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.