JANUARY 21, 2010 THURSDAY

Yesterday the telephone rang shortly after 6:00 a.m. and since it’s in the other room, I about broke my neck waking up and running in there to get it. Nobody was on the line so all of that for nothing. Who in the world would be calling that early anyway? Missionaries don’t even have to get up that early. Then, it happened again this morning and we finally figured out that the phone alarm must have gotten switched on somehow. We pulled a trick on ourselves and didn’t even know it.

For my walk this morning I walked through the inch of newly fallen snow a couple of miles to ALDI to see about buying a sleeveless button up sweater they had on sale for 19.99 sfr. It was kind of thin, but the dark blue color was right and it’ll be good for spring weather so I bought one. While I was in the store, Brother Klaumuenzner called on my cell phone to tell me the time I needed to catch the train to get to Frauenfeld to meet him. On my walks yesterday I found a cow statue and took a photo of it. I was surprised to find another one today as I walked to ALDI. I took a photo of it, too, to add to my collection.

While I was gone Diana showered and got ready for the day and then went through the sacks of bedding, pillows, towels and glasses and etc., sorting out what she wanted to keep and what to send back with Br. Klaumuenzner. She also got a call from Charlotte and talked to her for about a half an hour. She told her that her last day at the mission home went much better than the first day she was there. Later, she remade the bed using the bedding she kept busy. I came home, got ready and left to catch the train to Frauenfeld. It felt a little strange traveling by myself and I was glad when I got to Frauenfeld and hooked up with Brother K. He drove us to his home where the furniture was stored in his garage. He wanted to load in the buffet and china cabinet that fit on top of it, but I told him Diana really didn’t want it. She just wanted the chairs, but agreed to take the table, too, if I got rid of the patio table we set up in the living room. We agreed to take the carpet also. We loaded the heavy dining table and the eight chairs and pushed the rolled up carpet in between. He went into the house and soon Sister Klaumuenzner came out and insisted we had to take the buffet and cabinet, too. She said she couldn’t store it in their garage any more and it had to go. We agreed that we would take it, but it was going to be stored in our basement storage room. So we unloaded what we needed to in order to push everything back to get the buffet in the side door next to the seats. Then everything else went back in and the china cabinet just fit in the very back.

When we got back to Schaffhausen, it was all we could do to get the buffet and china cabinet down the stairs and into the basement storage room. It was even worse getting the heavy wood dining table up the stairs and into our apartment. Next came the chairs and carpet and by the time we had everything in place, we were beat. But our moving chores weren’t over yet. We still had a couch to pick up from the mission home. We left Diana to clean and polish the table and chairs and arrange the carpets while we went to the mission home to pick up the couch. We were getting a little nervous about how long this trip would take because we had a appointment to meet Sister Gardedieu at the Church at 4:00 to discuss what missionary work needed to be done. She said she would also have some appointments set up to go visiting this evening. When we got to the mission home, we loaded the couch and then Brother K. had a few things to do. Just as we were leaving, a phone call came in for him which took another good fifteen minutes. Finally we were able to leave and we got back home, unloaded the couch and then he waited for me to change. Diana had a nice lunch waiting on the table, but we only had enough time to eat the rice pudding. Brother K took his sandwiches with him as we left for our appointment. We were about five minutes late getting there and while we were under way, Sister Gardedieu called us to make sure we remembered to come. Brother K dropped us off and then he went home.

Sister Gardedieu had everything prepared, with writing paper and pens laying on the table and a list of people she wanted to tell us about. We had a prayer and then she asked us for a spiritual thought and asked us to come prepared with one every time we meet. Diana was johnny on the spot and gave the one about priorities using the example of putting rocks, and rice into a bottle. If the rice goes in first, then the rocks won’t fit. We have to take care of the big things first and then the little things will fit in the spaces. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will be added. While we were there Beatrice Bolli and her husband Robert were cleaning the chapel. She is an active member, but Robert is less active although he helps Bea a lot and does most of the outside work, especially during the summer. Sylvia introduced us to Robert and we talked for a few minutes about gardening and that our first names were the same. We then went over her list and then left to catch the train to visit Sister Hunziker. Unfortunately, she wasn’t home so we left an invitation with her daughter to the Branch Easter Camp and told her we would come back another time and talk to her mother about it. When we got back to Schaffhausen, we said goodbye and she went home as did we.

We were excited to get home because when we left for the Church, our computer guy just arrived. We didn’t have time to talk to him other than to say hello, but he told us he should have the wireless internet set up by tonight. We got back home and tried to connect, but really couldn’t get a signal. We waited until the landlord came home and then asked them if they knew if it was set up. They said it should be, but we couldn’t figure it out. The Streubles are a very nice older couple who’ve had missionaries living in this apartment for many years. They invited us in and we had a nice chat with them. She called the computer guy and he said to call him after 10:00 in the morning to set up a time for him to come by. We hope it’s just getting the computer to talk to the router and not something major.

Elder Bond, our new district leader, called to see if we were okay and also to give us our district meeting assignment for next Tuesday. I have the closing song and prayer and Diana has a spiritual thought. He will also lead a discussion on the first missionary lesson and we should bring the scriptures we like to use while teaching it and questions we like to ask investigators. He also said it would be okay for them to come here for the meeting instead of us having to figure out how to get to Singen where they normally have had it. That was very nice of him to be that accommodating. Elder Bond told us we should have gotten a key for the Church from Elder Howell, so we’ll have to call him to find out where it is.

Our tender mercy was that just before lights out Elder Vincent called just to tell us good night and a success story. We love our missionaries

JANUARY 20, 2010 WEDNESDAY

During my walk this morning I located an ALDI and now all we do is have to find a LiDL. Then we will have all of the grocery stores to choose from, Migros, COOP, Denners, ALDI and LiDL. Now how good is that? It didn’t seem to be too cold this morning, but as the day progressed it became bitter cold.

We’ve spent enough time moving, cleaning, organizing, going to zone conference and P-day, so now it was time to get back to work. We were given a member list last Sunday to work with and we found old member lists with notations on them that may help us to understand who are missing friends and who are active. We worked at plotting the addresses of those living in Schaffhausen on a map, but it was a lot harder doing it this way than it was using Google Maps. With Google Maps we just had to plug in our address and the address we wanted to visit and not only the map came up, but also the bus connections and directions on how to get there did as well. Just as we were going to leave our apartment to go find a couple of members, Brother Klaumuenzner called and asked if he and his wife could come visit us to bring us some bedding and to also see what else we may need in the way of furniture. We made arrangements to be home at 6:00 to meet them and since they were coming directly from the mission home, we told him we would have dinner prepared for them.

We rode the bus into the bahnhof and then set out on foot to find Nerina Fleury. The GPS guided us into the old town part of Schaffhausen which wasn’t too far away. We would have enjoyed the cobblestone streets, old buildings, quaint businesses and great fountains if it wouldn’t of been soooo freezing cold. The address wasn’t difficult to find, but no one was home. We couldn’t even leave a message because the mailboxes must have been inside the building. We couldn’t find any outside. From there we continued down the street, turned left, went through the tunnel under the street and railroads to the other side of the bahnhof. It only took us twenty or twenty five minutes to walk to Franz & Anita Maier’s home and by the time we got there, we were frozen. They weren’t home either, but this time we were able to leave a note letting them know we had been by and that we would call them later this evening.

We walked back and went down into the tunnel to get back to the other side, but this time we stopped in a little jewelry store because the warmth coming out of the doors as people went in and out was so inviting. We went in and looked around long enough to warm up a little and then out we went again. We noticed a Migros store and, since we needed bread and salad fixin’s for dinner, we stopped long enough to buy some. We traveled back home and began preparing dinner for the Klaumuenzners. We got a call from Elder Nilsson & Irick who were at Madeleine’s and they were trying to help her understand how to fill out her tithing slip. They were unfamiliar with some words on it so we went over how to fill it out. Madeleine said hi and we let her know we were still okay, but we missed her and the other members in Zurich. We told her the members here had treated us well and had welcomed us with open arms.

The Klaumuenzners arrived at 7:00 and brought three bags of sheets, towels, blankets, pillows and a box of drinking glasses. Br. Klaumuenzner saw this apartment when the other missionaries lived here and he was amazed at how well it looks now. They have a dinette set in their garage in Frauenfeld that they are just dying to get rid of because it’s taking up space there. They insisted it would look good in our living room and so tomorrow we’ll go to Frauenfeld to help him load it and bring it here. We hope it will fit up the three flights of stairs as it gets pretty skinny in spots.

For dinner Diana fixed them a green salad followed by a wonderful meal of taco mix with beans, hamburger and tomatoes over rice, buttered steamed carrots, bread and vanilla pudding topped with raspberries. They were grateful for the meal as they had little time even for lunch. It seems they have a new financial program that is not working very well. They used it to pay all the bills this month and for some reason, everything was returned so the bills didn’t actually get paid which has called a lot of problems. For example, all of the phone service for the missionaries in Germany was shut off for lack of payment and that is not good. All of the landlords are clamoring for their rent and etc. We wonder if the missions in other parts of the world Geneva and Argentina) are having the same problems. They were so tired that reluctantly, they finally had to leave to get home.

We are grateful for the care and concern for our well being that Sister Matern and the Klaumuenzners have for us. They want to make sure that we are comfortable in our new area of labor.

JANUARY 19, 2010 TUESDAY

Our normal P-day was yesterday, but we were at our zone conference all day so we used today as our P-day. We took our time getting up and then I took an hour walk in the cold foggy morning. We planned on doing this and still work at getting organized in the morning and then in the afternoon ride some buses around to kind of get the lay of the land, so to speak. We’re down to the little things like putting up hooks for our clothes, kitchen hot mitts and other things and for wash cloths in the bathroom. We still had some carpet left over that we brought with us so we used a piece to put around and in front of the toilet and also in front of the bathroom sink. The floor in the bathroom is ceramic tile and it’s very cold on the feet. The carpet makes it much more comfortable. We moved a desk into the spare bedroom and brought a patio table up from the basement and put it in the living room. We put a couple of hooks inside the clothes closet to hang keys on.

As we were in the middle of doing this we got a distress call from Charlotte. Yesterday she spent her first day as a missionary in the mission home and, since everything was new to her, she went home at the end of the day absolutely overwhelmed. She was in tears on the phone and asked if she could come and spend some time with us. Of course we told her to come and while she was on the way, we tried to finish what we were doing. By the time she got here we mostly were finished and could spend the time with her that she needed. She poured out her heart about all the things she would be responsible for and that she felt she wouldn’t be able to measure up. She felt the whole world was on her shoulders and, if she messed up, it would come to an end. We gave her encouragement and told her the Lord knew what he was doing when she was called and He would help her to learn the things she needed to learn, including English. She just had to have faith and have a little patience with herself and that she couldn’t learn it all in one day. We discovered she hadn’t eaten for two days and that could have been part of the problem. We cooked her some lunch and before we left to go exploring, the computer guy rang our doorbell. He explained the conduit for running wires was full and so he couldn’t bring a computer cable from the basement to our apartment on the third floor. He said the next option was to try to set up a wireless router in the basement and see if it had a strong enough signal for us to use it. He said he needed to find a specific card or router that was compatible with this older system and that it would probably take a few days to do it. So, we hope to have internet within a few days. It’s kind of been tough being in a new area and also be cut off from the people we know and love and also not be able to use it to find addresses.

Then we went out exploring by riding buses from one end of the route to the other. We were able to make round trips on buses #1, #5 and #8 before it got dark. We ended up back at the bahnhof and we waited with her about a half hour until her train came. She felt a lot better for the visit and, we hope, has renewed faith that she can accomplish what she needs to do. We are sure our friends, the Doyles and the Kroffs, can empathize with her, too. But, we know the Lord qualifies those whom he calls. Ganz bestimmt! We all have feelings of inadequacy when we begin something new and, perhaps that’s a good thing. It keeps us humble and relying on the Lord for His help. She has only been a member for just under a year so this has been quite a stretch for her. She asked if there comes a time or an age when one doesn’t have to have a calling anymore and could just rest or can one say “no.” She said it half serious and half in jest, but she’s a trooper and will do just fine.

The tender mercy for today is that Charlotte has enough confidence in us to be able to discuss her feelings and gain strength from the confidence we have in her to be able to fulfill the requirements of her calling.

Sisters Robinson, Jensen, Dittli & Christopher; Pres. Bolt; E. Rolwy, E. King, E. Nilsson

JANUARY 18, 2010 MONDAY

Last night we knew I would have to get up at 5:15 in order for both of us to shower and get ready to catch our bus at 6:45 to get to Aarau for our zone conference. We haven’t had to set an alarm clock yet in order to wake up on time. When we have set an alarm, it seems my internal clock always wakes me up a few minutes before it’s set to go off. That happened to me this morning because we set two alarm clocks just to be sure. I woke up 15 minutes before and thought I’d just stay in bed and wait to see if the alarms actually went off. Yipes! The next thing we knew it was 6:15 and the alarms didn’t go off. We jumped out of bed and scurried around, got ready, collected our books and material and somehow made it to the bus stop in time to catch our bus to get to the bahnhof. We had no trouble finding our connecting train to Zurich and had a comfortable ride. We used the time reading and rehearsing our part in the program and before we knew it, the hour slipped away and we arrived in Zurich. We got off the train and went to find our connecting train to Aarau on platform #13 which was the train we were supposed to take according to the internet schedule I had looked up. However, before we got to platform #13 we saw one on platform #15 that left a few minutes earlier and Diana wanted to take it. I still wanted to take the one for the travel plan I had written down, but to settle the difference of opinions, we went to the counter and asked if the #15 train went directly to Aarau without stopping. It did so we hurried and got on it and who should we run into? None other than Elders Nilsson & Irick. It was good to see them again and travel with them. It gave us the opportunity to talk about how their investigators were progressing and to be brought up to date on the people we were working with.

Elder Rowley called us last night to see if we knew the address of the Church in Aarau and if we knew how to get there. We knew the address, but didn’t know how to find it so he told us he would be at the bahnhof when we arrived to pick us up in a car. When we got there, Sister Robinson got off the same train, but from a different car than we were riding in and she joined us. We looked for Elder Rowley, but couldn’t see him. Elders Irick & Nilsson knew the way to the Church so we just followed along not worrying about Elder Rowley. It was a good thing, too, because he got involved with other things at the Church and didn’t come to the bahnhof at all. Why he didn’t call us to let us know is as mystery, but all’s well that ends well.

We had a great conference as usual with a lot of inspiring talks and workshops. President Matern discussed D&C 4 in detail, going over the meaning of a lot of the words. Diana and I were given the word “Geduld” (patience) and asked to define it, describe how it’s necessary to do missionary work and the relationship between patience and faith. Later, we did our workshop on cleanliness focused on keeping the apartments clean and in a condition conducive to inviting the Spirit to be with and help them in this work. At the end we committed them by the raising of the covenant hand to follow the guidelines posted in every apartment. All but one raised their hand and he probably wasn’t paying attention, or maybe it was because he goes home in a month.

Lunch was prepared by the Aarau Ward Relief Society and it was very scrumptious. Boiled potatoes, sour cream, link sausage, cranberry sauce, peas & carrots and chocolate pudding for dessert. I was really surprised to see cranberry sauce because it is an unknown food here in Switzerland. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed it and after the meal I went back to the kitchen and thanked the sisters and one brother for the meal and raved about the cranberries. I asked them where they had bought them and they said they went to Germany to buy it, that you can’t find it in Switzerland. Later on one of the sisters was nice and brought me an unopened bottle of it for which I thanked her profusely.

After the conference was over, we rode the bus back to the bahnhof and got mixed up which stairs to go down in order to find the right platform for our train. The first two we tried were blockaded because of all the construction going on, but we only discovered that after we went down the steps and into the tunnels. Both times we had to turn around and climb back up the stairs. We finally found the right one, but too late for us to make the train. The Elders ran on ahead and caught it because they needed to be in Zurich for an appointment and couldn’t be late. It wasn’t long before the next train came along which we boarded and rode to Zurich. We found a train to Schaffhausen and finally arrived home around 8:00 p.m. The transportation system in Switzerland is great and it’s not too complicated to find your way around and usually it’s only twenty minutes to a half hour between trains. However, some are much faster than others, and don’t stopping at every little podunk town along the way.

The tender mercy today was that Diana was observant and found the train that Elders Irick & Nilsson were on who guided us all the way to the Church. Otherwise we would have been stuck at the Aarau bahnhof not knowing which way to go.

View from Sylvia's window; Sunset on the way out to Sylvias; Diana, Jeselyn & Karl Hoenli, Irma Pietreboni; Sylvia Gardedieu.

JANUARY 17, 2010 SUNDAY

Brother Klaumuenzner called this morning really early to ask us if he could drop by and pick us up for Church. Although he goes to Church in Frauenfeld, he said he wanted to come to Schaffhausen so we wouldn’t be alone on our first Sunday here. Now how thoughtful is that? We told him we already had been welcomed and had a ride this morning and, right on the button, 8:45, Brother DeMarzi was at our door to pick us up. It was a short ten minute ride to the Church and there we were greeted by the branch president, Philippo Flammia. He was very cordial and accommodating as were all the other members. We were among the first to arrive, but shortly after others came including brother Klaumuenzner and President Bolt. Brother Hoffmann from the High Council came, too, to help Pres. Bolt introduce the Zurich Stake 2010 goals.

Sacrament meeting came first and the sacrament was blessed by Brother DeMarzi, both the bread and the water, and one Aaronic Priesthood bearer passed them to the congregation. We didn’t count those present, but just guessing there could have been maybe 20-25 members counting the visitors. The talks were inspirational and as Pres. Bolt and Bro. Klaumuenzner as they started their talks said a few nice things about us to the point we’re going to be hard pressed to live up to the expectations placed on us. All we can do is our best.

Sister Gardedieu was especially anxious to meet us and began trying to organize our work for us. She’s just so excited to do missionary work. She said she has two days a week she can get home early from work to go proselyting with us. We set up an appointment with her next Thursday to go visiting some “missed friends” (less-active members.) In President Bolt’s remarks today he told us we should be very careful in labeling “missed friends” as less active because we don’t really know what their personal worship practices are. Some may be surprised and offended to think they have been labeled less active. He said something else surprising to us. His counsel to Pres. Flammia was that if a member wanted to go to the temple and during the recommend interview, he revealed he smoked or had other word of wisdom problems and, if he promised not to do it any more, to go ahead and issue a recommend and not make him wait for three months to actually show he had been faithful. He said that trust is a powerful tool and people respond to it. He and Brother Hoffmann presented the stake goals for the year which included daily scripture study and prayer, family home evening once a week, a visit to the temple once a month and bringing someone into the Church either through re-activation or conversion. If every member would do this, the Zurich Stake would double and could be divided in two and our Schaffhausen branch could maybe become a ward.

After Church Sister Silvia Gardedieu invited us to dinner this afternoon. Diana asked what we could bring and she responded if it were proper for senior missionaries to be asked to bring something. We told her it was okay with us so she asked us to bring a dessert. Brother Wigger, the first counselor in the branch presidency cornered us and asked us to talk in Church on January 31. He asked us to introduce ourselves and tell of some experiences while growing up that have helped us to become who we are today and how that helps us to serve others. We have twenty minutes at our disposal, ten for each of us. We said our goodbyes and made our way slowly out of the building and down the steep icy road to the bahnhof where we got on our bus after a twenty minute wait in the freezing cold and went home.

At home Diana made the dessert which was a vanilla pudding over which we were going to put raspberries with a waffle stick to dress it up a bit when we got to Sister Gardedieu’s home. While she was doing that, I looked up scriptures for our presentation tomorrow and then wrote the journal entry for yesterday. It seems we’ll never catch up. All too soon it came time to leave for our dinner appointment with Sister Gardedieu. We took our bus #5 the ten minute ride to the bahnhof where we got on bus #21 for the thirty-three minute ride to Schleitheim Gemeindehaus where we met her mother, Irma Pietriboni, who took us by car up the hill to her home. We were met by Silvia who gave us a warm reception. She gave us a quick background of herself and her husband. He has an alcohol problem and would like to see if we can help him. She hopes he can relate better to us who are closer to his age (50) and additionally, she thinks it would help that we will be here for an extended period of time where we can develop his trust rather than seeing a new face every couple of months. She is aware of the Church’s addiction recovery program and hoped we were acquainted with it. We know about it and have friends in our home ward, Mike and Shauna Bath, who are missionaries serving in this program. When we get the internet connection, we’ll have to see if we can get some information from them about this program.

While Silvia was busy with getting dinner ready, we found out her mother was the actual owner of the home, but finds it too hard for her to live up on the hill. She said she lives down in the town of Schleitheim and lets her daughter live in the big house. She and her husband built the home in 1967. She was proud of the workmanship of the wooden ceilings in the kitchen and dining room and how spacious it was which is not typical Swiss construction. The view out of the dining room window was exceptional; we could see over the town and the whole valley. She invited two other guests, Karl and Jeselyn Hoenli. He is Swiss and speaks English and she is from the Philippines, speaks English and is learning German and has only been here for three months. It took them six months to get her visa during which she had to take German language lessons and pass a language test as part of the requirements for the visa.

Dinner was quiet and comfortable as if we were old friends. We talked about ourselves and got to know them as well. After the meal was over, Silvia wasn’t bashful about asking us if we had a spiritual thought for them. This is normally what happens, but this time we hadn’t thought about it at all so it kind of came as a surprise. Roxsan sent us a couple of ideas some time ago and we’ve used one quite a few times. It’s the one about asking those present to focus on objects in the room that are a certain color and then having them close their eyes. Instead of asking them to name those objects, we asked them to name objects of a different color while their eyes were still closed. That’s not quite so easy and for those not familiar with the home, it is usually difficult. We related the color we had them focus on to problems in our lives. Sometimes we focus on these so much that we don’t see the other colors or in other words, blessings and good things, that we have in our lives. The final thought is that we should thank the Lord for all that we have and experience. We mentioned the hymn, Count Your Blessings, and we all sang it together. Eventually we had to go and Irma drove us back down to our bust stop. By then it was drizzling, but we only had about five minutes to wait for the bus. We got home somewhere about 9:30 and were glad to be back home. We ended the day by writing this journal entry, or most of it, and then went to bed.