The Mission Revisted... May 1999

By the time of this Journal entry I had already done a couple of work overs with other Elders, had attended a few district meetings and had even taught a couple of English classes to some Swiss citizens in Basel. The mission was off to a fast start and I felt like I was just trying to catch up. I love this journal entry though because the week of this journal entry was a week where my mission started to change. It was the first week where I had really seen the spirit intervene in our work. Needless to say, once I saw this happen my mission was never the same afterwards.

May 21, 1999 -- Basel, Switzerland

This journal entry is going to be a long one, so embrace yourself...

The Lord blows me away. What better way to start this entry than that. I have to admit, our program here in Basel has been struggling. If the truth is known, I've been struggling. I haven't fallen in love with the work, up until this week. Why has this week been different? I honestly believe that it is because I've worked harder this week than at any other point on my mission so far. Elder Bohm and I have been heading out the door at 9:00am everyday and have been getting home close to 9:00pm at night ready to hit our pillows. What a wonderful feeling. It's amazing how missionary work can fill your life. It truly does consume you, and it has definitely consumed me this week.

As I mentioned in my past journal entry, Elder Shurtliff (MTC Companion) and I have gotten the chance to work together a few times because we're in the same district, and working with him has really helped me. He's so enthusiastic about the work, and when I'm with him we seem to have some great success. Working with him has really helped perk up the week.

My greatest experience this week though occurred on Thursday. Bohmie and I had a work over with the Elders from Dornach, Elder Shupe, Elder Bateman & the new guy Elder Dairman. It was a cool work over and we had a lot of fun together. Elder Shupe, Bateman and I had decided to go to a French City near Saint Louis where we have some members. It's the only French city in our mission so we thought it would be a fun experience to go do some doors in France and visit our members there, but as we were getting on the tram we all felt strongly that France wasn't in the cards for the day, so we decided to stay in Basel instead and do some contacting, so that's what we did. They asked me where I felt we should go since we were in my area, but I honestly had no specific idea. So I told them that we should just start walking and see where the spirit would lead us. We hadn't walked very far when I decided that we should try some doors on Holbeinstrasse. Honestly, it just looked like a nice peaceful street. I wish I could say that it was all through inspiration that I would lead us to that street, but it wasn't. Honestly my thought process was just me looking at the street, and thinking that it looked peaceful, let's do some doors. So, we went door to door and started to work our way up the street. All we received was a lot of "Kein Intresse" (not interested) and "Keine Zeit" (no time to talk) which was frustrating. We weren't getting through to anyone. Well, okay there was 1 exception, we met a really nice Catholic lady who talked to us for about 20 minutes but she ended up just telling us that we should go talk to her preacher. We even met a spacey Australian lady who spoke English with us (which I appreciated) but she was a little loony and we didn't get anywhere with her.

Then we came to an apartment almost at the end of the street and met a lady who told us that she had been to Utah before, but that she had no interest in becoming a Mormon. So, we left and proceeded to finish the street. We then met a scary crazy man who chased us out of the entire apartment complex (I learned a lot of "colorful" German words from him) and wow, we were so frustrated! But, as we were leaving Holbeinstrasse we noticed that the lady who had told us that she had been to Utah was following us down the street, so we stopped and she started to ask us questions about Joseph Smith. I gave her a Joseph Smith pamphlet and a Book of Mormon, and then she made an appointment with me for Friday. So on Friday Elder Bohm and I visited her and we had an amazing appointment! She said that she wants to learn more and wants to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She is also going to come to stake conference with us. I was so happy! She is now a solid investigator and the first true investigator that I can say I found. I really hope that all goes well with her, we'll just have to see.

Elder Bohm and I have talked about her a lot and I really believe that the spirit lead her back to us after she had turned us away. The Lord works wonders! Well, we had a cool street display today and some neat stuff happened, but I'll write about that tomorrow. I've got to get to bed.

Tchuss

--Elder Q

Here are some pics I took on one of my P-Days while in Basel, they're of a Castle in Loerrach, Germany:

It's Official... We're Jinxed With Vacations

We booked a hotel room last Saturday and were all set for a nice weekend as a family in St. George for Memorial Day weekend.  We got a great deal, or a great hotel and were looking forward to a nice weekend getaway.  Of course, we realize now that we shouldn't have booked a hotel in St. George. Everytime we book a hotel in St. George something happens that keeps us from going.  This time though the most heartbreaking of all of our vacation stoppers occured.

Here's a picture of Brooklyn Sunday morning in her pretty spring dress right before we left to go to church:

And here's a picture of Brooklyn before she went to bed on Sunday night:

Brooklyn got her first cast and first ER visit of her life last Sunday.  Here's what happened:  We took her to the playground and let her play with some other kids on the playground.  The kids were a little bit older than her and they were playing tag.  She tried to play along, but ended up getting pushed down some stairs on the playground and the other kids all landed on her.  The fall, mixed with the force of the other kids fractured her leg close to her ankle.  I watched in horror while it happened and sprinted to her, but by the time I got to her she was screaming and the damage had already been done.  So, we took her to the ER and she got a temporary cast, which officially ended our St. George trip because the whole reason we wanted to go to St. George was so that she could swim in the nice hotel swimming pool.  Oh well, we've learned our lessen.  We'll never book a hotel in St. George again.

Here's a pic taken today of her in her official cast, hot pink of course which she was excited about:

She's been pretty good about it.  We've had some long nights with her screaming in pain and also with the cast being extremely itchy, but considering that she's only 3 both Brit and I have been really impressed.  Most importantly too is that she's doing okay and her leg will heal fine.  It's so hard as a parent to see your kids get hurt, but I guess it's just a part of parenthood that we all have to accept, even if it's difficult to experience.

Carson Can Climb Stairs?

Carson climbed the stairs for the 1st and 2nd time in his life tonight. I took some video of him climbing them for the 2nd time. You'll have to pardon the camera man, for some reason he thought that if he'd turn the camera sideways he could get all of Carson's body in the shot, instead he just made the video a little bit of a stomach ache at times. It's still cute though, Carson's one hilarious dude!

Brooklyn's Green Thumb

Utah finally decided to give us another Saturday where we could get some yardwork done! It seems like every Saturday has been rainy, which can be both good and bad. It's good for the lawn, and has kept the house cool, and it's been nice to just sit inside and play with the kids because there isn't much else we can do when the weather's bad, but it's bad as well because we can see all of the yard work out there waiting for us.

Last Saturday we took full advantage of the beautiful 74 degree temps and planted a ton of flowers. Well, okay so Brit did most of the planting I was in charge of keeping the kids occupied. To do this I took them on a shopping trip from hell. (For all of you parents you'll know what I'm talking about... it's the supposed 15 minute trip that turns into 2 hours because of potty breaks, tantrums, Walmart being out of stock on stuff, Home Depot being out of stock on stuff, and so on...) Yeah, good times! At least I was able to keep the kids occupied while Brit planted flowers. While Carson was down for his nap Brooklyn and I went out to help and Brooklyn had a blast. She had her gardening hat, her gardening "glubs" and her gardening shovel on in no time and was a great little helper. She watered, dug holes and held up flowers while I filled in the dirt around them. She's amazing, and kept asking me what she could do next to "get dirty." I envy her happy go lucky attitude! Here are some pics of her from last Saturday:

Carson Loves to Share...

Carson has gotten into the habit of always trying to share his food, it's soooo cute! Here's some video I took today during our "cupcake challenge" of him trying to share his cupcake with me.

The Cupcake Challenge...

Britney had to work today so the kids and I got to spend a rainy Saturday in the house. We found ways to have fun though! Brooklyn helped me by chasing the vacuum around the house (she was making it go "faster" :) ) and both Carson and Brooklyn helped me lower Carson's crib mattress support down because he's starting to try to climb all over the place. Carson was the boss while we worked, shouting out commands like "Ba Ba Ba Ba!" and "Da Da Dad Daddy" while Brooklyn helped me unscrew the bolts that we needed to take out. (She did a pretty good job honestly!). After lunch we decided to have a "Cupcake Challenge" where I gave both Brooklyn and Carson a cupcake and saw who could eat it the fastest! Carson actually gave Brooklyn a pretty good run for the money and ended up finishing his whereas Brooklyn didn't. We had a lot of fun. Here is some footage of the cupcake challenge. Enjoy.