Workers applying stucco (most buildings are stucco); me in front of hospital; the sign on the tower says, "stupid, open your eyes."

MAY 20, 2010 THURSDAY

This morning we did some preparation for the meetings we have scheduled for tomorrow, one with Charlotte Kunz together with Sister Gardedieu and one with Emely Dipaolo. We will meet with Charlotte and Silvia for lunch at Migros and while we eat, we’ll use English to help her get used to speaking it. Silvia suggested we use German when we do the teaching part of our meeting so she would be able to concentrate on the message and not on understanding English. We won’t have much time for the lesson so we’ll have to decide what principles to teach and how to approach it. While we were reading the scriptures and studying, we put in a load of wash.

We got a call from Elder Talley telling us that our transfer goals we turned in yesterday were not complete. In addition to the verbal goals he wanted goal numbers. We spent time calculating what our goals for the next six weeks should be and this is what we came up with: investigators with baptism dates (2), Investigators at Church meetings (5), lessons when members are present (11), other lessons (12, referrals (3), new investigators (1), lessons with converts and/or less-active (15). If we can meet all of these goals, we’ll be happy.

We received a letter from the mission home today detailing the information about our release. It’s hard to stay focused when we keep receiving things that remind us we’re getting close to going home. In the letter was a form to fill out with the name and addresses of our stake president and bishop, our travel plans, nearest airport, our email address and etc.

Sylvain was admitted into the hospital yesterday and he’ll have a lot of dead time on his hands. He likes jigsaw puzzles so we went to a broki haus and found two good ones for not very much and took them to him. He seemed to be doing okay, but looked bored and tired. After his visit we went to our appointment with Paul. He’s always fun to visit because he’s always got something to say about his life. He talks mostly non-stop, but when we talk about the gospel, he’s learned to listen and just add comments when it’s appropriate. Dorothea gave us an old DVD about the Rhine River and Lake Constance she wanted us to see and Paul had a player that would play it. He was kind enough to let us see it this afternoon. It was pretty boring, but now we can give it back to Dorothea and tell her we viewed it so as not to hurt her feelings.

We got back home at 6:30, got the rest of the clothes out of the dyer, got a bite to eat and settled in for the night. We called Madeleine to see if she’d been released to go home and to find out how she was doing. We called her home phone and she didn’t answer so we left a voice message. A few minutes later she happened to called us from the hospital. She is making progress, but not as fast as she’d like and not as fast as the doctors expected. She’ll be in the hospital at least another week. Her cell phone ran out of minutes and she asked us to facilitate buying her some more so she can communicate from the hospital. It’s cheaper to buy minutes for her cell phone than it is to use the expensive hospital phone.

Tender mercies were that as elevator arrived and the doors opened so we could get on to go up to Sylvain’s hospital room, he stepped out. If we hadn’t of met then, we probably wouldn’t have had our visit with him today. The other one is that Madeleine returned our call even though she didn’t know we had just called her home phone.