Robert in Stein Am Rhein and the Diana & Charlotte; frescoes are interesting.

APRIL 8, 2010 THURSDAY

Today we did a lot of spinning of our wheels, but didn’t accomplish much. First we traveled to Stein Am Rhein and on the way to the Schaffhausen Bahnhof to catch our train we ran into our landlady, Alice Steuble. She happened to be going to Stein Am Rhein also and so we rode together. We got to know her a little better and that missionaries had taught her and Jacob all the lessons over the many years missionaries have been living here in their building. When we got to Stein Am Rhein, we walked the thirty minutes or so to Altenburg where we hoped to find Ursula Weibel. We found the address, but again, as had been so often the case, it appeared she had moved to parts unknown. We asked a couple of people who lived in the same building and they didn’t even know her. It was a nice walk, however, and we enjoyed the fresh air and the great scenery. Flowers are starting to pop out all over, but especially in what they call lawn around their homes. We made it back just seconds before the train left instead of our usual, “we just missed it by seconds.” No wait this time.

A couple of weeks ago on our way to another member’s home we stopped in a little train station called Schlatt. In the station building was an antique shop where we saw a long handled ice pick with 18 little interesting metal plates tacked on it. The metal plates are souvenirs one can buy from different places in Switzerland. We bought some yesterday when we were in Stein Am Rhein and they cost about $5.00 each. I wanted to buy it when we were there, but it had a price tag of $50.00 so we passed it up. Now that we knew how much the metal plates costs, we thought we would stop to see if it was still there. We got off and yep, it was still there. We browsed around for awhile to not tip our hand and then casually asked the store lady how much it cost. She looked at the sticker and told us what we already knew. Diana countered with $40.00 and she readily accepted the offer. Now we have an authentic looking Swiss ice pick, but how will we get it home? We thought it would fit in our suit case, but it’s about 8" longer. Somehow we’ll figure it out.

We jumped back on the next train to Schaffhausen and made our way home to get ready for our meeting with Sylvain at 5:00. Shortly before 5:00 we got a call from Silvia who told us Sylvain had just been to rehab for a treatment for his back problem and wouldn’t be able to come because it hurt so bad. She moved the appointment to tomorrow between 10:00 and 11:00. It’s been a while since we’ve officially met with him to continue the addiction recovery program and we’re anxious to keep him moving along. We hope he’ll be able to make it tomorrow.

At the suggestion of Charlotte yesterday we called President Matern and told him about our being asked to speak at the International School in case he had any suggestions or concerns. He thanked us for the information and told us to just go ahead and fulfill the commitment. This afternoon we got the return call from the school representative with the time they would like us to come. Now we are all set except to know if our district leader would like to participate with us. We called him last Tuesday and he said he’d get back to us. We thought the kids may relate better to the younger missionaries although we plan to give part of the presentation, too.

When we found out that Sylvain wasn’t coming, we put the cinnamon apples that we’d prepared into the oven to bake. We wanted to try them out on us before we served them to the missionaries after our Tuesday district meetings. One we made with splenda for Diana and the other two with real sugar, brown and white mixed. Both kinds turned out really good.

After our little treat we went back out to see if we could find two more less-active members home. We’d been to both during the daytime, so we waited until dinner time hoping to catch them home later in the evening. No such luck. The first one wasn’t home and rather than walking back the way we had come, we struck out into new territory. It’s always fun to walk through new neighborhoods just for the variety. The second one wasn’t home either. We left notes in both their mailboxes again asking them to call us. We’ll see. We decided to keep walking towards Schaffhausen hoping to find a bus stop where we could catch a bus. Eventually we did, but after walking for a half an hour and almost back to the bahnhof. We got home at 8:30 which is later than we like to be out.

So, like we said in the beginning, we feel like we did a lot of work, but didn’t accomplish much.