JUNE 5, 2010 SATURDAY

We had two reasons to go shopping in Jestetten today. The first was that we were out of almost everything perishable as well as a few staples. We needed to get some specific things for next Tuesday to make tacos for lunch after district meeting. Second, we wanted to buy some groceries to take to Madeleine when we went to Schwamendingen later today. She isn’t able to get around much because of her knee operation. Before we left, we put a load of wash into the machine and hoped it would be done before we got back.

This time when we got to Jestetten the store was open. Last Thursday when it was closed, the holiday they were celebrating was a Catholic celebration called Fronleichnam. Pres. Matern explained it is only observed where it’s mostly Catholic and celebrates the raising of the dead or some such thing. He wasn’t exactly sure either because he comes from a Protestant part of Germany where they don’t celebrate it. We bought what we wanted and then carried it all home on the train and bus.

We weren’t able to find all we needed in Jestetten, so we made an additional trip to MIGROS after we got home. We had to wait for the wash to finish (takes two hours) before we could go so we could put them in the dryer. MIGROS has a food section where you can buy Mexican stuff and we found the taco shells and salsa there. Jestetten has very little fruit so we bought some pears, oranges, kiwis and apples as well as other things for us and to take to Madeleine. We had to hurry to get back in time to go catch the train to Schwamendingen that left at 2:14. After getting back home we got the clothes out of the dryer, put them away, sorted the food, some for us and some for Madeleine and made it to the bus all in seven minutes. It makes us sweat just to think about it now.

We got to Madeleine’s at 3:10 and surprised her with the food. Danielle Schwendener, her bishops’s wife, had just been there and dropped off some food also. It’s nice to know her ward is taking care of her and maybe we won’t have to worry so much about her physical needs. Madeleine made a big fuss over what we brought which made us feel good. We had a nice visit and saw she was recovering nicely from her operation although not as fast as she would like. Because she had hobbled so long on her bad leg, it affected her good side and created some problems with her back and nerves. She said she’ll have to have another operation to correct a disk and relieve pressure on some nerves.

While we were in Schwamendingen, we wanted to visit Neide, but when we said we needed to go, Madeleine said she had a couple of things she wanted us to do first. While she was in the hospital, we bought her a picture frame so she could mount the 10x15 photo of her four sons on her wall. She gave me the assignment to put the photo in the frame, pound a nail into the wall and hang it. Diana got the assignment to wrap several gifts she had bought for the daughter of her doctor who just had a birthday. Both of these projects took almost an hour, the same amount of time we thought we would be able to spend visiting Neide. She was so thankful for the help; Neide will have to wait for another day.

Jacob Pine and his girlfriend, Fern, came from England back to Schwamendingen for a visit where he spent the last 14 months of his mission. Elder Pine was like a son to us and, therefore, Charlotte invited us to come to a raclette dinner to welcome him back. Pres. & Sister Matern, Norma Bachmann (son Allesandro), Denise Maurer (daughter Ashley) and Agnes were also invited. All came except for Norma, Allesandro and Agnes. The raclette dinner was delicious and it was fun to see Elder Pine again and meet his sweet girlfriend. She announced she had received her call to go on a mission to Halifax, Canada, and was due to leave in six weeks. We wanted to put a photo of her in our journal, but on the train as we came home I discovered I left our camera at Charlottes. Now, how will we get it back without making a half day trip to get it?

We left way later than we wanted and got home a 10:15. We saved the day on our blog and then went to bed. The day was well spent and we needed to be up early tomorrow for Church.