Just some photos of Switzerland.

MAY 27, 2010 THURSDAY

Our first appointment today was this morning at 10:00 with Jasmine Hunziker in Langwiesen. We went there to give her the blessing we promised her yesterday. Even though she was feeling much better today, she still had pain in her side and was still worried about what could be wrong. She’s suffered from stomach and intestine problems for months; it comes and goes. After we arrived the first thing she wanted was to ask us a question. She read Revelations 22:18 to us which warns about adding to or taking away from this book and asked how the Book of Mormon doesn’t violate this warning. We referred her to Deuteronomy 4:2 which says the same thing and reasoned with her that if the scripture in Revelations meant the whole bible, the same would hold true with the one in Deuteronomy which would then make most of the bible invalid. We reasoned that these two scriptures probably meant the warning for the book they were written in. We talked about prophets and how the Lord always works through them (Amos 3:7) and that he still talks through prophets today. This discussion lasted over a half hour, but that seemed to satisfy her although we forgot to tell her that revelations just happens to be at the end of the bible and wasn’t the last book written. Next time we meet we’ll mention that, too. We made our next appointment for Thursday, June 3, when Silvia could be there with us. I gave her the blessing and then we went home to finish our study time and prepare for the rest of our appointments today.

At 1:00 we visited Paul Hunziker and spent about an hour with him. As soon as we get there he gets the tea cups out and makes us peppermint tea whether we want it or not. We took him the 10 liter package of milk we bought for him and then spent time reading in the Book of Mormon with him. He told us he had a friend who, had she known about his baptism, would have come to it. He said she didn’t bother herself much about religion so we had him read Alma 34:31-41 about now is the time to prepare to meet God and told him that he could have her read it the next time she visited him. Before we left he gave me a pair of shoes he received from a lady thirty years ago after her husband died.

We went back home for a bit and then went into Schaffhausen to meet Silvia who was going to escort us to our next appointment and other places we wanted to visit. We got to the park and ride at the appointed time, but Silvia wasn’t there. We waited ten minutes and then just as we started to call her, she called us. We found out she was waiting in one park and ride while we were in the other. We got together and then drove to Andelfingen to visit Carla. Carla invited us in and we introduced Silvia. This is the first time they’ve met and now Silvia will be able to assigned visiting teachers to visit Carla. Carla has lived in the rest home for thirteen years, her name is on the branch member list, but no one has visited her or even knew she existed. Well, now Silvia knows her and the rest of the ward council will know about her, too, after we talk about her at our next meeting. Diana brought the song, How Great Shall Be Your Joy, and asked Carla to play it for us while we sang the words. Carla enjoyed learning the song and she even said she would come an accompany us to sing it at our last sacrament meeting before we go home in August. It will be wonderful to be able to have her come to Church again after these many years.

Next we drove to Uhwiesen to visit a less-active member, Katharina Schmidiger, but when we rang the doorbell, her husband answered. He wasn’t very polite and curtly told us he didn’t like to be disturbed at dinner time. Silvia spoke up from behind us to ask if his wife was home. He answered she was at work and next time we’d better call to get an appointment. With that, we left. At least he didn’t tell us not to bother them again.

Silvia had a piano keyboard in the back of the car she wanted to deliver to Jasmine Hunziker so we went there next. We were only there long enough for her to take it to her and then we went to the hospital to visit Sylvain. Since he’s been in the hospital, Silvia hasn’t visited him because she has wanted to deal with her own co-dependency and let him stand on his own two feet. However, today she decided to visit him because of his impending move to another clinic and she wanted to find out the details. We had a nice hour long visit in the outdoor patio. He has made great progress and is still working hard in the Twelve Step To Recovery Workbook. He has been accepted into a nine month program at a clinic, but there won’t be a slot open for at least a month. He will leave the hospital tomorrow and go back to his group home in Ramsen, but he’ll have someone to watch him a lot closer and escort him to the psychologist so he won’t be alone. Right now he can’t afford to slip up.

We got home a little after 8:00 and felt we’d had a good day. Elder Bushnell called to make sure where we were going to meet in Singen tomorrow morning for us to be able to ride with them to Freiburg for our zone conference.

Tender mercies for today include being able to use the priesthood to give Jasmine a blessing, reading in the BM with Paul and see him recognize the truth in what he read, and to see the progress Sylvain has made in his road to recovery.