Pictures of hedgehogs in the museum (We saw a live once once in Schwamendingen but he was too quick to get a photo); another photo of Munot from a different angle.

MARCH 14, 2010 SUNDAY

Up early this morning to get things organized to get to Church by 8:00 to unlock it for Brother Hartig. I printed off our week’s progress report, the games we translated for the Easter Camp and then remembered to get Lukas’s birthday present. I put all of that in my backpack along with the scriptures and priesthood lesson manual and caught the bus to Schaffhausen. Brother Hartig was already waiting for me when I got there a few minutes after 8:00. I unlocked the door and while I went up stairs to enter the progress report on the Church’s database, Bro. Hartig prepared the chapel for sacrament meeting. I got the report finished in time to walk back to the train station to wait for Diana to come on the bus. When she arrived, we walked up to the Church.

We greeted the members and were disappointed again that Katia and Emely Dipaolo didn’t come. It’s a mystery to us why they don’t because when we meet with them on Fridays, they are so positive and sure that they will be to Church on Sunday. However, we know there’s a little tension between her and her husband about her and Emely coming to Church. In ward council today we explained that the Dipaolos have a doctor’s appointment on Friday to decide when to operate on Emely and, when they find out, would like Emely to have a priesthood blessing before they do it. The ward also decided to fast for them on the next Sunday.

A former missionary from twelve years ago who came back to live and married a Swiss gal was the first speaker today. He spoke about how being a father helps him understand our Heavenly Father better. We want our children to do something and they say “no.” They say no when asked to wash their hands. They want their dessert before they eat their meal and they don’t just want it, they want it now. Heavenly Father wants us to “wash our hands” (stay worthy and be clean) in order to go to the temple. Many say “no.” We want blessings without doing the work. He also used the example of climbing King’s Peak with only supposedly having the very necessary items in their backpacks. Some carried more and had trouble. We all carry a backpack and most of the things we carry in it are necessary such as Church callings, education, occupation, family etc. Often we carry around in our backpacks unnecessary things that make life difficult for us such as hate, envy, pride, bad habits, inactivity, lack of prayers and etc. We all need to work at only having the good things in our backpacks and get rid of the excess weight that drags us down.

Sister Hoffmann, the Stake Relief Society President, spoke on the Atonement, love, humility and repentance. Her husband, Brother Hoffmann, is the High Council representative and spoke about the story of Nephi who was praying on his tower in his garden when overheard by people passing by. A crowd gathered and were outraged about his prayer about their wickedness. The people felt they were on the right path and were offended. Bro. Hoffmann said that we can use this same example to place ourselves in the shoes of those assembled, thinking we are on the right path. We need to evaluate where we stand and how we measure up and have the courage and faith to make the corrections we need to to make progress.

Brother Hoffmann lead our discussion in priesthood meeting. He prepared the wrong lesson so we mostly reviewed what we learned in the stake priesthood meeting where Pres. Uchtdorf was the main speaker. We did cover, however, a little bit of Chapter 5 about the creation of the world.

Following priesthood meeting the leadership of the branch and Bro. Hoffmann assembled in Pres. Flammia’s office for our monthly ward council meeting. Most of it was taken up with the final planning for the branch Easter Camp coming up the first week of April. Most of it was conducted in Swiss German so we didn’t understand a lot of what they were planning. When they were talking about doing games on Friday afternoon we gave them the ones we had translated and Diana mentioned she has plastic eggs they could hide for an Easter egg hunt. As is usually the case, when someone proposes something, they are usually put in charge of it. Diana was asked to organize the egg hunt. We know they expect us to attend at least some of this four day camp which will conflict with our wanting to go to Schwamendingen for General Conference. We found out that they’ll be able to watch conference while they are at camp so that eliminated one of our concerns about having this camp on the same weekend as conference. We will meet with Silvia tomorrow afternoon and clarify what their expectations are for us and make sure we are able to do what we want in regards to going to Schwamendingen.

We didn’t get home until about 2:00 by which time we were ready for lunch. We fixed that and then spent a relaxing Sunday afternoon reading and doing a little prep work for Kofi’s appointment tonight. Diana also got busy digging into her drawers and closets looking for prizes and stuff for her Easter egg hunt. Tomorrow’s P-day will be spent going shopping in Jestetten, Germany, for the rest of what she needs as well as groceries for our district meeting and Pres. Matern’s visit on Friday evening.

Last Tuesday at our district meeting in Singen we gave a blessing to Elder Bentley who had some sort of virus that he was having a problem with. During the blessing I was impressed to bless him with a speedy recovery and for some reason a quick resolution to getting his passport replaced that was stolen a week or two ago. He had almost an immediate recovery from being ill, but he said he was told by the embassy it would require about three months to get a new passport. Saturday we learn a miracle had happened. A lady found his passport in the gutter along a street and turned it in to the police. The police called him and now he has it back again.

I laid down to rest for a few moments before Kofi was supposed to show up, but fell asleep instead. Diana went into the living room to watch for Kofi so she could have the lesson with him when he came and I could rest. Diana is such a sweet girl. I love her so much. But Kofi failed to come. Some time later I was awakened by a phone call from Elder Tavake who wanted a report on our progressing investigators. We discussed those and by then it was time to get going on today’s journal. And before we noticed the passing of time, it’s now 11:30 and time to go to bed.

The tender mercy we want to mention tonight is that the Lord watches over his missionaries and recognizes healing blessings through the priesthood. The Lord knew all along where Elder Bentley’s passport was and just how to get it back to him. Another one is that the members love to hear Diana pray. Every Sunday Diana is asked to say at least one prayer.