AUGUST 11, 2010 WEDNESDAY

So, once again we arose early to catch the train in time to get to the stake Center in Schwamendingen for our final zone conference. We thought the one a month ago was our last one; they even had us give our departing testimonies. With the two missions combining, everything has been kind of topsy turvy and not running as smoothly as before. But, as Pres. Condie said, things will get worked out soon. He told us some missionaries are as yet unwilling to accept the changes which has made it a little difficult. But it will come, sooner or later.

Even though we got up in plenty of time we got out the door only to see the bus was already at our stop which is about fifty or so yards away. There was no hope in catching it because the bus drivers wait for no one. What? Miracles of Miracles!!! We got out to the sidewalk and the bus driver saw us. We didn’t even try because we knew we were too late, so we turned around and started to go back to our apartment. However, we noticed the bus just sat there and then we realized he was waiting for us. We hurried as fast as we could, jumped on the bus and then made sure we thanked him. When we got to the bahnhof, we went forward with Book of Mormon in hand and tried to thank him by giving him the book. He was nice and we had a friendly chat during which he said he read very little and declined the offer. We start with the big thing first (BM) and, if they don’t accept, we scale our offering back to smaller things. This time he did accept the brochure, “The Family, A Proclamation on the World.” We chose this one because he talked about his family during our conversation. He said he would read it.

We got on the train and made it to the Schwamendingen stake center just as they were singing prelude hymns. If we would have missed our train, we really would have been late. Another tender mercy in our lives. The conference was great as usual, but we felt it was one of the best ones we’ve attended. The training was great, centered on teaching rather than purely on gospel principles, contacting etc. Pres. Condie announced the new focus from the area presidency for the training the missionaries will be receiving. The missionaries come into the mission field with a good knowledge of the gospel, but most haven’t learned the teaching skills they need. So that will be the focus of zone conferences which will be held every three months rather than every six weeks, and special training for specific groups or leaders etc. on the two months in between conferences. The missions where our friends serve , the Doyles and Kroffs, are already well into this program. Coming up will be four days of intensive training to kick off the program. Pres. Condie also solicited suggestions for a new mission logo, song and name for the newsletter to try and help the combined missions establish some esprit de corps and become unified as one mission.

The last part of the conference is always a testimony meeting and, as we expected, we were asked to bear our testimonies again. Last time we did it in English, but this time in German. Diana always gets compliments on her German, as she should, because she has learned to speak and understand quite well.

After the conference was over Pres. Condie wanted us to stick around and talk to us. While he was in his debrief meeting with the mission leaders, we made a quick trip to visit Cornelia Schaer, but she wasn’t home. We sent her a text message earlier in the day to let her know we would be coming, but never received an answer back then either. We had previously written a note in the front of a book, Be Your Best Self written by Pres. Monson, and put it in her mailbox. We were sad we didn’t get to say goodbye to her personally.

We made it back to the stake center in plenty of time and took the opportunity to talk with and say goodbye to our missionary friends. We knew almost all of the ones who were in attendance today. From the first we’ve been impressed with the dedication, knowledge and abilities the missionaries have. We love them all.

Pres. Condie finally had time to talk to us and thanked us for the work we’ve done. He was very gracious and kind and gave us a folder with some talks from General Authorities in it as well as our release document in German. The English one was sent to our stake president at home, Pres. Mark C. Oviatt, who will give it to us when he releases us from our mission on Friday evening. During our meeting with Pres. Condie, Neide called and asked if we were going to come for dinner. We told her we were on our way. Elders Stucki & Christiansen were waiting for us because they were invited, too. They couldn’t go alone because of the new rule that two missionaries of the opposite sex of the person they are going to visit, must have a third person present. Two missionaries are not allowed to visit a single person no matter how young or old.

Neide had a nice Brazilian dinner prepared for us and we enjoyed it immensely. We stayed for an hour and then slowly made our way out the door, but then she decided she would walk us to the bus stop. We had a prayer which held us up just long enough to miss the bus. We walked to another bus stop to see if we could catch a different bus to get us to the bahnhof sooner, but our effort was wasted. We got on the next bus, but got to the bahnhof too late. However, when we looked at the schedule, we saw that, during rush hour, another train to Schaffhausen would come in five minutes. We were relieved that we didn’t have to wait another hour.

We got home thinking that we now had some time to finish up packing and doing the last detail things. However, as soon as we got in our apartment and shut the door, our landlords were there to invite us to dinner with them. Do we have to eat again, groan groan? Yes in deedy. They said they’d prepared a very special Appenzeller specialty just for us. How could we refuse? Alice and Jacob had everything set up on their porch and then brought out the main dish. It was canned pork that looked horrible along with the jelly stuff than one sees in vienna sausages at home. It was probably processed like corned beef and they were so proud of it, that we had to eat it. Thick layers of pork fat with thin ribbons of meat was not our idea of a delicacy. Besides the million calories it must have contained, it wasn’t all that bad. One just had to not think about it when eating it.

By 9:30 we were back in our apartment worn out, but needing to do some more stuff. We got a call from Neide telling us she’d probably not make it to the airport tomorrow. We also got a call from Kofi Safo-Adu thanking us and wishing us well.

We finished putting what clothes we weren’t going to take home into bags and I walked one last time up the stairway to heaven to deposit them in the clothing donation bins. And now it’s after midnight and when I post this entry, it’ll post on 12 August instead of August 11. Oh well.