Tommy Cold

I got a cold from Tommy and I am still suffering 2 weeks later. During the holidays, I took John and Gordon to Saguaro Nat'l Park West to see the petroglyphs. John was more impressed by the cactus.

Mission Memories:

On New Year's Eve 1977 we spent the day moving to our new high rise apartment  on Sonnegstrasse (Sunny St.) - as discussed, we were evicted from our previous place.  It snowed that day. We watched fireworks light up the snow covered roofs through our window in the apartment and played with the Wunderkerzen (wonder candles or sparklers) on the balcony. In the morning we woke up with circles from the coil springs imprinted on our backs because we didn't have mattresses yet. New Years Day 1978 was a Sunday, I think, and the Elder's Quorum president told us he could bring some mattresses over on Wednesday. The same day the mattresses arrived, I was transferred to Olten.

Out the Window New Year's Eve 1977

Olten on the Aare River

Walking Bridge

Olten is on the Aare River. It has a very quaint downtown with a wooden covered walking bridge across the river. Olten was Elder Nguyen's first area so he drew me a map of how to get to the apartment from the train station in case of a mix-up. Good thing because the other Elders thought that they would just let me sit at the train station for 2 hrs. I arrived at 12:00 and they left at 2PM (both of these goofballs were being transferred out). It was cold and the train station didn't really have an inside place to wait. I locked my suitcases in some coin-operated lockers and started walking to the apartment per Elder Nguyen's map. He had remembered things a little wrong. The apartment was 2 blocks further than he had said. The apartment was in an older two story building that had no buzzer on the outside door. I decided to throw snowballs at the windows until I could get someone's attention. I didn't know which window was theirs. Luckily, the 3rd window I tried was theirs. 

Outside Olten Apartment with Elder Pyper (Spring Time)

I reviewed the investigator list with them...very short...and helped them haul their stuff to the train station and they helped me haul my stuff back. About then, the district leader, Elder Noorda {from Las Vegas) and his companion, Elder Seawright, showed up to be with me until my companion arrived. The district leader and his companion were very good elders and I'm sure they were happy to have us replace the goofballs.