JULY 30, 2010 FRIDAY

No, the meringue thingies didn’t turn out very good. They melted in the oven, got crisp and then chewy again and they didn’t taste very good either. Oh well, nothing’s gained by not trying.

Neide called this morning wanting some advice on what to do with Marcello. He will lose his apartment next Monday and wants to move in with Neide. The problem is, he is abusive to her, always demands money and has told others that he only wants to live there so he can use his own money to buy drugs and alcohol. Neide is afraid of her own son amd that is not easy for a mother to admit. Neide said she would rather move out and live with a friend and let Marcello have her apartment until she can find him another one to live in. He’s her only son and he keeps telling her she’s a horribly bad mother every time he doesn’t get what he wants. Neide wants to be a good mother and has, in part, bought into his ploy because she doesn’t want to be a bad mother. We spent time with her talking about actions and consequences and that Marcello won’t learn anything until he suffers from his bad decisions. Later on this evening we sent her an email with scriptures for her to look up and think about.

Sister Klaumuenzner called this morning, too, wanting to make an appointment for her husband to get his hair cut before we went home. We arranged to go to their home in Frauenfeld on August 6 for lunch and for the haircut. It will be good to see them one more time before we go home.

We were just getting ready to go out the door to catch the 11:37 bus to go to the DiPaolos when the phone rang. Katia was on it and asked us if we were coming for lunch. We said we were just leaving and that we would be there at 12:00. Evidently, when she called the other day to change the appointment time, Diana mistook 11:00 for 12:00, so we ended up being an hour late.

While she finished cooking lunch, Diana talked with her and I played Uno with Emely. Soon everything was ready and lunch was served. The first serving was a delicious noodle pesto dish with Parmesan cheese. We thought that was the main dish and so we ate all we wanted. Little did we know. When we finished, she cooked each of us a steak, something we haven’t had for a very long time. Along with the steak came a green salad and slices of mozzarella drenched in olive oil. Matter of fact, the green salad had olive oil in it and so did the noodles. Honest to goodness Italian cuisine. We didn’t have time for dessert because we wanted to hear the lesson Katia had prepared for us. She gave a very good lesson just like any good LDS member would give. We wish she would become more active in attending Church. It would bless her’s and her family’s life and help Emely be able to get baptized. We wanted to stay a little longer, but we had to leave to meet Dorothea at the bahnhof for our trip to Andelfingen to visit Carla Sprenger.

Here in Europe one always has to be aware of the time because bus and train schedules are pretty exact and you have to calculate time constantly. We made it to the bahnhof with three minutes to spare, met Dorothea and climbed aboard the train. Twenty minutes later we arrived in Andelfingen, got off and walked the twenty-five minutes to the care center where Carla lives. On the way there Dorothea kept admiring the view, the flowers and was especially excited about the working water wheel we passed on our way there. She had to stop on the bridge to admire the river and remarked how muddy the water was because of the recent heavy rains. We finally made it to Carla’s apartment and had a nice two hour visit with her. We gave her a photo of us and her that we took during our last visit. She gave us a few keepsakes, too, and even gave a little doll to Dorothea. We spent some time singing the song we were hoping to sing in Church before we go home, but it’s impossible for Carla to come because of her health. Before we left she asked me to give her a blessing which I gladly did. We hope Dorothea and Silvia continue to make visits with her after we go home. She’s such a dear sister who needs contact with Church members.

Back at home I changed and walked to the grocery store and bought some nectarines, pears, apples and a bottle of berry flavored buttermilk. Do they even have flavored buttermilk in the States? I hope so.

We expected Charlotte to call tonight to let us know that all was okay for her to go through the temple tomorrow, but by 9:00 we thought we should call her. She said she went to Chur last Wednesday to have her interview with Pres. Bolt and that went okay, but she forgot her recommend for him to sign. She went back the next day and got his signature. The trip to Chur from Zurich takes three hours each way, so it was quite an undertaking. When she tried to contact Stephen Schmid who activates recommends for the stake, she found out he was on vacation in Italy. She was finally able to track him down and, how he did it we don’t know, but he activated her recommend from there. So it seemed everything was finally in place for her to attend the temple for her endowments. However, one last thing popped up. She had previously arranged to go through the 9:00 session, but didn’t realize it would be in Italian. Joerg suggested she change the session to 10:00, but she didn’t want to do that because she would have to call everyone to inform them of the change. Heinz Locher suggested she postpone it a week and reschedule. Noooooooo!!!!!! she said. She’s had so much trouble trying to get to the temple that she couldn’t tolerate another delay. She said she and all the others attending could simply use language headsets and that would have to do. So, it seems all is set. We’ll have to leave at 5:15 in the morning to get to the temple for the 9:00 session. So, we better get to bed.