July 22nd, 1963

 Date: 7-22-63

Today, the Second Counselor to the Mission President, Brother Hildibrandt and Brother Crosby; I worked this morning with Brother Crosby. He was a real dynamic fellow. In the last 6 months he has come up with his own plan of teaching the people which is quite good and also, he was the originator of the “smile tracting’ approach. 

The afternoon turned into a real wild time. First, we switched companions. I worked with Brother Hildibrandt; we went out to confirm the appointment that we made for that night. The other two went out to do some smile tracting. After we were through with our work, we waited for the others to show, but they didn’t come. We had two cars there. One was the one they had brought down with them and the other was the bus. Well, after waiting a time we heard a voice. We looked up and out of a window Elder Crosby was saying, “you had better get our of here with the cars.” At first, we thought he was joking but after we looked a little closer, we realized he was in a police station. So, we took the cars and left. That proved to be a poor solution, not knowing enough of what was going on so we decided to return to the scene with the car. Although one thing appeared strange, the cars registration was missing. At this time, we were suspicious that, perhaps, the other two Elders had been arrested. Maybe because they were bothering the people, maybe because they didn’t have license, maybe both. Anyway, we returned to the scene only to find the two Elders waving us away. So, we parked a block away. They met us there and told us that they had been arrested for not having driving licenses and that the car was hot. They advised us to get a license quick. After a little chasing around, we found out that we would have to go to Zurich to get one. We rendezvoused with the Elders and went to Zurich all four of us attempting to get license but found that we didn’t have all the materials to get the licenses in time. Therefore, we sort of “shot” the day. If it wouldn’t have been for Elder Crosby Elder Gubler would have been in jail. Boy, all this trouble for measly old driver’s licenses. It is hardly worth it. I believe the devil will work to do anything to hold up his work. This trouble with the licenses caused us to miss a cottage good proselyting time. 

After we found our attempts in vain to get a license that day in Zurich, we returned to Rῠti and had a couple of evening meetings. It was a log day, especially because we had been fasting for a blessing that we were to give to a non-member child that was very sick with an apparent physiological disorder which was making the child have almost not mental powers. Well, we had to postpone this for another day, that was a shame.

Ruti teaching area (lived in the apartment behind the sign)

RUTI area map