A store where you can rent a box to sell jewelry, everything was way expensive; view inside the church at Munsterplatz; Diana and Agness.

FEBRUARY 27, 2010 SATURDAY

We wish we could still use our laptop at home to fill out our weekly progress reports because it takes so much time and it’s so inconvenient to go in to the Church and use the computer there. The reason Pres. Flammia want us to do it that way is so they’ll have a permanent record on their computer instead of paper files in a file cabinet. We had already completed most of the report on Thursday so I only had to add what happened on the last two days. This morning was a beautiful spring day and I enjoyed it thoroughly as I walked half way to the Church and then caught a bus to the bahnhof. From there I walked clear up above the Church to see if I could find and easier way for Diana to get to the Church rather than walking up from the bottom. If I could have, she would’ve been able to take a bus up and then walk down to the Church which would have been easier than walking up the hill. I discovered it wouldn’t save much so we’re stuck coming up from the bottom.

It took me a couple of hours to finish this week’s report, but I still have the first three weeks’ reports to computerize. I’ll have to spend some time doing that this next week or it’ll slip until I will never get it done. I went back home, got Diana and then we went back into Schaffhausen to see if we could find Tina, a granddaughter of Bruno Diethelm. He gave us her name and the address where she works when we left Schwamendingen, but we never got around to looking her up. When we went to stake conference last Sunday, he asked us if we had been able to go visit her. We were a little sheepish when we answered we hadn’t, but promised him we’d look her up this week. The address Bruno gave us was incorrect, but after asking a lady if she knew where the bakery was where Tina worked, we got good directions and found the place. We happened to come on a day that she had taken off for some reason so we still didn’t meet her. We had an hour and a half before we had to board the bus for Schleitheim so we went back to the bahnhof where there was a Migros and bought some cinnamon, chocolate powder for brownies and a carton of rhubarb yogurt for me. One container of chocolate if for Diana to teach Madeleine Schwitter how to make brownies. She called Diana this morning wanting the recipe so when we go to Zurich for Gen. Conference, we’ll visit her and Diana will show her how to make them. We took that home and then came back and got on the bus for Schleitheim.

Today was Sylvain’s 50th birthday and he and Silvia invited us to dinner with them and her mother to celebrate it. They started us off with a salad made from a plant called “nut lettuce” with a vinaigrette dressing and peanuts on top. If we have this kind of lettuce at home, we’ve never noticed it. It was really good. Next we had a cream soup made of carrots and grated ginger root cooked with coconut milk. It was also very good. The main dish was fried pork medallions and noodles with a delicious cream sauce on them and broccoli on the side. Wonderfully delicious. After the meal was over we gave Sylvain his present. We gave him a “Camp Helaman” coin with the “armor of God” on it along with the reference in Ephesians 6:11-18. We read and discussed the meaning of the armor and how we can “put on the armor” to protect and help us. We asked him to put the coin in his pocket and, whenever he feels the urge to drink, to pull it out and look at it and think of how he can use the armor to resist the temptation. We got on the bus to come home at 8:22 and arrived home about 9:00.

Besides Madeleine’s phone call this morning, we got a phone call from our zone leaders giving Diana the assignment to lead the music at zone conference. Later, we got a call from Elder Vincent who likes to call us every so often to say hello and catch up on what we’re doing. We like to hear about his experiences, too. And now it’s time for bed.

Church in Neuhausen; the Larsons with Katia & Emely DiPaolo; cute Loch Ness monster.

FEBRUARY26, 2010 FRIDAY

Before I left on my walk this morning I put a load of whites in the wash hoping that it would be finished by the time I got back. It was and I put them in the dryer. We had an appointment with Emely DiPaolo this afternoon and we needed a smooth rock to use as part of our lesson. Diana gave me the assignment to find one as I walked around. We also wanted to visit Dorothea this morning to wish her a happy birthday and we wanted something to take to her. I decided to walk to ALDI to see if they had anything appropriate for a birthday. ALDI opened at 8:00, an hour earlier than the shopping center in Herblingen. It didn’t take long to find a nice rock and at ALDI I found a dozen yellow roses for $4.00 that I bought. In addition I bought some salad fixin’s for Diana and then took the long walk back home.

While I was gone, Diana took her shower, got ready for the day and did her daily scripture reading. When I got back, I did the same. We worked a little on the lesson we wanted to give to Emely and her mother in the afternoon. Soon it was time to saddle up and leave to visit Dorothea. We caught her at a good time because it was before she had to go practice singing and early enough that her friends hadn’t started to call her to wish her a happy birthday. We had a good visit with her and kind of lost track of the time. By the time we realized what time it was, we knew we were going to be late for our 11:45 lunch appointment. We hurried up and said our goodbyes and then caught the bus for town. On the way we called Silvia on her cell phone and let her know we would be about 10-15 minutes late. Silvia had arranged a lunch meeting with a friend of hers and invited us to come along to meet her. Silvia is the most missionary minded member we’ve met so far who actually looks for opportunities to proselyte.

We met Charlotte (not our friend from Schwamendingen) and Silvia in the restaurant on the top floor of the Manor building. They already had their food and, after we exchanged greetings, we picked out what we wanted from the serve yourself buffet, paid for it and sat down with them. We had a great conversation with Charlotte who is religious, but doesn’t belong to a particular church. We talked of things in general to get acquainted but, in such circumstances, religious subjects come up (with a little help). Some of the things we talked about were the resurrection, the role Christ plays in our lives, the gathering of Israel, prayer, prophets and the Book of Mormon. Everything we talked about she believed as we do. She understands English somewhat, can speak a little and she’d like to be able to speak it better. Silvia suggested that maybe she could join us when we teach Jasmine Hunsiker to which Charlotte agreed would be a good idea. We’ll talk to Jasmine on Sunday to see if she’s okay with the idea. We invited Charlotte to come to the reception for the Hoenles after Sunday services on March 7 to meet Jasmine and get acquainted with other members. She may even come to Church services, but she said she likes to sleep late, so we’ll see. We wanted to offer her a Book of Mormon, but she has a medical problem with her optic nerves and doesn’t see very well, even to read. She said she likes audio books so we’ll have to see if there is a German audio BM like there is in English. Does anyone know if there is? We spent about an hour and a half visiting and discussing and then Charlotte and Silvia had to get back to work. We went home and did a little more preparation for our meeting with Emely.

This morning started out wonderful again, but by noon it had really started to blow a cold wind and turned blustery. By the time we left for our meeting wiith Emely, it was raining again and gotten colder. We made it to Emeley’s and had a great meeting with both her and her mother, Katia. Katia grew up in Mexico among many members and now her parents and family are members. She married a Swiss who was investigating the Church with her and Kathleen, but then he found some anti-Mormon stuff on the internet and turned against the Church. He wouldn’t let the missionaries teach Emely any more and just recently has softened a bit. Katia still is afraid to ask Claudio, her husband, if Emely can get baptized for fear he will make us stop teaching her. However, sometime she will have to cross that bridge and ask. We told her we hoped Emely would be able to get baptized before we go home.

The lesson today was on prophets and specifically Joseph Smith, why he went into the woods to pray and what answer he received. We first asked Emely some quaestion to determione how much she knew already and where to begin. She knew who Joseph Smith was and that he went in the woods to pray, but didn’t exactly know what happened in the grove. We spent some time talking about him and what he accomplished including bringing forth the Book of Mormon. We moved on to teaching about baptism and read the scripture in Alma 5:14 in relation to the promises we make when we’re baptized and how important it is to be washed clean. We discussed the baptismal covenant and read and discussed the sacrament prayer in D&C 20:77. For Katia’s benefit as well as Emely’s we taught how important it is to come to Church to partake of the sacrament every Sunday to renew our covenants and to continually repent. We discussed the difference between a “hard heart” (rebellious) and a “soft heart” (obedient) using the rock to demonstrate the hard and play-doh Diana had made to demonstrate the soft heart. With the play-doh we asked Katia to make a snake, a snail and a pancake. We asked Emely to do the same with the rock. Of course, Katia was able to do it and Emely wasn’t. With a soft obedient heart we can take upon us the name of Christ and have His image in our countenance. As we’ve said before, Emely is a bright girl and understood everything we taught her. As we finished, she volunteered to say the prayer again and we made another appointment for next Friday. They said they would be at Church Sunday.

The day was about over and it was still blustery and raining so we made our way home. We had a bite to eat and then decided to watch The Incredibles, one of the DVD’s Monica sent us to give to Kofi Safo-Adu to help him with his English. We haven’t watched TV or gone to any movies together since we’ve been here. I went to one Mission President approved movie, One Good Man some months ago, but it was a treat to watch this one tonight. Maybe we shouldn’t have wasted our time on it, but we did anyway. About 9:30 our doorbell rang which was way unusual so instead of just punching the button to open the door, I went down to see who it was. It turned out to be Jacob Steuble, our landlord, who went out and forgot to take his key with him. And that kind of ends our day.

When we took the flowers to Dorothea, Diana put them in the pretty vase she got from Suki when we helped Suki move. Diana really didn’t want to give it away. But was willing to part with it because it was all we had. When we gave the flowers to Dorothea, she said she had enough vases and wanted to give it back to us. After mildly protesting we accepted it back and Diana was happy to get it. And that was a tender mercy.

A print tacked to the pulpit of the "All Saints Church" (Munster Kirche) in Schaffhausen; Agness; a statue by the St. Johns Church.

FEBRUARY 25, 2010 THURSDAY

We have been busy getting familiar with the Schaffhausen area, visiting the people Silvia wanted us to get to know and then teach, trying to find and meet the less-active members and etc. etc. that we really haven’t taken the time to look in the area books where the teaching records of previous missionaries are kept. After we got through with our morning routines, we started digging into them to get prepared for our meeting with Silvia this afternoon. We wanted her input on people she may know who had been previously taught and who we could contact again. There were a lot of people in the records, but most live in outlying towns that would be hard for us to get to. It appears to us that former missionaries serving here must of had a car in order to travel to all of these places.

By noon we left our apartment to travel to Neuhausen to try and contact a couple of less-actives. Erika Meier wasn’t home so we continued on to try and find Godwin Osarenren. We found his building, but couldn’t find his name on any of the doorbells. We took a chance and rang the doorbell of an apartment and the lady who answered was kind enough to look in her new phone book that had just arrived in her mail to see if she could find him listed. She did and he was and she gave us his new address. It didn’t seem too far away so we decided to walk to it using our GPS to give us directions. It was a little farther than we thought and mostly uphill including some fairly long steps. It took us about twenty or twenty five minutes to find his new address. The bottom door was open so we climbed the four stories to his apartment, but it turned out he wasn’t home either. We left a note at both his and Erika’s apartments to let them know we had been by and that we’d like to meet them. We returned to the closest bus stop, got on the next bus and traveled back to Muhlentor and got out to try and visit Michael Schaellebaum. He wasn’t home either so we left a note there, too. We came on home after that and waited for Silvia to arrive.

Silvia arrived at 3:30 and we had our discussion about the old investigators. She didn’t know only a couple of them and gave us some good insights about them. We discussed the ones she introduced us to, who we’ve been teaching, and the progress they’ve been making. Finished with that part of the meeting we discussed her ideas on the RS Workshop on March 17. She plans on taking the first thirty minutes and then wants us to take the remaining 30-45 minutes. After our planning and discussion was over, she stayed a while so she could eat her dinner that she brought with her before she went to an appointment in Schaffhausen. Later tonight we’ll meet her again at the Church along with the other sisters who come for a Relief Society activity. While Diana attends that, I’ll use the computer upstairs to continue working on getting our missionary progress reports entered.

Today while we were out walking around it was a beautiful sunshiny day. It was so good to be out. However, tonight when we went out to catch our bus to go to the church, it was raining again. When it’s sunshiny in the morning, it’s usually raining by evening. Thank goodness for our umbrella; it keeps us mostly dry while walking around. We thought RS started at 7:30, but it started at 7:00 so Diana was about twenty minutes late. She went into her meeting and I went up stairs to the computer. Yvonne Grimske (pronounced Ivany) was the teacher and her lesson was about all of the General Presidents of the Relief Society, what they were known for and what historical events happened during their terms as presidents. Meanwhile, I entered all of the information I could think of in our weekly report so last week’s and this week’s is up to date. I’ll just have to add what occurs from now until Saturday night. I still have to catch up the three week before we knew we had to enter them into the database on the Church computer.

So now we’re home in our comfortable apartment finishing up a few things. I’m finishing this journal entry and Diana is finishing the translation of the song “Search, Ponder and Pray” from English to German. This song isn’t in the German hymn book and Diana wants to teach it to the sisters when we do our work shop.

Some of the tender mercies include Yvonne and Dorothea offering us rides home from RS. Diana kept saying no, but finally gave in by the time we had walked with Dorothea down to the park and ride. We would have had to wait in the rain for another twenty minutes for a bus, but by car we were home in just a few minutes. Also, Ivonne has an apartment in American Fork, Utah, and lives there about three months out of the year. When she’s not there, she rents it to friends. She has a car there as well. She plans on spending October in Am. Fork and we invited her to come visit us when she’s there.

Elders Bushnell, von Niederhausen, Tavake & Bentley; sister Jaermann trying to figure out the object lesson demonstration.
Video clip is Sister Jaermann trying to build the support on top of the glasses using the three knives which needs to support the weight of several books.


FEBRUARY 24, 2010 WEDNESDAY

If it isn’t one thing, it seems to be another. Diana’s knee has been bothering her for a long time, but over the last month it’s been getting better and better. She hasn’t had so much pain lately. Now her other leg goes to sleep while she’s walking and, when it does, it hurts. When she’s sitting or not walking, it’s fine. Now, I guess, it’s my turn a little. It seems I’ve bruised the ball of my left foot someway and it’s painful to walk on it. It isn’t too bad yet, but I wanted to stay off it as much as possible today so it wouldn’t get any worse. I didn’t take my usual morning walk. We’re a couple of fine missionaries, aren’t we?

Elder Talley called last week to see if we could unlock the Church today where they planned to have their zone council. All the zone leaders get together a week before the zone conferences are scheduled to do some planning and coordinating. Elder Talley called us this morning to make sure we remembered. He also asked us to provide some Books of Mormon, pass along cards and other proselyting brochures for their companions to use in “streeting” while the ZL’s had their meeting. It was a good thing our apartment was well stocked so all we had to do was stamp them all with our phone number, the time meetings were held and the address of the Church. I bagged them all up and took them to the Church. While I waited for them to come, I wrote up our progress report for last week. I didn’t get quite finished so while they had their meeting, I continued to work on our report until I had to leave at 10:45. We had a lunch appointment with Dorothea Jaermann at noon and we wanted to take her a small fruit basket as a token of our appreciation. I stopped in at the Migros by the bahnhof to buy the fruit and then I went home.

We took the bus to Dorotheas and got there right at 12:00. She is such a delightful happy sister and she cooks good, too. We had a nice long visit with her and at the end we gave a spiritual thought to her. We used the same one as we’ve been using and it really has a good message along with an interesting object lesson. Diana asked Dorothea about the branch Easter camp coming up and what happens at it. She said there’s a lot of games they play as well as hikes and other activities. She showed us a game called “Sets” and she insisted we play it. It was a fun game and one we want to get and bring home to play at our brother and sister parties and home evenings. This morning it was raining but, by the time we left Dorotheas, the sun was out and shining.

We didn’t have anything else scheduled today so we went home and worked on some stuff here. At the last ward council Sister Bolli asked us if we knew of any games they could play at Easter camp. So we spent some time on the computer looking up games that would be good for kids. We printed some off and now we have to translate the directions into German so they can use them. We also wanted to see if we could figure out how to get to some of our less-active members in Germany so we can go visit them. Google Maps wasn’t helpful because it would only give directions if driving a car. SBB, the Swiss website for travel information only works for travel within Switzerland. We finally found DB BAHN, the Germany website for travel information. It works for travel from Switzerland into Germany and will be helpful for us to use. However, when traveling in Germany, we’ll have to pay because our Swiss travel passes aren’t good beyond the Swiss borders. We tried to call the less active sister in Eggingen, Germany, to wish her a happy birthday, but she didn’t answer her phone and we don’t want to spend the time and the money to go there without an appointment. We’ve found that the member lists haven’t been all that accurate and many times members have moved without forwarding addresses. To get to some of these towns it’ll be an all day adventure and, if we do get there, we don’t know for sure how, or even if, there are buses or if we’ll have to walk everywhere..

This evening Elder Tavake called to see if we had received the 15 names of less-active members we should have gotten from the branch Relief Society, MP and EQ. We weren’t involved in this type of coordination with the ward in Schwamendingen because the other missionaries took care of it. We were kind of on our own, doing what we felt we needed to do. Since we are the only missionaries in this area, we need to make sure at the next ward council that we ask for these names. We counted up the names of those we’ve visited and are working with, 12 so far, and gave this number to Elder Tavake.

The missionaries ate up most of our bread last Tuesday so we mixed up another of the add water and bake packages this evening. The two loaves are still in the oven, but not any more. Smells so yummy, but tastes much better with melted butter and jam.

The tender mercy is that I found my missionary tag that fell off my pocket and discovered missing last Sunday. When it came off my suit coat pocket, it actually fell into an inside pocket of my overcoat. I put it on yesterday because it was raining and felt something in the pocket. Low and behold, it was my badge.

Baptismal font for sprinkling babies in the Munsterplatz church; Ram statue at the Munsterplatz; wall climbing in one of the abbey hallways.

FEBRUARY 23, 2010 TUESDAY

I got up early this morning so that I could go over the first step in the 12 step program to get ready for our meeting with Sylvain this afternoon. I also reviewed the scriptures that are included in the 2nd PMG lesson on the Plan of Salvation for our district meeting. By then Diana was up and pre-cooking spaghetti sauce and getting the garlic bread ready to put in the oven. Root beer went into the fridge last night to get cold for floats after the meal. I had to make a quick run to Migros for the ice cream, but I made it back just after two missionaries arrived and before the last two did.

We had a good district meeting with Elder Tavake conducting his first meeting as district leader. Elder Bushnell, his new companion who replaced Elder Holzapfel, has been on his mission for a year now. Elders Bentley & Von Niederhausen were the other companionship. Diana had the song and the opening prayer and then we had a missionary rule book activity which teaches us to obey the rules. Elder Bentley gave a spiritual thought on prayer which generated quite a bit of discussion. After that we each discussed our favorite scripture to teach a principle about the Plan of Salvation which also generated some good questions and discussion. Then came our turn to present our ideas on how we work with members in our wards. Some of the things we talked about was that we need to love them first, all of them and not play favorites, in Church sit by those who sit alone, watch for those who are absent and call them to let them know they’re missed or ask if they need help, be dependable, be an example, be willing to serve without criticizing or complaining, visit them on their birthdays, be their friend, know their names including the young ones, talk to them and get to know them on a personal level and, when invited to a meal, be polite, compliment them on the food and thank them for being kind to them, and leave them with a spiritual thought. We gave examples of some of the experiences we’d had and are having. We felt it was a worthwhile discussion.

About halfway through the meeting we slipped in and out to get the spaghetti cooking, the garlic bread in the oven and do other things so the food would be ready when the meeting was over. The official meeting came to a close and some helped set the table and get the food from the kitchen while Elder Tavake set up our laptop to show a DVD about the worldwide Young Single Adults encouraging each other to “be strong.” It was a wonderful inspiring DVD with subtitles in English when other languages were spoken. We watched the DVD while eating lunch. Lunch was especially good and they were all excited about having real root beer. Some said they hadn’t had root beer since they left the USA. The meeting wrapped up about 1:30 and we were able to get things cleaned up before Sylvain came at 2:30.

Our meeting with Sylvain started and ended with a prayer. It was interesting in that we didn’t get to the official 12 step program today. Instead, he needed help with a problem that was causing him a lot of turmoil where he lives in a group home with about ten other men. He also feels it’s part of the root problem of why he drinks. Mainly it’s his inability to say no and he feels he is being taken advantage of but, if he were to say no, he’d feel guilty. He says his father trained him that way and to get rid of the frustration, he drinks. However, he’s come to realize that he’s the one accountable for his own actions and he can’t lay the blame on others. We gave him counsel and worked on strategies how to cope and to deal with others who like to pawn their work off on him. We used some scriptures to build up his self esteem and his worth in the eyes of the Lord, talked about the Atonement, faith and hope. The hour and a half went quickly by, but we felt the time was very productive. Later on tonight he called to tell us he had had the courage to say “no” to two of the residents who are the main ones with whom he’s had problems with and that he didn’t feel guilty about it. This was a big step forward for him.

Yesterday we went to the broken house and saw some games for kids, but didn’t buy any. Today we could have kicked ourselves because we could have used them for birthday presents for kids in our branch. Some were brand new. After Sylvain went home Diana had me go there to get them, but everything we wanted was gone. It brings back the lesson we have to learn over and over. If you see something you want, buy it. If you wait, it’ll be gone.

Elder Larson on steps leading from Munot Tower to street level; Elders Larson, Porter, Irick and Agness; Shot overlooking Schaffhausen.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010 MONDAY

This seems like the first real P-day we’ve had for months. Yesterday we made arrangements for the missionaries from our old district as well as Charlotte and Agness to come to Schaffhausen to see the sights and also to have lunch with us. We needed some groceries for the lunch so as part of my morning routine, I went in to Schaffhausen to visit Migros. Before I did that, however, I wanted to make sure I knew how to get to the Munot Tower, the Munster Platz (a convent built in 1100) and the Rheinfalls. It was raining and snowing this morning, but we were hoping for better weather as the day wore on. Having done that and bought the groceries, I returned home where Diana and I got things ready. We got a text message from Elder Irick that only four of them were coming which included him, his companion, Elder Porter, Agness and Charlotte.

We met them at the bahnhof at 10:10 and then began our excursion. We first went to the Munot Tower which was a place of defense in the Mediaeval times. From there we descended the thousand steps to the street level and walked to the Munster Platz. The museum was closed because almost all of them throughout Switzerland are closed on Mondays. We don’t know why, but it always coincides with our P-days. We were able to walk the inner passageways around the enclosed courts of the abbey and got to go inside one of the cathedrals. While inside the great cavernous cathedral, since we were the only ones in there, I sang “How Great Will Be Your Joy” and Diana joined in. Diana and I both love that song. It was like we had a microphone in there which amplified the sound.

From there we walked through the old town to our bus stop and went back home for lunch. On the menu was taco salad, open faced tacos and tortillas. Diana made some brownies as well and it was all so good. After the lunch we did the spiritual thought (object lesson) with the glasses and knives again. Before long everyone will have seen it and we’ll have to move on to another new one.

This afternoon we went to the Rheinfalls. Diana stayed home to clean up and rest a little. It was a good thing she did because Sylvain called to arrange to come a little earlier tomorrow rather than the 3:00 appointment we had already made with him. By this time the sun was out, the clouds had disappeared and it was actually quite warm. It had turned into a wonderful day. The rest of us took the bus to the Rheinfalls stop and then walked the ten minutes to the falls. It’s quite spectacular in a European kind of way, but it of course doesn’t begin to match the Niagra Falls. Rheinfalls is the largest falls in Europe and the Swiss are quite proud of that fact. We didn’t have too much time to spend there because Elders Porter & Irick had to be on the train by 4:09. We made our way back to the bahnhof and said goodbye to them. Charlotte was responsible for the dessert at their family home evening and she was going to leave with them, but Diana gave her the rest of the brownies so she didn’t have to go home so early to make something. Charlotte and Agness came back with me to our apartment.

We rest there for a few minutes and then we four went to the Salvation Army second hand store that Diana had been dying to visit all day. We wandered around in there for an hour or so looking at the interesting things. Diana bought a glass hanging ornament that was made in Hergiswil right here in Switzerland that had the picture and name of the Rheinfalls embedded in it. I found a small recipe book that we bought. Agness had never been in a “broken house” before and was surprised to find so many quality things at cheap prices. She bought a few items to take with her. Agness and Charlotte had to go so we waved to them as the bus took off. We, on the other hand, walked down the road a ways and went into another much smaller and junkier “broken house” and looked around for a half hour, but never bought anything. After that we came home tired, but happy.

We have that appointment with Sylvain tomorrow to start the 12 step program to help him quite drinking alcohol. While we were at the Humphreys yesterday, Cynthia, being a medical doctor, told us there is a prescription drug on the market that, when taken as prescribed, changes the way the brain reacts to alcohol, eliminating the craving for it. She gave us the name of it, Naltrexone, and told us we should give this information to Sylvain. He would have to find a doctor to work with him and give him this prescription. We looked it up on the internet and it looks hopeful. For the rest of the evening we needed to prepare for our meeting with Sylvain tomorrow as well as get our assignments for district meeting done.

The tender mercy for today is the way the Lord arranges to help us with our work. Just two days before we planned to meet with Sylvain, we were invited to the Humphreys for dinner. Cynthia served chocolate cake for dessert and, when Diana said she didn’t want any because of her agreement with Sylvain, Cynthia gave us the information about the medication to help alcoholics quite drinking. Is that amazing or what?

Overlooking Zurich from the Humphries home; Diana and Suwang walking down the sidewalk to the Humphries; Rhein River at Neuhasuen am Rhein looking from the train.

FEBRUARY 21, 2010 SUNDAY

In good old Sandy it takes about three minutes in a car and only 12 minutes to walk from our home to the Church. Today was stake conference and in order to get there on time we left home to catch our bus at 7:50. We caught our train in Schaffhausen at 8:14 and traveled to Oerlikon getting there at 9:06. As we got off the train a lady with a suitcase didn’t know whether to get off or stay on so we asked her if we could help her. She asked us in English if this was the main train station. She had an itinerary in her hand that we looked at and told her she was at the right place. She needed to continue on with another train to Rapperswil and we helped her find the right one. We wanted to give her a Book of Mormon, but she didn’t read German and we didn’t have one in English. We tried to find some brochures in English, but didn’t have any of those either. Where did they all go? We’ll have to restock my backpack. But we did have a Church video in English and we gave that to her. She was really friendly and said she’d be sure to look at it. We hurried on to catch our bus to Schwamendingen, but when we got to the bus stop, we had to wait a few minutes for it to come. We got to Schwamendingen where we had to switch to a tram for the last leg of our trip, but as we arrived it took off before we could get off the bus. We forgot the trams run not as often on Sundays and so we were left standing for another seven minutes until the next tram came. Finally we got to our Schoerlistrasse tram stop at 9:35, climbed the steps and walked to our old apartment to meet with the new senior couple, the Walters. We were supposed to be there at 9:20, but we didn’t make it until 9:40. We had a few minutes to show them a little about keys and answer a few questions, but then we had to leave to get to conference on time. We made arrangements to meet with them after and finish the orientation. Suwang called us somewhere in the middle of this just to make sure we were going to be at conference.

As we approached the Church we saw Cornelia Schaer standing on the sidewalk in front of the Church. We waved at her as we approached and when we got to her, we gave her a hug. We don’t know how long she had been waiting there in the cold for us, but she told us she got out of her sick bed and came to say hello to us and then she was going right back home because she had the flu and felt miserable. We can’t begin to express how grateful we are that we never gave up trying to contact her until we first met her. She has been a faithful member and a great friend ever since.

We had a few minutes before the meeting started and we used them to greet some of our friends from the Schwamendingen ward. It was good to see them all again. Brother Diethelm was on the job trying to get everyone into their seats by the time the meeting started so we went to the room where the English translation broadcast was being shown. There we saw Angie Lloyd, Jecelyn Hoenle, Agness, Kofi Safo-Adu, Yvonne and a few others.

I was out trying to find someone to turn up the TV monitor so I didn’t get the name of the first speaker, but he, Sister Barbara Thompson, 2nd Coun. in the Gen. Relief Society Presidency, Elder Kopiscke of the Seventy, Sister Uchtdorf and Pres. Uchtdorf all spoke to the general theme of personal worthiness, knowing the gospel and living it, responsibility of members to do missionary work and being active in moving the Kingdom forward in these German speaking countries. President Uchtdorf told those listening that early this morning as the sun was rising above the mountains, standing in a little grove of trees that he, at the direction of President Monson who was home with his ailing wife, dedicated these countries to renew the gathering of Isreal, that it was the dawning of a new day in Europe. We were part of history as it unfolded today.

After the meeting was over we continued with renewing friendships with our great members in the Schwamendingen ward. We also made sure we talked to all of our friends from the Schaffhausen ward. We were disappointed that Martin Hedinger didn’t make it today. He was supposed to get a blessing today. We’ll follow up and see what happened to him. We weren’t in a hurry to leave and had a good time talking with everyone. Suwang hung close to us and Irene asked us if we were going to take her home with us. I told her that I’d put her in my pocket, that she’d fit in there just fine. After an hour and a half of visiting we finally walked back to talk with the Walters again. Suwang came with us and didn’t let us out of her sight. We showed Sister Walters how to work the washer and talked to her about a few other things. All of the missionaries were there and Brother Walker was making pizza for them. We made arrangements for Charlotte, Agness and the four missionaries to come visit us in Schaffhausen tomorrow to do a little sightseeing and then have lunch with us. Then we were able to leave to go to our eating appointment with the Humphries.

We got on the tram with Suwang clinging to Diana and rode to where we had to get off to get on the cable car to ride up the mountain to the Humphries’ road. We thought Suwang would leave us there to go to the Zurich main station to catch her train home, but she was the last sardine that squished into the cable car which was filled beyond capacity. Lots of people were out to enjoy the rare sunshine and milder weather. We got to the top and walked down the road. We wondered if Suwang was going to stay with us and come to our dinner appointment, too. She finally assured us that when we got to the Humphries that she would go home. We love our little Suwang and feel it’s a privilege to be her friend. She has it all worked out that when we get released and take a short vacation at home, we can come back and live with her. She’s got plans that she could set up English classes for us to teach and we could earn enough money to live on. My oh my, what will we do. We’ll really miss her when we go home.

Cindy & Kim Humphries were waiting for us and they had invited Ted Parkin to eat with us as well. His wife and kids were in Germany with friends and he was alone. We had a great meal of chicken curry over rice, brussel sprouts and green salad. When we were finished with that, Cindy brought out a plate of several cheeses and crackers, a Swiss tradition, followed by chocolate cake and sherbet. That’s more than we’ve eaten for a long time at one sitting, but Diana was a good girl and held true to her promise with Sylvain. Before we left we gave a spiritual thought using the three cups, three knives and books to teach about faith, hope and charity. We’re using it until we wear it out because first of all we have it down pat and second, it really illustrates well these three principles and how they work together. We left after 6:00, walked down to the tram stop, rode the tram to the train station, found our train and came back home. It’s been a long, but wonderful day.

While I wrote this blog, Diana was in the kitchen baking the brownies she promise she would make for Agness if she would come tomorrow. We also got a call from Elder Tavake asking for our missionary report and then reminding us of our assignments for district meeting.

The tender mercies for today include our friendship with all the members in both the Schwamendingen Ward and the Schaffhausen Branch and especially for Cornelia and Suwang who went way out of their way to show their love for us. As we sat in our meeting we reviewed the progress of our investigators, the newly baptized since we’ve been here and once less-active or still less active but making progress. Neide was so excited to tell us she had a new calling. However, our hearts still ache for those who haven’t responded to the prompting of the Spirit.

Creek in Schleittheim; early morning market being set up; me in front of one of the many fountains

FEBRUARY 20, 2010 SATURDAY

So, what did we do today? As I left on my walk this morning, I put a batch of whites in hoping it would be finished by the time I got back. I walked into Schaffhausen, checked the bus schedule to go to Schleittheim, and then decided to walk around in the “old town.” It was too early for anything to be open, but it’s fun just walking around the cobblestone streets and in and out of the little alleys that are everywhere. There was a street market getting set up for the morning and some stands were ready for business. We were going to go out to Schleittheim to visit Sister Irma Pietroboni for her birthday later on in the morning so I bought a bottle of “sussmost,” fresh apple juice, for her and one for me. I put them in my backpack and continued my walk. After the hour was up I rode the bus back home.

Diana was already ready so I quickly shaved and showered and then we left for our birthday visit. It took a half hour on the bus to get out to the little dorf (town), but only a few minutes to walk to Irma’s home. We only stayed long enough to wish her a happy birthday because our return bus came only seven minutes later. If we hadn’t of caught that bus, we would have had to wait another whole hour and we didn’t have time to do that. Today was our stake priesthood meeting and I had to be at the parking lot by the bahnhof by 2:00 to catch a ride with the rest of the brethren who were car pooling to Schwamendingen. It was a relaxing trip, sitting on the bus and looking out over the snow covered fields, trees and countryside. Beautiful.

Back home we got our last three weeks’ missionary progress reports together so we could give them to Pres. Matern either today at the priesthood meeting or tomorrow at stake conference, if we happened to see him. We got that done just in time for me to leave to meet the brethren in Schaffhausen. Diana stayed home while I went to the meeting. While I was gone, she read and organized our future birthday visits. In between she got a call from Madeleine and talked to her for about an hour. We love Madeleine, but talking to her for an hour while trying to understand what she was saying, would wear anyone out. She mixes French, German, English and what they speak in Cameroon and it’s a hoot trying to figure it all out. But Diana is very patient and loving.

I made it to our meeting place about ten minutes early and waited for Br. Wigger to show up. He got there about two minutes to two and then Paul Hunziker came legging it with the help of his crutches out of the covered walkway followed by Martin Hedinger. Paul is our 77 year old investigator and Martin is a less-active member. That made four of us. There was an empty baby car seat buckled in the back seat and we thought Br. Wigger would take it out to give Martin and me more room, but no such luck. We squeezed in and became close friends by the time we got to Zurich. I made the decision to ride back by myself on the train rather than suffer through that again.

It was a fun reunion to see all our friends in the Schwamendingen ward. I met Brother Walters and got acquainted with him and told him we’d be at his place by 9:30 in the morning to show them how things work in the apartment. The main speakers were Elder Kopitscke and Pres. Uchtdorf. They spoke on a variety of subjects but mostly on the responsibility of priesthood holders to step up and do the things they have been called to do. Pres. Uchtdorf talked about the restored gospel, priesthood authority, temples, being worthy to have a temple recommend and even went over some of the interview questions. He talked of getting into the scriptures, but also testified that modern day apostles and prophets receive revelations from God and we should view their words to us as scripture. We should study and use the training we receive in the Worldwide Leadership Training sessions and not just leave them laying on the shelf. He talked about the reorganization of the missions into the Alpine German Speaking Mission and called on the leaders and members to increase their missionary effort. Pres. Uchtdorf gave the numbers of missionaries currently serving from Germany, Switzerland and Austria and encouraged the wards, branches and districts to do a better job in retaining the youth and preparing them for missions. He said there should be an average of two missionaries from each unit and asked them to set that goal. At the conclusion of his talk, he bore testimony that he is an Apostle, called of God, to testify of Jesus Christ. He said Pres. Monson gave him the assignment to rededicate and bless these German speaking countries and that the time is ripe for the next great harvest to begin. He will do that tomorrow. After the meeting Paul mentioned to me that it was a really good meeting and he learned a lot.

I had made up my mind that I would take the train back home, but the thought kept nagging me that I shouldn’t do that. For some reason I felt I should ride back with the same people I came with and so that’s what I did. I really wanted to stay and socialize a bit with my friends and the missionaries, but Br. Wigger was impatient to get on the road back to Schaffhausen. On the way out to the car I noticed my suit pocket missionary name tag was missing. I ran back inside to see if I could find it, but a quick search was futile. I hope I lost it in the Chapel and that someone picked it up and they’ll give it back to me tomorrow. Martin and I squashed into the back seat again and rode that way for the 45 minutes it took to get back to the bahnhof. Just before we arrived Martin whispered into my ear that he would like to talk to me for a minute after we got back to the parking lot. I understood then why I was prompted to ride back in the car rather than take the train.

When we got out and the others had left, Martin began telling me he’d been to the doctor today and he found out he had high blood pressure. His doctor wants him to start taking medication to control it and he’s not sure he wants to do it. He asked about side effects and I told him the medications nowadays were pretty safe. He wanted to know if he could have a priesthood blessing and so we made arrangements to do it at the stake center tomorrow while we are there for stake conference.

I got home at 6:30 and we had a bite to eat and then we started writing our journal. We wanted to get through earlier tonight because we have to be up quite early to catch the train to Zurich. Getting to bed early almost never happens, especially when you have to get up early. Charlotte and Agness skyped us and we talked with them about an hour and then later on, Elder Vincent called to say hello. His hello lasted about a half an hour and before we knew it, it was 10:15. We love to talk with them, but it sure eats up the time. But that is also our tender mercies for today, our relationships with others, whom we’ve come to know and love, and would never of had the opportunity, except for our mission.

Statue on the Rhein River; power plant on the Rhein; brave fisherman with no fish.

FEBRUARY 19, 2010 FRIDAY

My goal for my early morning walk was to take a note to Franz and Anita Maier that there would be no meetings in our church house in Schaffhausen this Sunday because of stake conference being held in the stake center in Schwamendingen. We’ve tried many times to call him on the phone, but no one ever answers. I walked part way in to town and then caught the bus for the rest of the way. Once there I set off to find their home from memory, but unfortunately, my memory isn’t what it should be. I went in the wrong direction and ended up down walking along a road above the Rhein River. I realized my mistake when I got to the big bridge crossing the Rhein so I jumped a fence to get to the path on the bank of the river and walked back towards town. I saw a lone fisherman and stopped to talk to him for a minute and then continued on my way. You don’t see many people fishing over here so I took a photo of the brave soul. I passed an electric generating plant and then saw a map posted by a bus stop. I found the address and realized the street was right next to the bahnhof. I walked to their home and put the note in their mail box and then went back to the bahnhof, caught a bus and went home.

We did our usual morning routine and then went over our lesson plan for our meeting with Emely DiPaolo and her mother Katia this afternoon. Katia and her other daughter, Kathleen (18), are converts, but have been less-active so we hoped to be able to teach them as well. We role played a possible scenario and Diana gave me a lot of good ideas on how to teach a nine year old. We also have wanted to put together some object lessons/spiritual thoughts and write them on 3X5 cards so we have them available when we are called upon to give one. It’s more difficult to come up with one on the spur of the moment.

Of course it was raining again today, but we took our bigger umbrella with us as we went to our appointment. We had our one sunny day for the month a few days ago and probably can’t expect the sun to shine for some time in the future. We are really really ready for spring. When we got to the DiPaolos only the two daughters were home. We found out Kathleen is 18 and will finish her high school this spring. She intends to work for awhile to save some money to take a vacation to Australia where she has a girl friend she wants to visit. We visited for a half hour or so waiting for Katia to come. While we were waiting, we decided to do the object lesson with the cups and knives and that was pretty interesting to them. Finally, Kathleen asked if it was necessary to have the mother there while Emely was being taught. It really wasn’t necessary because Kathleen is of age, but we wanted Katia to be there so we could teach her, too. We asked Kathleen why she hasn’t been coming to Church. She replied she hasn’t had the courage to come alone and wished her mother would come with her. We reassured her that we would be there so she wouldn’t be alone and besides that, Emely needed someone to take her to Church as well. We hope they start coming even if Katia doesn’t come although she promised us she would.

We decided to go ahead with the lesson and talked about Heavenly Father, the pre-mortal life, why we are here on earth, the role of the family, Jesus Christ, His atonement, faith, repentance and baptism. That’s a lot for a nine year old to digest, but we tried to teach on a level for her age. We’ve said before that she’s a smart child and we were pleasantly surprise she was knowledgeable about the Atonement and the principle of repentance. About the time we were going to leave, Katia came home and so we summarized what we had taught Kathleen and Emely. Before we left we asked if we could have a prayer and Emely volunteered and said a beautiful prayer. Katia sent us home with some home made (Italian) tomato sauce for a meat dish or spaghetti and some olive oil from her parents trees in Italy. We felt we had a good lesson with them and made another appointment for next Friday. Katia hadn’t talked to her husband yet about whether he’ll agree to let Emely get baptized. She said she would bring it up with him this coming week. Hopefully she will.

This morning Diana called Suki to see how she was doing and if she’d gotten her apartment all set up since her move. She said she had her living room and kitchen organized, but still needed to work on her bedroom. We mistakenly brought home some parts to her wardrobe, but Brother Locher helped her put it back together. He must of had spare parts because she said he was able to get it together without any problems. We were glad of that.

While I was on my walk this morning, Elder Tavake called Diana and gave her our district meeting assignments for next Tuesday. Diana has the opening prayer and song and I have ten minutes to talk about missionaries working with members. We also need to be prepared to discuss scriptures we like to use in giving the second missionary lesson in the Preach My Gospel book.

Our zone leader, Elder Schmidt, called to ask if we’d be available on Wednesday, Feb. 24, to unlock the church for them to hold their zone leader conference there. We have a key and we’re available. We also tried to call Martin Hedinger to remind him about the priesthood session of conference tomorrow and the general session on Sunday. He didn’t answer his phone, as usual. We met a lady at a bus stop, but the bus came before we had a chance to get into any kind of a discussion. She got on the same bus as we did and when we all got off at the bahnhof, we were able to catch up to her and give her a Book of Mormon pass along card. Diana struck up a conversation with a lady at our bus stop, but the bus came too quickly there, too.

And lastly, I made a mistake when telling everyone our address here in Schaffhausen. Our real address is: Fulachstrasse 245, 8200 Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and not 247.

The meal Paul served us; Paul Hunziker and Elder Larson.

FEBRUARY 18, 2010 THURSDAY

Overnight it rained and then froze leaving a thin layer of ice over everything. As I went out on my early morning walk I wondered if it was wise to continue and contemplated turning back after the first few steps. However, I decided to continue because of the pea gravel they spread on the sidewalks during the winter. It gives a little footing even though it was covered with the ice also. Even though I was slipping and sliding a bit, I made my hour walk without actually falling down.

When we went to Konstanz, we bought some packages of bread mix where only water needed to be added. This morning we mixed one of these up to make two loaves of bread for our appointments today. The first was for Paul Hunziker who invited us for lunch. The other was for Jecelyn who we were visiting this afternoon with Silvia. The bread loaves took a long time to raise and we barely had time to get them baked before we had to leave for our meeting with Paul. While they were raising and baking, we reviewed the lessons we had prepared for him and for Jecelyn. We left the bread in till the last second and then we took it out, bagged up one loaf and left.

Paul was waiting for us when we got to his home with salad already dished up on the table. He is an amazing guy who, even though he’s 77 years old, is a great cook. He dished up our meal which consisted of hash browns, fried fish and green beans. He offered the blessing and then we all dug in. Paul likes to talk and likes to show us the things he’s been able to do. He’s very inventive and showed us several things he made including how he repaired a photograph for a lady, repaired a bible and made a small Lazy Susan for every shelf in his kitchen cupboards, some out of cardboard pizza boxes. He also was very proud that he was wearing a pair of pants that he bought when he was seventeen. Pres. Hinckley would have been proud of him because he follows the counsel to use it up. After lunch we launched into our discussion on baptism. Paul is more of a member than some members although he’s not baptized. We had a heart to heart discussion with him concerning the necessity to follow the example of Christ and be baptized by someone who has the authority to do it. As a basis for our discussion we used 2 Nephi 31. As we discussed this scripture we felt the Spirit and we know Paul did, too. We bore testimony that the Church was true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. Further, we bore testimony that Paul knew, too, and that he should follow the example of Christ and be baptized. He agreed he had a testimony, but wanted to make sure. He said he’d seen others get baptized too soon and fall away and he didn’t want that to happen to him. We told him he shouldn’t wait too long, but before we could finish the sentence, he said it for us. He shouldn’t wait because he could die anytime. He brought up the excuse again that if he got baptized, his other friends wouldn’t come around any more and do bible study with him. We told him that wasn’t true, that he already comes to Church all the time anyway and that hasn’t stopped them yet. He acknowledged that was right and he knew his friends wouldn’t leave him. By this time we felt we had said enough and thought it would be wise to let the spirit work on him. He wrote down the BM reference, hopefully so he could study it in more detail. Before we left we said a prayer with him and had a group hug. He said he would meet us at the meeting place Saturday and Sunday to car pool with us to the stake conference in Schwamendingen.

We hurried home as fast as our buses and feet would take us, made a pit stop, got the other loaf of bread and left again to meet Silvia to ride to Bonndorf/Schwarzewald, Germany, to visit Jecelyn Hoenle. At the Schaffhausen Bahnhof we climbed on bus #21 for Schleittheim. Silvia got on two stops later which was closer to where she works, and we three rode together to Schleittheim. We got off there and Silvia borrowed her mother’s car and we rode the half hour across the German border to Jecelyn’s. As we got to the border Silvia asked us if we had brought our “papers” meaning passports. We had totally forgotten about needing them, but I had my Swiss visa and we both had our Swiss transportation passes that might have helped if we had needed them. Most of the cars at the border are just waved through and that what happened to us for which we were grateful.

When Jecelyn opened the door, she started to cry and we could tell she needed some tender loving care. We all got a chance to hug her and then, when the welcome was over, we had a nice long discussion about her experience, feelings and how comforting it was to know that the Lord is in charge and has given us the knowledge of what happens after this life. Jecelyn is strong in the faith and this experience has strengthened her although it’s been very difficult for her. Having served a mission, she has a deep testimony of the gospel.

Two weeks we visited a person by the name of Hannah Ryter who was borne in the Philippines. She was not ready to come back into activity in the Church, but while we were there, we asked her if the Hoenle’s could visit her to invite her and her two daughters to come to the branch Easter camp. Jecelyn and Karl went there, but she wasn’t home so Jecelyn called her on the phone. As it turned out Hannah was in the stake Young Womens presidency at the same time Jecelyn was in her branch Young Womens presidency so they both knew each other very well. This coming week Jecelyn and Karl have been invited to their home for dinner. Jecelyn is the right person to help Hannah back into activity in the Church. It’s comforting to know the Lord puts people in position to help others for we don’t believe these things happen by chance.

We were there for a couple of hours and stayed long enough to be there when Karl, her husband, got home from work. We had a good chat with him also and then had a prayer and left. Everyone likes to hear Diana pray so she gets to do it a lot. We rode back to Schleittheim, caught the bus and came home.

We were dying to try some of the bread we’d given away, but both Paul and Jecelyn didn’t offer us any. It smelled so good that when we got home, we mixed up another batch and this time made rolls out of it. They turned out much better and we were able to eat a couple of them while they were hot. It doesn’t get any better than that.

The tender mercy of the Lord today is having the knowledge that He knows each one of us and does everything he possibly can to help us return to Him.

Rhein River; can't resist taking pictures of all the many churches throughout the country even though only 7% of the population goes attends church more than twice a year; photo of a castle or something on the skyline.

FEBRUARY 17, 2010 WEDNESDAY

Today the sun was shining for the first time in we don’t remember how long. That didn’t mean it got whole lot warmer, but at least our noses and ears didn’t freeze off today.

This morning we called Elder & Sister Walters to welcome them to Switzerland. They are the new senior couple who arrived yesterday afternoon and are now living in our old apartment in Schwamendingen. He was very unsure and hesitant when he answered the phone in German in response to me greeting him in German. It reminded me so much of how I felt when we first arrived. We didn’t make him suffer long and switched to English and he breathed a big sigh of relief. We had a good chat and gave him information about where the nearest ATM was and told him where the wash room was located. We made arrangement to visit them before conference on Sunday to show them where it is and how to operate the washer. The clothes dryer is inside their own apartment and we’ll show them how to operate it as well. It will be good to finally meet them in person and not just read their weekly email journal. We found out he was converted to the Church when he was forty and was formerly a Presbyterian. We don’t know about her. They will only be in Zurich until the mission is dissolved July 1st and then will be transferred to Munich, the headquarters of the newly organized mission.

We left shortly after noon and tried to visit a less active member, but she wasn’t home. By then it was time to go to our 2:00 appointment with Sister Christina Kusz. She is probably our age, has four grown children, but lives alone. One of her sons is a counselor in the branch presidency, but she doesn’t have a very good relationship with him because of his wife. That is really sad to see. She also has a conflict with another member and doesn’t feel comfortable living in this branch. She is attempting to find an apartment near her former daughter-in-law and her kids who live in Kreuzlingen (her son divorced her, but Christina still has a good relationship with her and her family.) We had a long visit with Christina while she opened her heart and let it all out. Sometimes that is a way to let the healing begin and we hope it happens for her. We gave her love, encouragement and support and gave a spiritual thought on Moroni 7, faith, hope and charity. We used an object lesson where you place three cups upside down at the corners forming a triangle. The cups are spaced far enough apart that three table knives can fit between them, but can’t sit on top of the cups. We then asked her, using the knives and the cups, without moving the cups, to form a support that would hold up a stack of books. The three cups represent faith, hope and charity. The knives represent putting these three characteristics into practice. The books represent the challenges we face in implementing and actually putting into practice these three qualities. After either they, or you, have it put together, read the scriptures and then discussed the different ways to use these three qualities, quickly remove one of the cups and see the whole thing fall down. All three are necessary to live a Christ-like life and, if one is missing, it impossible to follow the example of Christ. One of the hardest things for people to do is to accept people as they are, not be offended and to forgive. We gave her a lot of hugs and even had a group hug before we left. People feel the love we have for them and they especially respond to Diana. When she hugs them, they don’t want to let her go.

On the way home we stopped at another less-active member’s home, but no one answered his door either. We’ll try to go to these two less-active members on a Saturday of later in the evening to try to catch them home.

Other things we did today was a batch of wash, always a lengthy, time consuming project although here, we can choose when we want to do it. We called Kofi and confirmed he was going to stake conference on Sunday. We called Elder Tavake and told him not to pick us up on Sunday, that we were going to go earlier by train in order to meet with the Walters. We called Pres. Philippo Flammia and reported that Paul Hunziker needed a ride to conference both Saturday and Sunday and Kofi only on Sunday. And finally, Sylvain called to let us know he was alright and to see if we could meet with him tomorrow to start the 12 step program. Unfortunately, we already had appointments and couldn’t meet with him. We agreed to talk about it this weekend and make arrangements to meet with him next week.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with Paul Hunziker who has been taught for many years and actually is an active non baptized visitor in our Branch. We got a lesson ready for him that will hopefully help him take a step closer to wanting to be baptized. Miracles can happen. We also are going to visit Jecelyn Hoenle who just had a miscarriage last week. We haven’t seen her since that happened so we’re hoping she has put her trust in the Lord and that we can give her the emotional and spiritual support she needs to help her through this tough time.

The tender mercy is that people respond to love when it is honestly and freely given.

Rhein River by Schaffhausen; Rhein River close to Konstanz; Konstanz Bahnhof.

FEBRUARY 16, 2010 TUESDAY

Before the elders arrived for the district meeting we grated the potatoes into hash browns, sauteed the onions and added them to the potatoes, cut up the cevelats, added them and then fried the whole mess in the fry pan. The trick is to fry the bottom crispy brown then place a plate over the top, quickly turn it over and dump them onto the plate. Once you have them on the plate, slide it all back into the frying pan and cook until that side is a golden brown. It really looks great if you do it right; tastes good, too. When it was done, we slid it onto a metal tray and put it in the oven to warm up just before we served it. Diana made the hot chocolate and left it on low on the stove to keep it hot. As we got done with the meeting, Diana slid into the kitchen and mixed up the eggs for the French toast. We went to all this trouble to make a nice lunch for them and we wonder why we should bother. Please read further for the rest of the story.

Our current district leader, Elder Holzapfel, and our future district leader after transfers Thursday, Elder Tavake, arrived just after 10:00. We waited and waited for the other two elders, Von Niederhausen and Bentley, to get here. They finally called and said they would not be too long. We waited and waited some more and finally they called again, told us where they were, and asked directions how to get here. They finally arrived an hour late. However, during the hour that we waited for them, we discussed less active members as well as former investigators with Elder Tavake because he served in Schaffhausen about a year ago. We got some good information from him that will be helpful as we continue to serve here.

Diana’s assignment was to pick the opening song and give the opening prayer. My assignment was to pick the closing song and give the closing prayer. The main activity for the district meeting was each missionary gave at least one spiritual thought that we all could use when meeting with members or others. Members expect missionaries to give a spiritual thought after a dinner appointment and it’s nice to be able to have some ideas. Some of the ones given were pretty good and others not so good. When the meeting was over, the two who came late had to leave in a hurry for an appointment so we quickly put some hash browns and French toast on some plastic plates and sent them on their way. The other two tried to do their best, but they didn’t want to eat too much because they had another dinner appointment at 2:00. So we ended up again with more leftovers than we wanted. Elder Tavake said that next week they’d make sure they would have enough time to stay for lunch.

We washed dishes and cleaned up after they left and then went out to find Irma Egli, a less-active member who lives in Neuhausen am Rhein. Bus #1 got us to our destination and this time it was only a short walk to her apartment. When we rang her doorbell, a lady opened it and asked us who we were and what we wanted. We told her who we were and that we wanted to congratulate Irma Egli for her birthday today. We discovered she was the daughter of Irma and she and her mother had just been to lunch and now her mother was taking a shower. She invited us in and we got to know her a little and the longer we talked with her the friendlier she became. She said she didn’t know her mother was a member of our Church. Finally Irma came into the room and asked us how we got her address and how we knew it was her birthday. We told her the branch president, Philippo Flammia, gave it to us and to tell her “happy birthday” for him, too. We found out today was her 81st birthday, is widowed, has a very small pension that just barely provides for her needs, and can’t pay her tithing. She said someone in the branch told her years back that if she couldn’t pay her tithing that she was a bad member and so she quit coming to Church. Now she is unable to go because she can’t walk very well and certainly can’t climb the steep street to the Church. She’s had one hip replacement and is anticipating having the other one replaced in March or April. She will be glad for that because after her first hip replacement, one leg ended up about three inches longer than the other and she’s had trouble walking ever since. She’s hoping when she gets the other hip fixed, both legs will be the same length. (Socialized medicine, anyone?) She goes to see the doctor on March 3 for more x-rays and to set an operation date. She is a very sweet person with a great sense of humor. We asked her if we could come visit her again and she said we could if we could find her home. We offered to come give her a priesthood blessing prior to her upcoming operation and she told us she would appreciate it.

Today we called Kofi to see which session of conference he was going to attend. He told us he’d need a ride on Sunday to go to the general session of stake conference. Paul Hunziker said he was going to both the Saturday and Sunday sessions. Martin Hedinger and Franz Maier didn’t answer their phones. Sylvain called tonight to tell us he was okay and our conversations with him usually last at least a half an hour. He said he would be ready for us to set up an appointment with him for next week to begin the 12 step to recovery program. Charlotte also called to tell us the new senior missionary couple, the Walters, had arrived and she had been with them all afternoon getting them oriented and settled into our old apartment in Schwamendingen. She said they looked all over for clothes washing room and couldn’t find it. We told her the reason she couldn’t was that it wasn’t in our building, but in building #5. We agreed to come meet the Walters on Sunday after conference to show them the in’s and out’s of where things were and how to operate them.

Munot Schloss in Schaffhausen; woman playing for money in the freezing weather (couldn't resist throwing in a couple of Euros); three different styles of building together in Konstanz.

FEBRUARY 15, 2010 MONDAY

This morning I was awake at 6:00 and got dressed and went for my walk early. This time I walked into Schaffhausen and then up to the Munot Schloss (castle) which overlooks the city. We came here on a little trip last summer and went through it, but it has shorter hours now that it’s winter. It was closed this early in the morning so I took some photos and then walked down to the Rhein River. I checked when the boat trips to Konstanz and the Boden Lake were going to start running for the season and found out they will begin on April 2. It’ll probably still be a little cold so we may wait until sometime in May to take the trip. We wanted to do it last year, but never got the opportunity. I got back home about eight and then, since it was P-day, we decided we’d make a trip into Konstanz since we hadn’t been there in a long time. We took a train that went along the bank of the Rhein River, stopping at all the little towns along the way. It was an interesting hour long ride through country we hadn’t seen before. The closer we got to Kreuzlingen and Konstanz the wider the river got. We didn’t realize it was so big and wide. We walked around town a bit and then discovered a new grocery store called Edeke or something similar. We went down into the store and looked around, but decided we like ALDI better and so we left without buying anything. At ALDI we took our time walking around and looking at everything. Normally, we’re so short of time we just rush in and get what we need or anything that looks good, and then run out to catch the train again. This time we had plenty of time to look and ended up spending only 37 Euro on things we needed. Before we left we stopped at the little Thai take out and bought a couple of dinners to go and took them with us. I couldn’t pass up a “Berliner” with a vanilla creme center either. So happily we went on our way and caught the train on the Swiss side of the station and traveled back to Schaffhausen. On the way we ate our delicious meals.

When we got home, Diana had time to take an hour nap while I prepared a spiritual thought for our next appointment at 6:00. We met Silvia at the post office by the bahnhof and, since she had made the appointment and knew the address where we were going, we followed her onto bus #5 going back in the direction of our apartment. She soon realized we were going the wrong direction and, after conferring with the bus driver, had us get off at the next station. We crossed the street and caught the next bus going back into town where we caught the #5 bus going in the right direction this time. So, it’s not only us old Americans who get mixed up, but also native Swiss. We soon got to Claudia Clavadetscher’s apartment and were invited in. She is a lady around fifty years old (just a guess) who’s husband passed away. She has a 27 year old daughter who is single and lives in Winterthur. The missionaries have been meeting with Claudia for a long time, but she’s never been baptized. In talking with her she knows the Book of Mormon is true, but isn’t convinced she needs to be baptized. She doesn’t want to be baptized without her daughter being baptized, too, and her daughter isn’t interested right now. During our visit we covered a summary of the first discussion and specifically talked about the restoration, priesthood authority and temple sealings. We left on good terms with a promise to come back and visit some time. She was nice enough to drive Silvia back to the bahnhof and us to our apartment.

After district meeting tomorrow we provide lunch and this time we’re going to make French toast, hash browns with onions and cervelats and hot chocolate. Maybe, if we get around to it, we’ll make some pudding with fruit for dessert or Kaiser Schmarmen, which ever comes first. This was part of the reason for our grocery shopping trip to Konstanz today.

Later on, Sister Gardedieu called to cancel our Thursday afternoon visiting. She said this was the only day she had a car and needed to go to Bonndorf/Schwarzwald, Germany, to visit Jecelyn Hoenle who just had a miscarriage last week. Jecelyn was so happy to be pregnant and now she’s having a tough time of it. We asked if we could go with her and she was elated to have company on the long drive.

So now we’ll finish boiling the potatoes and making the pudding for tomorrow.