Rhine River from Easter Camp; Agnes & George; Norma & Diana.

APRIL 6, 2010 TUESDAY

Such a beautiful day today with the sun shining and the temperature just right. It was almost a shame to have to stay indoors this morning for our district meeting. We had everything almost ready when the missionaries arrived fifteen minutes early. They are normally late so it caught us a little by surprise that they showed up early. Elder Bentley had a new companion whose name is Elder Scott Dahneke who has been out nine months and is from Provo; Elder Bushnell also had a brand new 5 day old companion by the name of Elder Sills from Mapleton, Utah. With those four and us it made six total. Elder Bentley had the meeting well organized and the elders were prepared with their assignments. Diana, who had the opening song and prayer, chose the song “Search, Ponder and Pray” which she had translated into German after which she said the prayer. She was also first up with her discussion on “Our commission to teach the restored gospel.” She is always so well prepared and did a great job in presenting the information and recommitting us to do better. Each of the other elders had a part to present out of the PMG book. President Matern has asked the district leaders to use the PMG more because it is such a wonderful book to use in preparing for and doing missionary work. Part of the meeting was used in allowing elders to pass off requirements to become a master missionary in the Master Missionary Program. As missionaries learn the lessons and scriptures they practice them on the group so we can constructively critique and help them improve where they need to. I presented my part last after which Elder Bentley summarized the meeting and laid out his expectations for future meetings. Another street contacting activity is schedule for April 24 in Tutlingen, Germany. He would also like to organize district P-days so we can spend them together. We sang a rousing song, Hope of Isreal, and then I closed the meeting with prayer.

Following district meeting we hurriedly set the table and brought out the lunch of spicy chili over rice, homemade rolls and banana bread for lunch. It was a hit with the elders as they ate up every scrap. These are fun times because we get to know the elders little better in an informal setting.

After the elders left we cleaned up the dishes and then left to go to Rheinau to see if we could find Anita Bucher (Trummer). We’d been to Rheinau before, but she’d moved. Using her phone number from the member list, we found another address for an Anita, but the last name was different. We’d tried calling twice and leaving messages for her to call us, but she never did. When leaving our apartment, we had to hurry and in so doing I forgot our GPS. Not good. We continued on to Rheinau, a trip of an hour and a half by train and bus, and got off at the last stop where we thought we needed to. We tried to remember the image on the internet map and walked in the direction we thought it was. We came to the edge of town near the Rhine River without finding it, but there was lady sitting on a bench who we asked. She told us we were in the wrong part of town and it was at least a twenty minute walk away. We thanked her and walked back to the post office by the bus stop and again asked directions. The kind postal clerk showed us the street on a map and told us to get back on the bus and go to a certain stop which we did. From there it was about a ten minute walk. After all that she wasn’t home so we left a note and a birthday card/box of cookies along with a note for her to call us. Even though we didn’t find her home, we enjoyed the day and the walks through the neighborhoods and along the Rhine. We got back to our bus stop and as we were waiting, a young man came and sat by us on the bench. We struck up a conversation and the subject got to why we were in Switzerland. Of course we told him and then offered him a Book of Mormon giving him a short explanation of what it was. He declined to accept it, but two other young men had arrived and were listening. One of them said that his sister likes to read and asked if he could have it for her. We were happy to give it to him. We took buses all the way back to Schauffhausen not wanting to wait for the train, making a change in Marthalen.

When we got home, our phone light was blinking indicating someone had called. The person didn’t leave a message so we used the number on the display and returned the call. It turned out to be a person requesting that we accept an invitation to come teach a school class of ten year olds about our religion. It’s an international school with a different style of teaching. They pick a subject and then have presenters come in and teach about it and allow questions to be asked. The current subject is on religion. Specifically, they want us to teach what we believe and the ACTIONS we take in following our beliefs. She said it would be okay to bring handout material. We are thrilled with the opportunity. We are scheduled for April 16 and she will call us tomorrow with the time. A bonus is that they require the presentation to be in English.

After that call we got another phone call from Anita Bucher in Rheinau. She said she is the person who lived at the other address, and that her name was Trummer and now Bucher, but she doesn’t have a birthday today nor is she now nor ever has been a member of our Church. Now the last was a surprised because her name and phone number is on our branch member list! We offered to come teach her about the restored gospel, but she declined. We’ll report this to information to the branch council next Sunday and let them sort it out.

We made a few other phone calls, but were only able to make an appointment with Paul Hunziker, our old friend and investigator. Maybe Thursday will be the day he’ll decide to get baptized. Miracles can and do happen.

We see the hand of the Lord in this work all the time. Today, because we began a conversation with one young man, even though he didn’t accept, another young man did. Who knows where the Book of Mormon will end up or who it will influence in the course of its journey. And, was it just happenstance that a member friend of the school contact person suggested the missionaries would be willing to come to the school and teach them about our Church, and the second part, that she actually extended the invitation.