Boat ride Vierwaldstaettersee; Luzern from the bridge; building in Luzern.

MAY 17, 2010 MONDAY

Today was the first day in a long time that we didn’t have to get up early for something. We took our time getting up and going. We went over our schedule for the week and did some planning on how to approach the teaching of Jasmine and Charlotte. With our planning done we decided we’d go visit all the broken houses (2nd hand junk stores) to see what we could find. Diana found some more little metal pitchers and I found another ice pick with thirty little metal plates on it. It’s almost an identical match with the first one I got. We got a few other things, too, that will make good souvenirs from Switzerland. Two broken houses are right by each other and we wanted to go to both of them, but we were so excited about getting the other ice pick that we left without visiting the second one. We thought maybe we’d go there later today, if we had the time and the energy.

We have been wanting to go to Erzingen to visit the “Penny Markt” right by the bahnhof. We’d heard it was a good store to visit although what kind of store we didn’t know. The store is in Germany, but our Swiss passes were good so we didn’t have to pay extra for the train. It turned out to be a grocery store, about the same as ALDI in Jestetten. We bought a few things that we needed and then as we left the store, we noticed another grocery store connected to it that we didn’t see on the way in. We were already loaded down and our train was sitting at the station, so we decided it would have to wait until another time. We made a beeline over the tracks and climbed aboard. Soon we were back in Schaffhausen where we caught a bus for home to drop off the groceries.

We made one more trip, this time to the Salvation Army store that didn’t open until after 2:00 p.m. There wasn’t much doing there, but we did buy a couple of small things. On the way back we went to the one we missed this morning. It was stuffed full of stuff just like the one next door. Again we bought a couple of small items and then went home. The rest of the evening we spent cooking a cake and making bread for tomorrow’s district meeting. We received a call from Jasmine this evening. She told us her work had called to tell her she had to work tomorrow because someone else was sick. That was disappointing to us because we were really looking forward to teaching her tomorrow. She said she would call us Wednesday morning to schedule another appointment.

One of the boat stops; scenery along the lake; workers in the glass factory.

MAY 16, 2010 SUNDAY

As I walked into Church this early this morning it was unusual to see that someone had thrown garbage sacks into the road in two different places. I was able to clean up the first mess because it had only been run over a couple of times and it was fairly easy to get everything back into the sack. The second mess I had no chance; it was scattered all over the place and mashed into the pavement. It hurts to see this beautiful land messed up like that. I got to Church and completed our usual progress report and then did another one for the members of the ward council today. Brother Hartig came at 8:00 and then Brother DeMarzi came a little later. Pres. Flammia gave me a copy of Godwin’s baptism certificate to enter into the iMOS system, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to do it. I took the opportunity to have Br. DeMarzi do it for me this morning.
Just before Sacrament Meeting started we realized we had forgotten to write down the banana bread recipe for Sister Wigger. Converting metric into our measurements was a little bit of a trick, but we hope we got it close enough so it’ll be okay for her. She was really happy to get it.
Monica and Chris left for home this morning, but were still asleep when I left so I didn’t get to say goodbye to them. I tried to call them, but they didn’t pick up the phone. Diana had already said he goodbyes and had left for Church. We would have liked to go with them to the airport again, but that wasn’t possible. We hope they had a good flight back home. We sure enjoyed them being here with us for the few days they were here. They left a note on our computer thanking us for the time we spent with them, which was sweet.

In Sacrament meeting today Sister Flammia gave the monthly talk specifically geared towards the young children. They all got up and went to the front row for the talk which was on free agency and consequences that come from making choices. Jecelyn Hoenle gave her first talk in German today and did a very good job. Her husband stood by and helped her a few times when she needed it. She was very nervous, but the members really appreciate it when an effort is made to speak in their language. Sunday school followed with Silvia Gardedieu giving the lesson. She is well versed in the Gospel and always does a good job in everything she does. Today the lesson was on Chapter 1-6, 23-24 of Joshua.

Today, after the meetings, we had the ward council. When it was our turn, we discussed the names of twelve people (less active and investigators) with whom we were either teaching or had made contact with. We received helpful suggestions on some and arranged for members to come with us when we had teaching appointments with others. After the meeting we hurried to the bahnhof as fast as we could walk to try and catch our bus. We arrived thirty seconds too late and so had to wait twenty minutes for the next one to come. It seems we spend a lot of time waiting for buses or trains which teaches us patience.

We finally arrived home, had a bite to eat and then took off to make a surprise visit to Jasmine Hunziker in Langwiesen. We haven’t seen her for the last three weeks and haven’t been able to get in contact with her. Rather than try to call her, we decided to just drop in and see if she was home. We rang her bell twice and stood at the door for about five minutes and were just about to leave when she came walking around the corner of the building and saw us. She greeted us warmly and then invited us in. She explained she had been ill the last couple of weeks. Her doctor said it was most likely caused by stress. She’s had problems with her ex-husband, finding a day care for her son, a possibility of losing her car, etc. etc. Two miraculous things happened to change things for her. First, her car problem was solved and then a week later, a spot came open in a day care center in which she could enroll her son immediately, which is very unusual. One usually has to be on a waiting list for a long time. We inquired how her English class was going and if she needed any help with her homework. She said it would be helpful, but said there was something more important we could help her with. She said it was more important to find the right Church and WANTED US TO TEACH HER THE MISSIONARY DISCUSSIONS FIRST. The last time we were there she said she’d be willing to hear the discussions, but this time she was anxious to get started. We made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon to meet with her. We felt really good about our visit with her.

We made it back to the train stop this time and didn’t have to wait but a few minutes. When we got back home, we called Kofi to see if he was going to come tonight. He said he’s be able to come at 7:30. Elder Bentley called for our weekly verbal report to him. We told him about the good new with Jasmine and gave him a follow up report on Paul. Later on we got a call from Elder Bushnell asking if we had any good ideas on what to do for P-day. We suggested Stein Am Rhein, the Rhein Falls and the Laufen Castle as like places to see. We also called Silvia Gardedieu to tell her the good news about Jasmine. Silvia has been helping us with trying to get in touch with her and we wanted to coordinate the information with her.

Kofi came at 7:40 for his appointment and we spent an hour and a half helping him with his reading, discussing principles of the gospel, practicing the sacrament prayers and generally talking about his family and encouraging him to bring them to Church with him next Sunday. Next Sunday is the branch conference and will start at 9:00, fifteen minutes earlier than normal. Kofi is the nicest guy, but hasn’t been too dependable about keeping his promises.

At the end of this day we are thankful that our children were able to visit us and hope they get back home safely. We are also grateful for Jasmine and her desire to hear the gospel plan. And now it’s almost midnight.

Monica and Chris; Diana goofing around with a convex lens; boat ride on Vierwaldstaedtersee.

MAY 15, 2010 SATURDAY

Charlotte called this morning to tell us that Jacob Pine, who was released as a missionary six months or so ago, was going to come back with his girlfriend to visit. She wanted us to reserve a day when we could come to Schwamendingen to see him. While we were talking, she said she, Elder Irick (just released), his parents and Agnes were going to Luzern and then take a boat to Hergiswil to tour the glass factory. We told her we were going to do the same thing with Monica and Chris, but were going to leave an hour later than they were. We agreed to look for one another at the glass factory so we could talk to Agnes and say goodbye to Elder Irick.

Today was forecast to be rainy and cloudy and a bit cool. All of it turned out to be true except it didn’t rain so much and, when it did, it wasn’t very heavy. We made sandwiches and stuck them in my backpack along with drinks and some fruit and then we took off. We traveled to Zurich and then went on to Luzern. We changed trains again and traveled to Hergiswil hoping that we’d arrive about the time Elder Irick’s group would. They had planned to take the boat from Luzern which would be slower so we could make up the hour going by train. When we got to Hergiswil, we called Charlotte and found out they were still in Luzern having decided to spend time in the old town instead of going straight through to Hergiswil. Well, what the deuce? We told them we were going to go ahead and take the tour through the glass factory and hope they could find us.

The factory wasn’t far from the train station and it was all down hill and so not hard to get to. There was quite a line waiting to get in, but after a ten minute wait, the tour director called for all the English speaking people to come on up to the front. That was great news! The door opened and the self-guided tour began. Video clips were shown on monitors and, when one part was done, a door would open and we would all file into the next room where the process was repeated. The tour took about twenty minutes and we learned the history of glass making and how the factory in Hergiswil was founded. The final door opened into the factory itself where we could see workers getting molten glass out of furnaces, passing it to other workers who fashioned it into various glass pieces (rectangle vases, bowls, and decorative bottles). One worker was blowing glass balls and for 15.00sfr., anyone could blow their own. It was really interesting watching them work the glass and we could tell they had been at it for a long time. It was as if they had choreographed moves, repeating again and again exactly what they had done before. From there we went into the museum where they had on display items from the beginning to present.

As we exited the museum we were just in time to meet Elder Irick’s group coming into the factory. We greeted everyone, met Elder Irick’s parents and had a chance to talk to Agnes for a few minutes. We wished Elder Irick well in his new life and encouraged Agnes to consider getting baptized at the same time as Angie Lloyd. They were anxious to get going so we waved goodbye and went on our way. We stopped in the retail shop and the shop that sold seconds to see the finished glass products. The retail store was plenty expensive and the seconds store was the same except for one shelf where things were on sale. But we found something we liked and so did Monica and Chris. Some of our glass pieces are pretty heavy so we hope we’ll be able to take them home when we go.

We got through just in time to get to the ship landing as it docked and after a short discussion climbed aboard. We couldn’t go directly back to Luzern, but continued on to the end of the line where it turned around and headed back towards Luzern. On the way there were quite a few stops where people disembarked and others got on. The scenery was amazing reminding us of the trip along the coast of Norway. We broke out the sandwiches and drinks and enjoyed them as we traveled. We arrived in Luzern at 3:35 p.m. and then took a walk over the bridge into the old town. Diana and Monica didn’t want to walk as far as Chris and I so they slowly made their way back toward the bahnhof while we made a quick trip through part of the old town. We met them at the bahnhof at exactly 4:00, the agreed upon meeting time which gave us just enough minutes to walk to and climb aboard our train for Zurich. The time spent in train travel isn’t wasted because we could look out upon the beautiful lush green landscape and scenery along Lake Zug and Zurich Lake. The dark skies and rain seemed to bring our the vibrant green color of the grass, crops and trees and the brilliant colors of the flowers.

We made it home by about 7:00 p.m. and relaxed a little by looking at old emails that we had saved because we liked them. Some were funny and others were of people and kids performing. After that Chris and Monica began the laborious chore of packing while Diana did some packing of her own. She put all of our treasures (souvenirs) into one of our suitcases to see how much it would weigh. I spent the time writing our journal entry as well as downloading our photos taken today.

Even though it was Saturday the trains and the ship weren’t crowded. In the trains we were able to all sit together and the ship was almost empty for most of the way. It was a very pleasant day in which we could visit with Monica and Chris without interruptions from noise or other people. We’ll have Monica and Chris here tonight, but in the morning they leave for the airport with the 10:15 a.m. train. We’ll be sad to see them go, but they’ll be glad to get back home to their kids.

The Swiss love flags; My hat was stuffed inside my coat & Chris standing by; Statehouse in Bern.

MAY 14, 2010 FRIDAY

We woke up this morning to an overcast sky and a light rain. As the day progressed the clouds got lighter, but the sun didn’t break through. It was kind of misty all day long, got a little more serious in the evening and by the time we came home it was kind of misting lightly again. We hope it will be better tomorrow, but the forecast says it’ll probably be the same as today.

This morning we prepared for Sylvain to come for his appointment at 10:00 by reading Step Four in the alcohol recovery workbook and discussing what we wanted to accomplish in this meeting. We always pray for help because we know the Lord knows what people need and hopefully we’ll be in tune with the Spirit. We also had a lunch appointment at 12:30 today so we prepared a spiritual thought which is always expected by members after a nice meal. We were also able to spend a little time reading Sunday’s gospel doctrine lesson, Joshua chapters 1-6 and 23-24.

When Sylvain arrived at 10:00, we could tell he was down in the dumps and feeling sorry for himself. After a prayer we went right to work on him. We told him he should count his blessing and focus on the things he should be thankful for and to not focus on his problems. The best way to cheer up was to look for opportunities to serve others. There are plenty of others who are worse off than we are and when we help them, our troubles seem to melt away or to not seem so overwhelming. We had him write down his goals and focus on them. And then we went to work on step four which is TRUTH. This step requires the person to take an inventory of his life and write down every event, relationship, thought, emotion, action or feeling that has had an impact for good or for bad in his life. The workbook gives helpful suggestions on how to do it and the reason it’s necessary. “Your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are actually the roots of your addictive behavior (including sadness, regret, anger, resentment, fear, bitterness).” “Your addiction is a symptom of other causes and conditions.” This is a rather daunting but necessary task and one that takes courage to dig deep in a self analysis. We hope he can do it. By the end of the hour and a half he was in better spirits and left with a positive attitude again.

After Sylvain left we got ready and left ourselves to go meet Paul at his home to go to our lunch appointment with Greta Troesch. We got off the bus at his bus stop and as we were walking to his apartment, we saw him walking on the other side of the street. We caught his attention and crossed the street and together we walked back to the bus stop on his side of the street. We climbed into the bus when it came and rode to a stop near where Greta lived. We could have taken a different bus at the bahnhof that would have dropped us off right at Greta’s door, but Paul would have had to punch his bus pass two times instead of just once. As it was it only took us about ten minutes to walk to Greta’s apartment. She had lunch ready for us so we didn’t waste any time getting started. She started us off with a wonderful green salad followed by the main dish, sliced steak in a delicious brown sauce over rice. The sauce had diced peppers and spices in it which helped it taste like stuffed peppers. For dessert she werved us sliced strawberries with cream on top. Mmmmm. It’s no wonder her son (she’s 88 years old) still comes over every Monday and Wednesday to enjoy her cooking. After we were through we gave her a spiritual thought which generated a good discussion, and then we had to go.

We made it back to the bahnhof and then caught the train to Jestetten to do the shopping we wanted to do yesterday. When we get off the train in Jestetten, we have 50 minutes to get to the store, buy what we need or want, and get back to the station to catch the train again. This gives us plenty of time, but we seem to hurry and then end up waiting longer than we would need to back at the train station. However, depending on how busy the store is, sometimes we end up standing in line a long time to check out. The ride back home was uneventful except that the border police were right there when we got off the train in Schaffhausen. We think we’re always in compliance with the import laws, but just the same they make us a little nervous. We didn’t need to worry as they let us walk on by even though they eyed the four bags we were carrying.

We took the groceries back to our apartment and then left again to travel to the airport to meet Monica and Chris coming back from Scotland. We got there plenty early so we went into the airport MIGROS and bought some drinks for later on. Then we went to the arrival gate and cooled our heals. We didn’t know the flight number nor the departure location so it was hard to know if or when their airplane would arrive or had arrived already. At one point we almost decided we had missed them and were thinking about going back home without them. Our train back to Schaffhausen left once an hour so we decided to take the next train back to see if they had slipped by us. However, all’s well that ends well. Chris and Monica showed up about 15 minutes before our train left which gave us enough time to buy them a train pass and then catch the train.

Back at home we quickly put together a dinner of macaroni salad and Mexican beans over rice, Diana’s specialty. We ate until we were about ready to pop, but that didn’t stop us from visiting. Over dinner we decided we may try to visit Luzern tomorrow and then take a boat ride on Vierwaldstaedtersee. We’ll see how things go tomorrow. In between everything else we managed to do a load of whites today.

We got a call from Elder Bentley who gave us assignments for our next district meeting. Diana has the closing song and prayer and I have the German tip. He called later to ask us if it would be okay if he took ibuprofen while taking antibiotics.

A tender mercy is that we have Monica and Chris with us here tonight.

You never know where you'll find a cow; Sister Bea Bolli; Sister Silvia Gardedieu.

MAY 13, 2010 THURSDAY

When Priska Staehelin called yesterday to cancel her appointment for today, we were then able to plan to go to the Schaffhausen Branch BBQ this morning at 10:15. We were planning on going, but it was raining pretty heavily and we weren’t sure if it would be cancelled or not. We got a call from Greta Troesch about 8:30 wanting to invite us and Paul Hunziker to lunch and the only day this week where we all could get together was tomorrow. Just before she hung up she told us the BBQ had been postponed because of the rain. We called Paul to see if tomorrow noon was okay with him, and it was. Before we hung up he said he would be home all day today and, if we wanted to come visit him, he’d enjoy it. Next we got a call from Sylvain explaining that his boss at work had called a meeting of the employees and he wouldn’t be able to come to his appointment this afternoon at 4:00. He has tomorrow off so we were able to squeeze him in at 10:00 a.m. Well, that wiped out all of our appointments for today and that is how it goes sometimes.

We were low on supplies so we decided to go to Jestetten grocery shopping. We wanted to get something for Paul’s birthday today and also buy some supplies for when Monica and Chris come back from Scotland tomorrow night and for district meeting next Tuesday. We put our shopping list together and as we were leaving the house to catch the bus, Jacob, our landlord, asked us where we were going and that he would drive us, if we wanted. When we told him, he laughed and said today was a holiday and all of the stores were closed! In Germany, too? Absolutely! Nothing was working for us today. We went back home and looked up the Swiss holidays just so we would know when stores would be closed. Today was Ascension Day which is when they celebrate Christ ascending into heaven, but we saw that there are so many other holidays it’s a wonder that the stores are ever open.

Last night at the Relief Society activity we took photos of Silvia and Bea, the last ones we needed for Paul’s Book of Remembrance. We printed these out and finished putting it together. We added a few 8X10 photos of Christ and then paid Paul a visit. He loves for us to come and was really excited about his book. It was his 75th birthday today as well and we helped celebrate it. We spent a couple of hours looking through the book with him and reading all of the comments people had written to him. As we went through it words or phrases reminded him of experiences he’d had in his life and he relishes telling us of them.

We walked down the steep steps in the rain to our apartment and burrowed in for the night. We read the chapters in Joshua for our next Sunday School lesson, filled out our planner for the next transfer period and read our next Priesthood/RS lesson. Evidently Elder Stucki received the glucosamine/chondroiten pills from Elder Walters because he called to make sure he knew who he was to deliver them to. We gave him some background on Silvana Gianatti and pleaded with him to try and continue to work with her and to not just drop the pills off.

We got a call from Neide wanting to tell us about an experience she’d had. Elder Andrezzi, one of the first missionaries that made the initial contact with her, came back with his parents to visit Switzerland. She has a crush on him and really wanted to see him, but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to because of her night time work schedule at the post office. He and his parents and family went by twice, but she didn’t wake up to answer the door. She found out later and was able to make contact with them and invited them back. She was so happy that she was able to meet with them twice.

Tender mercies for today include getting phone calls from both Elder Irick and Sandro DeMarzi letting us know that Angel Lloyd is planning to get baptized on May 30. That is really good news. Elder Irick is getting released this week, but he and Elder Nilsson plan on flying back to witness her baptism. We’ll be there, too. Another tender mercy is that our landlord caught us before we went to Jestetten. We could have been sitting in the rain in Jestetten for an hour because the store was closed waiting for the next train to bring us back to Schaffhausen. And Roxsan skyped us and we talked to her for a half hour or so.