappointed that we finally had to leave. Just before we parted company he said that he and his wife would come to Church either Sunday or the next Sunday. We told him we would be glad to see them there. He also said it would be great if we could get back together once in awhile and Diana said we would invite them to dinner some time. As we were about to leave we got a call on our cell phone from Elder Tally, our zone leader. He asked if we were home or could go somewhere that it was quiet and we would be alone. We said goodbye to Franz and then went out of the store and while walking back to the bahnhof, we returned the call to Elder Tally.

Elder Tally began the conversation by asking if we were alone and could we turn on the speaker function so that we could both hear what he said together. I didn’t know how to do that so he said he would just tell me and then I could relay the information to Diana. At this point it seemed like he had bad news of some kind for us and we were starting to get apprehensive about what he was going to tell us. Then he said that the information he was going to tell us came directly from the First Presidency through our mission president. Elder Tally told us that as of July 1st , the Swiss Mission was going to be dissolved and become part of the Munich Austrian Mission. We were relieved that something bad hadn’t happened at home, but thunderstruck that our mission was going to be dissolved. He said it wouldn’t affect anything we were doing right now, that for the time being it would be business as usual. He said the news was public knowledge and so it would be okay to talk to members about it, if we wanted. For us it’s sad news to see my old mission go the way of the dinosaurs, and we don’t know what going to happen to Charlotte and her new calling to work at the mission home and, for that matter, what’s going to become of the mission home itself. The new senior couple coming to work in the mission home, the Walters, should have arrived today. How will this affect them? Only time will tell as we understand the reasons for this decision.

It was past dark by then and what Franz told us about the nighttime activity here in Schaffhausen didn’t make us feel any better about being out after dark. He said it was a totally different life after dark in that the prostitutes came out and gangs of young men would attack older people or those who were alone to rob them. As yet we haven’t seen much of this, but we’ve read about it. As much as we can, we try to be in by dark or soon after.

This evening Diana was on the computer when a screen popped up that she thought was a new internet connection. She called me in and I clicked on the icon and wonders of wonders, we connected. Waahoo! A few minutes later our computer guy rang our doorbell and when I saw who it was, I surprised him with a big hug. He said he’d just installed a router downstairs and asked if our internet was working. He came in to check to make sure everything was okay and then went his way. We had fun checking out some of our emails and passing some of the 98 of them on. Before it got too late I went downstairs to let the Steubles know we had internet and to tell them our computer guy was going to send them the bill. When it comes, to let us know and we’ll be glad to pay for it. We won’t have to buy a years’ service, but just pay for the router and his time.

To end this evening we wrote our journal and now we get to post it from the comfort of our own apartment.

We feel the tender mercies for today are that we have internet now and also that we met Franz Maier who said he’d come to Church. We’ve made a new friend.

JANUARY 25, 2010 MONDAY

We awoke this morning to falling snow albeit only lightly, but it discouraged me from taking my morning walk. Rather than do that I decided I would mess around with the computer while sitting in the cold basement to see if I could get connected again to the internet. While I was down there, I thought I might as well do the laundry, too. I put a load of whites in and then started on the computer. After an hour of doing this and that I managed somehow to turn of the email scan function in our Spyware Doctor anti-virus program. I also managed to find a screen that gave options on repairing the problem, I hoped, with connecting to the internet. I clicked that icon and after a minute the screen said the problem couldn’t be fixed, but if I did something else, maybe it could. I clicked that one as well and then the screen said it was still unable to correct the problem and referred me to my internet administrator or internet provider. I thought, “oh well, I might as well shut the thing off and reboot and see what that did.” Walla! When it rebooted, it connected and I had service. All in all this took probably two hours during which I also washed and dried a batch of whites. I also put in another load of wash, this time the dark clothes.

While I could, I posted the last two days’ journal and read some emails and sent some. Our mailbox had 128 emails, most of which were the stuff passed around the internet that are interesting and fun to watch, but are really unessential. I read the ones that I thought might be important and answered some of them. The others will have to wait until we have a real connection where we won’t have to freeze or hike four floors to do it.

While I was goofing around on the computer I read where with certain models of routers one could install an external antenna to increase signal distance. Shortly after noon Diana sent me on a trip to the grocery store to buy some bread, milk, butter and orange juice. By this time the snow had stopped so I walked to the shopping center and, while I was there, stopped into an electronic store to ask about the antenna. The salesperson said it wouldn’t really do any good and that what we needed was a repeater. They didn’t have one of those so he referred me to another store in town. I noticed a big hole in the ceiling and the shelves were bare of computers. I overheard another employee tell someone that thieves had broken in last night and stolen them all. I continued on to the grocery store, bought the things we needed and then rode the bus home.

When I got home it was time for us to get ready to go meet Sylvia at the Church to discuss our missionary work. We caught the bus, rode to the bahnhof and climbed the steep hill to the Church. We beat her there this time, but she came soon after. Diana gave the spiritual thought this time using a piece of cord to represent our eternal existence and a piece of thread tied around it to represent the time we spend here on earth. Our lives here on earth are so short in comparison to eternity, but our eternal happiness depends on what we do here. Now is the time to prepare to meet God and to endure to the end. After a prayer she went over the list we discussed last time to review what we decided needed to be done. She was excited that everything she asked us to do was accomplished and that we had follow up appointments with Kofi, Jasmine and Paul. She gave us a couple other assignments and we discussed other missionary possibilities. When we were finished we decided to try and visit Katia Dipaolo and her two daughters. Emely is nine years old and would like to be baptized, but her father has not been in favor of it. Sylvia heard he may be softening and she wanted to take Katia an invitation to Easter camp anyway. We walked to the bahnhof and got on the bus we thought was the right one. We rode it around, but it didn’t take us to the place we needed to go. Sylvia talked to the driver and found out the same bus has two different schedules depending on what time you get on it. We happened to get on it at the wrong time. By the time we got back to the bahnhof where we could wait for the right bus, it was too late to visit. We decided to try another time.

When we got home we did some reading in the Preach My Gospel book and the associated scriptures to get ready for tomorrow’s district meeting. We also baked a peach pie to give the missionaries for a treat. We had a message from Neide on our answer machine just to tell us hello and that she missed us. It was good to hear a familiar voice.

One of many steep stairs in our area; diana fell in love with this cow; Elders Bond, Von Niederhausen, Tavake, Holzapfel (Woodenapp;e in English), Bentley and Larson. Diana always wants to be the one taking the photos.

JANUARY 26, 2010 TUESDAY

We awoke again to a cold, dreary, foggy, snowy morning and I was glad to have an excuse not to go out for my walk. Diana got a call yesterday from someone named Maier and we couldn’t think of who that might be. Diana thought it was a less active member we tried to visit the other day who wasn’t home and we later called who didn’t want to talk to us. I couldn’t think of why he would want to call us and thought it might be Hans Peter Meister, our computer guy, who we expected to call us. He told Diana he would call us this morning at 8:00, but the phone never rang. We were anxious to talk to our computer guy so I tried calling him, but got no answer. So, whoever it was, it remained a mystery.

We did a little reading in the PMG to prepare for our district meeting at 10:00, put the leaves in our dining table to accommodate the missionaries and then cut the peach pie we made last night and got it ready to serve. We expected two companionships and with us that would have made six and that’s how many pieces we cut the pie into. However, there were three missionaries working together in Schwenningen so that made seven in all. The pie worked out okay because the pieces were big enough that Diana and I split ours. Those attending were our district leader, Elder Bond, and his companion, Elder Holzapfel, serving in Singen. Elders Bentley, Von Niederhausen and Tavake are serving together assigned to Schweningen. We were impressed by these young men who seem dedicated and hard working. One of the activities was to discuss favorite scriptures each use in teaching the first missionary discussion. They were all very knowledgeable, finding and explaining scriptures with confidence and clarity. He spotlighted Elder Tavake by letting each of us ask him questions which he answered. Diana gave the spiritual thought about the experience that Pres. Hugh B. Brown had in England in 1939 when he met a prominent man who was a member of the House of Commons who didn’t believe in prophets, that God ceased talking to men shortly after Christ was crucified. He wanted Pres. Brown to present his position, that God talks through prophets today, as one would prepare an argument in a court of law. She read the part of Pres. Brown and I read the part of the Englishman. If anyone wants to look it up, it’s printed in the June, 2006, Liahona. He bears testimony at the end that Joseph Smith was and is a true prophet and that we have prophets leading our Church today. Diana bore a strong testimony at the conclusion of her remarks. Elder Bond did a good job in planning the meeting and also keeping control while not being overbearing. The game we played was called Bonsai and this is how it went.

Place two dice in a cup. The first person shakes it and looks into the cup to see the numbers on each dice. For example, say he rolled a 3 and a 5. He can say he rolled 35 or 53 or he can lie and say another number. He can either tell the truth and say what the numbers are or lie. He then passes the cup to person #2 who can’t look into the cup. #2 has to do one of two things. He can challenge the first person and look into the cup, or he can believe the first person told the truth and shake the cup for new numbers. If he challenges and then confirms the 1st person told the truth, he gets one point against him and then he passes the cup to #3 and the game starts over. If #2 finds out the 1st person told a lie, the 1st person gets a point against him and then #2 shakes the cup for new numbers. #2 must shake a number larger than the one #1 said or lie about it, and then he passes the cup to #3. The next person in line has to always shake a number higher than the previous one or lie about it. #3 must then decide to challenge or shake and the game goes on. However, that’s the first phase. Any person can also roll doubles or lie and say he has doubles. Once doubles have been declared, only higher doubles or a Bonsai count. The highest number that can be rolled or said is 65. Double 1's is higher than 65. Of course, if someone says he has double 1's, for example, the next player can either challenge or roll, but he must roll a double that is higher, or lie. He can also roll a “Bonsai” which is a one and a two. If someone rolls or says he has a Bonsai, the next person can either challenge and, if he decides to roll, he has to roll a Bonsai to win. In the course of the game any person on his turn can roll or say he has a Bonsai, but he can be challenged, of course.

The district meeting ended, the pie was eaten and the Elders went back to their places of service. We are used to seeing missionaries on almost a daily basis or, at least, talk to them several times a day on the phone. Here in Schaffhausen we are almost on our own except for the members. Elder Vincent calls us once in awhile and Sister Hutcheson called once, Charlotte called a couple of times and this morning Neide called and talked to us for a few minutes. And without being able to skpe and only do emails intermittently, it feels like we’re at the end of the world. We’re really not complaining, except for not having the internet, but it is different and something we have to get used to. We’ve met some great people here and they’ve gone out of their way to help us feel welcomed.

After they left I called our computer guy to ask him how things were coming. He said he ordered something, but it wasn’t delivered in the mail today. He said when it comes, he’ll call us. How long we must wait, we don’t know.

One of the dining room chairs a missionary was sitting on fell apart just as he was getting up after we were done, so this afternoon we repaired it with wood glue and longer screws. Diana wrote most of her talk and we worked on the translation together. Late afternoon we got a call from our mysterious Herr Maier. Diana was right in that it was Franz Maier, the less active member we tried to visit. He said he would be interested in meeting with us at a local restaurant, but only if we didn’t talk about the Church. He said he left the Church some years ago and had no interest in coming back, but if we still wanted to meet and talk with him about any other subject, he’s willing. We made an appointment with him to meet us at the bahnhof at 4:00 tomorrow and then go to his favorite hangout and talk. This ought to be interesting.

As we reviewed the day we felt the tender mercies were that Diana got her talk written and translated, we got to be in the company of missionaries again, Franz Maier called and we have an appointment with him.

JANUARY 23, 2010 SATURDAY

Rather than just go for a walk this morning, Diana suggested I look for the addresses of less-active members that live somewhere above us. We live at the very bottom of the hill and the roads and, in some cases long cement stairways, are pretty steep going up. I found two addresses on “Hochstrasse” (High Street) and one member still lives there and the other one had moved. The good thing about the second half of my walk was it was all downhill. The air is rather chill, but even though hands, nose and ears freeze, it’s easy to work up a sweat. While walking long Hochstrasse a lady sitting at a bus stop told me my backpack was unzipped. She jumped up and zipped it shut for me and this gave me a chance to ask her if she wanted to know more about our Church. She said no as her bus drove up, but she did take a pass along card.

This morning we tried to get on the internet to look up some addresses and telephone numbers, but were unsuccessful in connecting to it. The computer says we’re connected, but we get no service. Last night it was fine as long as we stayed in the basement, but today we get nothing. We got a returned call from our computer guy last night and he said he’d try and come again next Tuesday to try and find a solution so we can finally get service. Not only is it frustrating not to be able to do emails, post our journal or skype our kids, but it also hinders the work because we need it to look up addresses and bus connections. We are slowly finding some without the internet, but it’s by guess and by golly and much more time consuming.

About noon we got our list of people to go visit and started out by catching the bus and traveling to our first address only to find out Maria Weingartner no longer lived there. We talked to a neighbor who told us she thought Maria had moved into an assisted living center about a year ago. We took the opportunity to introduce ourselves and asked her if she’d like to hear more about the restored gospel, but she said she was satisfied with her present religion. We offered her a brochure and an Article of Faith card which she graciously accepted.

At the second address two little boys, Jordan (about 6) and Tito (about 4) opened the door. We asked to talk to Kofi Safo-Adu, their father, but they said he wasn’t home. We asked to talk to their mother, but she went with Kofi somewhere. They were fun to talk to for a minute and then we told them who we were and that we’d come back later to see if the parents were home. We didn’t think it a good idea for the parents of these little kids to leave them alone and especially, not to have trained them to leave the door locked and not open it for anyone except the parents. It could have been, though, that a lady coming into the apartment building let us in, too, so we were able to go up to Kofie’s apartment door and ring the bell. Maybe the kids thought we were their parents. Who knows?

When we got on the bus to ride to our next stop a young man got on with us who was wearing a baseball cap with a Y on the front. Diana asked him if he studied at BYU, but he didn’t seem to know what that was. We explained about BYU, but didn’t get a chance to go further with the discussion because a man approached us who recognized we were missionaries. He introduced himself as Sylvian Gardedieu, the husband of Sylvia. He said he was looking for work and just applied at an assisted living home as a cook. That has been his occupation. We had a good conversation until we got to the Bahnhof (train station).

From there we went by foot a couple of blocks to see if Nerina Fleury was home. We rang the buzzer a few times, but nobody answered. We stood at the door, which was right on the street in the busy old town section, deciding what we should do next. We were there about five minutes and were just getting ready to leave when the door opened. We were glad we were still there when she came. It took her that long to get to the door because she had just undergone an operation on her foot to correct a club foot. They had also done some skin grafts that didn’t take and they had to do them all over. She said she had gone back to her previous church, the Seventh Day Adventists, because the steep hill to our church building was too difficult for her to climb. We asked her if we could come in to visit with her, but she said she was too tired right then and not home very much anyway. We thanked her for her time and will talk to S. Gardedieu about what we can do to help Nerina.

The last hour and a half of the afternoon we rode buses around trying to use the map, the GPS and our eyes to locate other addresses of less-active members. We were successful in locating approximately where a few more are, but decided to postpone trying to visit them because the hour was getting late. While we were riding around and looking at our maps, a lady saw us and asked if we were looking for anything specific. This gave us another opportunity to introduce ourselves and what we were doing. She said she had a Book of Mormon and had talked to the missionaries and thought it was all pretty great, but she wasn’t anxious to let us come by to talk to her again. Diana gave her an Article of Faith card as she got off the bus anyway and she accepted it.

The bus system here is quite different than in Zurich probably because Schaffhausen is a lot smaller and there are no trams. There are six buses, #’s 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 that service Schaffhausen. They all go on their separate lines from one end station to the other end and they all have the train station in Schaffhausen City at their mid-point. All the buses arrive at the train station at about the same time, wait there a few minutes, and then leave one after the other. If you’re on one bus and need to transfer to another, you have to be on the ball to get there before they all leave again. It’s quite a sight to see all of the buses come in together and then go out together.

Tonight we read our lesson manual for tomorrow and worked at getting prepared for district meeting and trying to get some spiritual thoughts lined up for our meetings with S. Gardedieu. We also have to prepare a home evening for next Thursday and think about what to do for an English lesson for next Friday.

JANUARY 24, 2010 SUNDAY

Anxious not to be late to Church the first Sunday we were on our own, I miscalculated the time we should have gotten up by one hour. Not one hour late, but one hour early. I finished showering and shaving and then went back to bed for a little while until Diana had to get up to get ready. While she was doing that I was able to go over the lesson for Priesthood meeting again and otherwise collect the things we needed. At 8:30 we caught our bus to the bahnhof and then walked the short, but steep road to the Church. Even though we arrived a half hour early there were already quite few people there before us. Sylvian Gardedieu was there and greeted us. He also brought us a bottle of raspberry and a bottle of fruit jam that he’d made himself. What a thoughtful guy. Our two speakers for sacrament meeting, who came from other wards, had already arrived, too, and they were greeting the members as they came. Today the chapel was two thirds filled. We met a few more members and learned the relationship between others a little better. We also met Paul Hunziker who is 75 years old. He’s not a member, but has been coming to Church faithfully for a few years. We don’t know him well enough yet to know why he isn’t baptized even though missionaries have met with him on and off all this time.

Both of the visiting speakers, a sister from the stake YW presidency and a brother from the stake YM presidency, spoke on the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet. The brother also told his conversion story which was very faith promoting. He talked of having to overcome word of wisdom habits and I saw Sylvain paying close attention. After the meeting Sylvain spoke at length with him, hopefully getting pointers on how to overcome his drinking problem. And then we split into our various meetings, me to Melchizedek Priesthood, and Diana to Relief Society.

Diana said Relief Society was really good because the sister leading the discussion taught first in German and then repeated it in English which helped her a lot, not only to understand the lesson, but also to help her with the language. She also had every one participate during the lesson by giving each one an assignment or having them read something. She had each one at various times give a scripture related to what point of the lesson that was under discussion at the time. Diana was impressed with how the sister got everyone to participate.

In priesthood meeting we discussed Chapter Two in the lesson manual. The brother leading the discussion asked questions and the seven of us in the class were expected to respond. Things went along pretty good until one of my responses included that God was omniscient (all knowing) and that his increase comes from creating more worlds and spirits to dwell on them. He said he’d read something Joseph Smith had said that God isn’t all knowing and that he is still accumulating knowledge. This generated a discussion among the rest who were careful not to hurt the instructor’s feelings, but I stood firm. If God doesn’t know everything and is still learning, then he can’t be a perfect being and is subject to making mistakes. Therefore, if that’s the case, he would cease to be God. He said he would bring the quote from Joseph Smith next week for us to read ourselves. I need to be prepared with scripture etc. to lovingly, but firmly, remove the doubt that this brother has regarding God’s omniscience. Other than that we had a good class.

After the meetings were over Bishop Flammia came over and talked with me for awhile. He asked if I had our report ready for him. I told him we didn’t exactly know who to give our report to so we didn’t bring one today. He said if we wanted, he could just call us and get it over the phone. We told him it’s no trouble to make one out and we’d be sure to do it in the future. We discussed some the the things we did last week and told him we planned to visit Kofi Dafo-Adu this afternoon. He asked if he could come with us and, of course, we told him it would be a pleasure. He said he’d pick us up at home at 1:45. Brother DeMarzi broke into our conversation and insisted I come upstairs (Diana was already there) to meet with him, Sylvia and Diana. I excused myself and hurried upstairs. Brother DeMarzi wanted to start us off right by introducing the Ward motto and gave us and Sylvia a copy of it enclosed in a nice picture frame to hang on our wall. The motto is Joshua 1:9 and Moses 1:39:

Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.

Sei mutig und stark? Fuerchte dich also nicht und hab keine Angst; denn der Herr, dein Gott, ist mit dir bei allem, was du unternimmst. Joshua 1:9

For behold, this is my work and my glory–to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man..

Denn siehe, dies ist meine Herrichkeit–die Unsterlichkeit und das ewige Leben des Menschen zustande zu bringen. Moses 1:39

He particularly emphasized “be strong and of good courage” and wanted us to focus on this when we visit and meet with members in the course of our labors. He feels that members in a small branch need to be reminded to have courage and be strong and that they are not alone although few in numbers.

From there we left and went home and got a bite to eat. Bishop Flammia was going to pick us up at 1:45 and we used the time in between to write our report. We barely got it finished by the time he drove up. We went to Kofi’s home and this time he was home with his two kids. We introduced ourselves and had a good meeting with him. He is 39 years old, from Ghana and has been in Switzerland for eight years. His wife is a beautician and works in Winterthur six days a week and normally gets home about 8:00 p.m. Her only day to rest is Sunday and she was in her bedroom sleeping so we didn’t get a chance to meet her. He has applied for a job and hopes he gets it. He speaks English and a little German, but can’t read very well or write. The previous missionaries have tried to help him learn and we’ll continue. We have appointments set up with him for Saturday and Sunday at 5:00 and will meet with him at the Church. He said he would come to Church next Sunday. His one son Tito has a hearing problem and therefore has a problem speaking and is also hyperactive. His other son we thought was named Jordan is actually John and is eight years old instead of six. When we found out John was eight, we asked him if he’d like to get baptized. He had no idea what that was and asked us to explain it to him. We did, but it’ll take some time for him to understand because he really hasn’t been taught anything. Kofi is a convert of about ten months himself. After we left, Bishop Flammia told us that John would need to come to Church regularly before he would consider letting John be baptized.

Bishop Flammia asked us if we knew where Paul Hunsiker lived. We responded we didn’t so he drove us there to show us. Instead of just driving by he parked his van and went to his building, rang the bell and we were let in. Paul loves to talk and mostly talks about his missionary work, not for our Church because he’s not a member, but for Jesus Christ. He loves to preach about the bible and has, according to him, spread the word diligently wherever he’s been. He’s organized bible study groups, taken bibles into East Germany when it was behind the Iron Curtain, and done many other good things. Bishop Flammia suggested he may not want to become a member because he fears he may loose his bible study friends and associates. He’s a good old guy and wants us to come and visit him. He said if we come from 11:00 to 1:00 we can have lunch with him and if we come near dinner time, he’ll fix us dinner. We just have to let him know we’re coming.

On the way home Bishop Flammia drove us past where Sister Greta Troesch lives so we would be able to find it later in the week. Greta is 90 years old and is very active. After this week she’s going to Sweden for a three week vacation and Bishop Flammia wants us to visit her before she leaves. He said she has done so much for the Church including being Relief Society President in the stake or branch for over thirty years. He wishes he could keep her on this good earth until she is 120.

As we were riding around with Bishop Flammia we asked him questions about where other members live and some of their background. He was very helpful and seems to be well informed and concerned about his flock. We can tell he is a good bishop and we’ll do everything we can to support him. We already love this little branch and hope we can lend our support to build this part of the Kingdom. However, we feel cut off from the rest of the world and maybe that part of the Lord’s plan to help us build relationships with the members of this ward without distractions.

The tender mercy of the Lord is that there are always people to serve and when we serve we are happy. It’s intimidating to meet and talk to people and feeling inadequate to meet their needs. But when we exercise faith and do the best we can, the Lord will take care of the rest.

Fountain in Luzern; shepherd & his sheep in Luzern; a new hotel built a half block way from the mission home.

JANUARY 22, 2010 FRIDAY

After my morning walk we tried to connect to the internet again, but it didn’t work in our apartment. We took the laptop into the basement and wonder of wonders, it connected to the internet. I sat on the basement steps and sent a few emails letting everyone know we were still alive and slowly getting things together here so we can finally get going meeting some people. I worked at getting our journal entries posted and by the time I was finished, I was so cold I could barely move. No heat in the basement. While I was down there, I did a load of wash that had built up over the last week. We haven’t caught up on reading most of our emails or the blogs of our missionary friends or our daughters, but we hope to be able to soon. We have the phone number of the computer guy and we’ve been trying to call him all day, but no answer as of yet. Maybe he can figure out a different way to get us connected.

During the day we continued going through records and trying to find members’ address on the map. We’ve got most of them plotted now and hope to be able to go out visiting tomorrow. We still need to find the last missionaries’ teaching records so we can get some background information on what they’ve been doing with each investigator/less active member. Sister Gardedieu has helped us a little with a half dozen people, but we need the records so we don’t have to rely on just her. Sister Gardedieu called this afternoon and told us that Jasmine Hunziker, the investigator we visited last night, called her today and said she would probably attend the branch Easter Camp in April and she wanted to meet with us so we can continue teaching her English. That means we can teach her gospel principles while teaching her English. We have an appointment with her next Friday evening. She also said that all of the single adult sisters are going to meet at her mother’s home next Thursday and asked if we would like to attend it and demonstrate how a family home evening should be held. When we met with S. Gardedieu yesterday, we mentioned we’d like to sponsor a home evening at our home similar to what Pres. Bolt did in Schwamendingen for investigators or anyone else who was alone and wanted to come. She thought this would be a good idea for us to introduce the invitation.

As time permits we continue to clean spots we hadn’t got to such as the range air vent above the burners. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned forever and we didn’t want anything dropping down into our food as we cooked it. Diana also cleaned some spots off the carpet in our bedroom that has been an eyesore. The black spot in the living room is glue and we can’t get rid of it without cutting it out, so we’ll probably have to live with that one.

Down into the basement to post this entry.

JANUARY 21, 2010 THURSDAY

Yesterday the telephone rang shortly after 6:00 a.m. and since it’s in the other room, I about broke my neck waking up and running in there to get it. Nobody was on the line so all of that for nothing. Who in the world would be calling that early anyway? Missionaries don’t even have to get up that early. Then, it happened again this morning and we finally figured out that the phone alarm must have gotten switched on somehow. We pulled a trick on ourselves and didn’t even know it.

For my walk this morning I walked through the inch of newly fallen snow a couple of miles to ALDI to see about buying a sleeveless button up sweater they had on sale for 19.99 sfr. It was kind of thin, but the dark blue color was right and it’ll be good for spring weather so I bought one. While I was in the store, Brother Klaumuenzner called on my cell phone to tell me the time I needed to catch the train to get to Frauenfeld to meet him. On my walks yesterday I found a cow statue and took a photo of it. I was surprised to find another one today as I walked to ALDI. I took a photo of it, too, to add to my collection.

While I was gone Diana showered and got ready for the day and then went through the sacks of bedding, pillows, towels and glasses and etc., sorting out what she wanted to keep and what to send back with Br. Klaumuenzner. She also got a call from Charlotte and talked to her for about a half an hour. She told her that her last day at the mission home went much better than the first day she was there. Later, she remade the bed using the bedding she kept busy. I came home, got ready and left to catch the train to Frauenfeld. It felt a little strange traveling by myself and I was glad when I got to Frauenfeld and hooked up with Brother K. He drove us to his home where the furniture was stored in his garage. He wanted to load in the buffet and china cabinet that fit on top of it, but I told him Diana really didn’t want it. She just wanted the chairs, but agreed to take the table, too, if I got rid of the patio table we set up in the living room. We agreed to take the carpet also. We loaded the heavy dining table and the eight chairs and pushed the rolled up carpet in between. He went into the house and soon Sister Klaumuenzner came out and insisted we had to take the buffet and cabinet, too. She said she couldn’t store it in their garage any more and it had to go. We agreed that we would take it, but it was going to be stored in our basement storage room. So we unloaded what we needed to in order to push everything back to get the buffet in the side door next to the seats. Then everything else went back in and the china cabinet just fit in the very back.

When we got back to Schaffhausen, it was all we could do to get the buffet and china cabinet down the stairs and into the basement storage room. It was even worse getting the heavy wood dining table up the stairs and into our apartment. Next came the chairs and carpet and by the time we had everything in place, we were beat. But our moving chores weren’t over yet. We still had a couch to pick up from the mission home. We left Diana to clean and polish the table and chairs and arrange the carpets while we went to the mission home to pick up the couch. We were getting a little nervous about how long this trip would take because we had a appointment to meet Sister Gardedieu at the Church at 4:00 to discuss what missionary work needed to be done. She said she would also have some appointments set up to go visiting this evening. When we got to the mission home, we loaded the couch and then Brother K. had a few things to do. Just as we were leaving, a phone call came in for him which took another good fifteen minutes. Finally we were able to leave and we got back home, unloaded the couch and then he waited for me to change. Diana had a nice lunch waiting on the table, but we only had enough time to eat the rice pudding. Brother K took his sandwiches with him as we left for our appointment. We were about five minutes late getting there and while we were under way, Sister Gardedieu called us to make sure we remembered to come. Brother K dropped us off and then he went home.

Sister Gardedieu had everything prepared, with writing paper and pens laying on the table and a list of people she wanted to tell us about. We had a prayer and then she asked us for a spiritual thought and asked us to come prepared with one every time we meet. Diana was johnny on the spot and gave the one about priorities using the example of putting rocks, and rice into a bottle. If the rice goes in first, then the rocks won’t fit. We have to take care of the big things first and then the little things will fit in the spaces. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will be added. While we were there Beatrice Bolli and her husband Robert were cleaning the chapel. She is an active member, but Robert is less active although he helps Bea a lot and does most of the outside work, especially during the summer. Sylvia introduced us to Robert and we talked for a few minutes about gardening and that our first names were the same. We then went over her list and then left to catch the train to visit Sister Hunziker. Unfortunately, she wasn’t home so we left an invitation with her daughter to the Branch Easter Camp and told her we would come back another time and talk to her mother about it. When we got back to Schaffhausen, we said goodbye and she went home as did we.

We were excited to get home because when we left for the Church, our computer guy just arrived. We didn’t have time to talk to him other than to say hello, but he told us he should have the wireless internet set up by tonight. We got back home and tried to connect, but really couldn’t get a signal. We waited until the landlord came home and then asked them if they knew if it was set up. They said it should be, but we couldn’t figure it out. The Streubles are a very nice older couple who’ve had missionaries living in this apartment for many years. They invited us in and we had a nice chat with them. She called the computer guy and he said to call him after 10:00 in the morning to set up a time for him to come by. We hope it’s just getting the computer to talk to the router and not something major.

Elder Bond, our new district leader, called to see if we were okay and also to give us our district meeting assignment for next Tuesday. I have the closing song and prayer and Diana has a spiritual thought. He will also lead a discussion on the first missionary lesson and we should bring the scriptures we like to use while teaching it and questions we like to ask investigators. He also said it would be okay for them to come here for the meeting instead of us having to figure out how to get to Singen where they normally have had it. That was very nice of him to be that accommodating. Elder Bond told us we should have gotten a key for the Church from Elder Howell, so we’ll have to call him to find out where it is.

Our tender mercy was that just before lights out Elder Vincent called just to tell us good night and a success story. We love our missionaries

JANUARY 20, 2010 WEDNESDAY

During my walk this morning I located an ALDI and now all we do is have to find a LiDL. Then we will have all of the grocery stores to choose from, Migros, COOP, Denners, ALDI and LiDL. Now how good is that? It didn’t seem to be too cold this morning, but as the day progressed it became bitter cold.

We’ve spent enough time moving, cleaning, organizing, going to zone conference and P-day, so now it was time to get back to work. We were given a member list last Sunday to work with and we found old member lists with notations on them that may help us to understand who are missing friends and who are active. We worked at plotting the addresses of those living in Schaffhausen on a map, but it was a lot harder doing it this way than it was using Google Maps. With Google Maps we just had to plug in our address and the address we wanted to visit and not only the map came up, but also the bus connections and directions on how to get there did as well. Just as we were going to leave our apartment to go find a couple of members, Brother Klaumuenzner called and asked if he and his wife could come visit us to bring us some bedding and to also see what else we may need in the way of furniture. We made arrangements to be home at 6:00 to meet them and since they were coming directly from the mission home, we told him we would have dinner prepared for them.

We rode the bus into the bahnhof and then set out on foot to find Nerina Fleury. The GPS guided us into the old town part of Schaffhausen which wasn’t too far away. We would have enjoyed the cobblestone streets, old buildings, quaint businesses and great fountains if it wouldn’t of been soooo freezing cold. The address wasn’t difficult to find, but no one was home. We couldn’t even leave a message because the mailboxes must have been inside the building. We couldn’t find any outside. From there we continued down the street, turned left, went through the tunnel under the street and railroads to the other side of the bahnhof. It only took us twenty or twenty five minutes to walk to Franz & Anita Maier’s home and by the time we got there, we were frozen. They weren’t home either, but this time we were able to leave a note letting them know we had been by and that we would call them later this evening.

We walked back and went down into the tunnel to get back to the other side, but this time we stopped in a little jewelry store because the warmth coming out of the doors as people went in and out was so inviting. We went in and looked around long enough to warm up a little and then out we went again. We noticed a Migros store and, since we needed bread and salad fixin’s for dinner, we stopped long enough to buy some. We traveled back home and began preparing dinner for the Klaumuenzners. We got a call from Elder Nilsson & Irick who were at Madeleine’s and they were trying to help her understand how to fill out her tithing slip. They were unfamiliar with some words on it so we went over how to fill it out. Madeleine said hi and we let her know we were still okay, but we missed her and the other members in Zurich. We told her the members here had treated us well and had welcomed us with open arms.

The Klaumuenzners arrived at 7:00 and brought three bags of sheets, towels, blankets, pillows and a box of drinking glasses. Br. Klaumuenzner saw this apartment when the other missionaries lived here and he was amazed at how well it looks now. They have a dinette set in their garage in Frauenfeld that they are just dying to get rid of because it’s taking up space there. They insisted it would look good in our living room and so tomorrow we’ll go to Frauenfeld to help him load it and bring it here. We hope it will fit up the three flights of stairs as it gets pretty skinny in spots.

For dinner Diana fixed them a green salad followed by a wonderful meal of taco mix with beans, hamburger and tomatoes over rice, buttered steamed carrots, bread and vanilla pudding topped with raspberries. They were grateful for the meal as they had little time even for lunch. It seems they have a new financial program that is not working very well. They used it to pay all the bills this month and for some reason, everything was returned so the bills didn’t actually get paid which has called a lot of problems. For example, all of the phone service for the missionaries in Germany was shut off for lack of payment and that is not good. All of the landlords are clamoring for their rent and etc. We wonder if the missions in other parts of the world Geneva and Argentina) are having the same problems. They were so tired that reluctantly, they finally had to leave to get home.

We are grateful for the care and concern for our well being that Sister Matern and the Klaumuenzners have for us. They want to make sure that we are comfortable in our new area of labor.

JANUARY 19, 2010 TUESDAY

Our normal P-day was yesterday, but we were at our zone conference all day so we used today as our P-day. We took our time getting up and then I took an hour walk in the cold foggy morning. We planned on doing this and still work at getting organized in the morning and then in the afternoon ride some buses around to kind of get the lay of the land, so to speak. We’re down to the little things like putting up hooks for our clothes, kitchen hot mitts and other things and for wash cloths in the bathroom. We still had some carpet left over that we brought with us so we used a piece to put around and in front of the toilet and also in front of the bathroom sink. The floor in the bathroom is ceramic tile and it’s very cold on the feet. The carpet makes it much more comfortable. We moved a desk into the spare bedroom and brought a patio table up from the basement and put it in the living room. We put a couple of hooks inside the clothes closet to hang keys on.

As we were in the middle of doing this we got a distress call from Charlotte. Yesterday she spent her first day as a missionary in the mission home and, since everything was new to her, she went home at the end of the day absolutely overwhelmed. She was in tears on the phone and asked if she could come and spend some time with us. Of course we told her to come and while she was on the way, we tried to finish what we were doing. By the time she got here we mostly were finished and could spend the time with her that she needed. She poured out her heart about all the things she would be responsible for and that she felt she wouldn’t be able to measure up. She felt the whole world was on her shoulders and, if she messed up, it would come to an end. We gave her encouragement and told her the Lord knew what he was doing when she was called and He would help her to learn the things she needed to learn, including English. She just had to have faith and have a little patience with herself and that she couldn’t learn it all in one day. We discovered she hadn’t eaten for two days and that could have been part of the problem. We cooked her some lunch and before we left to go exploring, the computer guy rang our doorbell. He explained the conduit for running wires was full and so he couldn’t bring a computer cable from the basement to our apartment on the third floor. He said the next option was to try to set up a wireless router in the basement and see if it had a strong enough signal for us to use it. He said he needed to find a specific card or router that was compatible with this older system and that it would probably take a few days to do it. So, we hope to have internet within a few days. It’s kind of been tough being in a new area and also be cut off from the people we know and love and also not be able to use it to find addresses.

Then we went out exploring by riding buses from one end of the route to the other. We were able to make round trips on buses #1, #5 and #8 before it got dark. We ended up back at the bahnhof and we waited with her about a half hour until her train came. She felt a lot better for the visit and, we hope, has renewed faith that she can accomplish what she needs to do. We are sure our friends, the Doyles and the Kroffs, can empathize with her, too. But, we know the Lord qualifies those whom he calls. Ganz bestimmt! We all have feelings of inadequacy when we begin something new and, perhaps that’s a good thing. It keeps us humble and relying on the Lord for His help. She has only been a member for just under a year so this has been quite a stretch for her. She asked if there comes a time or an age when one doesn’t have to have a calling anymore and could just rest or can one say “no.” She said it half serious and half in jest, but she’s a trooper and will do just fine.

The tender mercy for today is that Charlotte has enough confidence in us to be able to discuss her feelings and gain strength from the confidence we have in her to be able to fulfill the requirements of her calling.

Sisters Robinson, Jensen, Dittli & Christopher; Pres. Bolt; E. Rolwy, E. King, E. Nilsson

JANUARY 18, 2010 MONDAY

Last night we knew I would have to get up at 5:15 in order for both of us to shower and get ready to catch our bus at 6:45 to get to Aarau for our zone conference. We haven’t had to set an alarm clock yet in order to wake up on time. When we have set an alarm, it seems my internal clock always wakes me up a few minutes before it’s set to go off. That happened to me this morning because we set two alarm clocks just to be sure. I woke up 15 minutes before and thought I’d just stay in bed and wait to see if the alarms actually went off. Yipes! The next thing we knew it was 6:15 and the alarms didn’t go off. We jumped out of bed and scurried around, got ready, collected our books and material and somehow made it to the bus stop in time to catch our bus to get to the bahnhof. We had no trouble finding our connecting train to Zurich and had a comfortable ride. We used the time reading and rehearsing our part in the program and before we knew it, the hour slipped away and we arrived in Zurich. We got off the train and went to find our connecting train to Aarau on platform #13 which was the train we were supposed to take according to the internet schedule I had looked up. However, before we got to platform #13 we saw one on platform #15 that left a few minutes earlier and Diana wanted to take it. I still wanted to take the one for the travel plan I had written down, but to settle the difference of opinions, we went to the counter and asked if the #15 train went directly to Aarau without stopping. It did so we hurried and got on it and who should we run into? None other than Elders Nilsson & Irick. It was good to see them again and travel with them. It gave us the opportunity to talk about how their investigators were progressing and to be brought up to date on the people we were working with.

Elder Rowley called us last night to see if we knew the address of the Church in Aarau and if we knew how to get there. We knew the address, but didn’t know how to find it so he told us he would be at the bahnhof when we arrived to pick us up in a car. When we got there, Sister Robinson got off the same train, but from a different car than we were riding in and she joined us. We looked for Elder Rowley, but couldn’t see him. Elders Irick & Nilsson knew the way to the Church so we just followed along not worrying about Elder Rowley. It was a good thing, too, because he got involved with other things at the Church and didn’t come to the bahnhof at all. Why he didn’t call us to let us know is as mystery, but all’s well that ends well.

We had a great conference as usual with a lot of inspiring talks and workshops. President Matern discussed D&C 4 in detail, going over the meaning of a lot of the words. Diana and I were given the word “Geduld” (patience) and asked to define it, describe how it’s necessary to do missionary work and the relationship between patience and faith. Later, we did our workshop on cleanliness focused on keeping the apartments clean and in a condition conducive to inviting the Spirit to be with and help them in this work. At the end we committed them by the raising of the covenant hand to follow the guidelines posted in every apartment. All but one raised their hand and he probably wasn’t paying attention, or maybe it was because he goes home in a month.

Lunch was prepared by the Aarau Ward Relief Society and it was very scrumptious. Boiled potatoes, sour cream, link sausage, cranberry sauce, peas & carrots and chocolate pudding for dessert. I was really surprised to see cranberry sauce because it is an unknown food here in Switzerland. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed it and after the meal I went back to the kitchen and thanked the sisters and one brother for the meal and raved about the cranberries. I asked them where they had bought them and they said they went to Germany to buy it, that you can’t find it in Switzerland. Later on one of the sisters was nice and brought me an unopened bottle of it for which I thanked her profusely.

After the conference was over, we rode the bus back to the bahnhof and got mixed up which stairs to go down in order to find the right platform for our train. The first two we tried were blockaded because of all the construction going on, but we only discovered that after we went down the steps and into the tunnels. Both times we had to turn around and climb back up the stairs. We finally found the right one, but too late for us to make the train. The Elders ran on ahead and caught it because they needed to be in Zurich for an appointment and couldn’t be late. It wasn’t long before the next train came along which we boarded and rode to Zurich. We found a train to Schaffhausen and finally arrived home around 8:00 p.m. The transportation system in Switzerland is great and it’s not too complicated to find your way around and usually it’s only twenty minutes to a half hour between trains. However, some are much faster than others, and don’t stopping at every little podunk town along the way.

The tender mercy today was that Diana was observant and found the train that Elders Irick & Nilsson were on who guided us all the way to the Church. Otherwise we would have been stuck at the Aarau bahnhof not knowing which way to go.

View from Sylvia's window; Sunset on the way out to Sylvias; Diana, Jeselyn & Karl Hoenli, Irma Pietreboni; Sylvia Gardedieu.

JANUARY 17, 2010 SUNDAY

Brother Klaumuenzner called this morning really early to ask us if he could drop by and pick us up for Church. Although he goes to Church in Frauenfeld, he said he wanted to come to Schaffhausen so we wouldn’t be alone on our first Sunday here. Now how thoughtful is that? We told him we already had been welcomed and had a ride this morning and, right on the button, 8:45, Brother DeMarzi was at our door to pick us up. It was a short ten minute ride to the Church and there we were greeted by the branch president, Philippo Flammia. He was very cordial and accommodating as were all the other members. We were among the first to arrive, but shortly after others came including brother Klaumuenzner and President Bolt. Brother Hoffmann from the High Council came, too, to help Pres. Bolt introduce the Zurich Stake 2010 goals.

Sacrament meeting came first and the sacrament was blessed by Brother DeMarzi, both the bread and the water, and one Aaronic Priesthood bearer passed them to the congregation. We didn’t count those present, but just guessing there could have been maybe 20-25 members counting the visitors. The talks were inspirational and as Pres. Bolt and Bro. Klaumuenzner as they started their talks said a few nice things about us to the point we’re going to be hard pressed to live up to the expectations placed on us. All we can do is our best.

Sister Gardedieu was especially anxious to meet us and began trying to organize our work for us. She’s just so excited to do missionary work. She said she has two days a week she can get home early from work to go proselyting with us. We set up an appointment with her next Thursday to go visiting some “missed friends” (less-active members.) In President Bolt’s remarks today he told us we should be very careful in labeling “missed friends” as less active because we don’t really know what their personal worship practices are. Some may be surprised and offended to think they have been labeled less active. He said something else surprising to us. His counsel to Pres. Flammia was that if a member wanted to go to the temple and during the recommend interview, he revealed he smoked or had other word of wisdom problems and, if he promised not to do it any more, to go ahead and issue a recommend and not make him wait for three months to actually show he had been faithful. He said that trust is a powerful tool and people respond to it. He and Brother Hoffmann presented the stake goals for the year which included daily scripture study and prayer, family home evening once a week, a visit to the temple once a month and bringing someone into the Church either through re-activation or conversion. If every member would do this, the Zurich Stake would double and could be divided in two and our Schaffhausen branch could maybe become a ward.

After Church Sister Silvia Gardedieu invited us to dinner this afternoon. Diana asked what we could bring and she responded if it were proper for senior missionaries to be asked to bring something. We told her it was okay with us so she asked us to bring a dessert. Brother Wigger, the first counselor in the branch presidency cornered us and asked us to talk in Church on January 31. He asked us to introduce ourselves and tell of some experiences while growing up that have helped us to become who we are today and how that helps us to serve others. We have twenty minutes at our disposal, ten for each of us. We said our goodbyes and made our way slowly out of the building and down the steep icy road to the bahnhof where we got on our bus after a twenty minute wait in the freezing cold and went home.

At home Diana made the dessert which was a vanilla pudding over which we were going to put raspberries with a waffle stick to dress it up a bit when we got to Sister Gardedieu’s home. While she was doing that, I looked up scriptures for our presentation tomorrow and then wrote the journal entry for yesterday. It seems we’ll never catch up. All too soon it came time to leave for our dinner appointment with Sister Gardedieu. We took our bus #5 the ten minute ride to the bahnhof where we got on bus #21 for the thirty-three minute ride to Schleitheim Gemeindehaus where we met her mother, Irma Pietriboni, who took us by car up the hill to her home. We were met by Silvia who gave us a warm reception. She gave us a quick background of herself and her husband. He has an alcohol problem and would like to see if we can help him. She hopes he can relate better to us who are closer to his age (50) and additionally, she thinks it would help that we will be here for an extended period of time where we can develop his trust rather than seeing a new face every couple of months. She is aware of the Church’s addiction recovery program and hoped we were acquainted with it. We know about it and have friends in our home ward, Mike and Shauna Bath, who are missionaries serving in this program. When we get the internet connection, we’ll have to see if we can get some information from them about this program.

While Silvia was busy with getting dinner ready, we found out her mother was the actual owner of the home, but finds it too hard for her to live up on the hill. She said she lives down in the town of Schleitheim and lets her daughter live in the big house. She and her husband built the home in 1967. She was proud of the workmanship of the wooden ceilings in the kitchen and dining room and how spacious it was which is not typical Swiss construction. The view out of the dining room window was exceptional; we could see over the town and the whole valley. She invited two other guests, Karl and Jeselyn Hoenli. He is Swiss and speaks English and she is from the Philippines, speaks English and is learning German and has only been here for three months. It took them six months to get her visa during which she had to take German language lessons and pass a language test as part of the requirements for the visa.

Dinner was quiet and comfortable as if we were old friends. We talked about ourselves and got to know them as well. After the meal was over, Silvia wasn’t bashful about asking us if we had a spiritual thought for them. This is normally what happens, but this time we hadn’t thought about it at all so it kind of came as a surprise. Roxsan sent us a couple of ideas some time ago and we’ve used one quite a few times. It’s the one about asking those present to focus on objects in the room that are a certain color and then having them close their eyes. Instead of asking them to name those objects, we asked them to name objects of a different color while their eyes were still closed. That’s not quite so easy and for those not familiar with the home, it is usually difficult. We related the color we had them focus on to problems in our lives. Sometimes we focus on these so much that we don’t see the other colors or in other words, blessings and good things, that we have in our lives. The final thought is that we should thank the Lord for all that we have and experience. We mentioned the hymn, Count Your Blessings, and we all sang it together. Eventually we had to go and Irma drove us back down to our bust stop. By then it was drizzling, but we only had about five minutes to wait for the bus. We got home somewhere about 9:30 and were glad to be back home. We ended the day by writing this journal entry, or most of it, and then went to bed.