These are photos I took on my fiorst mission of Swiss dressed in their traditional Swiss costumes

JULY 1, 2010 THURSDAY

All our appointments for today and tomorrow fell through and so that left us relying on the list of former investigators we had researched from old records. We did our morning routine of getting ready, breakfast and doing our scripture study and preparing for future lessons. The recommended normal every morning missionary schedule starts at 6:30 and ends at about noon when they are supposed to start their proselyting activities. We don’t quite stick to that, but come close. We were out the door at 12:30 and on our way to Siblingen to call on Andi Koch. When we arrived and knocked, he answered the door. He was a good looking friendly man of about late thirties and we had a short, but nice chat. He had met quite a few times previously with the missionaries, but said he was Jewish and they parted company. We bore testimony of the restoration and then left on friendly terms.

We returned to Schaffhausen and then caught bus #4 to go call on Andy Schnebele on Floraweg. We found his home, but no one answered. We returned home to dry out and cool off. The weather has finally turned out rather hot and it doesn’t take much to work up a sweat.

When we first arrived here in Schaffhausen, we wrote our weekly reports on our computer and then gave a copy to Pres. Flammia. After a few weeks he got around to advising us that we should have been doing our reports on the church computer so they would have them for future reference. We’ve been meaning to put those first few weeks into the church’s database, but just never have gotten around to it. Our mission is fast coming to a close so we thought we’d better tie up some loose ends before it’s too late. While Diana stayed here to research old reports to glean more possible people to contact, I walked in and spent the few hours transferring our reports onto their system. After I was done and about to leave I noticed a list that had been posted on the bulleting board. When I looked closer, I discovered it was the home teaching assignments for July. Well, I’ll be! Nice to know. Sister Larson and I had been paired up with Paul Hunziker and Michael Hartig to visit the DiPaolo family, Gardedieu family, Hoenle family, Martin Hedinger and Kofi Safo-Adu. It won’t be hard to visit everyone except the Hoenle family who lives in Germany. There isn’t a direct train to where they live and it’ll cost quite a bit and take most of a day to get there and back. If we had a car, it wouldn’t be so bad, but we don’t. And then the other problem is that Michael Hartig lives in Horheim, Germany, which will make it difficult for him to team up with us. Paul lives close by so at least he’ll be able to come with us. We’ll see how it all works out. We’ve been telling them how important home and visiting teaching is so we want to be that good example, you know, practice what we preach. As I walked back home I kept my mind busy memorizing the Articles of Faith. My goal is to have them all memorized in German before we are done with our mission.

Tomorrow afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday there will be a yodeling, alpenhorn and flag twirling celebration going on that is supposed to bring 35,000 visitors to this town. Groups are coming from all over Switzerland and a few from Germany to participate. There probably won’t be much opportunity for missionary work, but we’ll see how that goes. There is work for us to do at home such as baking banana bread and carmelizing popcorn for the baptism Saturday afternoon.

Daniela Martin, a good friend from the Schwamendingen ward, will be singing with her group at 7:30 tomorrow evening so we’ll try to get into position to hear her. Elder and Sister Walters will be coming on Saturday for their P-day to join in the festivities. Angie Lloyd called us tonight to see if we were going to listen to Daniela. We told her we were and asked her if she knew the time and the location. She didn’t so we called Daniela to find out. We relayed that information to Angie and she said she’d try and make it. We called Charlotte to see if she was coming, but she said she had Nicholas for his birthday and didn’t know if she would come or not.

Elder Bushnell called to let us know he had gotten information that a newly baptized Chinese member (doesn’t speak German and only a little English) had moved to Jestetten, Germany, which is within our branch boundaries. He didn’t have the address yet, but as soon as he gets it, he’ll pass it on to us.

We got a text message from Sylvain, but it didn’t say anything. We called him back to see what he wanted, but he seemed surprised that we called him. We told him we missed him and looked forward to seeing him on Sunday, if he could make it.

Things are always happening, even when it seems we aren’t doing much.