Elisa has 3 more days of German class to go! Hallelujah (That’s German for Hallelujah.) 🙂 Then we travel back to the U.S. this Friday. Since this trip is for work, I thought it made sense to travel on a workday. This way we’ll have an extra weekend day to spend with Elisa’s family.
The only thing I remember doing this week is baking some really good cookies. Molasses is really good here for some reason. Thanks to Sarah’s awesome recipe and a little Swiss tweaking.
Matt and Erin had us over for a BBQ. Their house is an hour south of Zürich, right next to the border with Liechtenstein. What a weird country–it’s smaller than Washington, D.C. They don’t have an army, so Switzerland maintains their borders. I’m surprised it is still around. Matt works for a construction company there that is one of the largest companies in the country. That area is so beautiful–words or a picture can never do it justice!
Elisa finished another week of German. Countdown: 8 days to go.
Elisa turned into a murderer this week. That’s what she told me when I got home from work. There is a really obnoxious guy in her German class that everybody is always complaining about. But the story turned out to be a lot less interesting than I was hoping for. A spider fell into the washing machine and Elisa didn’t want to save it. Because it was big and scary. So the spider died, and Elisa was a murderer, and German still has an obnoxious kid in class. (8 days to go.)
Elisa fixed up our garden this week. It turns out that it wasn’t looking sufficiently Swiss. It really does look fine (we should post pictures sometime) but Elisa made the mistake of comparing it to our neighbors’ gardens. I was mortified. She worked her tail off pulling weeds. I worked a lot to stake up a bunch of plants as well. On Tuesday and Wednesday this excellent thunderstorm rolled through and it dumped on us so heavily that we felt like the town was underwater. Tuesday night we went out to our balcony and watched as lightning struck all around our building. It was so fun to see and I LOVE the sound. It reminds me of when my mom would wake us up in the middle of the night when we were little to watch lightning storms. My teacher said it was a hurricane, because apparently the wind got up to 120 km/hr. I texted Elisa that it was time to start building our ark. I couldn’t concentrate during the first half of class because the clouds turned all green and it looked like night-time out and then a big sheet of water went over the building.
Jessi Neeley came and visited us. She is studying in Freiburg, Germany for a few weeks? She speaks better German than us. I’m kind of upset that she speaks better German than I do. I’ve been working so hard for so long! 🙂 She brought two of her classmates with her. They checked out the regular touristy sites in Zürich. We gave them an intro to Swiss food. There are three Swiss foods that taste good. There’s only three! The first is Raclette. It’s a mildly smelly cheese that you melt in individual pans and pour over potatoes. That was fun! Our Raclette grill is our new toy. And it’s a tasty one too. Everyone should come visit us just to try it. The second good food is Spätzli. It’s an egg noodle kind of thing. The third good food is Rösti, which is Swiss-style hash browns. They are all very hearty, home-cooked meals. And no meat. Meat is fine here, but it costs an arm and a leg. And you don’t even get that much. 🙂
On Thursday was Jason’s Hump Day–he’s been on his mission in Guadalajara for exactly 1 year. Congratulations, Jason!
We didn’t do anything this week, so we’ll keep it short. On Thursday I found out that I still don’t know how to read the train schedules. I got on a train line that I had never ridden before, and it flew right through the stop here at Dietlikon. I started counting the seconds to the next stop so I would know whether it would be too far to walk back. Then the train flew through the next stop, and the next, until finally we were about a half hour out of my way. By then I was in an area that my ticket didn’t even cover. I tried to get on a return train, and there was one waiting on a different platform. I ran over there and pushed the button to open the doors. The doors didn’t open. The train sat there for about 10 seconds and then pulled away, not wanting to take on any other passengers. I had to sit down and wait a half hour for the next train. 🙁 Poor Chad was so upset! When he came home and told me about it, that’s probably as close to crying as I’ve seen him. 🙂
Elisa is not sure about taking the next month’s German class. She has done 3 classes already, (3 months of 4-hour days). The new class isn’t as interesting and it isn’t moving quickly enough. I REALLY want to take the fourth class, for the results. Things had been going so well but now that the class is a bit less satisfying I’m getting frustrated really easy.
Today in Gospel Principles, or rather the English class, the missionaries led a discussion on the Holy Ghost. They asked what the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ is. I have never had a really good handle on the differences myself, since I have known so many people who seem to have the blessings of the Spirit with them all the time that do not have the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Lucky me, Chad has taught me that asking questions that you think everyone might already know the answer to is not a bad thing. I confessed that I really wanted to know the answer myself. I think that it was a great way for us to teach each other on something we assume everyone already knows. I think I learned that we all have the influence of the Holy Ghost because it is a blessing when we follow the commandments regardless. However receiving peace, comfort and guidance are not the only blessings we can receive. Maybe when we have the Gift of the Holy Ghost we become blessed also by the other roles of the Holy Ghost. Maybe we are better prepared to be taught by the Spirit having made a covenant, and maybe it is only with the Gift of the Holy Ghost that we can truly be sanctified. I still have a lot to learn in this area but it was a great way to open myself up to new insights.
