Week of 25 October 2009

What if no one notices when you’re early? We got up at 7 am in order to make sure we were at church for our speaking assignments at least 10 minutes ahead of time. When we arrived, two sisters were standing near the front door, but there were no cars in the parking lot, and the building was locked, even though two wards were due to have their meetings begin 10 minutes later. A brother arrived within a few minutes and phoned a friend to get the code to unlock the doors. We went into the chapel and decided to practice our talks, all the time thinking that this was indeed Sunday, and surely it was not a day for Stake conference. Elder and Sister Jones arrived around 9:15 so she could practice a piano accompaniment for the other ward’s Primary children’s presentation. Elder Jones asked us if we’d set our clocks back for Europe’s change from daylight savings time. We not only had been 10 minutes early, with no one there to appreciate this rarity, but we’d come a full hour and 10 minutes early – and after only 6 hours sleep too! Indeed, no good deed goes unpunished. Dede went home with a cold.



The end of October is still sunny in Ferney-Voltaire


That evening, in talking to each of the kids, we were happy to learn that Daril and Alice Sparks had safely arrived at Jeff and Allie’s to help when the baby comes, probably in the next week or so, and that Rob’s supervisor had given him a good recommendation for the job he’s interested in at the US Dept of Transportation. Heidi and Dave looked great over Skype; their baby is due near the end of the year.






Sister Hinman waves wanly from our apartment window






Maybe a nap will speed my recovery


Things to do when the better half of the team is ill: Dede’s cold ‘laid her up’ for a few days, so she missed a few things. Monday’s French class was fun; it dealt with Halloween stories of one witch, Sally the Sorceress, who was afraid of the dark and of little kids wearing masks, and another, Wanda the Witch, who was afraid of flying her magic broomstick. That was accompanied by instruction about subjunctive clauses and verbs. Tuesday, I went to the store and bought 11 pounds of potatoes (5 kg) to boil for Rive Gauche Ward’s farewell raclette party for a sister missionary who was being transferred.



Eleven pounds of potatoes and 5 pounds of cheese make a great raclette


Wednesday seemed warm and sunny, so the car got a much needed vacuuming and washing. I also decided I could venture out and get a haircut from a local Ferney barber. I was glad to type a letter of encouragement and appreciation to Melissa McCarter, one of the young women from the student branch in Toledo who requires nursing home care because of Huntington’s disease – that killed her father a little over a year ago. The other major project for the day was to study French and organize some explanations of subjunctive verbs (versus conditional verbs) – summarized in two pages of Excel spreadsheets at 70% size.

Scriptures do have answers for difficult situations: Thursday’s district meeting was impressive. Elder Zarate had us separate into teams of two or three to practice teaching each other using scriptures to help resolve concerns. Two of the three were given about 2 minutes to decide and locate a couple of scriptures, then 5 minutes to teach the third person. The 11 of us in the district changed places in various teams for three such exercises. One example was that of a single mother with 4 children, who had faith but little time to listen to the missionaries’ message. Another was a businessman who felt no need to pray. Yet another was a person who had just lost a loved one and wondered how God could allow such a tragedy to happen to a good person. It was good practice in applying scriptures to the challenges of life. In the afternoon I went grocery shopping and did laundry.

It was a stab in the back: Friday, Dede seemed enough better (I thought) to go to Yverdon that evening for a major training session with the young adults leaders in the new Outreach program. We were also supposed to meet the zone leaders at the chapel in Renens to take them to the meeting. Organizing things took me until nearly 3 pm. When I got up from the table after sitting all those hours, a sudden excruciating pain stabbed me in the lower back. After a moment or two, I was able to get around, but soon decided the best course would be to put myself into our recliner. Since any movement caused pain, I tried to stay as immobile as possible. So, Dede had to contact the young adults in Yverdon and the zone leaders to tell them we wouldn’t be able to make it to the meeting that night. It’s amazing how suddenly plans and life activities can change. It was too late to call a doctor, but then we remembered that we had a resident back expert! Our Mission President’s wife, who has chronic back problems herself, came to our rescue that evening with some of her muscle-relaxant pills and good advice about taking an anti-inflammatory (Advil or Aleve) and alternately applying hot and cold packs. They all helped, but Dad tried to sleep in the recliner anyway that night. When he woke up at 1 am and couldn’t get comfortable again, he finally managed to crawl into the bedroom on his hands and knees and roll himself into bed.


I have better things to do than just sit here!

Getting revenge, but on the vegetables: Saturday morning, I felt somewhat better and was able to stand up very slowly and to make it back to the recliner, where I spent most of the day, reading conference talks in the Ensign and studying French with Dede. When I complained of boredom, Dede allowed me to help chop up vegetables to make a duplicate of the rice salad we’d made the week before for the wedding reception in Lausanne. It had cucumbers, sweet red peppers, chopped leeks, tomatoes, avocados, shredded carrots, corn kernels, mini corn cobs, mushrooms, olives, green beans, cooked beets, artichoke hearts, tuna fish, hard boiled eggs, shredded cheese, all mixed with rice and flavored with a bottle of pesto for seasoning! When we got done, we had about 10 pounds worth of salad that Dede then took to church for her contribution to the potluck dinner part of the Geneva Ward Halloween party.

Tender Mercies: In spite of the frustration at not being able to move around, there have definitely been some tender mercies associated with this event: 1) we had accomplished everything we needed before Friday afternoon’s episode: apartment cleaned, laundries done, groceries purchased, car washed and vacuumed, and church assignments fulfilled. 2) I have a much greater sense of compassion for my Dad, who spent the last YEARS of his life confined generally to his recliner or a wheelchair; 3) I feel much more compassion for Barbara Garber and Carole Walch, who suffer almost constant pain with no real hope for relief in this life (Barbara with a RSD, or reflex sympathetic nerve discharge, and cousin Carole with fibromyalgia). 4) In reading the words of living apostles and prophets, and the scriptures these past couple of days, I have felt a greater appreciation for things spiritual, including an outpouring of love of the Lord and a sense of His closeness. 5) The improvement which seemed to occur by Saturday morning suggests that the pain will not last forever; it’s not the case that some vertebra has collapsed on a nerve and could only be fixed by major surgery – or that I’ll be immobilized for the rest of my life – these hallucinations might seem silly, but strange thoughts tend to flit through one’s mind when one is ill. Dede has had some digestive problems this month, and thought that, between the two of us, they might even have to send us home from our missions early – horrible thought! But we’re both getting better => Hooray!