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.