Rhine River trip to Schaffhausen; street in Schaffhausen; entrance to Stein Am Rhein.

JUNE 28, 2010 MONDAY

We only had six P-days left before we go home! Now at the end of today we only have five. So how did we use the one we had today? Well, we got up rather late for us, but we were still out of the door by 9:00 because we wanted to catch the 9:31 train to Stein Am Rhein. When we got there, we got on a bus just to see where it would take us. It went the opposite way than we thought it would and we ended up in Ramsen. From there we could have taken a bus to Singen, Germany, but we would have had to wait two hours for it. We’ve been through Ramsen before on bus #25 when we’ve gone out to Buch to try and visit Godwin. The bus driver insisted we get out at Ramsen, but he said he’d be back in fifteen minutes to take us back to Stein Am Rhein. When he came back, we rode back. The countryside was typical Swiss countryside with lots of fields of different kinds of crops in varying stages of growth. The barley and some other grains looks like it’s about harvest time. The wheat has a ways to go. The potatoes are in blossom and the corn has a good start. We saw a farmer cutting honest to goodness alfalfa, the first field of it we’ve seen. What they usually grow and cut for cattle feed is grass of some sort. Sunflowers are coming along nicely as well as the sugar beets. It’s been kind of dry the last week or so and the crops are starting to suffer, especially the corn. We’ve seen a few sprinkler systems like they use in Idaho, but mostly they rely on enough rain falling.

We got back to Stein Am Rhein and had about forty minutes to wander the streets before the ship came that we were going to ride back to Schaffhausen. We looked in a few souvenir shops and bought some place mats with pictures of different places in Switzerland. After seeing the ones the Doyles had, we decided we needed to round up some of our own. The only problem is, they’re not cheap. Diana also couldn’t pass up buying a cat made of metal to give to Charlotte when she goes through the temple for her endowments on July 31. It was fun to wander the streets again having been there a couple of times before, once with Charlotte and once with our kids.

At 11:30 we got on the ship and had a relaxing ride to Schaffhausen. It stopped at a couple of small towns on the way to let people off and others on. Many people were sunbathing and swimming along the shore and others were on the water in small boats and even rubber rafts. We saw a couple of people just floating down the river without any visible means of staying afloat. The banks of the river were tree covered and the old building in the towns we passed were interesting to look at.

An hour and a half later we arrived in Schaffhausen so we got off and meandered through the old town and ended up at the bus bahnhof. Along the way we looked at this and that, taking our time because we had no goal in mind. We found a store that sold Victorinox pocket knives, one of the companies authorized to manufacture and sell official Swiss Army pocket knives. Just before we got to the store, a person with a key unlocked the door and went in. When we got there a couple minutes later, we tried to go in, but we couldn’t open the door all the way because it was blocked by a rack of items they were selling. The lady came and told us they were still closed for the lunch two hours, but then asked if we were looking for anything specific. We were so she was nice enough to let us in. We’ve been looking for this particular item for a long time having seen one in some resort town about a year and a half ago. We didn’t buy it then because we were looking for a better price. We never saw another one until now and it was the same price as the first one we saw. So we bought three of them, two to give to others when we get home.

We went on home, got a bite to eat and then just goofed around the rest of the day. We did some things that were productive, however. We read the emails and discovered one from Neide who wrote that I, indeed, had been asked to baptize Mary next Sunday. That will be a real treat, if it works out that way. We promised to send Neide and Christa Aeberli some of the photos we took yesterday while we were in Schwamendingen, so we got that done. We also promised Elder Dias we’d send him some photos of our New Year’s Eve celebration at the Mueller-Russos, but we’ve never gotten around to it until now. He will be going home the same time as we will so we sent them to him just in the nick of time. We also read the Doyles blog because they posted it too late last night. Then I walked to the store and back to buy some hamburger and hotdog buns, lettuce, mustard and bananas. For our district meeting lunch tomorrow we’re going to have our July 4th meal only none of it will be BBQ’d. We’ll have to grill the hotdogs in the oven and fry the burgers in frying pans. That’s the best we’ll be able to do at the moment. Diana plans on making some of her delicious pineapple/cottage cheese/ jello salad and we baked a chocolate cake tonight, too.

We tried calling Jasmin, but we still got no answer so we left another message. Elder Vincent called just to say hello. Elder Haslam, our new zone leader, called to ask us to somehow arrange to have the chapel unlocked for the zone council they want to hold there tomorrow. We told him we’d send the key with Elder Neuffer. We called the AP’s to find out the details for Mary’s upcoming baptism and Elder Christensen answered. Yes, they were the ones who are putting the program together. He asked me if I knew that I would be baptizing Mary. I told him she asked me yesterday if I would do it and I told her I would. She told them that she’d prayed for who should baptize her and through revelation she received her answer. I will have to think, ponder and pray about this one , but I know the Lord works in mysterious ways and uses the least of his children to accomplish great works. And that is the tender mercy for us today.