More photos from our Monday P-day trip.

JUNE 4, 2010 FRIDAY

Because of our interview with President Matern later this afternoon, we had been trying to get in touch with Katia DiPaolo to let her know we wouldn’t be able to make our usual appointment with her and Emely at 3:00 this afternoon. She hasn’t answered her phone or respond to text messages, emails or voice mails. In desperation this morning before we went to our appointment with Silvia and Charlotte Kunz, we went to her home and taped a note to her front door. Later in the afternoon she called to let us know she got the message. We invited her and Emely to come to Church on Sunday and confirmed our next appointment with them for next Friday at 3:00.

We met Silvia and Charlotte at MIGROS for lunch and had a good time with one another. Silvia warned us beforehand that the last time we all met for lunch, Charlotte felt she didn’t have enough time to just chit chat before we started talking out religion. This time we were careful not to rush into a religious discussion or initiate one, but let Charlotte take the lead. It wasn’t too long before the subject came up. She was especially proud that she had been married for 25 years and that gave us the opening to talk about eternal marriage and the sealing power of the priesthood. We gave her the 5-7 minute version of the first lesson and she asked what did Joseph Smith actually see in his vision. We quoted verbatim the prophet’s own words, that he saw two personages in a vision. She objected and said that it is not right to make any image of God. When we asked her when she prays to Father in Heaven, how does she picture God in her mind. She responded that she thinks of him as a presence and nothing more than that. We discussed that subject and presented a few scriptures, especially in Genesis 1. From there we used a simple salt & pepper object lesson together with a plastic spoon and a piece of wool to create static electricity on the spoon. When the spoon is passed over the salt & pepper, the pepper is attracted to the spoon demonstrating in a crude way that through the Atonement of Christ we can be cleansed from our sins. The wool cloth used to create the static represents the application of faith, repentance, baptism by immersion and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We told her that this is the message we bring to people and that we would love to have to opportunity to come to her home and teach her the restored gospel. She agreed to let us do that, gave us her address and made an appointment for next Friday at 10:00. Today was the third time we’ve met with her and Silvia and she came to Church once. Each time she seems to make a little progress and we’re glad that now she trusts us enough to let us come to her home. She has bad eyes and can read only with special glasses, so the Walters in the mission home found a set of German BM cassette tapes and gave to us. We brought them today and gave them to Silvia to give them to Charlotte, but decided today was not the day to give them to her. Silvia wanted to wait for a more appropriate time in the teaching process.

When we got through there, we made a beeline for home to pick up the barber tools and when the bus came, left to go to the Stake Center in Schwamendingen. When we arrived there, we set up the barber tools and opened for business to cut missionaries hair while waiting for their turn to be interviewed or while their companions are being interviewed by Pres. Matern. In the course of two or three hours three missionaries got their hair cut as well as President Matern. At one point Pres. Matern came out and asked me to assist in giving Sister Robinson a blessing. Pres. Matern was last to get his hair cut and while I cleaned up the hair and put my tools away, he interviewed Diana alone for her temple recommend. Then I joined them and we had a good discussion about our work in Schaffhausen, especially our investigators. We were excited to tell him about Jasmine and her daughters and the progress they were making.

Saturday happened to be stake center clean up day. Many of the Schwamendingen Ward members were there and we were able to renew friendships and talk with them. We saw the Lochers, Eddy Fuhrers, Wichtermanns, Bruno Patane’, Bea Rothmund, Helena Roffler and some of their kids. Elder & Sister Walters were kind enough to bring us the triple combination we ordered and we had a nice chat with them. They are really a nice couple and we’re glad we’ve gotten to know them.

When we got off the bus at the Oerlikon Bahnhof to catch our train back to Schaffhausen, we ran into Madeleine walking along with the help of her two crutches. She has such a bright smile and a distinctive laugh that we couldn’t miss her if we tried. We gave her a hug and told her we’d be back to visit her tomorrow, but right then we had only a couple of minutes to catch our train. We waved goodbye and hurried to the platform. We had to wait a minute and then we boarded our train and went home.

When we got home we saw our light blinking on the telephone so we knew that we’d had a call. No voice message, but we looked up the number and discovered Sylvain had called. We returned the call and he told us that he was doing okay and still was working in the 12 step program workbook. He told us some of the things he was doing to stay away from alcohol and that he had a lot of support where he was staying.

Sometime later Roxsan called us on skype and it was good to talk to her. We saw some of her kids running around in the background, but this time we didn’t get to talk to them. She and Rebecca are working at publishing our daily journal into a book for us and our posterity. We can’t imagine how much work that’ll be, but it’s nice of them to think of it and do it for us.

The tender mercy is that Charlotte Kunz invited us to come teach her the restored gospel and that we had the opportunity to visit with our old friends in Schwamendingen.