JULY 30, 2010 FRIDAY

No, the meringue thingies didn’t turn out very good. They melted in the oven, got crisp and then chewy again and they didn’t taste very good either. Oh well, nothing’s gained by not trying.

Neide called this morning wanting some advice on what to do with Marcello. He will lose his apartment next Monday and wants to move in with Neide. The problem is, he is abusive to her, always demands money and has told others that he only wants to live there so he can use his own money to buy drugs and alcohol. Neide is afraid of her own son amd that is not easy for a mother to admit. Neide said she would rather move out and live with a friend and let Marcello have her apartment until she can find him another one to live in. He’s her only son and he keeps telling her she’s a horribly bad mother every time he doesn’t get what he wants. Neide wants to be a good mother and has, in part, bought into his ploy because she doesn’t want to be a bad mother. We spent time with her talking about actions and consequences and that Marcello won’t learn anything until he suffers from his bad decisions. Later on this evening we sent her an email with scriptures for her to look up and think about.

Sister Klaumuenzner called this morning, too, wanting to make an appointment for her husband to get his hair cut before we went home. We arranged to go to their home in Frauenfeld on August 6 for lunch and for the haircut. It will be good to see them one more time before we go home.

We were just getting ready to go out the door to catch the 11:37 bus to go to the DiPaolos when the phone rang. Katia was on it and asked us if we were coming for lunch. We said we were just leaving and that we would be there at 12:00. Evidently, when she called the other day to change the appointment time, Diana mistook 11:00 for 12:00, so we ended up being an hour late.

While she finished cooking lunch, Diana talked with her and I played Uno with Emely. Soon everything was ready and lunch was served. The first serving was a delicious noodle pesto dish with Parmesan cheese. We thought that was the main dish and so we ate all we wanted. Little did we know. When we finished, she cooked each of us a steak, something we haven’t had for a very long time. Along with the steak came a green salad and slices of mozzarella drenched in olive oil. Matter of fact, the green salad had olive oil in it and so did the noodles. Honest to goodness Italian cuisine. We didn’t have time for dessert because we wanted to hear the lesson Katia had prepared for us. She gave a very good lesson just like any good LDS member would give. We wish she would become more active in attending Church. It would bless her’s and her family’s life and help Emely be able to get baptized. We wanted to stay a little longer, but we had to leave to meet Dorothea at the bahnhof for our trip to Andelfingen to visit Carla Sprenger.

Here in Europe one always has to be aware of the time because bus and train schedules are pretty exact and you have to calculate time constantly. We made it to the bahnhof with three minutes to spare, met Dorothea and climbed aboard the train. Twenty minutes later we arrived in Andelfingen, got off and walked the twenty-five minutes to the care center where Carla lives. On the way there Dorothea kept admiring the view, the flowers and was especially excited about the working water wheel we passed on our way there. She had to stop on the bridge to admire the river and remarked how muddy the water was because of the recent heavy rains. We finally made it to Carla’s apartment and had a nice two hour visit with her. We gave her a photo of us and her that we took during our last visit. She gave us a few keepsakes, too, and even gave a little doll to Dorothea. We spent some time singing the song we were hoping to sing in Church before we go home, but it’s impossible for Carla to come because of her health. Before we left she asked me to give her a blessing which I gladly did. We hope Dorothea and Silvia continue to make visits with her after we go home. She’s such a dear sister who needs contact with Church members.

Back at home I changed and walked to the grocery store and bought some nectarines, pears, apples and a bottle of berry flavored buttermilk. Do they even have flavored buttermilk in the States? I hope so.

We expected Charlotte to call tonight to let us know that all was okay for her to go through the temple tomorrow, but by 9:00 we thought we should call her. She said she went to Chur last Wednesday to have her interview with Pres. Bolt and that went okay, but she forgot her recommend for him to sign. She went back the next day and got his signature. The trip to Chur from Zurich takes three hours each way, so it was quite an undertaking. When she tried to contact Stephen Schmid who activates recommends for the stake, she found out he was on vacation in Italy. She was finally able to track him down and, how he did it we don’t know, but he activated her recommend from there. So it seemed everything was finally in place for her to attend the temple for her endowments. However, one last thing popped up. She had previously arranged to go through the 9:00 session, but didn’t realize it would be in Italian. Joerg suggested she change the session to 10:00, but she didn’t want to do that because she would have to call everyone to inform them of the change. Heinz Locher suggested she postpone it a week and reschedule. Noooooooo!!!!!! she said. She’s had so much trouble trying to get to the temple that she couldn’t tolerate another delay. She said she and all the others attending could simply use language headsets and that would have to do. So, it seems all is set. We’ll have to leave at 5:15 in the morning to get to the temple for the 9:00 session. So, we better get to bed.

Swiss and Kanton flags; feeding the ducks in Fluelin w/Nikolas & Diana; downtown Zurich.

JULY 29, 2010 THURSDAY

Have you ever noticed that when you raise your hand to suggest something in a meeting, that it’s you who gets the assignment to do it, if it’s approved? That is one way to stop people from suggesting things that would help or improve something. In our weekly report there is a section on it to list help needed for each person we put on it. Paul was baptized on May 8, 2010, and was called about a month and a half later as the instructor for the Gospel Doctrine class for the adult Sunday School class. His first attempt was not so good, but the members were supportive and encouraging. In our report we suggested someone train Paul on how to teach a class so he would feel more comfortable doing it and so that members could learn something. Last Sunday Pres. Flammia put his arm around my shoulders and lovingly asked me if I would assist Paul and team teach next Sunday’s lesson with him. Pres. Matern would have gone crazy, if he were still here and found out I agreed to help him. Pres. Matern insisted that it’s the ward’s job and not the missionaries job. But how could I have said no? So this morning we studied Lesson 29, especially the story about Naaman, because that is the part we were going to assign Paul to teach.

Just before our lunch appointment at noon with Paul it started to rain. When we had to leave for the appointment, it was raining so hard that rivers were running down the roads. How does that saying go? “Neither rain, hail, sleet or snow will keep us from our appointed rounds” or something like that. We both had umbrellas, but they didn’t do us much good in keeping dry. We were soaked by the time we walked up the stairs to Paul’s, especially our legs and shoes. But, the good thing is, we don’t melt and sooner or later, we dry out.

We needed to start getting rid of some of the food we’ve accumulated and won’t have time to consume, at least that’s the excuse we gave to Paul. We took him four liters of milk, two kilos of flour, one kilo of sugar, three packages of peppermint tea, a package of lasagne noodles and a bag of popcorn. He’s always grateful to get what we bring. Paul had lunch ready for us and really does a pretty good job of cooking good tasting meals. Today it was a green salad, roast chicken, rice and peas and carrots.

After the meal we got down to business and reviewed how we wanted to divide up the lesson. I would take the introduction and the first section comprising 2 Kings Chapter 2. Paul agreed to do the next section which is Chapter 5, the story about Naaman. If there is any time left, we’ll both try and do Chapter 6. To help him we explained how to get a class started and some of the things one can do to spark interest. We read the story about Naaman and then went through and picked out the things we can learn from it. We spent about an hour on it and hope that it will help Paul bring out the important parts. Of course, we’ll be there to support him on Sunday.

After we finished with the lesson Paul got a VHS tape out of Schwarzwald, Germany, and talked us in to staying to watch it. We aren’t going to be here much longer, and he hates to see us leave, so we stayed another hour watching the video just to make him happy. By the time we left it was sunny, but still pretty cold. The weather has been really weird, first breaking heat records and now it feels like October. Go figure.

Back at home we put a load of wash in and then I went for my walk. I thought by the time I got back it would be finished, but I was wrong. Not too much later though it was finished and I put it in the dryer and put another load in the washer. When that load is done, I’ll have another to do. This’ll keep me busy until we go to bed late tonight. Each time I go check on the wash it requires going up and down three flights of stairs. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out tonight and just counted this for my walk.

Katia DiPaolo called this morning and changed her appointment tomorrow from 10:30 to 12:00. That required that we change Carla Sprenger’s appointment from 2:00 to 3:00 and then make sure Sister Jaermann could come with us then, too. Luckily, everything worked out okay so we can make both appointments.

Madeleine called to get the details about Charlotte going to the temple on Saturday and to just talk with Diana about this and that. What is she going to do when Diana isn’t around to talk to any more? She still has the ward in Schwamendingen, but she has a special connection with Diana.

Last, but not least, Elder Vincent called to check in and to check on us. He has been calling us every week or two since he got to know us right after he arrived in Switzerland sometime in the spring of 2009. He said he’d be in the 9:00 session on Saturday with us and Charlotte, if Charlotte gets her recommend tomorrow.

Diana is in the kitchen right now trying out the recipe to make meringue with Splenda instead of sugar. We’ll see if she’s successful.

Zurich City Bldg. where we deregistered; Elder Daschen; elder Bond.

Stairway to Heaven; just a photo didn't do it justice.


JULY 28, 2010 WEDNESDAY

We were on the 8:14 train headed to Schwamendingen loaded down with some large serving bowls (in my backpack) for Madeleine, two large plastic sacks with bedding for Nicholas and another bag with my hair cutting stuff in it. While we were on the train, Charlotte called us to give us an update on Hitsch Bolt. The doctors decided that he didn’t have a stroke, but that he just fainted from overwork and stress. He and Kathy were supposed to be on a vacation for him to rest, but instead, he worked around his vacation home in Klosters moving rocks and doing other things that he shouldn’t have. He is still recovering from his severe stroke from three years ago and knows better than to overdo it. It is easier said than done, however. He’ll be home from the hospital tomorrow and there shouldn’t be a problem with both Charlotte and Neide having their temple recommend interview with him.

When we got to the Church at 9:20 to drop off the stuff we were carrying, no one had arrived yet. We expected that Pres. Condie would already be underway with his missionary interviews, but he wasn’t. It was a good thing we had written down the electronic code to the side door, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get in. We dropped off the stuff we had and then left to go inform the immigration office that we’d be leaving August 12. We went to the office in Schwamendingen and the clerk told us we were at the wrong place and directed us to go into Zurich to the city offices where they handle people leaving the country. We went back out, climbed in Tram #9 and took a nostalgic trip into Zurich. Thirty minutes later we arrived at Paradeplatz, got out and walked to the City building which was right next to the Jungfrau Kirche. It only took a few minutes to take care of the legal change of address and we were on our way back to the Church.

When we climbed on the tram at Zentral, Sister Robinson & her companion got on and rode with us. By the time we got back the place was humming with activity. Pres. Condie was interviewing, missionaries were waiting their turn in the foyer, Sister Condie was busy talking to two sister missionaries and Charlotte was there waiting for us to give her the two sacks for Nikolas. It was fun seeing missionaries we have gotten to know and love. At first no one seemed to need or want a haircut, but as they left and others came, I was put to work. All in all I gave haircuts to four or five missionaries, most before our interview with Pres. & Sister Condie and Elder Bond after.

Pres. Matern always interviewed us together by himself; Sister Matern never sat in except twice when he came to interview us at our apartment. We had a good chat together which lasted about thirty minutes. He asked our opinion about who we felt would best serve in Schaffhausen, a senior couple, elders or sisters. We expressed our opinion that a senior couple would be best because the branch needs mature missionaries to support the members. He said the Gardners would eventually be coming to Schaffhausen, but it may be a couple of months before they could. We suggested that sister missionaries would be better than elders because our investigators were mostly women and they would related better to them. At the end of our meeting he invited us out to dinner with them on the evening of August 11; they’ll be in Schwamendingen for a zone conference and we would have to travel in to meet them. It will be a little inconvenient for us, but how could we say no? He offered to let us stay in the Zurich mission home on our last night so we wouldn’t have to go back to Schaffhausen, if we wanted to.
Neide also came over to the church while we were there and it was good to talk to her again. We found out that Charlotte and Neide happened to meet yesterday at a bus stop and ended up talking with each other for an hour or so. It seemed to have been a therapeutic meeting without anyone else around. They were able to work out some issues without either becoming hostile or offensive. In talking with both of them today they said it was a good meeting. Both anticipate being able to go to the temple with us, but on different days.

We came back to Schaffhausen and went immediately to our little church and got the vacuum and cleaning materials out ready to get to work. Michael arrived and fired up the vacuum. That seems to be the job he likes to do. Diana and I cleaned toilets, sinks, kitchen and etc. Soon we were done and we all went on home. Before we did I had Michael try on my suit coat to see if it would fit him. It did and he liked it. I told him he could have it, but not until the last Sunday we are here. The suit coat he wears is way too big for him and the sleeves hang about six inches below the ends of his fingers. He’ll be happy to have a coat that fits him.

We went on home and had time to prepare a little supper, tomato soup for Diana and left over lasagne for me. We didn’t have much time to rest because we had a home teaching appointment with Kofi at 6:00. We climbed the stairway to heaven to pick up Paul on our way to Kofi’s. Paul was already waiting for us on the sidewalk so we just walked on down the street. Kofi doesn’t have his name on the outside doorbells so we just rang the four that didn’t have any names on them hoping Kofi would answer. A guy stuck his head out of a window and got mad at us for disturbing him. Next thing we knew Paul rang them all again. That made that man all the madder. I forgot my planner with Kofi’s phone number in it, but I finally found it in the memory of our cell phone and called him. He wasn’t home and wouldn’t be until later. It was disappointing for us and especially for Paul because he struggles to walk anywhere. He uses crutches because of equilibrium problems and has pains in his legs. We walked him back home and then went home ourselves.

Later on Roxsan skyped us. We talked with her about some rental problems and about our confirmed date to come home on August 12. Our flights are booked. We got to talk to Rees for awhile and then Roxsan came back on. But then something happened with our connection and we couldn’t get her back. And that kind of sums up our day. No turning back now. Our visas are only good until August 12 and our flights are booked.

A house in Altdorf; our stairway to Heaven from the bottom up and then from the top down.
The photo below is a scene just below the William Tell museum in Altdorf.


JULY 27, 2010 TUESDAY

I always get up first to shower, shave and go through my morning routine after which Diana gets up and does the same. While she was doing that, I fried the hamburger, sauteed the onions and partly cooked the lasagne noodles. Along with those items we got out the mozzarella, cottage cheese, grated cheese and the Parmesan cheese. First comes the layer of lasagne noodles, followed by cottage cheese, hamburger mixed with spaghetti sauce, sauteed onions, Parmesan, grated cheese and then the process starts over with the noodles. Our lasagne ended up with three layers of lasagne noodles and ending with the cheese on the top layer. We filled one 10X13 pan and another 7X10 pan, covered them with tin foil and then set them aside to cook later. We finished with enough time to work on our five minute presentations for district meeting a little before the elders arrived.

The meeting’s focus today was on the attributes of Christ. Each of us was assigned an attribute to talk about and at the end we were challenged to do a self evaluation to determine which attribute we wanted to focus on during the coming week. Diana did a great job, as usual, on the subject of diligence. She used an article out of the Financial Times written by a journalist about why Mormons are moving to the forefront in business, government service and public life. A lot of it stems from the preparation, training, commitment, work ethic, morals and etc. young men and women get as they serve missions by diligently applying themselves.

Part way through the meeting the phone rang. Neide called to talk about where she was at in terms of getting a temple recommend. She had problems last Sunday with her son, Marcello, and didn’t attend Church so she was unable to make an appointment with her bishop for her temple recommend interview. She asked me if I thought it would be alright for her to call the bishop right then. I told her bishops are used to getting calls anytime, night or day, and if he could, he would answer her call. We hung up and fifteen minutes later she called back. She said he was very understanding and they had arranged the interview for Sunday at noon. She was hoping to be able to have her interview with Pres. Bolt soon after and in time for us to be able to go to the temple with her before we leave on the 12th of August. Of course, we couldn’t tell her anything about Pres. Bolt’s health, but we hope he’ll be well enough to meet with her, or maybe he could assign a counselor to do the interview for him. We’re just hoping she and Charlotte both can get to the temple before we go home.

Later this afternoon we copied Chapter 29 in the Old Testament Manual (for me) then took the manual to Paul Hunziker. He and I are responsible to teach next Sunday’s lesson. We won’t need the manual anymore and Paul should have it because he has the calling of Sunday School Instructor. The Sunday School president has the only manual for the branch and gives it to whoever has the next lesson which makes it kind of hard to do preparation for a lesson. However, there was a manual in our apartment and now Paul has his own manual.

Since we had a lot of lasagne left over, we took him enough for two meals. He seemed pleased to have something to eat that he didn’t have to prepare himself. We also made arrangements with him to go home teaching Kofi tomorrow at 6:00 and then to meet with him at noon on Thursday for lunch and to go over how we’re going to teach the lesson on Sunday.

I didn’t get a chance to take my walk this morning so when we got back home, I went out for my walk. As we are winding down on our mission we remind ourselves to enjoy every minute, every train ride, every bus ride, every meeting with members and investigators. It’s the same when I go out walking; I try and take everything in.

Later this evening we made a few phone calls and were able to make one appointment for Friday afternoon with Carla Sprenger. She said she fell down a couple days ago which caused her some problems, but she’s starting to feel a little better. We called Sister Jaermann to see if she could go with us, but she had other plans, if the weather is good. If the weather turns out not so good, then she’ll get back with us. We’d like other members to get to know some of these people so they won’t be forgotten when we leave.

Tomorrow we need to leave early for Schwamendingen so we can report to the government office that we are leaving Switzerland on August 12. After that we have to take some sheets and bedding to Charlotte for Nikolas, some bowls to Madeleine and then go to the Church and be ready to cut the hair of any missionaries needing or wanting haircuts. Our interview with Pres. Condi is at 1:00. We’ll stay awhile longer after to cut hair, but we need to be back at the Church in Schaffhausen by 4:30 to help Michael Hartig clean it. It’ll be another busy day tomorrow.

Our bus over the mountain pass; scenery; Nikolas and Charlotte on the train.

JULY 26, 2010 MONDAY

My eyes popped open at 5:20, but I waited for the alarm to go off at 5:30 before I got up. A half hour later I was showered, shaved, dressed and ready to make lunches. I woke Diana up and while she got ready, I made the lunches, packed in some fruit, a bottle of berry flavored buttermilk for me and a bottle of water for Diana. All set to go we had a prayer and were at the bus stop at 6:47. While waiting for the bus, a man approached us and asked in very bad and heavy accented German if we had a bible. We told him we did, but it was in German. He asked again if we had the three books in one so we asked him if he meant the Book of Mormon. He said he did, but we weren’t quite sure exactly what he wanted. We finally determined his mother language was Kurdish and/or Turkish. He was happy when we told him we’d bring him a copy of the Book of Mormon in one of those languages, if we had his address. He wrote his name and address down in our planner so we are now obligated to take him one. He got on the bus the same time we did and put his finger to his lips and asked us to be quiet. He then continued to talk in a pretty loud voice that he was a Christian instead of a Muslim, and said a lot of other things which we couldn’t really understand. So we’ll have an adventure when we take him his book.

We caught our 7:01 train to Zurich, met up with Charlotte and Nikolas Sigrist, Charlotte’s 6 year old godson, got on the train and traveled to Linthal. We got off there, got on another train and traveled to Ziegelbruecke where we got off and climbed aboard a bus that took us over the pass and down the other side to Altdorf. The ride was up a winding narrow road that switched back and forth as it climbed up one side, over the summit, and down the other. It was such a magnificent ride through green mountains with little communities and homes in places you wouldn’t believe without seeing them. Many waterfalls cascaded down the steep mountainsides, some seeming to come right out of the mountain wall. There must have been thousands of cows grazing in the hanging valleys and when the bus stopped for twenty minutes at the top, the mountains were alive with the clanging bells hung around their necks. There were many little cheese factories along the road selling their cheeses made right on the spot. During our twenty minute break we climbed a trail a picked a few heidelberren (blueberries) growing wild on the hillside. We bought a small chunk of cheese just for the heck of it to see how it tastes. Then we continued down the other side.

When we got to the outskirts of Altdorf, the home of William Tell, we got out at the William Tell Museum. The museum wasn’t very big, but it had the story of William Tell, many statues and paintings as well as a lot of books and medallions etc. They showed a ten minute video about his story, too. We ate our lunch sitting on a bench outside the museum and just finished when the bus came. Since we’d been to Altdorf before during the winter, we didn’t stop in the town, but continued on to Fluelen where we fed the ducks until our paddle-wheeled boat came. We climbed aboard and road it the length of Vierwaldstaettersee to Luzern. We have taken this trip a couple of times before, but we never tire of the beautiful scenery, the picturesque towns and the clouds which hang in the mountain valleys.

We arrived at Luzern, disembarked, walked to the train station and caught our train back to Zurich. As soon as we got off in Zurich it was a mad dash to get to our train for Schaffhausen, but we made it. We were home by 7:30 none the worse for wear.

Today’s trip was a treat because we had little Nikolas with us. We got to know him when we were working in the Schwamendingen Ward. His mother is less-active and his mother and father don't get along too well. He’s just a good fun little boy who needs a good father figure in his life. After the first little while he insisted on sitting by me and following me wherever I went. We really had a good time together the whole day.

Elder Neuffer called at 8:45 apologizing for the late call for our district meeting assignments for tomorrow. Great! It’s already bedtime, we have to be up early to prepare their lunch and now we have an assignment? Diana’s is a five minute talk on “diligence;” mine is a five minute talk on “hope.”

Just as I hung up with Elder Neuffer, we got a call from Charlotte. She gave us the bad news that Hitch Bolt, our Stake President, had another stroke and was in the hospital. She didn’t know exactly how bad a shape he’s in, but she said he has weakness in his left side, but can still talk okay. She feels Satan is working overtime to keep her from getting to the temple. First, Irene & Joerg Moeller-Russo insisted she wait until they returned from their vacation so they could go with her. She postponed it for them, but then she had the blow-up with Neide which delayed it again. This week she was to have had her final interview with Pres. Bolt on Wednesday, and now he’s in the hospital with a stroke. His wife told her to come to the hospital for her interview, but she’s not sure if it’ll happen. Pres. Bolt doesn’t want anyone to know about it in hopes it won’t get any worse, but Charlotte wanted us to know so we can pray for him and her. We promised her we wouldn’t tell anyone and we would honor Pres. Bolt’s wishes that he be the one to tell when he decides it’s time.

This morning we sent Neide an email asking her how she’s doing and how things were progressing with her plans to go to the temple. We expressed our support and desire to go with her when she goes for the first time. We were hoping to have an answer from her when we returned tonight, but we didn’t get one. We're not sure how Pres. Bolt's condition will impact Neide's going to the temple either.

And that was our day today.