JANUARY 15, 2010 FRIDAY

We thought we had almost everything ready to be moved, but when it came down to the nitty gritty, we still had too much to do. We buzzed around doing this and that when our doorbell rang. Charlotte made a surprise visit ready to help us carry our things down to the van. The only thing was, the Elders weren’t coming with the van until 4:00. Someway she had gotten confused. She invited us to come over for lunch because she saw all our food was packed up. We declined the offer using the fact that we had to wash the bedding, but we couldn’t use the washer until noon. At that she said she had access to three washers and a dryer in her building and we could just bring our wash over there and do it. We finally agreed and arranged to be there at 11:30. We checked our own washer just to see if the person using it was finished early. Yep, she was so we put in one load and got it washed and put in another and started it and then went over to Charlottes, taking the wet load with us and one to wash as well. While we ate lunch, the one batch dried as the other one washed and then that one was put in to dry also. It didn’t quite get all dried when the timer turned it off, but we ran out of time with other stuff we needed to do so we took it home to finish drying it. On the way home we picked up the bedspread from our washer and someway we got everything dried by the time Elders Dockstader & Dias arrived a half hour early.

Back home we hustled getting the last things finished when we got another call, this time from Elders Irick and Nilsson. They wanted to come over and say goodbye one last time and tell us a success story they had just experienced the night before. They said Angela Lloyd invited them over for dinner last night with a friend of hers, who is Norwegian, and her husband. They had a really good discussion with them and her friend was really excited about receiving a Book of Mormon in her native Norwegian language. They made a followup appointment with them at her request and they feel she is really a golden investigator. The other part of the success story is that Angela actually made up her baptisms program and showed Elders Irick & Nilsson what she was going to ask them to do when she’s baptized. She is so happy since she made the decision to work towards baptism again and the Elders and we are thrilled right along with her. We hope she makes it before we have to go home or we’ll have to come back over here for it. These two Elders are the hardest working missionaries we know and it was nice of them to come say goodbye to us.

Elders Dockstader and Dias arrived with the van and the other two Elders left. Charlotte arrived just in time to help us carry things down to the van. We stuffed it full and didn’t quite have room for the double mattress and a few other things. We decided that Sister Larson and Charlotte would stay behind while the three of us took the first load to Schaffhausen. The trip took about an hour and a half including unloading the van and carrying everything up the three stories to our apartment. After returning and getting everything else loaded, we said goodbye to Charlotte and made our last trip to our new home. And now we start all over again, but this time with a little experience to help us along.

We didn’t rest, but jumped right in trying to bring order to chaos as everything was just dumped in the middle of the living room floor. We were happy we were able to get a fridge from the mission home, but to our dismay, it had no freezer compartment and it’s only two and a half feet tall!!! What’s up with that? And why the Elders put it in the middle of the living room is beyond us. We plugged it in and it didn’t work at all. However, about six hours later, all of a sudden it kicked on. Hallelujah! Something is better than nothing.

First we had to get the bed in shape to sleep on. We had previously pushed the two single beds together and we were hoping the mattress we brought would cover them. No such luck. It needed to be at least two feet wider. We discussed options and decided to turn it sideways and it fit side to side, but of course, left a two and a half foot gap at the bottom. We filled that in with extra comforters and ugly pillows among old bedding left here by previous missionaries and then covered the whole thing with a tattered sheet and then a fitted double bed sheet that happened to be here, too. Rummaging through the old bedding we found a most amazing thing, a king size sheet that appeared to have been washed and folded and left there just for us. There was no reason for it or the double sheet to be here because missionaries only use single beds. It didn’t take too much to make us happy at this point. No bedspread or quilt, but we found a couple of single bed wool blankets, one orange and one blue, to top off our sleeping arrangements. When Bro. Klaumuenzner brought us up last week to look the place over, he left a “bag of pillows” for us that had been cleaned and ready for use, he said. We expected normal pillows so we didn’t bother to bring any from our last apartment. We opened the bag and were surprised to find a bunch of small couch pillows and a couple of long 6" diameter pillows, any one of which would be impossible to sleep on. The were some old ugly looking pillows here left by previous missionaries so we sorted through them and got the two best ones. And that’s our sad tale of woe. It seems to us a little more thought should have gone into preparing this apartment for a missionary couple, but we’re up for it and will make the best of it with a smile on our faces.

To end the evening we had a surprise call from Elder Norris, one of our district leaders while we were in Schwamendingen. We have an extra special soft place in our hearts for Elder Norris. He continues to call us once in awhile to say hello and to chat a bit.

The tender mercies today among many others is that we got moved safely, Charlotte spent the day helping us and Elders Nilsson & Irick came to say goodbye. One other was that Elder Norris was a familiar voice who gave us a call when we needed a little lift.