JANUARY 31, 2010 SUNDAY

We set the alarm this morning, first because we didn’t want to be late to Church since we were giving talks and, second, I wasn’t at peace with what I wanted to say and so I needed some more time to work it out. To top it off it really snowed hard today. Not just light stuff, but big heavy flakes that piled up to almost a foot deep. The locals said this is a very unusual storm for Switzerland and they were not used to the snow being this deep. It wasn’t easy, but we made the walk up to the Church from the bahnhof and were there in time to greet most of the members as they arrived. We greeted Sylvain and noticed he had alcohol on his breath. He acknowledged his weakness and, crying, pled for help. Diana and he renewed their pledge with the counsel that he should call us anytime he feels the urge to drink, before he does instead of after.

Sacrament meeting started and we were the first speakers followed by President Flammia. Diana introduced herself by talking about her family and then ours. She then based the rest of her talk on Matt. 21:21-22 (faith), Moses 5:5-6 (obedience) and then used Roxsan as an example of obedience. When Roxsan heard President Hinckley say women should only have one earring in each ear, she immediately took out the others without hesitating, to comply with the prophet’s counsel. Pres. Flammia as well as other members told Diana they were impressed and surprised by how well she spoke German.

I used the story about “The Birdcage” for my talk and that we all need to love and support one another in following our Savior. Pres. Flammia talked about how everyone leaves a signature on the things they create. For example, he works in a furniture manufacturing plant and, when he looks at a piece of furniture at work, he can tell who it was that made it. It’s the same with the Lord’s creations. He left his signature on all His creations which testify that He is. It was a very inspirational talk. We invited our landlords, the Steubles, their married daughter and two kids and Kofi Safo-Adu to come to Church and they all did. We were happy about that. Franz and Anita Maier didn’t come, but he said they may not make it until next week.

After the meetings were over Karl Hoenli asked if he could speak to me for a few minutes. When we were in a separate classroom, he said he was the Elders Quorum President and he needed two counselors to help him. He suggested that we set a goal to see if we couldn find and baptize at least two young families before we go home. We agreed that would be a worthy goal and, if we have faith and include the Lord in helping us, we should be able to reach it.

We were walking down to the bahnhof in the heavy snow when Pres. Flammia asked us if he could drive us home. We quickly accepted and got home a lot quicker than with the local bus.

This afternoon we worked on finding stuff on the internet to help us teach Kofi how to read English. We also made a phone call to Walter Burri to thank him for coming to Church. He said he had a good time and would probably go again, but would wait until the snow and ice were off the road. He is such a good old guy and we love him a lot. Sylvia called this afternoon to coordinate who we were going to visit Monday afternoon. We agreed to visit Paul Hunziker, but later on we realized we were going to be in Zurich tomorrow and wouldn’t be able to. I had to call her back and cancel which I hated to do. Diana tried to call Jecelyn Hoenle to coordinate a visit to Maria Ryter, but she wasn’t home.

We had a meeting set up with Kofi for tonight at 5:30, but he pushed it back to 6:30 so he could watch his Ghana soccer team on TV. It was dark, cold and the snow was a foot deep and it wasn’t easy to leave the comfort of home to meet with him. But out we went and had a good two hour meeting with him. We started our lesson with a prayer and a spiritual thought and read the scripture about receiving blessings when we keep the commandments. He wanted to know what some of these commandments were so he could get some of these blessings. He continued that he had tried to better himself and to do the right things, but he seemed to be slipping backwards in that he had no job and the relationship with his wife was not the best right now. He wasn’t being flippant, but really wanted to know so he could do the things he was supposed to. We had a good discussion on commandments and blessings and also talked about how adversity could also be a blessing. And then we got down to the business of reading and learning. Two hours later he called it quits and we made an appointment for the next Saturday. This time he would come to our home so we could show him some programs on the internet that may help him. He said he had internet so we think that may help him a lot.

We arrived home about 8:45 and saw that our phone was blinking. We had missed the call from Pres. Flammia to discuss the progress report for the week so we returned his call. We exchanged some good information that will help us meet and talk to some people. After that we looked at a few emails and then worked on getting our journal written. In the middle of that Rebecca called and we had a good conversation with her. It’s been a long time since we had talked to her. And now the journal is finished and it’s only 12:35 am. Sorry, no photos today.