An interesting statue on the corner of a building; many of the building in old town Luzern had frescoes painted on them; Diana and Charlotte.

JANUARY 12, 2010 TUESDAY

When we get to bed so late, morning comes quickly. Early this morning Charlotte called and wanted to bring some galoshes over for Diana to wear. She is always worrying about Diana not being properly dressed for the cold, but especially not having good winter boots. She knew we were going to go to Schaffhausen this morning and it snowed last night so she wanted to make sure she was properly dressed. Diana didn’t want to wear them and is okay with what she has and that frustrates Charlotte. She sent us a text message later telling us that Pres. Bolt said we could use the unused fridge in his basement. We thanked her, but told her Pres. Matern said there was a fridge in the mission home garage we could use. Everyone is taking care of us.

Neide offered last night to come with us today to clean our new apartment and she arrived at 10:00 to go with us. It took us about an hour and a half to take a tram from Schoerlistrasse to Stettbach, change to a train to Winterthur, change to another train to Schaffhausen and then get on the final bus to our new apartment at Fulachstrasse 245, 8200 Schaffhausen. The name of our bus stop is Sennerei and it is only about 50 yards from our front door which is convenient and we don’t have to climb up or down stairs to get to it.

We hoped for the best and expected the worst when it came to the missionaries leaving the apartment clean and ready to move in. We could see they had tried to clean some things, but in the end it was too much for them. The landlord was already in the apartment working, trying to get some things done before we move in on Friday. He was surprised to see us and was relieved when we told him we were only here today to clean the apartment and not to move in. He was doubly happy to have some help. Neide pitched right in with us as we sorted out the garbage from the good stuff and slowly brought order to the place. Missionaries come and go, leave their junk behind when they are transferred. The ones coming in stuff it here and there, not bothering to throw it away. It would have been nice if they had at least taken the garbage sacks out or cleaned out the dinky fridge. The four of us worked on it from noon to 4:00 and got most of it washed, cleaned, vacuumed, organized and ready to go. We made friends with the landlord couple who are really friendly and sweet people. He brought us a bottle of apple juice and later made peppermint tea for us all. At one point Neide asked him if he was a Mormon and seemed shocked when he said he wasn’t. She launched right into telling him about the Church and how she felt after her conversion. We told him we were going to have a home evening every Monday evening and he and his wife were invited.

They said they had made arrangements for a computer guy to come look at how it would be possible to set up our internet. He gave them two options, but he would have to make an on-site visit to see which one would work. The first and best one was to network to the landlord’s service which would cost us only for the cable. The second was to purchase our own service which would cost us $39.00 a month. Either way we shouldn’t be long without being able to stay connected to our friends and family.

We caught our train to go home and this time we traveled non- stop to the Zurich bahnhof. Neide walked with us to our tram stop and then she went somewhere else to buy something. We went home to get ready for Marcello to come get his haircut at 7:00. Suwang said she was going to come visit us tonight rather than go to Institute. She wants to spend as much time with us as possible before we move. We had already made an appointment with her to come visit her in the morning and stay for lunch. I checked the washer to see if it was free and, when it was, got in a load of whites before Suwang and Marcello arrived and dried them after Marcello left.

We had just enough time to have a light supper and for Diana to work at cleaning some spots on our carpet before our door buzzer rang. Suwang was already here at 6:30 and was so happy to see Diana. Marcello arrived at 7:00 and I cut his hair while Diana visited with Suwang. Marcello has matured quite a bit in the year we have known him and he and his mother, Neide, have a much better relationship now. Every time I cut his hair we talk about the Church. We and Neide hope that someday he will receive a testimony and get baptized. I encouraged him to read and study the Book of Mormon. Suwang stayed until almost 10:30 when she told her, if she didn’t go home pretty quick, we wouldn’t be able to come visit her tomorrow.