Tree stand and what you can see sitting in it.

AUGUST 7, 2010 SATURDAY

No appointments today, but we worked hard anyway. I spent the morning into the afternoon until 3:00 with only a short break at noon working on translating the conversion story of Diana’s grandfather, George C. Phillips. She’s going to use it in her talk tomorrow. She has ten minutes, but the story she wants to read will take her fifteen minutes. It will be okay with me, if she takes the whole twenty minutes, her ten minutes and my ten minutes.

During the break we went to get on the train to go to Jestetten to spend the last of our Euros on food for Paul. We found out when we got there that that particular line was not running, but they had buses set up to replace the trains. We were directed to the right bus and rode it to Jestetten. Yes, it took more than twice as long and wasn’t as comfortable as the train. When we got to the Jestetten Bahnhof we saw why the trains weren’t running. Yep, construction. Crews had dug a giant trench under the tracks to install a cement culvert or something. We spent our 32.44 Euros at Aldis on flour, sugar, butter, spaghetti, noodles, hamburger, nectarines, canned peaches, canned pineapple, frozen fruit (for me) and eggs. Maybe with all this food, he can put some flesh on his skinny body.

When we returned, I finished with Diana’s translation and then changed and went for a walk. I needed some quiet time and it seems I can think better when I’m out walking than sitting behind a desk. I walked up into the woods where it was cool and quiet, found a deer stand on the edge of a meadow, walked over the hill into the woods and spooked a deer, one of the few I’ve actually seen in Switzerland. As I was walking around I decided to focus my talk on testimony and what one has to do to get and keep one. Part of what I’ll use is Alma 32 where he uses planting seeds to teach the process of receiving a testimony. I’ll probably also use some of 2 Nephi 31 especially the verses where Christ invites everyone to follow His example of being baptized. I also need to focus a little bit on enduring to the end. Tomorrow we’ll have a mixed congregation of active members, less-active members, children and adults, and investigators. It’ll be a challenge to present something for all to feast on. I really haven’t been able to “write a talk” and just have ideas floating around in my head. I’ll certainly need the help of the Spirit to help me say what needs to be said.

While I was doing the translating, Diana was working at sorting, keeping, discarding and weighing our baggage. It’ll be a miracle, if we can get it all done before we go home. Later this evening we sent text message invitations to Priska & Mike and Charlotte Kunz. Will they come to Church tomorrow? We practiced singing our hymn that we’ll sing tomorrow with Dorothea Jaermann.

Of course we cleared our emails (getting fewer and fewer all the time) and we read the blogs of our friends in Geneva and Buenos Aires. Roxsan, Monica and Rebecca are busy planning our vacation to Bear Lake the Monday after we get home. It doesn’t seem possible that we’ll be home next Thursday.

Juergen & Susan Klaumuenzner and Elder and Sister Larson; Worms that have eaten the plant outside the door of our apartment.

AUGUST 6, 2010 FRIDAY

Our meeting with Emely went really well this morning, even when we were there at 9:00. We presented her with a very nice CTR (WDR in German, Waehle Das Recht) ring which was too big for Emely. We bought the smallest one they had, but Diana devised a plan that we thought was inspired. We presented it to Emely and, because it was too big, we suggested we let her mother wear it until she was big enough for it to fit her. She agreed and Katia was really excited that she’ll be able to wear it for awhile. We should have bought them both one, but hindsight is better than foresight, it seems. We centered our lesson around choosing the right and used a conference talk given by Elder L. Tom Perry in the November 1993 issue of the Ensign. We also gave Katia a sunstone and discussed it’s symbolism. Just for kicks and because we don’t have room to take some things home, we also gave Emely the pencil our kids sent us that smelled like bubble gum and a fish on a key ring. She loved both of them. She hooked the key ring fish on her backpack which had nine or ten other similar animal key rings on it. It was hard to say goodbye, but they promised to come to Church on Sunday to see us for the last time.

We took the barber tools with us so we didn’t have to go home to get them. We took the bus back to the bahnhof, waited the fifteen minutes for the train to come, and then we were on our way to Frauenfeld to visit Juergen and Susan Klaumuenzner. When we got to Winterthur, we had to change trains and after we did, we called Juergen to let him know we would be at the Frauenfeld Bahnhof at 12:00. The lady that sat across the aisle from us noticed that we spoke English and started a conversation with us. It turned out she was a Jehovah Witness and was happy to talk about religion. She was very genial and complimentary about the missionary effort of the Mormon Church and then she said she really didn’t know what we believed. That opened the door toi a very brief first discussion. We only had fifteen minutes on the train from Winterthur to Frauenfeld. As we were pulling into Frauenfeld we gave her a Book of Mormon with the usual brochures in it and she in turn gave us a couple of Watch Tower magazines. We thanked her and she seemed happy to receive the Book of Mormon. We just hope she reads what we gave her. She probably hopes the same thing.

When we got off the train, Juergen was already there to pick us up and take us to his home. We spent an enjoyable three hours there visiting, cutting his hair and eating a wonderfully delicious baked salmon dinner. On the side she had baked/braised potatoes and green beans making it a very calorie conscious healthy meal. Dessert was fresh mashed blackberries from their garden with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. They are a great couple who have served in the mission home for five or six years straight, but now they are anxious to wrap up what’s necessary to close out the mission home in Zurich and transfer all responsibilities to the new mission home in Munich, Germany.

When we got home, we finished writing the report on our investigators and comments about the members for the missionaries that will replace us here. They’ll be able to hit the ground running. Later I took a walk while Diana worked on her talk that she’ll be giving in sacrament meeting Sunday. If all come who say they’ll be there, the building should be packed.

Elder Neuffer called today to let us know the zone conference will be in Schwamendingen on Wednesday, August 11, just a day before we go home. At the last zone conference a month ago we were asked to bear our testimonies which is the custom for those going home. Will we be asked to do it again? We go home the next day. Of course, we’re always ready to bear testimony. He also told us that he wasn’t allowed to have a district meeting during the same week as a zone conference. They were really looking forward to the french toast, hashbrowns, fried eggs, sausage and hot chocolate breakfast that we told them was on the menu for next Tuesday. Oh well, not having a district meeting will give us more time to get everything done so we can leave with a clear conscience.

A Swiss chalet without flowers; somewhere around Urnaesch; Diana, Deborah, India, Jasmin, Robert, and David in front.

AUGUST 5, 2010 THURSDAY

Right now we would have been in a jet on our way home, if we hadn’t extended another week. But, if we had gone home, we would have missed some wonderful experiences meeting with people. We probably would have missed Markus and Dora Wachter, Claudia Clavadetscher, Jasmin Hunziker and her three kids, Emely and Katia DiPaolo (tomorrow) and the Klaumuenzners (tomorrow). As yet, after tomorrow, we don’t have any appointments scheduled, but that may change. We have to have some time to prepare our talks for Sunday, finish sorting, packing and getting rid of stuff, thoroughly clean our apartment from top to bottom, wash all the bedding and put it into shape for the two sisters to take over. We also have one more P-day to spend with Charlotte so that takes care of Monday. Tuesday we have district meeting and lunch which takes all morning and into the afternoon. We’ll probably visit Paul one more time Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday late afternoon and evening will be spent with Pres. and Sister Condie in Schwamendingen for our final interview; they also want to take us to dinner somewhere. We’ll probably get home late that evening, the day before we leave for home.

This morning we arrived at Jasmin’s home at 9:45 and were glad she and her three kids were home. This was the first time we’ve been able to meet with the whole family. After the greetings and how are yous, Diana offered the prayer and then we had a wonderful discussion. For the benefit of India (12) and Deborah (9) we gave a brief overview of the Plan of Salvation in simple terms and then jumped into a discussion about the commandments God has given us. Nothing was really new for Jasmin; she already new about the Word of Wisdom and tithing. Diana used the object lesson using M&M peanuts to illustrate the windows of heaven being opened up and God showering us with blessings, when we pay our tithing (Mal. 3:7-12). Diana poured 10 M&Ms into her hand, asked for 10%, then poured the rest into her hands which, of course, spilled over her hands onto to the floor. The kids really enjoyed that part of the lesson. We didn’t get to discuss all of the commandments in the lesson, but we briefly mentioned the ones we wouldn’t cover. Among those was chastity. Jasmin didn’t let us skip over that one, but asked us to briefly teach what chastity meant. As we taught it, she looked at India to reinforce and agree with what we were saying. India is only twelve, but it seems her mother wanted her to understand the meaning of chastity.

We included India and Deborah during the lesson, asking them questions and having them read some of the scriptures. When the Spirit was strong, we reminded Jasmin that last time she agreed to be baptized and asked her, if we could set a solid baptism date. She responded she hadn’t received a strong testimony yet, and thought maybe she would be ready in three months. When we told her we were going home next Thursday and this was probably the last time we would meet with her, she was anxious to know if someone would replace us to continue teaching them. We assured her that two sister missionaries would be coming to replace us and they would be glad to continue with her. We were glad to have that established and that she wanted the missionaries to come. We told her we would be speaking in sacrament meeting Sunday and she said she and her kids would be there. We asked India to say the closing prayer and taught her and Deborah how to pray. She was too bashful and asked her mother to give them an example of how it was done, so Jasmin offered it.

When we got back to Schaffhausen, we were a little early to go meet Franz Maier, so we went home briefly. An hour later we met Franz, where we usually meet him, in the Manor Restaurant. As soon as we said hello and got settled, he pulled out some photos of a female who he claimed was an international fugitive wanted for manslaughter. He said she lives in Schaffhausen and that he reported her to the police, but nothing has happened to her. She’s still running around loose. He continued his normal theme about how governments are crooked, the banks take all our money and etc etc etc. He surprised us by inviting his wife to meet us today and a half hour into our meeting with him, she arrived. She’s a very nice lady and thinks Franz is too critical of everything, that he takes it too seriously. He, on the other hand, thinks she’s naive and sticks her head in the sand. After she finished her lunch she had to go back to work, but not before Franz told her Sunday will be our last Sunday and would she come to Church with him. She agreed and so that’s another commitment for Sunday. We carried on the conversation with him for another half hour and then he surprised us. He asked us why we came on our mission and who pays for it. We had the opportunity to bear our testimonies, talk about the gathering of Isreal and our responsibility as members of the true Church to bring the gospel to all peoples. Finally it was time to go and we left with his promise ringing in our ears that “absolutely we’ll come to Church Sunday.”

We were going to go to Jestetten one last time to spend the rest of our Euros on groceries, but we missed the train. We decided to just go home and continue our task to getting things ready to go home. It has been raining all day anyway and wasn’t a good day to be out and about, especially with groceries. When we got home, I changed, gathered up all the plastic and glass bottles and cans, put them into my backpack to take to the recycle bins by Migros. There was also a bag of old shoes other missionaries had left in the basement as well as a bag of overcoats, belts and bedding. Missionaries have been asked to get rid of everything, when they are transferred, but it seems they don’t get around to it. We did it for them. With the backpack on my back, a big bag in each hand, I climbed the stairway to heaven and continued on up to Hochstrasse where there were some collection bins for clothes and shoes. It wasn’t a big problem to donate them. I walked the half hour to Migros and also got rid of the cans, bottles and containers. While I was there, I bought some more garbage bag stamps because we were almost out. We’ll need them to get rid of all the other crap that’s been left here (in the basement storage room) which we’ll do through the normal weekly garbage pick up.

We noticed yesterday a lot of inch and a half long green worms eating on the leaves of some plants by the front door of our house. We didn’t have an opportunity to tell our landlords about it until this afternoon. Jakob was working on the front door, when we got home, which is right next to the plants so we showed them to him. He in turn got his wife and showed her. They were amazed they hadn’t noticed them and said they had never had a problem with them before. The little bounders are fast eaters because they had just about stripped the plant bare from yesterday to today.

It’s only 8:45 right now and we’re just about done with the journal entry. It seems kind of odd, but by the time we add photos and post it, it’ll probably be 9:30. Hopefully, we’ll get to bed early because we have another meeting with Emely at 9:00 in the morning.

Jungfrau above Grindelwald; Diana & Madeleine; Robert, Diana, Silvia & Sylvain Gardedieu.

AUGUST 4, 2010 WEDNESDAY

After my walk this morning we spent some time going through things deciding what to take, what to throw away and what to leave behind. Where did all this stuff come from? We have been careful not to buy much, but it seems to have multiplied while we weren’t looking.

Diana called Suwang, our little Thai friend from Altstetten, to tell her goodbye and that we were leaving in a few days. She did everything she could to convince us to come visit her, but we just don’t have time. It would take most of a day to make the trip both ways and have a little time to visit. She was sad, but understood finally. She said she’s come visit us in America.

Madeleine needed some help to move a few things in her apartment and Diana promised her we’d come today to do it. We arrived in Schwamendingen about 1:30, did what we could, and then came back home for our appointment with the Gardedieus this evening. Madeleine is another friend who is hard to say goodbye to, but she is in the good hands of the Schwamendingen ward members.

We got home at 5:00 and were able to collect a few things to take to the Gardedieus, rest for about thirty minutes and then we were off again. We arrived in Schleitheim at 6:30 then walked the fifteen minutes up the hill to their home. Sylvain had a wonderfully delicious dinner prepared for us consisting of a traditional green salad with a viniagaret dressing, poached fish covered with a shrimp sauce along with a side of basmatti rice. We had a great time talking about our time together while we were enjoying the meal. They both asked us questions about our mission experiences, beginning with our application and then the MTC training. They both would like to serve a mission as a senior couple, when the time is right. The time went all too fast, but before it got too dark, Silvia insisted on taking a phot of us on their front lawn. Silvia gave Diana a red silk scarf with an Edelweis flower design on it. She said each flower represented a prayer that had been offered in their behalf. We finally had to say goodbye because we needed to catch our bus. We’ll see them at least one more time at Church next Sunday.

We got back home at 10:15 p.m. and before we could start our journal, first Roxsan skyped us, but she couldn’t hear a thing we were saying. Then Rebecca called and we talked to her for fifteen minutes and then Roxsan called us back. This time we could communicate. It started to hail there and Rees went out and brought in hailstones and some were as big as quarters. And that about brings us to the end of our day.

Paul Hunziker; Diana, Robert, Elders Neuffer (bending), Bushnell, Sills, Dahneke; Bears in Singen

AUGUST 3, 2010 TUESDAY

After we posted our journal last night we noticed our phone blinking which meant we had a message waiting. Elder Neuffer had left us a message telling us what our assignment was for tomorrow’s district meeting. He said he was sorry he didn’t get us the assignment sooner, but he wasn’t as sorry as we were. Diana’s assignment was to pick the opening song and say the opening prayer. My assignment was to provide training in the German language to increase their ability to teach. So, being it was too late to get something prepared last night, I spent the morning preparing. That meant this morning Diana was on her own to make the sloppy Joe mix and get the rest ready for lunch today for after our district meeting. I prepared a list of idioms in English with the German counterpart with the goal that they match them up. I finished in time to shower and get ready before the missionaries arrived fifteen minutes early. Diana had everything ready, too, and the sloppy Joe filling was absolutely delicious (she had me taste test it).

Elders Bushnell & Sills and Elders Dahneke & Neuffer all arrived at the same time and, since we were all present, we began the meeting early. Elder Neuffer needs some practice in preparing an agenda, giving assignments, remembering who he assigned to do what, and conducting a meeting in the right way. With time he’ll learn all of these things and be a great leader. He asked Diana for the opening song and then asked me to offer the opening prayer which was actually part of Diana’s assignment. But, respecting the office of the district leader, we obediently did what he asked us to do without the slightest hesitation or correction. By the end of the meeting I knew he had forgotten what he asked me to do. After the meeting was over I asked him if I could give the German tip next week because I already had it prepared. It dawned on him that he’d totally forgotten my real assignment, apologized profusely and assented to my request.

Part of the meeting involved spotlighting someone. Because we are going home soon, Elder Neuffer focused on us this time. He passed out two pieces of paper to each elder and asked them to write something about us, fold them and then give them to us. Diana read them one by one and this is what they wrote:
“You’re always willing to share what’s important to you.”
“Sister Larson, your meals and sweet spirit always brightened our day. Your German is pretty darned good, too.”
“Elder Larson, you’re like a father to us. The help, guidance and haircuts were all extremely appreciated.”
“Senior couple Larson, it’s gonna get warmer when you leave. Why? Because you’re so cool! Like cooler than the underside of the pillow cool.”
“You have been a great strength to our district as missionaries.”
“You set a great example for other missionaries and those you meet.”
“The Larsons are a hard working, missionary, married, converting team; they are very good examples and are......”
“Every time the Larsons get out of bed in the morning, Satan says “Oh, crap!”
“You guys work so well together you’ve never been transferred away from each other.”

What great missionaries we have. We gave each one a red T-shirt with the white Swiss flag on the front and the word Schweiz (Switzerland) on the back. They all seemed excited to get one and wanted a district photo wearing them.

After they were gone we got our stuff together to go visit Paul. We bought him some groceries yesterday, when we went to Erzlingen. We took him some frozen chicken, hamburger, butter, milk, cans of soup, flour, leftover sloppy Joe and a couple of buns. He was happy to get it, but was especially happy to see the butter. He said he’d run out a couple weeks ago. There’s a story that goes with the hamburger that shows the Lord is in our lives a lot more than we think. He cares about us and helps us with our decisions, if we pay attention. And this time we did. As we were looking at the hamburger deciding which to buy, we first selected the mixed meat kind (beef and pork) which was about fifty cents a package cheaper than the beef hamburger. Anyone who knows us would expected we would buy the cheapest and we actually put the mixed meat kind in our cart. But then we had a change of heart and put it back and got the all beef kind. Why? We didn’t know or really think about it, we just did it. When we got to Pauls and took everything out of the sack and put it on his table, he looked at the ingredients and was glad to see that the hamburger was all beef. He said he was allergic to pork. How’s that for a testimony builder.

We spent an hour and a half with him listening to his life’s experiences as well as talking about the gospel and the influence Jesus has had in our lives. He gave us a card that he’d made himself as a token of his appreciation and hoped we’d remember him after we returned home. We won’t ever forget Paul.

We had a little bit of time after we got home to prepare for our next appointment which was with Claudia Clavadetscher. We had a good meeting with her, bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and teaching about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. We read and discussed 2 Kings Chapter 2 focusing on the priesthood keys, recognizing and sustaining prophets. We read and discussed the story of Naaman and Elischa which teaches us to have faith, repent, be baptized by immersion and be cleansed by the Holy Ghost, and that we all can open our mouths to proclaim the gospel as did the young Isrealite girl who had been taken captive. We read most of 2 Nephi 31 and then invited her to follow the example of Jesus and be baptized by someone having the authority of the priesthood. We didn’t quite get a commitment, but she said she’d come to Church next Sunday. We feel she is close to baptism and hope the missionaries replacing us will be able to help her make the final step.

When we got off the bus at our stop, we talked to a young black man who was looking for an address in the area. We spoke to him in German, but then he asked us if we spoke English. We switched to English and, before he took off to catch up with his friends, we gave him an English Book of Mormon. He was in too big of a hurry to get an address or anything.

Back at home working on our journal, we received a call from Markus Wachter, the husband of Dora, who is a less-active member in the Schwamendingen Ward. Elders Stucki & Christensen had just been there and told them we were leaving soon. He called to chastize us for trying to leave Switzerland without saying goodbye to them. We told him we wouldn’t of let that happen, but were waiting for them to call us as they had promised the last time we visited them. We both had a chuckle and then at the end of our conversation agreed to meet in the airport just before we leave on August 12. We wish he’d make the decision to be baptized which would help Dora to become more active.

And that kind of sums up our day. All in all, a good day.