L: Naeide and Elend, R: Fabian. Evans and Charlotta,


DECEMBER 8, 2008 MONDAY

Today was P-day and we decided we wanted to go down into Zurich by Gross Munster, Frau Munster and St. Peter Kirche by 11:00 to hear the bells chime. We wanted to find the best place to hear all the bells so when 12:00 came around, we could make a video clip so our kids at home could here the bells too. After that we wanted to find the chocolate outlet store by Zentrum Platt that we tried to find before and couldn’t. Then we wanted to stop at Migros in Centrum Platt to find a washer to fix our wobbly kitchen taps. And finally we wanted to stop at our funky little fabric shop (where we bought our Christmas wrapping paper) and buy some more pot holder mitts for Christmas presents. Our ideas is to put a chocolate bar in each mitt and give them away in pairs to the less-active we search out and the ones we know. Just as we decided all of this, the DL’s called and asked us if they could “hang” with us today and then use our computer in the afternoon to send their emails to their families, then, if we had time, play some games or something. Of course we said yes because we like to be with the missionaries and help any way we can.


Elders Pine and Middleton were late getting here so we missed the 11:00 church bells, but got there in time to walk around and find a good place for 12:00. We decided to stay right in the middle of Munster Bruecke, the bridge over the Limmat River between the Gross Munster and the Frau. We were all ready when the bells pealed. For some odd reason, instead of hitting the shutter button, I pressed the off button. By the time I got the camera back on and going, half of it was already over. We did get some of the bells so you can hear how they go. We’ll have to try another time maybe. We posted the video clip on our blog. The Elders hadn’t been to these churches before so we went into all of them again. The three of us climbed the “Karls Tower” in the Gross Munster while Diana stayed below. The other tower is named the “Bell Tower.” While we were up there looking over Zurich, I got into a conversation with a man in English. He couldn’t quite understand what I said one time so I repeated it in German. In English he responded that didn’t help because he didn’t speak German. Come to find out he was from Turkey on vacation. I didn’t have any brochures or BM’s with me in English so I gave him one in German that had our website on it. He said he’d look it up. This time we took some photos inside the Gross Munster and had fun with one of the statues down in the crip. I think the statue is of the first king or something that established Zurich.

After seeing all of the sights there we went back on the trams and buses to the chocolate outlet store. This time we had the correct address and rode the bus to within 4 minutes of walking time. The store name is “Schoggihuessli” which is Swiss German for Chocolate Hut.” The prices there weren’t much different than anywhere else, except they did have 1000gm bags of “seconds” that were a pretty good deal. So we bought enough chocolate things, we hope, to supply our needs for our Christmas presents.

After this, we didn’t have enough time to do the other two things we wanted to do because the Elders had to be finished for a 5:30 dinner appointment and they had to get their email stuff done.
We went back to our apartment and, while the Elders worked on the computer, Diana fixed them a snack of soup and crackers to hold them over. Finally they were done and left. Soon after we noticed they had left their apartment keys, a post card they bought and their bag of chocolate. Right after Diana noticed these Elder Pine called. We weren’t going to be home when they got through with their appointment so agreed to put their keys under the compost bin by our sidewalk. We did sneak a bag of chocolate into their backpack so they won’t starve before we see them tomorrow night at institute. After they left we had enough time to go back to the funky stor at Schwamendingen and buy the wash cloth mitts, and then stop at Migros to get the ice cream. After that we went to our FHE activity.

At FHE some of our regulars weren’t there tonight including Pres. Bolt (had an interview), Suki, Rolf, Sarah and Elders Elend and Evans (who got tied up in traffic coming back from Bern Zone Conference). The Elders arrived about a half hour late. We started with singing a hymn and prayer after which Naeide gave the spiritual thought. It was short, but inspiring. We couldn’t tell if she wrote the poem or if it was one she found and read. This was her first attempt giving a spiritual thought and she did wonderfully. The Elders hadn’t arrived yet and they had the game so we sang primary songs (Sis. Bolt had her two little granddaughters there) until they arrived. The game we played involved a psychiatrist who had to diagnose a disease that affected the whole group and it went like this. The psychiatrist went out of the room and then the group had to decide a key word or action that would trigger a group response. For example, we decided whenever the word “what” was said, everyone would start scratching somewhere on their body (arm, leg, etc). Once that was decided the Psychiatrist would come back in and start asking questions to diagnose the illness. Every time anyone said the word “what”, we all started scratching. The round was over when the psychiatrist correctly diagnosed the illness which was “scratching when the word “what” was said. The next illness was everyone had to respond to questions by the psychiatrist as if he/she were the person sitting to the right. That was a hoot. And so on it went. Just when dessert time came (rootbeer floats), the Elders and Naeide announced they had to leave to go pick up a table for Naeide and so we sent the rootbeer with them. They’ll have to get their own ice cream. We really didn’t know how well rootbeer would go over here, but most seemed to enjoy it. Sis. Bolt didn’t like it and she said Pres. Bolt wouldn’t have liked it either. We hade also made English Toffee and brought with us and they all liked that. They fought over the toffee that was left over; Juerg wanted to keep it all, but his wife made him divide it with the Bolts. He did manage to keep the biggest half. And so ends another P-day, all great experiences.


B: Film clip from Karls Turm from Gross Munster of downtown Zurich; sorry about the German not being correct; I got a little flustered. The bottom photo is stained glass in Gross Munster.

Statue in lower level of Gross Munster. Elders Pine, Middleton and me. Cow at the chocolate factory we went to today. Schoggihuesli means "chocolate hut or house" in Swiss German. Bottom is a film clip listening to bells and a panoramic view from the Munsterbruecke in Zurich. It's too late to post the day's activities. We'll do that tomorrow.

L:Red Samiklaus w/naughty,nice book; M: Br.Serfoesoer & Sis. Ryser; R:members/missionaries

DECEMBER 7, 2008 SUNDAY

Sunday is always a nice day. We start out with our missionary correlation meeting at 8:00 and then at 9:00 is priesthood and Relief Society followed by Sunday School and Fast meeting. One thing that is pretty cool with Priesthood Meeting being first is that during opening exercises, the deacons and teachers quorum presidents and the priest 1st assistant sit on the stand and then take turns coming to the podium and giving out assignments for the sacrament. It’s neat to watch them exercising the priesthood. Fast meeting is always inspirational and there are no pauses between testimonies.

After sacrament meeting the AP’s asked if they could get their hair cut today. I had already noticed during the meetings that they looked pretty shabby and was going to mention to them to get their hair cut. They just beat me to it. I don’t like to cut hair on Sunday, but they won’t have time this whole next week because they have to attend four zone conferences, one each day, and then we’re going to have our Luzern display activity on Saturday. So I gave in and said yes. Since they were coming over anyway, Diana invited them to dinner. Nothing much else happened today except Elders Pine and Middleton went out to Lufingen and Embrach to visit a couple of people we asked them to because we would’ve had to walk a long ways to get there. They couldn’t find the one place so they called us and, while they were on the phone, we looked up the address on Google Maps. We put it on the satellite function and guided them to the right street. It is amazing how this Google Map works. Anyway, that’s about all for tonight.

l: ward members (Br. Sannemann; c: Fabian Streit; r: Bishop Schwendener; B: kids & Samiklaus

DECEMBER 6, 2008 SATURDAY SAMIKLAUS UND SCHMUETZLI TAG

On December 6th the Swiss celebrate Samiklaus and Schmuetzli day. This is the day that Santa Claus, both the Red one and the Black one visits the children. The Black Santa is the helper of the Red Santa. If the kids have been good, the Red Santa gives them nuts, oranges, fruit and other good things to eat in their stockings. If the kids have been bad, the Black Santa in one version takes the kids’ socks, puts them into his sack and takes them with him into the woods. They not only don’t get any goodies, they lose their socks too. In the other version the Black Santa takes the bad kids and puts THEM in his bag and takes them into the woods with him. This kind of goes along with the “naughty and nice” jingle and parents use it to persuade their kids to be nice. They also celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25th in the traditional way as we do, with presents and a focus on the birth of our Savior.

Since we’re talking about Samiklaus Day, we’ll write about the ward activity now and the rest of the day later. About 4:30 the AP’s (Fabian was also in the car) picked us and the DL’s up and we drove over close to a large cabin type building people rent for activities. We had to walk quite a ways to get to it because a hockey game was going on and they wouldn’t let us park any closer. When we went inside, they had us write our first names on a piece of paper and put it in a bowl. The tables were decorated with small pine tree bows, nuts, tangerines, cookies, chocolate candies and candles. It all looked very festive and as the members and visitors came in, they all seemed merry and jolly. It took awhile for all the people to get here and a lot of visiting (and munching) went on until the official start. The program started after the prayer. We sang Christmas hymns, a couple of stories were told, a quartet of sisters sang a song, kind of the normal things that happen in a ward party. And then the big event happened, Samiklaus came in. We were told the children had to sing a song to Santa and, if he liked it, he would give them a bag of goodies. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t get anything. Of course, how could it be otherwise, Santa liked the songs and they all got their goody bag. After that was done everyone, including the very small children, picked a name out of the basket and received a chocolate angel. Each person had to find the person whose name they drew out of the hat, give them the angel and make a wish for them for the coming new year. This was a great way for people to get to know one another and to build fellowship among the saints. Bishop Schwendener asked us to take photos so they could be put into the ward newsletter for January. We took a lot of photos and a couple of video clips of the children singing to Samiklaus. After the official program was over, everyone stayed and had a good time just visiting. It was just a great evening.

So now back to the rest of the day. We did our wash this morning and then I worked on the member list while Diana studied German, memorized scriptures and read. About noon we decided to go into Schwamendingen to our favorite little catchall store and buy some more Christmas paper to wrap BM’s and church DVD’s to give out in Luzern next Saturday. The Christmas wrapping paper in this little store was only one Swiss franc per roll when everywhere else it was at least 6.50sfr. per roll. We got in the door just before they closed and were able to buy six rolls. We stopped in the grocery store for a couple of things and then hurried home because the DL’s were coming over to work on the slide show for zone conference next Friday. That took the rest of the time before we went to the Waldweihnachten in der Schwamendingen.

We better bring you up to date on what is happening next Saturday at Luzern. It’s all planned for the missionaries to meet at the Luzern Bahnhof to do a contacting/display activity. This time it is going to be more elaborate and fun than at the Bahnhof Oerlikon of the past four Saturdays. We are going to be singing carols while wearing Santa hats all the while giving away hot chocolate, church DVD’s, BM’s, as well as Santa hats to those who want them. The DVD’s and BM’s will be wrapped like Christmas gifts which, of course, they are, the best gift anyone could receive. We and the DL’s have been assigned to do all the wrapping.

Fabian related an interesting experience he had with the AP’s today. They went to Zurich University and set us the display to do some contacting there. Elder Evans and Elend felt prompted to bring a Portuguese and an Italian Book of Mormon with them. Fabian chided the Elders for bringing them and said they would never find anyone to give them to. The next people they contacted after he said that spoke English, but when they tried to give them a BM, they said they were Portuguese and couldn’t read English very well. So they placed the Portuguese BM. No sooner had that happened when about the same thing happened with the Italian BM. Fabian told us he’d learned his lesson. If you have faith and rely on the prompting of the Spirit, things can and do happen.

A couple of kiosks at Bahnhof Luzern. Elder Pine


DECEMBER 5, 2008 FRIDAY

I looked out the window this morning about 4:30 and saw that it was raining again. I thought it would be a wet day for us out doing our searching and finding. Later on about 9:00 the sun was shining, but when we went out at about 10:00 it was overcast again. We got to the first address, but the member was not home. We left there to walk to the next one and it started to rain. We wished we would have brought our umbrella. We rode the bus to the next stop and walked to the next address. This time the member was home, but she didn’t want to talk to us. It is so disappointing to know what the Gospel has to offer and have one-time members reject it. We wonder how they lost their testimony and fell away from the Church. Lehi’s dream of the Tree of Life describes the mist of darkness where some who had found the path lost their way again. Sad, but true. We continued through the rain to the next address and that member wasn’t home either. We walked back to our bus stop and while waiting for the bus, we recognized a store where we had made a contact and placed a BM during our first or second week here. We’ve been back several times, but hadn’t found him at work. We walked over and went in and discovered he was at work this time. We introduced ourselves to him and when asked if he’d read the BM, he said he had read some of it, but it wasn’t for him. Rather than just throw it away he said he had given it to a friend who had an interest in it. He asked us if his friend had called us yet. We told him no, but we hoped he would. We consider today a success because we verified the addresses of two members and we can pray for the third one. And who knows where that BM will end up and who it will influence. Our goal for today was to visit these three members and then return home to prepare things for Naeide’s visit this afternoon. We feel it important, between us and the missionaries, to keep daily contact with her to support her in her decision to be baptized on December 14th.

This morning we invited Elders Pine and Middleton to come to dinner with us so they could get to know her also. We stopped on the way home to pick up some groceries and then came on home. This is what we had for dinner: breaded chicken patties, potatoes and chicken/mushroom gravy, cooked shredded carrots, green salad, orange jello with tangerines topped with cream, and for desert a bite sized eclair type pastry without the chocolate frosting. Before the Elders got here Diana showed Naeide the DVD our daughters sent us of them and our grandchildren, then She helped Diana make the eclair pastries.

The Elders came right on time and we had a great time together. The meal was delicious and the company was great. After dinner we played a game called “Heaven.” While playing the game we talked about everything and anything. Sometimes church subjects came up which was an informal way to teach. We all switched back and forth between English and German and it’s nice to be able to do this because it helps us all to learn the languages. Naeide kept looking more tired as the evening went on and finally, when asked if she needed to go home, she said she had quit drinking coffee. Without the stimulant she felt drowsy and tired, but she said she knew things would get better as the caffeine got out of her system. She is truly committed to do everything she can to be ready for her baptism. Elder Elend called Elder Pine and asked him if someone had left a BM and a bible in the McDonalds at Bahnhof Oerlikon on Saturday during the street display. The only BM that we could think of is the one we gave the order-taker. When he gave us our hamburgers, we gave him a BM. Maybe he just left it there and they finally decided to call the phone number inside the front cover. Anyway, it was kind of funny. Finally the time came for everyone to go home.