It's spring; Elders Harris & Pine, Irene & Juerg, Elder Roberts, Naeide; R: Elder jensen sitting in the middle of the three and we didn't have time to get the names of the other elders.










APRIL 5, 2009 SUNDAY

This morning we woke up to a bright wonderful day and, for a change, we didn’t have to hurray off to a correlation meeting. The first session was the Priesthood Session at 11:00 and we had invited a lot of people over for lunch at 1:00 before the general session began at 2:00. We did as much as we could on Saturday to get everything ready, so I had little to do except for a couple of small things. While I was at the Priesthood session, Diana cooked the chile/beans, rice, hollandaise sauce, and the broccoli/cauliflower as well as made the green salad. She was a busy lady while I was at conference. Diana had it all ready when we arrived. I left a few minutes early to get back to help set things up, but just as I rounded the corner I saw Cornelia approaching our apartment building door. I greeted her and we walked up to our apartment together. Shortly after the others started arriving, the missionaries and Juerg from conference, Naiede and Irene from their homes. When people come to dinner, it seems they always want to bring something to be polite. Naeide brought a loaf of homemade delicious bread and Cornelia brought a Swiss chocolate cake made without any flour that was very good also. Including us we had ten for lunch. We had less than an hour to get the food served, eat and then get to the conference. We all enjoyed each other’s company and the good food Diana had prepared, but we didn’t have time to eat the dessert. We invited them all back after conference for the strawberry shortcake and Cornelia’s chocolate cake. It was amazing how the food held out, like the miracle of the fish and loaves of bread. It seemed we had more chili/beans and rice than we started out with. However, Elders Evans and Jensen ate their share when they came back for dessert as well as took some home for later. That left us enough for dinner on another day.

I was able to talk to Cornelia alone for a little while before the others arrived so I asked her why she left the Church, why she wasn’t active. She said when she lived in Bern she was very active, but when she moved to Zurich she just sort of drifted away, a little bit at a time until she wasn’t coming any more. When asked how long it had been since she was in Church, she wasn’t specific, but said it was a long time ago. Bishop Schwendener told us last night she said we came at the right time because she had lost hope and was in deep despair about how she could keep going on. It just confirms our faith that the Lord knows his children and puts people in the right place at the right time to bless their lives. The members of the ward have taken her in and now, we hope, she feels like one of the family. Juerg is organizing some help to get her shop in order, she was invited and came to our FHE, she came to conference last night and met Bishop Schwendener, and today we introduced her to the RS President, Sister Ryser. Later today, Sister Ryser told us Cornelia had asked about when church meetings were next Sunday and said she wanted to come. Charlotte met her at conference both sessions and sat with her and they seem to get along well. We can well imagine what a life changing experience this has been for her and we’ll need to be sensitive that we don’t push her too fast. Our job is to teach , nurture and fellowship while the Spirit is the one who bears witness of Christ and helps her develop her testimony.

When the 2:00 session was over at 4:00 we had an hour and a half to go home and serve the dessert and get back to conference at 5:30 for the Spoken Word and last session. We started out with our original group except Cornelia said she was overwhelmed and tired and had to go home and rest. When everything was well underway, we were inundated by another group of about eight missionaries that must of heard our door was open. It was very hectic trying to find enough forks and places to sit for everyone. Fortunately we had enough cake, strawberries, cream etc for everyone to have what they wanted. A couple of people had to stand out on our patio so there was breathing room inside. All told we think we had eighteen people here for dessert. It was all fun and we enjoy the company of missionaries and members alike. What we serve isn’t fancy, but it’s good and the company makes it even better.

We all made it back for the evening session and conference just gets better and better each session. The Spirit was strong and testimonies and commitment strengthened. Elder Holland gave a particularly strong and compelling testimony of the Atonement and of the Savior’s love for us. We need to search the words of the prophets and apply them in our daily lives as we work out our salvation. Pres. Monson also gave a compelling stories about trials and faith. Reading between the lines it seemed he was warning us about times ahead and we may have our faith tested too. He also said we should be focused on our blessings and not what’s wrong.

Some other comments that made an impression was the story about the twenty cent light bulb by Pres. Uchtdorf, and his counsel “not to come down.” Pres. Eyring said , “we are transformed by our trials” and “endure to the end with a smile.” Elder Richard D. Edgely gave us our “phone call” that we are our brother’s keeper and that the prophesied storm is upon us. Pres. Monson said it is a time for faith and not fear and that studying diligently, praying fervently and living righteously leads to safety. Elder Neil L. Anderson said the Lord will shape the back to carry the burden that is placed upon it.

Church in Bern, Bear statue in Bern, photo at Brienzersee.











APRIL 4, 2009 SATURDAY

It got too late last night to write the journal entry and so we did it this morning. We didn’t mean to worry anyone; we just ran out of gas. After that was done and posted we went shopping for things we’ll need for tomorrow’s lunch in between the Priesthood session and the 2:00 session. It seems as if the numbers have swelled to probably 13 or so people that we’ll host for lunch. That means it’ll be standing room only. We also wanted to buy a shelf and globe for our bathroom to replace the ones that committed suicide last Tuesday in our bathroom. It’s amazing how long it takes to go to the store to buy a few things. Of course it took two trips because we can only carry so much. Not all that we bought was for tomorrow because we wanted to stock up on some other things (spaghetti sauce and red beans) which were bulky and heavy. The hardware stores over here are not like the Home Depot and Lowes that we have there. You would think they would carry replacement globes, but they don’t; you have to special order them. The glass shelves were also the wrong size so we bought a wood one instead. We’ll have to do some work on it to make it work, but work it will.

As we got home the second time Elder Pine called us to see if he and his companion could come over a do some planning before conference at 6:00. They were calling from just around the corner and when we said they could, they almost beat us to the door. As a matter of habit Diana fixed them some ham and cheese sandwiches just to make sure they wouldn’t go hungry. While they were doing their planning, we were making a cake for strawberry shortcake tomorrow and doing other stuff to prepare. At 5:30 they left for conference, but shortly after, they called and asked if the sandwich they hadn’t eaten and left on the table was still uneaten. He asked us to bring it and a few cookies he had left to conference with us when we came. It seemed that Rachel, one of our FHE group, was hungry. The cake finally got done and we left for conference ourselves.

We were excited to see that Cornelia came and we made sure she got a good welcome. She met Charlotte last night at the dinner and was sitting by her when we got there. We left her in Charlotte’s care in the chapel where it was broadcast in German, while we went to the cultural hall to hear it in English. I thought it was rather interesting to see Brother Rothmund sitting in the English side because he’s Swiss. When I mentioned it, he responded he’d rather hear conference in English because the language is more expressive than German and he feels the emotions more. The conference talks were way good, especially for Cornelia and other investigators that were there, at least from our point of view. After the conference was over, we introduced Cornelia to Bishop Schwendener who had a good ten minute conversation with her. Hopefully, with the many members she is now acquainted with, she’ll feel more comfortable in continuing coming to Church. Tomorrow we’ll be able to introduce her to Sister Ryser, the RS President of our ward. We finished off the night by getting everything set up for tomorrow so we won’t have to do too much tomorrow.

More photos from the candle shop; photo from church tower in Bern.










April 3, 2009 FRIDAY

Diana was chipper as ever this morning and we spend a wonderful time in the temple again. It was a great sunny day and the train trip down to Zollikofen was really beautiful. This time we were able to see the county side and enjoy the scenery, valleys, mountains and the many quaint little towns we rode past. We were also able to do a little studying on the way. Each little town has at least one church that stands out prominently among the buildings. You may have noticed them in the photos we’ve posted. President & Sister Bolt were there again as well as Sisters Ryser and Bader. There was also one of our YSA’s there, but his name has slipped our minds. This time the session was in German. As I was changing I noticed I had lost Diana’s temple recommend out of my shirt pocket. After changing I met Diana and asked her if she really had given me her temple recommend to keep it for her. She said she had. We went to the front desk and asked them if anyone had turned it in to which they replied no one had. A brother went to the endowment room, found it and brought it out to us. Another crisis resolved. Diana may never trust me with her recommend again.

Sister Ryser offered to drive us home in her car so we took her up on the offer. It didn’t save us any time, but it was nice to have company on the way home and it’s always nice to get to know the members better. As we neared Zurich we got stuck in rush hours traffic with people wanting to get home from work. Nevertheless, the trip was pleasant. We were anxious to get back because we had a birthday gift to deliver and an eating appointment at the Moeller-Russo’s at what we thought was 6:30. We got dropped off at Zentrum Glatt, then rode a tram over to the Stettbach Bahnhof. We hadn’t brought a gift with us so we took a tram to the nearest Migros, two stops on Tram #7. We bought a box of cookies and ran back out to catch the tram back to Stettbach, but just missed it. They usually come every seven minutes so we started to hoof it to Stettbach because we only had five minutes before our bus left there to go to the members house. We made it to the next tram stop when a miracle happened. An unscheduled tram came and we were able to get on it to allow us to get to the bus without having to kill ourselves again. We got on the bus, made it to the home, dropped off the gift and made it back to the bus stop in time to make the return trip to Stettbach and then on to home. We were going to be a few minutes late for the dinner appointment, but we thought we’d be ok. We got a call from Elder Pine asking us where we were and we replied we’re on our way. As we got closer to home we wondered if we had time to make a pit stop at home before we walked over to the Moeller-Russo’s, so we called Elder Pine back and asked him if he was there. He said he was and that we were a half hour late. The dinner appointment was for 6:00 instead of 6:30 so that made us waaaaay late. I guess we wrote the time wrong in our appointment book. We didn’t stop at home, but went right on over.

This dinner appointment was important in that two investigators and two newly baptized members were going to be there as well as the Juerg and Irene Moeller-Russo, Elders Pine & Harris and us. We finally arrived, but we weren’t the last ones. Naeide ended up coming after us and then Juerg told us that he had invited Cornelia Schaer and she was coming later on. Cornelia is the less-active member we contacted last week. We all had a good time and Solange, who’s getting baptized on the 19th, Patricia, the investigator, and Cornelia had a good time with everyone. They are all coming to general conference tomorrow and Sunday.

Missionaries playing game at zone conf.; typical Swiss scenery near Interlaken.










April 2, 2009 THURSDAY

This morning we got up early again to get ready to go to Schwenningen, Germany, for our zone conference. The AP’s were going to pick us and the ZL’s up at 7:15 at the Stettbach Bahnhof. Before we left home we checked the emails for any important messages and found one from Roxsan with our 2008 tax summary sheets she had prepared for our tax preparer. We found a couple of items that we had questions about so we quickly wrote an email back to Roxsan with those questions.

We met the ZL’s and then were picked up by the AP’s and off we went on the hour and forty-five minute drive to Schwenningen. There were nine of us in the car after we were picked up including those already mentioned plus our DL & companion and Elder Koerlin who was by himself. His companion rode up with Pres. Matern. We listened to a tape on the way up by John Bytheway entitled, “The Righteous Warriors.” It was an excellent talk on the lessons learned from the war chapters in the BM and how they relate to us today. We liked it so much that we are going to ask our kids each to buy a CD and we’ll pay for it if they promise to listen to it as a family.
Our assignments were to lead the repeating of D&C Section 4 and the paragraph out of the Preach My Gospel about our goal as missionaries. We both thought we had to say it by ourselves first from memory and then all the missionaries would repeat it in unison. We worked hard at making sure we had memorized our parts, but we found out before we got there that all we had to do is start saying it and the others would quickly join in. Diana wanted to say the first word and the next person would say the second word and so on until the whole section had been said. Elder Pine asked Pres. Matern if she could do it that way but he said she couldn’t do it like that because he said it would take too long. He did say it was a good idea, but it came too late to be included in this conference.

The conferences are always good with a lot of workshops on ways to do missionary work, as well as a section by Pres. Matern about obedience to mission rules as a way to invite the Spirit as we do our work. He also went over the missionary guidelines for spending the money they get from the Church. It’s only to be used for mission related expenses such as food, dry cleaning etc. and not for personal items such a buying clothes, P-day travel and other personal expenses. If they don’t need their complete monthly allotment, they should turn it back to the Mission home at the end of the month. It was a little different from how we thought it was.

Lunch is always prepared by members from the area where the zone conference is held and it’s always good. Diana had the traditional hamburger/tomato sauce over noodles while I had salmon cream sauce over my noodles. Diana said hers was very good and I wanted more, but better sense got the best of me. Diana also had a salad made out of different colors of sweet peppers, corn and a few other things that were really good. I did make a pig out of myself with the salads and had three bowls of two different types of cucumber salad and later, one like Diana had. There were extras but Diana was satisfied with one. They had a kind of a cake thing for dessert with whipped cream out of a can for a topping. Everything was really good, but before the conference was over Diana began having stomach pains. She stuck it out until the prayer was said and even helped clean up until she couldn’t find anything else to do, but then she had to find a classroom and lie down until we had to go.

The nine of us piled in the van, but this time Elder Koerlin drove us to Singen which was on our way home. We met there with Pres. Matern and others to drop some missionaries off and to rearrange who rode with whom. Sister Matern rode by Diana the rest of the way and this time Elder Pine drove. He’s been itching to drive forever and he finally talked Elder Evans into letting him, maybe because Sister Matern was in the car and would hold him in check. He hasn’t driven very much, even when he was home in England because they have mass transit there too. Elder Pine’s driving left something to be desired, but we arrived home safely enough, just a bit frazzled. Sister Matern speaks English and Diana was able to carry on a conversation with her in German/English which was nice. But She had one big problem, and that was her stomach ache; it kept getting worse and worse. It was all she could do to put on a brave face and not let on, but she managed until we got home. She doesn’t think it was the food, but maybe the 24 hour flu or something. When she went to Naeide’s school the other day to be her model, her instructor was coughing all the time. We have made arrangements to go to the temple tomorrow so we hope she’s better by in the morning. So off to bed we go and pray she recovers quickly.

Swiss Temple; Elder & Sister Doyle and Elder & Sister Larson; a peanut Santa Claus we found hanging in a tree.


APRIL 1, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Up early again to get to the Zurich Bahnhof to catch our train to the Swiss Temple in Zollikofen by Bern. The problem was we almost left a minute too late again. When you have to leave home at a certain time, the time drags on until the last few minutes and then, all of a sudden, you’re late. That’s what happened to us. We hopped onto Tram #7, wishing it to go faster, but they never can. Instead of getting off at the Bahnhof stop, we got off one stop earlier and walk/ran the last little way because we thought it would be faster, and it was. We hurried along looking all the time and our watch seeing the minutes go by. We were huffing and puffing as be got to the end of the platform and all of the passengers had gotten on already. I ran on ahead to a entry door and held my finger on the button so the train couldn’t leave. There’s a railroad employee who stands along the train and signals the conductor when he can pull out. He looked at me and told me to get in, but I waited until Diana got there which made him a little upset. We swear we are going to leave earlier so we don’t have to run all the time. But we were on and traveled to Biel, changed trains and went on to Zollikofen. It’s a short five minute walk to the temple from where we got out of the train.

The first people we saw after we checked in was the Neidhart family from our ward. Jona Neidhart was there to receive his endowment before he leaves on his mission in June. He announced a couple of Sundays ago this was going to happen, but at the time didn’t have a specific time or date. He intended to tell us, but he got too busy. It was just happenstance that we hit the right session to go through with him and his parents. He is convinced it was the Lord who arranged everything so we could be there at the right time. We went through three sessions, the first in German, second in Italian and the third in French. They have translator ear phones and you can pick the language you want to hear. The first session Pres. Bolt and his wife had the couple assignment; the second session we did; and the third session Elder and Sister Doyle did.
Between the 1st and 2nd sessions we went into the cafeteria and ate our homemade lunches. They have a small vending machine, but no food is cooked there unless you want to use the small microwave that is available. It was great being able to meet the Doyles and go through the 3:00 session with them. We were able to visit a bit, talk about our mission experiences and take a photo together. The Doyles were at the temple because they were asked to transport some missionaries to the temple so they could have that experience because they are being released from their missions and are going home. What a day! To get home we took a train from Zollikofen to Bern and from Bern direct to Zurich. Tram #7 got us home at 8:00 pm.

We always look in the mailbox every time we go past it just in case. This time there was a surprise inside, two packages from Roxsan. The large mailer envelope smelled to high heaven (a good smell), but we immediately knew what was inside. Dryer sheets !!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!!! No more static cling!!!!!!! The other box had licorice, a bread pudding mix, lots of jello, inspirational stories, a picture of the ten virgins and some letters from Rees, Dray and Mayleah. This just caps off the day as one of the best.

Since it’s April Fool’s Day, Diana had me call our zone leaders, Elders Pine and Harris, and tell them Pres. Matern had told us to call them and say the zone conference had been canceled for tomorrow. They didn’t buy that story at all for two reasons. First, they were going to play the same trick on us, but we beat them to it. Second, they were with Pres. Matern today so they knew it was a ruse.