Near Gruyeres; Dorothea Jaermann, Elder Larson, Sister Larson; our delicious lunch.

JUNE 22, 2010 TUESDAY

We were up and bright eyed to begin this day. The sun came out and the sky was clear and we thought today it would be warmer as promised. As the day progressed, however, it remained cold and then the clouds came back and threatened to rain again, although it didn’t. After we got ready for the day we prepared a lesson for Dorothea Jaermann who had invited us for lunch at noon. We’ve been trying to contact Jasmin Hunziker and Priska Staehelin without success so we tried again today. We texted them both a message giving them some options of when we were available and that we’d like to meet with them. Priska texted back first and said we could come today at 4:00. Good news. Later on Jasmin texted back and said she was working today. We were hoping she would have picked one of the other days and times, but she didn’t. We also called Carla Sprenger and made an appointment with her for Friday at 10:30. Hannah Ryter didn’t answer her phone so we left a message on her answer machine that Diana and Sister Hoenle would like to visit her Saturday morning while I and the other missionaries will be doing the street contacting activity.

We called the mission home and talked to Elder Walters to order a new name tag for Sister Larson who lost hers while traveling in Geneva. While we were at it, we told him Elders Talley and Anderson were supposed to come pick up and order for us and bring it to us tomorrow when then attend our district meeting. We told him what we wanted and he said he would get it ready for the elders to pick up.

Time flies when you have a deadline and you’re trying to prepare something. We caught our bus to Falkeneck and changed to another bus. We were engrossed in conversation and didn’t notice our bus stop until we went past it. It was a good thing the next stop wasn’t too far away as sometimes they are, so we were able to walk back and make it to Dorothea’s place right on schedule. She invited us in and already had the salad on the table. She is such a dear sweet friend and a real strength to the branch. The salad was very tasty and then the main dish was baked chicken, buttered noodles and sauteed red and green peppers. It was all very delicious. Following the lunch we had a discussion on the Book of Ruth from the Old Testament. The discussion was lively and in depth. She was going to serve us dessert after our discussion, but we totally forgot about it. That was probably a good thing because she served us twice as much chicken and noodles as we needed.

We barely had enough time to get back home, drop off some things, pick other things up that we needed for our next appointment and then get to the bus stop. We made it to the bahnhof in time to catch the train to Stein Am Rhein where we had to change to another train that took us to Stammheim where Priska lives. The last time we visited her she poured her heart out about all her problems, but mostly about her delinquent daughter. Her daughter is now living with them at home again and things are pretty tense between the daughter, her live-in boyfriend and Priska. Her other children suffer as well because of the fighting and stress caused by it all. Priska had already heard most of the principles of the Plan of Salvation, but she was more interested in relating her problems than listening to what we had to say. Finally, we asked her what, if anything, we could help her with. She replied that she would like us to moderate a meeting between the three of them because when they try to do it themselves, it always ends in a fight. It seems like a no win situation for us, but we’re willing to try to help this family, if we can.

We had to catch the 5:43 train back to Schaffhausen so we could get there in time to do some shopping for tomorrow’s lunch-after-district-meeting before the stores closed. We asked Elder Bentley what he wanted us to fix for him at his last lunch before he goes home on Friday. He wanted us to fix his favorite, crosandwiches which are chicken salad sandwiches (with cashews, mandarin oranges and grapes) on croissants. So we bought most of the fixin’s for them, but we couldn’t find everything in the Migros in town. We took what we bought home and then I went to the Herblingen mall and bought the rest at COOP. Each store has it’s own bakery and they bake what they think they can sell in a day and then they stop. By late afternoon they start running out of bakery goods so if one waits too long, what you want may not be available. We needed croissants. The Migros in town was out. The COOP in Herblingen had two which I bought. The Migros in Herblingen had four so I bought those, too. The Migros bakery outside the main store had some so I bought all they had. The lady charged me for ten, but when I got home and we counted them, we found out there were only nine. We’re sure she made an honest mistake and just miscounted.

We got a call from Neide this morning asking if we were going to come to Sacrament meeting in Schwamendingen Sunday to listen to President and Sister Matern give their farewell talks. We hesitated to commit because there are so few members here in Schaffhausen. She said if we couldn’t come, she would call our Branch President and demand that he order us to come. She said if that didn’t work, she would call the stake president and have him tell us we needed to come. She went on to say that we were important to her and to many members in Schwamendingen and they would like to see us as well and that we shouldn’t miss the opportunity to bid the Materns farewell. It was heartwarming that she thought of us and was so insistent that we come. We think maybe we can attend most of the sacrament meeting here (1st meeting) and still make it to the sacrament meeting there (last meeting).

Other calls we received were from Elder Vincent who calls us quite regularly just to chat and see how we are doing. He always has a success story to tell us as well. The last call we received was from Elder Dahneke who wanted to see if he could get a haircut after our meeting tomorrow. Of course he can. He also wanted to get the recipe for snickerdoodles so he could make them as a departing gift for his companion, Elder Bentley.

While I wrote our journal entry for today, Diana made the filling for the crosandwiches for tomorrow. She also made jello salad and made some punch so it would be cold for tomorrow.