JUNE 18, 2010 FRIDAY

This morning we were up early to get shaved and showered before the Doyles got up so we wouldn't interfere with their usual morning routine. When everyone was up and breakfast over, we took off in their car and traveled around the Geneva Lake to Chateau de Chillon, a medieval castle on the very edge of the water. We had a wonderful time going through it, this time being able to see how people actually lived in it. The place was huge and over the many hundreds of years changed hands many times. The following is quoted from the brochure.

In its current form the Chillon Castle is the result of several centuries of different construction and alterations. The small rocky island on which the castle is built acted both as natural protection and a strategic location to control movement between the north and the south of Europe.

The castle's history was marked by three important periods: the Savoy era (12th century to 1536); the Bernese era (1536-1798); and the Vaudois era (1798 until today).

Excavations carried out from the end of the 19th century, particularly those by Albert Naef (1862-1936) indicate that the site of Chillon has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The oldest written mention of the castle dates from 1150 and establishes that the Savoy family already controlled the fortress and hence the path along the lake shore.

the Swiss (Bernese) conquered the Vaud region and occupied Chillon in 1536. For more than 260 years the castle was used as a fortress, arsenal and prison. The Bernese left Chillon at the time of the Vaud revolution in 1798. The State of Vaud became its owner when the canton was created in 1803.

We spent several hours walking through the castle, looking in all the nooks and crannies and marveled at how people in those days could have constructed such a huge facility. We'll post some photos when we get home. When we left there, we drove to the Gruyeres castle which is near Fribourg. It was named after the many cranes in the area. The French name for cranes is "grue" which inspired the name Gruyeres. When we got there, we decided to still the hunger pains by stopping for sandwiches and soup in the cheese factory which had a little restaurant. They were very good and did the trick. We also got to watch a robot going down the rows of cheese rounds turning each one over. The cheese rounds were stored on shelves 10 or 12 rounds high and the shelves were as long as the eye could see. There must have been thousands of rounds. This process is required to age the cheese just right. From there we went to the main castle which was up the hill a ways.

We began our tour by seeing a movie of the history of the castle. The castle beginnings remain mysterious, but between the 11th and 16th centuries, 19 different counts occupied it. The last, Michel, went bankrupt and then it was shared by the cantons of Fribourg and Bern. From 1555 to 1798 the castle became the residence of the bailiffs and then for the prefects sent by Fribourg. In 1849 the castle was bought by the Bovy and Balland families who restored it . It was then bought back by the canton of Fribourg in 1938 and turned into a museum.

When we were done going through the castle, we saw many people in period costumes who were assembling for some sort of event or production. Bleachers were being set up in the main street for spectators to sit to watch. This castle also has been restored to the time when people lived in it including furnishings, painting, and etc. The views from the castle were just breathtaking. We took many photos, but they really don't do justice to the majesty of the alpine valleys with clouds hugging the tops of the mountains and valleys.

The day was fairly chilly with cloud cover (the sun tried to break through occasionally, but didn't quite make it) and later in the afternoon it kind of misted/rained, but it really wasn't uncomfortable. The place was really crowded in anticipation of the event that was going to take place either tonight or tomorrow.

On our way back to Geneva we stopped at the Carrefoure grocery store to get some fondu cheese, bread and some melons. We got everything we needed except the fondu so we had to go to another store to find it. These stores are much much bigger than the ones we are used to in Zurich and Schaffhausen. These stores you could get lost in. But we got what we needed and then went home. The fondu was wonderful, but the company was even better. It's been such fun to be with the Doyles who have treated us like family. The rest of the evening we talked, looked at the photos we took today and then wrote this journal entry. And now it's our usual midnight go-to-bed time and so that's what we're going to do. Photos to follow later. Love you all.

Day 2. It came all too soon, but all of us were awake before 6 and by 8 had had scriptures and prayers, breakfast and pills, make-up and hair, clothing and packs ready to leave the apartment for a full day at the far end of Lac Léman! It’s great traveling with others who like an early start on the day. We were headed for Château de Chillon first! We talked non-stop the whole drive there, with occasional photo-ops by Robert—he’d roll down his window and shoot landscape scenes that were just incredible. There was light traffic at that hour and there was plenty of parking once we arrived at our destination. There were already four tour buses parked and there was a group of school children on a field trip in front of us, too.

It was hard to leave the souvenir shop to go pay our entrance fees, but we finally tore ourselves away. We had a marvelous tour through the castle/fortress/prison. As has been the case before, there were newly opened areas, so we continually are fascinated by new scenes into the life of the people in those medieval times! Larsons have visited castles in their part of Switzerland, but none have interiors decorated to show what life was like in those ancient times, so this was a real treat for them. We were in no hurry and stayed until noon inside the walls of the historical castle. Larsons bought a few things at the shop outside—two CDS of Swiss music, a placemat and some walking stick emblems!

We headed to Gruyères next. Starving, we went first to the cheese factory, La Maison de Gruyères, for lunch. I ordered the onion soup and the others ordered the ham and cheese sandwich with grated carrots, grated pickled red cabbage, corn and white asparagus. Hit the spot! We watched the robotic machine roll down the aisles of cheese rounds, pull them off their shelves one at a time, turn them and replace them—that goes on four times a day! Amazing process. Then we spent time in their souvenir shop, too. Robert found some more tin emblems for his walking stick! They are popular items among the Swiss mountain hikers!

Next stop was the medieval village and Château de Gruyères. The stage and seating areas were completed since we were there two weeks ago. Wish we could have seen the production “Déliverance.” Tonight was to have been its final performance. There were performers in their period clothing throughout the village and château, making the place even more picturesque! We were shooting pictures right and left. Robert has been collecting photos of the myriad painted ceramic life-size “cows” he sees throughout Switzerland and got about a dozen different ones in the time he spent with us!

We went through this smaller castle more quickly than Chillon and headed for home. We stopped at Carrefour first to buy a package of fondue and a baguette for our dinner. Diana bought a couple cantaloupes to serve with the fondue. They were amazed at the size of the store. It is far larger than any of the grocery stores in their part of Switzerland—they guessed about 2/3’s larger. We fixed the dinner as soon as we got in, and everyone liked the fondue. It was the first time Larsons had had it!

Before actually going to bed, there was a lot of computer training going on, as well as photo watching. I was the first to leave the activities. I showered, curled my hair and went to bed while the others were still up. I was exhausted!

Day 3: Today, Saturday, we were up before 6 again and ready to leave the apartment by 8. Denny asked Robert to cut his hair around his ears. We have some shears from the mission home garage. The cut was really perfect. Denny was grateful! We made sure Larsons had everything with them so no matter what we did, we could get them to the train for home without having to waste time returning to our place. Our first stop was to the mission home to leave the gift purchase with Sister Murdock…we left it on the office side because of the early hour!

Next stop was at the United Nations complex for photos of the flags and standing beside the sign. Saturday at this early hour is a great time to be out and about. There was little traffic and many areas for parking. Next we wanted to see the Reformers’ Wall and giant chess boards. What a surprise to get close and come against blockages and security guards everywhere! Denny drove up close enough to ask a young guard why the blockades and was told that it is for the Music Festival, “La Fête de la Musique.” He said we’d need to go a long way around to find a place to park and to walk into the park.

Denny did a masterful job finding underground parking near the Vieille Ville. We walked up into and through the Old City, then down and into the Park. The chess pieces were all locked away in the storage bins on the site because of the expected crowds for the music festival in the late afternoon and evening. There were hundreds of tents set up throughout the area to house eating establishments and musical groups. The theaters were also going to feature a continual program of musical entertainment. We made our way over to the Reformers’ Wall and took our time reading the chiseled messages. It was pretty at that early hour. There was the beginning of excitement in the air as people began coming to their places to prepare for the day’s events.

I took a picture of a newspaper headline, stating that tourists are disappointed by the lack of flowers in the world-famous Flower Clock!!! Hallelujah!!! I’ve been complaining ever since the day we took Kevin and Nathaniel to see it and found it looking like a weed patch in celebration of the “Year of Bio-diversity.”

We took a different way back through the Vieille Ville to our car and then drove to the Smurf apartment complex to take a few pictures of the whimsical buildings. It was about 11:00, so we drove to our place and parked the car, made a pit stop and walked up into the Ferney open marché. It was crowded with locals and tourists alike. If we had unlimited packing capabilities, we’d probably buy something each time we visit, but we refrained once again. Robert did buy some candied almonds and Diana and I bought a mini-baguette of cheese & lardon bread. When we returned to the apartment, it was just 12:30. We had a lunch of sorts—spaghetti for the men, cheese bread and drink for the ladies.

Next stop was to Neuchâtel. It was a good hour and a half north of Geneva. We found parking for a maximum time of 2 hours, then walked into the Vieille Ville—pedestrian-only quarter. They were also celebrating a Festival of Music here, too. There were a few musicians and groups of musicians performing and hoping for a some financial donations from passersby. One ingenious activity set up was a tube slide for children—like a 50’ water slide, but without water. With each ticket purchased, the child received a carpet piece to carry up the hill to the top of the slide to slide down on. There was a continual line of children, waiting his/her turn.

We four trudged upward and onward until Robert located the ancient prison tower. The men had to pool their Swiss coins to pay for their 2-franc entrance fee. There was no one there to take their money—it was automated. They didn’t have enough for the two of us ladies, and we were not disappointed having to miss the additional stairs to climb. (The machine didn’t take one of our coins, so we didn’t have enough to get in! I climbed over the gate and we made our way up) We said we’d meet them by the old church and château. We were able to take a picture of them when they arrived at the top, and they took our picture from above. They could see across the city of Neuchâtel from that highest point of the city!

After a few photos, the four of us headed back through the festival crowds, stopping for a half hour at the local McDonald’s. We needed a drink and fries and added a burger just for fun. The place was hopping. We calculated our time and realized we needed to hurry to get to our car before the two hours were up. The men ran ahead and got there “just in time!” There was a guy checking each timed parked car, too.

Robert had the train times listed (4:27 and 5:24). We just needed to find the train station! We asked a young man who directed us back to where we had been parked and then up the hill! Oh, we weren’t thinking of going upward! We found the gare and let the Larsons out of the car to walk quickly to the building. We figured they had about 10 minutes and sincerely hoped they made that first train! Our farewells were given in haste, but we all knew that the others had had a fun time and that we’d see each other soon in Sandy, not to mention our continued daily blogs to keep us apprised of each other between now then! The Larsons’ release date is August 6.

I wasn’t able to stay awake much on the drive back to Ferney. Denny got us home safely, listening to CD’s of Frank Sinatra and Perry Como! He uploaded today’s photos and showered while I wrote the blog.

Mary Kaye and Diana came down the path to meet Robert and me at the Chillon photo spot. On our way to Gruyeres, we stopped at the fence and the cows came running to meet us! Robert accidentally touched the electric wire and got quit a shock!

Vieille Ville's St. Peter Cathedral; Robert, Diana, Mary Kaye and Dennis Doyle; longest wooden bench in the world.

JUNE 17, 2010 THURSDAY

We had been looking forward to this day for about a month and now here it was. A month ago we asked Pres. Matern if we could visit our friends, the Doyles, serving in the Geneva Switzerland Mission home and he surprised us by saying we could. So this morning, filled with excitement and anticipation, we took the 9:09 train in Schaffhausen and were in Geneva by 12:36. The Doyles were expecting us at 1:15, but we wanted to get there a little early so we could find a good spot for them to come pick us up. It's a good thing we did because we came out of the train station on the back side, but after walking around the block, we found the front side. The only problem was we only saw taxis and thought the area was restricted for other cars. We found a spot on the corner of the train station and thought the Doyles would be able to see us when they drove by. We finally spotted Dennis turn the corner and drive right in where the taxis were. I took off running to catch him and thankfully he was driving slow so I was able to catch up to him. When Diana got there, we jumped in and away we went.

Sister Doyle does a much better job than I do in writing down our travels and experiences of the next three days so it was easier and better to just copy here account and paste it into our journal. At the end of this first day we were tired and it was late so we didn't write anything. Friday and Saturday we wrote our journal, but still we added Mary Kaye's account anyway.

The proselyting missionary couple, Robert and Diana Larson, of Sandy, Utah, serving in the Switzerland Zurich Mission, have spent the last three days with us and are on the train going back to their mission. They should get there about 8:30. It was a wonderful time together.

They arrived by train, using their rail passes, at 1:00 Thursday in Geneva’s gare. Denny left from our mission office to pick them up. We had gone in to the office early for me to get as much work done as possible with letters and emails relating to the new missionaries. It became apparent, however, that I was not going to be able to complete the tasks before time to go to the train station, so I suggested Denny go, take the two of them to some of the sights we had planned to show them in downtown Geneva, and call me from time to time to see if I were anywhere near completion.

Denny had been able to take the pictures of the missionaries alone, with their group of 8, with their new senior companions and with President and Sister Murdock. They were on the flash drive, on my computer. I did not receive the list of which new missionaries were assigned to which trainers until minutes before they were to learn themselves, so I did not attend the emotional pairing up. I went right to the work of matching the names on “1^st Assignment” letters and “Trainer” letters and getting them printed off.

Elder Sorensen invited me to come to the luncheon, but I asked to be excused so I could finish what I was doing. When he told Sister Murdock, she brought me a plate of the wonderful taco salad! I was grateful. It really hit the spot! The printing of the letters was not as smooth sailing as I had anticipated, but as I was nearing completion of the last of the letters, President Murdock came into the office to sign them all and to fold them and put them into envelopes for the 16 missionaries. He apologized for not getting the names to me earlier, but with them all printed and signed, I could honestly say that it was just fine!

As he walked out of the room to hand out the letters to each team as they left for their trains, I felt relaxed and turned my attention to sending the emails to their parents. I was not able to bring up the photos to attach to the emails, however, and added a line to each of the letters, stating that I had photos to send them via their emails in a few days and then sent off the emails in record time! When Denny called, I told him I was finished, and the three of them could come to get me.

Rather than wait in the office, where the Elders were congregating--all their tension-filled duties were done, too, and they were hyper and happy and loud and expressive—I bid them farewell for the weekend and went outside to wait. It was cool and misty, so I waited with my umbrella overhead and walked a few times up to the corner and back. They took quite a long time. Hinmans dropped in to pick up a fondue pot from Sister Murdock to use for tonight’s fondue party at the Yverdon Young Adult FHE.

Day 1 Aventure: When Denny arrived with Larsons, I got into the backseat with Diana. It seemed so natural for us to be together. The three of them had been able to visit the Vieille Ville’s St. Pierre Cathedral. The men had climbed up to the top of the tower to take pictures overlooking Geneva. Even overcast, it was a beautiful sight, and the jet d’eau was on, too. They had walked through the narrow, ancient streets of the old city, posed by the canons and walked over to the longest wooden bench in the world. Then they came for me and had a quick glance of the beautiful twin houses that make up our mission home and office. We stopped to mail letters at our Chambésy post office and drove out to the medieval village, Yvoire, in France.

It was beautiful, even with the clouds overhead. It was cool and comfortable, lush and colorful. We hadn’t been there 15 minutes when, lo, and behold, the Larsons met dear, dear friends from their first ward in Zurich, the Bolts!!!!! We’ve been hearing about the Bolts for over a year—Kathy and Hitch. They are great people. We fell in love with them immediately. Such a surprise meeting. It was a thrill for them all. Robert and Diana really have made eternal friendships with Bolts and others in that ward.

We sauntered through the village and the shops to our hearts’ content. We all bought items and took a million photos before deciding to leave the bustling crowds behind and head for our place in Ferney! The two had packed LIGHTLY, bringing only a small backpack each, so getting them settled in the apartment was an easy task. On the way back we were excited to take them to the Einstein house and they were too, because they've seen the many pictures on our blog. We got their pictures and then went to our apartment to relax.

At 8:30 we walked up the street to the Chinese restaurant, Le Palais Chinois, for dinner. They treated Denny and me to a great dinner. They had lemon chicken and sweet & sour chicken. I had the sweet & sour pork and spring rolls. Diana has been off sugar for several months now, since Sylvain has been working at breaking his alcohol addiction. She is showing him her support by overcoming her sugar addiction. She does not ever cheat! Impressive to say the least! And she is also looking very trim!

We talked and talked and talked. No one ever tries to hurry patrons in a restaurant, and we were there a couple of hours at least. Our conversations were primarily related to our mission experiences, which we have faithfully recorded daily in our respective blogs, so as we brought up incidents, we were all heard to say repeatedly, “oh, yes, I remember you telling that on your blog!” We were dead tired tonight, though, and only wrote a sentence or two on our blogs. When we put up our pictures, Robert showed us how to crop and adjust colors and contrast, etc. Oh, for heaven’s sake!!!!!

We went to bed by midnight, eager for tomorrow to come.

E. Middleton is in the gray suit; Pres. Dietmar Matern, S. Hutcheson, E. Hutcheson, S. Larson, E. Larson, S. Silvia Matern; Elder & Sister Larson with E. Vincent.

JUNE 16, 2010 WEDNESDAY

It is rare that I sleep through an alarm, but this morning I did it. However, Diana woke me up with plenty of time for us to get ready to go to the temple. We caught the bus at 6:48, rode to the bahnhof and caught the 7:07 train to Zurich where we had to change to a train that took us to Bern. When we got to Zurich, we recognized a temple sealer on his way to the temple. We said hello to him and then we ran into Sisters Robinson & Sjoberg. Not only a few minutes later we ran into the zone leaders, Elders Talley & Anderson. We all got on the train and rode to Bern together enjoying each other’s company. The missionaries talk non-stop when they get together. When we got off in Bern to catch yet another train to Zollikofen, we recognized more missionaries one of which was Elder Eschweiler who was in our first district after we got here. When we got on the train to Zollikofen, we saw Brother & Sister Klaumuenzner and when he saw us, he came back and talked with us until we got to Zollikofen. It was great to see everyone
coming together from all parts of our mission for this temple experience. Every transfer one third of the mission have this opportunity along with the missionaries that die (go home) the next week. Those who we know will die are Elders Eschweiler, Middleton, Bentley, and Holzapfel.

The first session we attended was a sealing session. Martin Hedinger from our Schaffhausen Branch asked us to bring some names to the temple to have cards printed out and we were able to get four couples sealed and two children sealed to parents for him. We left the cards at the desk and just before the sealing session, I decided to go see if we could do any of them in our session. I made the mistake of going to the desk in temple clothes and was admonished for it. Fortunately, Brother Locher followed me down and said he’d find the cards, but I needed to go back up to the sealing room. He found them and brought them up. He was our sealer for the session. Others in the session with us were Elder & Sister Hutcheson, Elder Bentley, Elder Conner and one whose name we can’t remember. Brother & Sister Hartmann, a Swiss couple, completed the session. The second session was an endowment session.

In between session we had lunch during which we got to see Martin Neidhart from the Schwamendingen ward. We also got to visit with the missionaries, the Hutchesons and the Klaumuenzmers. We got to ask Sister Klaumuenzner some questions about de-registering when it comes time for us to go home. There is too much up in the air about the reorganization of the mission which takes place July1 for her to give us any definitive answers. During lunch Diana was able to give Elders Eschweiler and Middleton a Swiss flag as a parting gift to remember us by. After the endowment session we gave one to Elder Vincent because this was probably the last time we would see him before we go home.

The ride home was a reverse of the morning’s ride, but without anyone accompanying us. We got home a little after 6:00, but we had one more thing we wanted to do tonight. Sister Gardedieu’s birthday is on June 18, but we’ll be in Geneva so we wanted to take a gift to her tonight. We got it and rode the bus out to Schleitheim, but she wasn’t home. We left it hanging on her door with a note attached and then came back home. We got home about 9:00 and are pretty tired after a long day.

One more thing of note is the reduction of American missionaries being allowed into Switzerland. Sister Klaumuenzner said that only ten new USA missionaries will be granted visas for the remainder of this year divided between the Geneva mission and the Zurich mission. Next year there’ll only 20 allowed in and the next year 20 more. After that, none will be allowed in. The reason, she said, was that Switzerland only allows a finite number of foreigners into the country and preference is being given to European Commonwealth nations. Missionaries from these nations will be allowed in so the missionary work will still go forward, but without the help of missionaries from the USA. So sad.

Sylvain called a little after 9:00 just wanting to talk. He gets lonely out where he lives in the group home and wants to hear a friendly voice occasionally. We usually talk about his progress working in the 12 steps to recovery program workbook and the things he has discovered about himself. He used to come here for the counseling sessions, but he lives so far away and isn’t allowed to leave without a chaperone, so now we do it over the phone.

Our tender mercy for today is that we were asked to be the witness couple. That was a special treat for us.

JUNE 15, 2010 TUESDAY

First thing this morning after we got ourselves ready for the day was to get busy in the kitchen preparing the food for the lunch following district meeting. Taco salad was on the menu today. We cut up the tomatoes, onions, peppers, lettuce and grated the cheese. We fried the hamburger and added the kidney beans, onions, can of chili and seasoning. When Diana wasn’t looking, I added a dash or two of Heinz Ketchup. Diana did the same when I wasn’t looking. By the time the elders got here we were ready for them. Elders Bushnell & Sills from Singen were right on time even though they were stopped by the border patrol. Elders Bentley, Dahneke and Neuffer were late as usual. Today our meeting was supposed to start at 9:30, but it didn’t until 10:00 when our usual start time is. We had a great meeting and then lunch was served. For dessert they got milch reis (rice pudding) and rice krispie treats. They must have liked everything because there wasn’t much left.

Last week Elder Bentley suggested we do some street contacting in Schaffhausen after lunch because he felt we were not being productive enough after our district meetings. So, we quickly cleaned up and washed the dishes and then drove in to Schaffhausen. The seven of us talked to quite a few people and gave out brochures and Books of Mormon. Diana is good at contacting and once she has somebody stopped and interested, I do my part in talking to them. She sat down by a lady with a baby and started talking to her. The lady didn’t speak a lot of German, but soon her husband came along and sat down. Sister Kusz came along and Diana got up to talk to her which gave me opportunity to slide over and strike up a conversation with the husband. We talked with him for about a half an hour and occasionally Sister Kusz would jump in with appropriate testimony and remarks. He eventually took a Book of Mormon, but then insisted we take it back because he said he didn’t read much and we might as well give it to someone who would. He was Muslim, but since moving to Switzerland didn’t practice it any more. He was fun to talk to and in the end took a Joseph Smith pamphlet and a Proclamation on the Family brochure. He was big on families and maybe, if he reads the proclamation, it will strike a chord with him. We invited him to call us (our phone number is on all the handouts) if he wanted to know more. We spent about two hours street contacting and then the elders had to go and we had to get ready for our appointment with Paul Hunziker.

It was interesting that we met three of our members in town while we were street contacting, Susan Flammia, Christine Kusz and Katia DiPaolo. The other missionaries saw Katia and, if we would have, we would have bounced her about not coming to Church last Sunday. We had to contact her anyway to tell her we wouldn’t be by Friday afternoon for our normal appointment with her and Emely.

While we were getting rerady for our appointment, Roxsan skyped us just to visit with us for awhile. She mentioned Monica had written us an email asking if we wanted to keep the renters in our basement at home or if she should give them notice to move out. There have been a few problems with them and, after hearing what they were, we decided we didn’t want them in there any more. We finally had to say goodbye so we could be at our appointment on time.

Paul is always happy to see us and the first thing he does is to busy himself getting us something to eat and drink. This time he made hot chocolate for me (water for Diana) and then served me a piece of his Schwarz Wald Torte, which was good, but which I didn’t need. We gave him a half dozen old VCR Church videos because he has a player and we don’t. It’ll be good for him to view these to help him get a better understanding of the Church and it’s doctrines. Today it was his turn to pick a scripture to read and discuss. He chose Colossians 3:1-17. We took him the rubber ends for his crutches, but they were too big around. We told him where we bought them, gave him the receipt and tomorrow he said he would go there and trade them for the right ones.

When we got home, we noticed four bags in our hallway. Elder Bentley is going on the temple trip tomorrow which will require him to travel to Basel tonight to sleep with the missionaries there, before pairing up with someone to travel to Zollikofen tomorrow. We thought maybe Elder Bentley had forgotten them when we went into Schaffhausen for the contacting activity. In the mean time Elder Bushnell called to ask for a Spanish Book of Mormon. We told him we had one, but we wouldn’t be home for the next four days to give it to him if he drove over to get it. We told him we would give it to Elder Bentley tomorrow at the temple but, so we wouldn’t forget, thinking the bags were his, we put it in one of them. However, later on our door buzzer sounded and Alice was there with a smile on her face and a guest standing beside her. The guest had brought his bags into our apartment thinking this was where he was staying instead of the room upstairs above us. We all had a good laugh and then he got his bags and took them upstairs. A few minutes after they had left we remembered we’d put the Spanish BM in his backpack. I went upstairs and retrieved the book, but then asked the guest if he wanted it. He said he couldn’t read Spanish, but would like one in English. I went down and got one and took it back up to him. The Lord works his magic in weird ways sometimes; all that to get a BM in the hands of someone who needs it.

Tonight we called Katia DiPaolo and let her know that we’d be gone the rest of the week, but we also told her we missed her and Emely last Sunday. She said they would be there this coming Sunday. We called Jasmin Hunziker, but India answered the phone and when we asked to talk to Jasmin, she said her mother would call us back later. Later must mean sometime other than tonight because it’s 10:00 now. Tomorrow we have to be up by 5:30 to get ready for our temple trip so no photos tonight on our blog. Sorry.

Some mugs we'd bought earlier; what we bought today.

JUNE 14, 2010 MONDAY

On this P-day we initially planned to go as a district to visit Mt. Pilatus but, because the weather forecast predicted 99% chance of rain, we cancelled the trip. But what to do? Who wants to stay indoors all day especially on P-day? We decided we could still ride a bus even if it did rain. We’ve ridden most of the buses that go to outlying towns, but had never ridden #23 so that’s what we did. The round trip took an hour and a half and we went through some beautiful country and small towns, but nothing stood out enough to take a photo. Photos of landscape, wooded patches and streets in the towns just don’t show good in photos. However, we enjoyed our ride that took us through border controls into Germany and then back again.

We got back into Schaffhausen just in time to go to the Salvation Army’s “Broki Huus” as it opened at 2:00. Diana found a toy for Vivian, the Wigger’s little girl, and a small music box made out of clear plastic in the shape of a piano. Of course we stopped at the other Broki Huus and found a few more things. Our main goal was to find a birthday present for Silvia, which we did. It was a curved tube made out of glass that can be used for a vase or to hold candy. We found two walking sticks (they don’t match), one for Elder and one for Sister Walters who work in the mission home. We also bought a wood circle for Charlotte, two tin goblets that were very decorative and a small Swiss pin. When checking out , it’s fun to banter with the owner and he always lowers the price if we’re persistent enough.

We took all our stuff home and rested for a bit, but we got so engrossed in reading the scriptures we forgot to keep track of the time and missed the bus we wanted to take.. We wanted to make a trip to Jestetten to get a few things for tomorrow’s lunch. We caught the next bus knowing it would be nip and tuck to catch the train. Even though we almost ran after leaving the bus, we didn’t make it in time so we had an hour to kill before the next one came. We used the time to locate a store where we could buy some rubber tips for Paul’s crutches. The tip on one of them was completely gone and he put a screw in the bottom of it so the end wouldn’t wear away. We found the store and bought the rubber ends hoping that we got the right diameter for his crutches.

We caught the train, went to Jestetten, did our shopping and then returned. When we got on our bus at Schaffhausen, Alice, our landlord, was sitting there so we rode home together. As we walked up to the door she mentioned she didn’t have her key with her. We wondered what she would have done if we hadn’t come along when we did. How would she have gotten into the building?

The rest of the evening we read, had dinner (Diana tomato soup and me, left over homemade chicken noodle soup), checked emails, read Doyles and Kroffs blogs and the Desert News on line and wrote our journal. And now we wonder, where did the day go?