MAY 5, 2010 WEDNESDAY

Knowing we would have little time this morning to cook breakfast we put milk in a bowl full of Birchermuesli so it would soak overnight. When morning came, we grated some apples and cut up some bananas for it and added some strawberry yogurt. After everyone was up and ready breakfast was served. I think I’m the one who loves birchermuesli, but the others said they liked it , too, although they didn’t eat as much as was expected. We all managed to be out of the house to catch the bus at 5:47 and our train for the airport at 6:14. We had to buy one way train tickets for the three to save the Swiss Pass for days for later in which more travel would take place. It was cheaper to pay for a single one way ticket than to add a day on the pass. Everything went well at the airport with their check-in etc. We gave them all a hug and then they went through the gate to wait for their flight. We had to wait almost an hour for our train back to Schaffhausen so we found a convenient seat and then did our study time. We finished preparing for our twenty minute presentation in district meeting and then Diana worked on her baptism talk some more while I walked around the airport for my daily walk.

We made it back to Schaffhausen and straightened up our apartment for our district meeting at 12:00. I worked on finishing our journal for yesterday while Diana got the snacks ready. We didn’t prepare a full meal, but Diana put out some sliced bread, butter, jam and a bottle of Jif extra crunchy peanut butter our girls brought us from home. She also put out other snacks, chips brownies and red & brown licorice Twizzlers from home. Elders Bentley & Dahneke and Elders Bushnell &Sills & Neuffer serving as a threesome today all thought they had died and gone to Heaven. USA peanut butter is way better than European and you can’t get licorice like that here either. We had a good meeting and our presentation went okay. Afterward Elder Bentley thanked us for actually preparing and making the time worthwhile. We discussed how body language influences people in how they perceive us and and helps them to either accept or reject our message. Following the meeting Elder Sills asked if I would give him a haircut. Of course I would and did.

We agreed to meet Silvia Gardedieu at 4:00 to do some visiting of inactive members so we tried to set up an appointment. We called Sister Karle Sprenger, but she said she was in the middle of cleaning her room in the care center and didn’t want us to come today. We haven’t met her yet so we pressed for another time and ended up setting an appointment for Saturday at 3:00. We also wanted to call Kaethe Toensmeier, but she didn’t have a phone number listed so we took a chance to visit her in Altenburg.

We met Silvia at the bahnhof and then traveled by train to Altenburg. We walked the twenty minutes through the wind and cold to Sis. Toensmeier’s home. We rang the bell a couple of times and were grateful she finally opened it. At first she looked like she wanted to not be bothered, but as we talked to her, the door got wider and wider and her smile came slowly back. We talked about her sadness about the death of her son and found out he’d died in June of last year. Her husband probably died some time ago so she’s living alone right now. We taught her a little about the Book of Mormon, which she had one once, and gave her a copy. She said she may want to come to Church and had a neighbor that interested herself in new things. We got her phone number and gave her ours with the promise we’d call back in a couple of weeks to see if she’d like to continue to meet with us. On the way back up the long road to the bahnhof we stopped at Michael Larsens and rang his door bell. We got no answer there. We missed our train by a few minutes which required we wait an hour for the next one to some. While waiting, we discussed the missionary possibilities, called a former contact and set up a lunch appointment with her for Friday at noon. Finally the train came and we were able to continue on our way back home.

After we got home we called Paul tonight just to make contact and be sure he’s still on track for his baptism Saturday morning. He said the jump suit was just a tad small so we’ll have to get him a different one in the morning. We made an appointment with him for tomorrow afternoon. And that just bout ends our day. I’ve been falling asleep over the computer for the last hour, but I bravely forged on until this journal entry was complete. Again there’ll be no pictures, but we’ll try and make it up tomorrow.