Dogs, Swine, and Forbidden Baths

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (Matt. 7:6) 

It was good to read of the progress Haley and her companion are making with investigators. It was also cool that she got to go to the Temple there. I found the pictures we took when we visited Las Vegas, including the forbidden picture with Haley and Eric and the parrots.

The guy wanted $20 to take a picture with the birds. I snuck this picture when he wasn't looking

Reese's Store in Las Vegas

Las Vegas Temple

We had a family meeting this week to discuss getting more help for Grandma Reese. She is having trouble taking her medications so we agreed to let River Meadows have $300 more per month to take care of that. It will come out of the money my Mom has saved. 

They are now pushing Janet outside in a wheelchair to get her more stimulus. They couldn't do that until the MRSA was gone. She is still not aware.

Mission Memories:

Continuing the St. Gallen apartment saga: about one week after the wash incident was solved in Oct 1977, we started getting awoken at 1AM at night by Herr Blum (who lived right above us) pounding on the door in a drunken rage, screaming (in Swiss German), "Mormon missionaries in my house! Dogs! Pigs! Pig-dogs! Go back to Salt Lake City!" This went on for several nights in a row and then on a Tuesday night he kicked the door so hard the lock sprung back and the door came flying open. There we were sitting up in bed in the one-room apartment looking at him standing in the door. He mumbled, "Salt Lake City" and Elder Nguyen yelled, "Herr Blum, got to your room!" I was sitting with my arm raised to the square in case I needed to expel him with the priesthood. He turned around and walked up the stairs. I got up and closed the door. 

The next day we called the President Worlton and told him what happened. He told us to go see the landlord. We tried to visit the office of the landlord two days but he was either out or in meetings each time. We told Pres Worlton we had not been able to get with the landlord and Herr Blum was still coming home late at night drunk and screaming at our door. He told us to go across town and sleep with the other Elders (only on the floor). President Worlton or the zone leaders were able to get hold of the landlord by phone and the landlord sent a letter to Blum and copied us telling him to stop harassing us or he would be evicted.

Letter warning Herr Blum for kicking our door open and yelling every night

Well, that worked for about two weeks and then we were contacted by the zone leaders and got a letter from the landlord saying that we had been disturbing the other people in the house by bathing and doing laundry at night and that we had until Jan 31 before we had to leave the apartment. Never mind that an American would find bathing and doing laundry at night not the least disturbing (the bath and laundry room were both two floors below any body else in the house). The accusations were completely false, but by then we realized that we could not stay in that apartment. We wrote a letter to Pres Worlton saying the charges were false but we would begin looking for an apartment the next day. 

Our apology letter to Pres Worlton for being falsely accused of bathing at night

Being a servant of the Lord is not easy and sometimes you just have to accept that you are not wanted at a particular location and move on.