Bergkirche in Rheinau; Rheinau Abbey founded in 778; Rhine Falls taken from above the falls.

MARCH 27, 2010 SATURDAY

This morning we were all dressed up for the dance and were waiting for our date to pick us up at 9:30, but they didn’t show up or even call to let us know they weren’t coming. Elders Bentley & Von Niederhausern had set up a street contacting activity from 10:00 until 12:00 in Schwenningen, Germany, and Elders Tavake & Bushnell said they would pick us up in their car at 9:30 to go there. We don’t know what happened, but since we’ve been advised not to call them because they are in Germany and the calls are expensive, we’ll just wait until tomorrow when he should call for our report or for our district meeting next Tuesday to find out. We waited for them until 10:30 and then we went out to do some contacting on our own.

We took the train to Marthalen and then boarded a bus and traveled to Rheinau which sits on a little peninsula around which the Rhine River flows. We were on the Swiss side and Germany is on the other side of the river. We got off on the last bus stop and had twenty-five minutes to find the address and get back before the bus was scheduled to take off again. We found the address we had gotten from the branch member list for Anita Trummer, a less-active member, but her name wasn’t on the door. We called the telephone number we had, but got no answer. We left a message on her voice mail that we’d like to visit her and asked her to call us with her new address. We never got a response from her today.

We had a few minutes to look around before the bus took off and we had noticed an interesting building down near the edge of the river. We took some photos of it not knowing what it was, but later we discovered it was the Rheinau Abbey established in 778. After taking some photos we got on the bas and went back to the bahnhof in Marthalen. Rather than ride the train back to Schaffhausen, we discovered that we could take a bus back. We’re always interested in covering new country so we took the bus. The countryside is greening up and we can tell it’s really spring although today was chilly and rainy again. When we got back to Schaffhausen, we took bus #5 to Buchthalen to take an invitation to Claudia Clavadetscher, and old investigator, for the branch Easter camp next weekend. When we rang the doorbell we saw her or someone through the window, but she didn’t open the door no matter how many times we rang the bell. We finally left the invitation hanging on a nail on her door and went back home to get ready for our meeting tonight with Kofi Safo-Adu.

I didn’t get my walk this morning so when we got home, I went out walking for an hour. When I started out it was pretty sunny although on the nippy side, but I put a vest on and thought that would be good. About thirty minutes into the walk clouds blew over shutting out the sun and it started to sprinkle. It was just the misty kind of rain that is common, but by the time I got home I was chilled to the bone. Exhilarating!

Kofi called before 7:00 and said he was in the middle of moving someone and had to finish before he could come. Near 8:00 he called again and this time he said he was too tired to come and asked if it was alright if he just went to bed. What else could we say. He promised to see us at Church tomorrow and that is good news if he follows through.

We finished our report on the computer so all I’ll have to do is reproduce it on the Church’s computer tomorrow morning. We also wrote this journal entry, such as it is, and now it’s time for bed. We’re trying to get to bed a little early because we lose an hour on account of adjusting the time for daylight savings. We’re about two weeks later here in Switzerland than at home in Utah. We forgot to mention we called Jasmine Hunziker and set up an appointment with her for next Thursday. We got a text message answer to our call to Priska Staehelin who said she was in Germany and expected to be back on Sunday. We also tried to call Franz Maier, but got no answer.