July marked the end of my time in my first area, Basel, and the beginning of my time in my 2nd area Aarau. When I first left Basel, I was heart broken. I loved working with Elder Bohm and loved my first area, so to move to a new place, with a new companion was a little frustrating, and frankly, lonely. What I didn't understand at the time though was that Aarau was going to be my "growing place." It became the first area where I had a lot of responsibility and really is the area that helped me get to where I wanted to be as a missionary. Looking back now, I'm so grateful that I was transferred to Aarau, but at the time, it was pretty rough. Here are a couple of journal entries from right around my transfer time. Below are some pics from a P-Day I took to Altdorf, and above is a slide show of some pics I took on a P-Day with Elder Burt and 2 members, Angie and Urs at the Matterhorn.
July 14, 1999 -- Basel, Switzerland
Bring the Lord's spirit in, keep it close and it will never leave you. The one who finds his right path, finds the gate to happiness.
Well, this is it in Basel! I am officially transferred. I am so sad, but that's mission life for you. Here's some of my memories of Basel:
I loved Herr Wolfgang Wagner! Blind, but educated in like seven languages! He liked to speak both German and English with me. He really was a neat guy, I liked him a lot.
Jan took us to the Alps. I spoke "Du" sprache with him! He is so cool!
Daniel was the first investigator that I really took control of. It was interesting, but not always special. He just always had something different about him. He wore a little Jewish hat and always had the read the "Glaubens Artikel" (Articles of Faith) out loud during sacrament meeting. Plus he used to come knocking on our door at 10:00pm and always left stuff in our mailbox. It became kind of creepy. We'd hide sometimes when he'd come knocking on our door.
I'm really going to miss Sister Dougall, she's a great Sister Missionary.
Schwester Siegenthaler used to always yell at Elder Bohm and say "bitte" so loud, it was hilarious.
Schwester Scherer was always the sweetest lady on earth to me.
The ward was a little weird but yet I sincerely grew to love it. Basel really felt like the perfect place for me. But now, this city is gone and it's time for me to go to Elder Burt in Aarau. We'll see how that goes, I'm sure I'll miss Basel a lot. Elder Shurtliff got transferred as well, into my new district so at least I'll still see him a lot, which will really help. He's a great friend.
Hmmm, what else... oh yeah, my English Class gave me a gift today, it was really cool of them. Dang, I'm really going to miss everything here. The Lord will help me though, I know he will, I just have to keep the faith.
Plus, I did manage to get Elder Bohm addicted to Ramen noodles, so I guess I have accomplished at least 1 thing during my time in Basel. :)
July 19, 1999 -- Aarau, Switzerland
Well, today was really cool! It was a P-Day (which I always love) and we went to Luzern (an AMAZING city) and hung out with the Luzern Elders, it was a lot of fun. We took a bus to a really neat place in the mountains called Altdorf. It's where the Wilhelm Tell story supposedly took place. We took some pics of his famous statue. The town itself was gorgeous. The is a huge lake at the bottom of the village and the entire place is surrounded by mountains. It's sooo beautiful, I really enjoyed our P-Day.
I think the thing I enjoyed the most today though was our DA tonight. We went to an elderly couple's home, named Familie Hoffman. It was a great night. They reminded me soo much of my grandparents, especially Bruder Hoffman, he reminded me a lot of my grandpa Quarnberg. Their company was honestly exactly what I needed. They were funny, they liked to argue and well, they simply reminded me of my grandparents. I'm not sure how else to explain it. The Lord must have known that I needed some comfort and he definitely gave me some tonight. I am so grateful for that. Bruder Hoffman even put his arm around me and invited me to come over again sometime to see some of his old war photographs. I was so happy for the invite and we'll definitely take him up on it.
The ward in Aarau is so cool! That's one thing that I think will be better here than in Basel. As far as my current companion goes, well, it's going okay. It could definitely be a lot worse. Elder Burt is a good guy with an excellent work ethic but our personalities just haven't meshed yet. I spend a lot more time talking to other people right now than I do talking to him and I think it's just because we aren't clicking. It's been good for me though, it's motivated me to do more street contacting and door contacting just for the chance to speak German and share the gospel. That's why I'm here afterall, isn't it? I just need to learn to take the good things from each companionship and use those things to become a better missionary myself. I think this experience with Elder Burt will really help me work on that.
Until next time...
--Elder Q
Pics from Altdorf:
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