JUNE 15, 2010 TUESDAY

First thing this morning after we got ourselves ready for the day was to get busy in the kitchen preparing the food for the lunch following district meeting. Taco salad was on the menu today. We cut up the tomatoes, onions, peppers, lettuce and grated the cheese. We fried the hamburger and added the kidney beans, onions, can of chili and seasoning. When Diana wasn’t looking, I added a dash or two of Heinz Ketchup. Diana did the same when I wasn’t looking. By the time the elders got here we were ready for them. Elders Bushnell & Sills from Singen were right on time even though they were stopped by the border patrol. Elders Bentley, Dahneke and Neuffer were late as usual. Today our meeting was supposed to start at 9:30, but it didn’t until 10:00 when our usual start time is. We had a great meeting and then lunch was served. For dessert they got milch reis (rice pudding) and rice krispie treats. They must have liked everything because there wasn’t much left.

Last week Elder Bentley suggested we do some street contacting in Schaffhausen after lunch because he felt we were not being productive enough after our district meetings. So, we quickly cleaned up and washed the dishes and then drove in to Schaffhausen. The seven of us talked to quite a few people and gave out brochures and Books of Mormon. Diana is good at contacting and once she has somebody stopped and interested, I do my part in talking to them. She sat down by a lady with a baby and started talking to her. The lady didn’t speak a lot of German, but soon her husband came along and sat down. Sister Kusz came along and Diana got up to talk to her which gave me opportunity to slide over and strike up a conversation with the husband. We talked with him for about a half an hour and occasionally Sister Kusz would jump in with appropriate testimony and remarks. He eventually took a Book of Mormon, but then insisted we take it back because he said he didn’t read much and we might as well give it to someone who would. He was Muslim, but since moving to Switzerland didn’t practice it any more. He was fun to talk to and in the end took a Joseph Smith pamphlet and a Proclamation on the Family brochure. He was big on families and maybe, if he reads the proclamation, it will strike a chord with him. We invited him to call us (our phone number is on all the handouts) if he wanted to know more. We spent about two hours street contacting and then the elders had to go and we had to get ready for our appointment with Paul Hunziker.

It was interesting that we met three of our members in town while we were street contacting, Susan Flammia, Christine Kusz and Katia DiPaolo. The other missionaries saw Katia and, if we would have, we would have bounced her about not coming to Church last Sunday. We had to contact her anyway to tell her we wouldn’t be by Friday afternoon for our normal appointment with her and Emely.

While we were getting rerady for our appointment, Roxsan skyped us just to visit with us for awhile. She mentioned Monica had written us an email asking if we wanted to keep the renters in our basement at home or if she should give them notice to move out. There have been a few problems with them and, after hearing what they were, we decided we didn’t want them in there any more. We finally had to say goodbye so we could be at our appointment on time.

Paul is always happy to see us and the first thing he does is to busy himself getting us something to eat and drink. This time he made hot chocolate for me (water for Diana) and then served me a piece of his Schwarz Wald Torte, which was good, but which I didn’t need. We gave him a half dozen old VCR Church videos because he has a player and we don’t. It’ll be good for him to view these to help him get a better understanding of the Church and it’s doctrines. Today it was his turn to pick a scripture to read and discuss. He chose Colossians 3:1-17. We took him the rubber ends for his crutches, but they were too big around. We told him where we bought them, gave him the receipt and tomorrow he said he would go there and trade them for the right ones.

When we got home, we noticed four bags in our hallway. Elder Bentley is going on the temple trip tomorrow which will require him to travel to Basel tonight to sleep with the missionaries there, before pairing up with someone to travel to Zollikofen tomorrow. We thought maybe Elder Bentley had forgotten them when we went into Schaffhausen for the contacting activity. In the mean time Elder Bushnell called to ask for a Spanish Book of Mormon. We told him we had one, but we wouldn’t be home for the next four days to give it to him if he drove over to get it. We told him we would give it to Elder Bentley tomorrow at the temple but, so we wouldn’t forget, thinking the bags were his, we put it in one of them. However, later on our door buzzer sounded and Alice was there with a smile on her face and a guest standing beside her. The guest had brought his bags into our apartment thinking this was where he was staying instead of the room upstairs above us. We all had a good laugh and then he got his bags and took them upstairs. A few minutes after they had left we remembered we’d put the Spanish BM in his backpack. I went upstairs and retrieved the book, but then asked the guest if he wanted it. He said he couldn’t read Spanish, but would like one in English. I went down and got one and took it back up to him. The Lord works his magic in weird ways sometimes; all that to get a BM in the hands of someone who needs it.

Tonight we called Katia DiPaolo and let her know that we’d be gone the rest of the week, but we also told her we missed her and Emely last Sunday. She said they would be there this coming Sunday. We called Jasmin Hunziker, but India answered the phone and when we asked to talk to Jasmin, she said her mother would call us back later. Later must mean sometime other than tonight because it’s 10:00 now. Tomorrow we have to be up by 5:30 to get ready for our temple trip so no photos tonight on our blog. Sorry.