15 August 2009: We're going to restart our blog

We’ll try to have a weekly update, and as we are able, we’ll try to catch up by adding material from prior weeks.

Fireworks in Geneva (see below) and Geneva's landmark, the jet d'eau

Week of Sunday 2 August 2009. Today was fast Sunday; testimonies in Rive Gauche were spiritually uplifting, and there was hardly a gap between people coming to the podium – several came up and sat on the stand to make sure they would get a turn. After the 3-hour block, a young man named Jose was baptized. He and his mother had met the missionaries, and this 12-year old boy was immediately interested. Even though we only have 1 or 2 other young men who come to Aaronic PH, Jose wanted to come each week and receive the priesthood himself. His mom is not yet ready to be baptized, but she came, as did about 40 ward members and at least 8 investigators! Br Durango conducted the meeting in Spanish. He had tears in his eyes as he told Jose how much he appreciated him – and mentioned that he himself at age 15 had done the same thing: he had learned about the church and wanted to be baptized, even though he was the only member of his family to join the church. The young Bolivian sister, Delice, gave a wonderful talk. Her father had led their family in family prayer and scripture reading, had been a force for good in their family until his death when she was a teen. She told how she had gone to college, in part because she needed to get her mind off his loss. Her 3 roommates shared chores in their apartment, but 1 was quite lazy. None of them wanted to hear anything religious from her. The lazy one was the most antagonistic. Then one day, while they were trying to prepare dinner, there was an explosion and fire in the kitchen. All got burned, but the worst injured was the lazy girl, whose hair had caught fire. All recovered, and somehow, they became much more receptive to Delice’s testimony that the Lord had protected them and helped them recover quickly. Each of them began reading the Book of Mormon. They have kept in touch over the years. All three have joined the church. One has been married in the temple; one is putting in her papers for a mission. The girl who was lazy wrote a beautiful thanks to Delice, expressing profound gratitude for help in turning her life around. Elder De La Torre baptized Jose, and since the boy is a bit chunky, as he was immersed, water splashed out onto the children sitting near the edge of the font. As one might imagine, they squealed with shock and delight – such had never happened, at least in my memory. Dede was impressed that she should invite someone to dinner, including Shideh, the Iranian convert who cannot be baptized, along with the two sister missionaries and two other young women. I rather wondered what we would fix for them, since we hadn’t planned on inviting anyone. A highlight of the dinner was her desert, raspberries freshly thawed and covered with whipped cream.

Guests for Sunday dinner: Jen, Sister Thompson, Shideh, Hannah, & Sister Christensen

That evening, I found an email message from Lausanne Stake Pres Maerki indicating that he would be happy to meet with us in our Advisory Council for the Young Adults. In his email that was addressed to all members of the Council, he included the phrase: “Je me réjouis de travailler à vos côtés,” which is: “I rejoice to work at your side.” In our prayers that evening, I suddenly remembered that two of the things we had fasted for had been answered with specific tender mercies: Sindi had come to church and Pres Maerki had indicated his desire to start holding the Advisory Council meetings for the Outreach Initiative. As Br Kiser had said a couple of weeks ago, there are no coincidences; the Lord really does direct our lives (when we let Him). Monday, as we read from the Book of Mosiah in French, I was again impressed with a strong testimony of the truthfulness and spiritual power of the Book of Mormon. What a joy and a comfort it is to receive repeatedly that witness of the Spirit that these things are true. Dede was really inspired in her lesson for the Wednesday evening scripture class concerning the organization of the Church: her first question was “Why does our church not have a professional clergy?” After identifying the 3-fold mission, we developed a list of all the offices and callings it takes to staff a ward – about 50-70, at least, including PH, RS, YM, YW, PRI, library, activities cmte, BPric, PEC, clerks, teachers, secretaries, etc. She then asked us to identify leaders in charge of each of the 3-fold mission areas (Stake Pres/Mission Pres/Temple Pres), and then the MPH quorums with primary responsibility for each of those areas were identified. We finished with the story of the “welfare seagulls.”

Thursday's picture of the MOON over Mt. Blanc

Thursday, I somehow felt impressed to check the account balance at the credit union. The rent money had been subtracted, along with the finance charge and another check, and that had put us about $120 below zero. Fortunately, having just transferred some extra money into the account Denise uses to take care of the cats, I was able to transfer it back, and give us a temporary $80 credit on the positive side. Friday, I was able to outline some thoughts for a talk I might be asked to give when we visit one of the wards in the Yverdon region Sunday. Then we went out to deliver homemade chocolate chip cookies Dede had baked for a couple of our YSA who had had birthdays earlier in the week/month. Dede’s gentle knock may not have done the job, but just before we gave up at the Valdivia’s, I rapped loudly after again ringing the bell. That woke up Harry and he thanked us – both for waking him and for the cookies (actually for his younger brother’s birthday). But it was good to see him again. Then at the Worrell’s, a minor miracle occurred. Just as we got to the door and were about to ring them on the message box (we had never succeeded in getting sister W to open the door for us), a man wrestling a large roll of plastic packing material came up to the door from the inside, smiled and opened the door to the hallway and elevator. (He probably had no idea he was an angel of mercy). We offered to let him go first into the elevator, but again he just smiled and ushered us in. And when we knocked on their door, we met sister W for the first time. She was on the phone when she opened the door, but paused to hear why we had come, and then went to get her son Julien, whose birthday had just occurred 2 days ago. He’s 24, and a very gracious young man – both from Barbados. He did know about the Institute, and we only stayed a few minutes, but he thanked us several times for the cookies. We thought it best just to let him know that someone knows he exists and also cares about him. That afternoon, we worked on our preparations for the Yverdon meeting, and also took some time to study French grammar as we drove up north. Br Gomez of the High Council told us that the names submitted for the 8 Ward YSA Reps would be discussed at the 18 August HC meeting, and that within the following 2 weeks, all should be called and set apart, in time for our 4 Sept training meeting. When we arrived home around 10:45 pm, Sabrina (who had conducted our meeting), had emailed a year’s list of YSA activities for our consideration. This should really attract the kids, when they see that fun things are happening, in addition to the fellowship and instruction in the classes. We planned to visit Fribourg Sunday. Since at Neuchatel we’d each been invited to come up and bear our testimonies in French (without any prior notice), it seemed prudent to have a couple of sentences ready “just in case” the same invitation were extended to us in Fribourg. But the most interesting part of the day/night was our going to see the fireworks for the “Fête de Genève” with the senior couples and President & Sister Murdock. We paid our 2 francs each for tram tickets and waited with a goodly number of the local citizenry for Tram #12. The first one was too full, so we waited. The next one was almost the same, but we split up and s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d into the mass of humanity. We only had three stops to go, but really, we didn’t have to hold on to anything. We couldn’t have fallen if we had tried. There must have been a quarter million people standing or wandering along the crowded and closed-off streets at the end of Lake Geneva. We read later that there were some 30 launch points for the fireworks, from 15 different platforms on the other side of the lake. Sometimes, the whole sky was lighted by golden rain from the fireworks, and from time to time, red flares criss-crossed above the trees; besides the fireworks themselves, occasional explosions shook the ground as bursts of light nearly blinded the spectators. After an hour of dazzling spectacle and the grand finale, we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. Back in the Institute, we drank cold water and sat comfortably a while. Some ate more cake, and Sister Hanson (primarily) cleaned up the kitchen area. Shortly before 12:30 am, we finally headed home. In spite of the late hour, Dede helped me finish translating my testimony before we crawled into bed shortly before 2 am.