The first two photos are in St. Moritz, one being the very expensive hotel; the last one is somewhere along our train ride.

JUNE 3, 2010 THURSDAY

The day started out cold, overcast and rainy. It ended that way, too. This morning as we were quietly studying and preparing for the lesson with Jasmine later this afternoon, our door buzzer rang. When we answered the door, our landlady was standing there with a smile on her face. Alice gave us a thick stack of bandanas of various colors and motifs and said we could choose one for each of us and one for all of our children. She said there was no rush and to take our time returning the rest of them. The ones we chose all have edelweiss flowers on them, but the two red ones had pictures of Swiss cows, the two blues ones and the two black ones were the same except for the color, and the last red one had the flowers, but had hearts around the border. We thanked her and gave her a warm loaf of banana/chocolate chip bread in return. We had just baked some banana bread to take a loaf to Jasmine later today. Alice got the loaf I was going to eat. Darn! Oh well, it went to a good cause.

We met Silvia at the Bahnhof and rode together to Langwiesen to meet with Jasmine. On the way she gave us an update on Sylvain that it didn’t look like he was going to be able to get funding for the program he wanted, but had worked out something with the place where he’s been staying. The director of his group home has arranged between four or five people staying there that none of them would ever be alone. Whenever Sylvain has to go into Schaffhausen to meet with his therapist, someone would escort him there and then someone would escort him back. She was a little sad that he hasn’t been calling her every day, but also glad to see that he is taking responsibility for himself instead of relying on her to do it for him. So it’s bitter sweet for her. She said this is the best she’s ever seen him and the most committed to overcome his drinking problem. Diana wanted to find out how long before he relapsed the other times he’d been in a clinic for recovery. Silvia said he never did quit and was still drinking the minute he left the clinic. So it’s good news for her that this time he’s serious about quitting. We know our fasting every Sunday in his behalf and our prayers and the 12 step program have been helping him understand his drinking problem and how to let the Lord help him resolve it.

Jasmine greeted us with a smile and a hug for both Silvia and Diana. She was feeling much better today, but said the doctors didn’t find anything wrong when she went for an examination a couple of days ago. After the pleasantries we asked Jasmine if she would say the payer to begin our discussion, but she declined, but with encouragement said she’d think about saying the closing prayer. Silvia offered the prayer and then we launched into lesson #2, the Plan of Salvation. Jasmine was very knowledgeable about the bible as we discussed the part about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. When the discussion moved beyond the spirit world, paradise and spirit prison, it was new to her, of course. In the Protestant churches they teach that when one dies, the good people go to heaven (paradise) and the bad people go to hell (what we call spirit prison). We explained to her that other churches have parts of the gospel, but through the restoration and living prophets, the fullness of the gospel has been revealed. We read some scriptures out of the bible, Book of Mormon, D & C and the Pearl of Great Price as we went along. At the end of the discussion we asked her again if she’d like to say the prayer. We taught her the steps that we use in praying and then, with a little coaxing, she said a beautiful heartfelt prayer that brought tears to our eyes. We all felt the Spirit and we were sure she did, too.

After, as we talked a little bit before we left, we wanted to show her how to use the references at the bottom of each page in the Book of Mormon that refer to bible passages. She looked for her book, but couldn’t find it right off. She mentioned that India, her 12 year old daughter, had been reading it and must of put it down somewhere. Next, she said that India absolutely wanted to get baptized into a church sometime during the summer and because India wanted to, Deborah, her 9 year old daughter wanted to get baptized, too. We were absolutely thrilled that India was reading the BM and we invited Jasmine to make sure the next time we meet, it would be when her daughters could be there, too. We gave her a copy so India could have her own BM. We were just so excited to have the opportunity to teach the whole family. We made the next appointment for next Wednesday at 2:00. As we left we invited them to come to Church on Sunday and explained what Fast Meeting was all about so they wouldn’t be surprised by it. She also mentioned that she plays the piano and if she had some music to practice, she would maybe play for us in Church meetings. We’ll try and keep in daily contact with her. We are excited.

We left and rode the train back to Schaffhausen where Silvia went to her bus and we waited around and caught the train to Jestetten to go buy a few groceries. When we got to Jestetten and walked to the store, we noticed there were no cars in the parking lot. We discovered the store was closed because of some holiday or other and so we were stuck there until the next train came to take us back to Schaffhausen. We only had to wait about forty minutes and we were glad it rain on us. We felt a few drops, but not much.

The tender mercy today is that India, on her own has started reading the Book of Mormon and has expressed a desire to get baptized before summer is over. She may be the catalyst to help her mother and Deborah, her younger sister, enter into the covenant of baptism with their Heavenly Father.