Two scenic photos near Gruyere; Chateau de Chillon built on a rock on the edge of Lake Geneva.


A Turkish toilet at Chillon; a painting in one of the places we visited; John Calvin's chair.

A medieval jail in Neuchatel; Sister Doyle, Elder Doyle and Elder Larson in Neuchatel.

JUNE 20, 2010 SUNDAY

It has been cloudy, rainy and extra cold the last few days, but more so here in Schaffhausen than in Geneva. We were up at 6:00 and I left for the Church a little late so I only got to walk two thirds the way and then caught a bus to the bahnhof. I got to the church about 8:40 and started immediately on our weekly report. Brother Hartig didn’t arrive until about 8:10.

The services started at the usual time of 9:15 and we waited in vain for Katia & Emely Dipaolo and Jasmin and her three children to arrive. We have been commanded to have faith, hope and charity, but it’s hard to maintain after being disappointed week after week. We’ve also been commanded to endure to the end so, until our mission is over and beyond, and that’s what we’ll do. But today, Martin Hedinger came although it was probably only to get his temple work documentation back and to see what else he had to do to get the rest of the work done for those who we printed cards out for. Any excuse, however, is a good excuse to come to Church. Between the sacrament meeting and Sunday School, I and Pres. Flammia told him everything he had to know.

The most important part of sacrament meeting is to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants. The first speaker was Maggie Hoffmann, the stake relief society president. She talked on the need to come to Church meetings, becoming better, the Atonement and giving thanks to God. She used the parable of the ten lepers who were healed and only one returned to give thanks. Her husband, Brother Hoffmann (high councilor) who talked on freeing ourselves from the heavy chains of sin that Satan binds us with. He spoke on the Plan of Salvation and if we follow it (faith, repentance, baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, obedience, enduring), we can make progress. He gave the example that a musical instrument isn’t useful unless one does something with it (action, practice, play). The Plan of Salvation doesn’t do us any good either without work on our part.

Just as Sunday School was to begin Sandro DeMarzi came and got me to help him give Silvia Gardedieu a Priesthood blessing. She was having memory problems and had faith that a blessing would help her. When we were through, we went into class and saw that Paul Hunziker was giving his first lesson after his baptism and being called as the instructor. On the whole he did remarkably well, but had difficulty reading and finding his place because he forgot to bring his reading glasses. He also hadn’t been introduced to the Joseph Smith Translation of the bible and members kept making corrections for him. He is also hard of hearing even though he has a hearing aid, but he coped with that okay, too. Later on in the ward council, members were complimentary about his preparation and presentation.

We just about filled up our appointment book before we left for home; lunch on Tuesday with Dorothea, lunch today with Paul, home teaching on Wednesday evening, hosting the 60+ single adults on Thursday, helping Christine Kusz move on Saturday early morning and Saturday later morning the street contacting activity. During the contacting activity Sister Larson and Jecelyn Hoenle will try to visit Hannah Ryter, a less active member. We need to visit Carla Sprenger for her birthday on Friday, have our meeting with Emely DiPaolo and then go to Zurich to attend the reception for David Wichtermann and his bride Sveta. We still need to make appointments with Jasmin Hunziker and Charlotte Kunz. It looks like a busy week. All but two of these appointments require we prepare a gospel message (PMG lesson) so we hope we’re in tune for the Spirit to help us. W certainly can’t do it on our own.

We normally visit Paul at least twice a week and we’re glad he took the initiative to invite us today. Besides being hungry (he fed us a scrumptious salad and spaghetti) we wanted to talk to him about his teaching experience today. There are so many different translations of the bible that it’s hard to follow along unless we all have the same one. The one the Church usually uses in the “Einheit” translation. He was more than willing to use it, but didn’t have one. He said he’d have to wait until his retirement check came to buy one. He doesn’t have much money and showed his faith by immediately saying he’d buy one. We told him we had four or five copies in our apartment that missionaries had left when they went home, so we promised to bring him one the next time we came. He was grateful for that. The other thing we showed him was the Joseph Smith translation contained in the Triple Combination. He is new to the Church and hadn’t been taught about the JST. He was already aware of the translation errors and omissions in the bible and readily accepted the need for the JST.

Just as we finished eating and our discussion with Paul, Hannah Stamm arrived. She is the friend of Paul who attended his baptism and confirmation. She was very cold and critical when we first met her and absolutely refused to touch a Book of Mormon. But over time she has warmed to us and today we had a very pleasant discussion about the restoration, priesthood authority, the need for prophets and a church organization, additional scripture (Book of Mormon, D&C, and Pearl of Great Price), revelation and etc. At the very end as we were leaving Sister Larson asked her if she would accept a Book of Mormon. She said no, she only needed the bible. Sister Larson persisted and taught her that the glory of God is intelligence and light and we need to learn as much as we can. She pointed out that Paul in his lesson today was corrected because of the bad translation in the bible where it says that God sent an evil spirit to Saul. God doesn’t send evil spirits and in the JST translation, it gives the correct translation. Sister Larson asked Hannah the second time if she would accept a BM to which she said she would. She hesitated, but said she realizes the need for additional revelation which surprised us. Up until now she had insisted her bible was all that was necessary. Unfortunately, or was it fortuitous, we didn’t have a BM with us at the moment. We had given the last one away and hadn’t restocked my backpack. We told her we’d bring her one to which she answered, she visits Paul quite often and we could meet her there. That will give us an opportunity to prepare a better lesson for her next time. We think we at least have made a friend.

The long steep stairs were not as bad coming down as they were going up. When we got home, we got a call from Elder Tally (ZL) asking us if it was okay for him and his companion to come to our district meeting on Wednesday. Elder Bentley (DL) asked us the same question several days ago and we thought it had all been settled that our district meeting would be switched from Tuesday to Wednesday. We told him we were planning on it and asked him to bring us some supplies while they were at it. We told him we needed a case of German BM’s, as many English BM’s as they could find, at least 5 Life Everlasting videos, 4 or 5 Finding Happiness videos and anything else they could find that would be helpful in doing missionary work. Our supplies have dwindled and we want to restock before the mission headquarters move to Munich. We also have the street contacting activity schedule for Saturday and need the videos for it. He promised to do what he could.

Elder Bentley called and got our statistical report and let us know that Elder Neuffer will be our new district leader. Otherwise our district will remain the same. Elder Talley is being transferred to Bad Saeckingen and Elder Haslam will be our new zone leader and companion to Elder Anderson.

The tender mercy was that so many things had to come together exactly as they did for us to accomplish everything that happened at Paul’s today. He asked us to come to lunch. We set the time at 2:00. We arrived, had lunch and completed our discussion with Paul before Hannah arrived. During our lunch Hannah was inspired to call and Paul invited her over. We had the opportunity to teach her. Sister Larson asked the question about accepting a BM to which she said no and then after additional teaching, said yes. We didn’t have a BM with us which will give a better opportunity to prepare a lesson to go along with giving it to her. Hannah offered to meet us again at Paul’s apartment.