October 6th, 1963

 Date: 10-06-63

Well, I'm getting settled down a little now. This morning we had a fast meeting which was real good. It was made up of twelve missionaries and one member. (there are 3 members in the area). We had the sacrament and a testimony meeting. It was quite interesting in that the meeting was conducted in German since most everyone understood German, except for the one new Elder who only spoke English. But the songs were in Italian and also the sacrament. It was quite a mixture. We heard some real wonderful testimonies. It was the second time that I have born my testimony in German.

After church we took a contact down to watch a Gigantic Parade held in Lugano once a year. There were floats covered with flowers and bands. Actually, it was much like the Pasadina parade on new years. Each little town of any significance entered some kind of group and float. There was also a couple of foreign groups, Italian, Austrian, Holland, French, an German were represented. We have seen a lot of wine grapes in this parade. Perhaps, there is some connection between the harvesting of the grapes and the parade. I'm not sure.

After the parade we went up to the members home which was in Arogno. About 15km from Lugano to listen to the Conference being broadcasted from SLC over station WRML in New York. Another missionaries and I who are E.E.'s get the reception from the states. Due to the fact that the traffic was so bad and the time required to fit up the antenna, we missed most of the 2 hours in English, but we did hear the translated one hour German Broadcast of the conference. Then family Wies, fixed us and our investigator something to eat. They are sure a nice family. two small girls-ever so cute. The smallest girl kissed all of us good night. It sure is strange to hear the kids talk in Italian. Well, I had better sign off. I have sort of a headache must have been just two much excitement.