Week of 21 March 2010:

Geneva Airport's colorful parking structure







It may be called the Geneva Switzerland mission, but it’s definitely international: Sunday we stayed in Geneva for the English-speaking ward where we learned that cousin Shannon Walch (the physicist from the University of Michigan) was going to speak. She did a great job; the topic assigned was Jesus the Christ. As she said, this is not just a topic that can be addressed in 15 minutes. She chose to make the point that He is the Savior of every person, by using as an example her having to explain to one of her 7 siblings (of the 8 kids in her family, 4 are adopted African Americans) why his brother was the only one on the little league football team – in Utah – who has brown legs (that was all that could be seen under his uniform and helmet). At a mission home fireside that evening, guests were each invited to tell what they had felt and what they had learned about the church since they had met the missionaries. Alexandra, a girl from Peru who spoke English and Spanish, told how good she felt when the sister missionaries were teaching her. Then a Pilipino lady spoke; she’s working as a housekeeper part time with the Kimball family, and mentioned what a wonderful family they have and what a happy spirit she feels in their home – her remarks were translated from Tugalog into English by Br DeGuzmann. The third person turned out to be from Russia, most recently living in Hungary. She spoke French mixed with English. She’s actually a member of the Church, but is trying to become active again. The other person was a fellow from France – Annemasse. He was a bit more reserved, but seemed happy to be learning the message of the restored gospel of Christ.


Speaking of colors:
it's hard to miss the orange exit sign for Ferney-Voltaire

If you’re going to feed the 5000, it helps to bring a knife: Monday evening, we went down early to the Institute to help Br Bustamante prepare and clear some family names for their temple ordinances. Sonia did a terrific job with the Spanish home evening lesson, and involved the kids: she had Wendy and Diego Castillo go into separate rooms and then had their parents hide (mom behind the piano, and dad under the ping-pong table). Wendy was brought back and asked to see if she could find her mom – she couldn’t until mom said something – the point was that we want to be with our family – they are important to us. We had brought the German chocolate cake that we’d forgotten to take to Yverdon the prior Friday – and also a block of “Fribourger” cheese that was too strong for us to eat ourselves – so we cut it into little pieces for the 42 people who attended. We also cut the 9 x 13 inch cake into pieces – first into 32, and then each piece in half, so everyone could have some. They loved it – and the cheese all disappeared, too.

A late evening stroll tops off a day of cooking: After French class on Wednesday, we bought $500 worth of medicine (the monthly osteoporosis treatment), had lunch, started to make shepherd’s pie for the Yverdon family home evening, and then went to the chapel to help Sister MM Jones with some orientation to the new.familysearch.org genealogy website. After dinner – a salmon salad – we did more trip planning, and then at 9:30 pm went for a walk into Ferney and back – to get in our exercise for the day.

Is it worth 1000 words? Thursday, got a much needed haircut, bought some more groceries, got gas for the car, and we made another German chocolate cake for Friday’s Yverdon young adults – to replace the one we’d forgotten to take the week before. The shepherd’s pie was well-received in Yverdon – by the young adults and by the missionaries. The object of our home evening lesson was to illustrate that communication needs to be precise to be effective, and that a picture (an example or a demonstration) is worth a 1000 words. I first asked Jenny to use only words to tell me how to put toothpaste onto the toothbrush I’d brought and how then to brush my teeth. Elder Bellamy translated the instructions into French (with Dede’s help in Spanish) for Hans and Anthony. I tried to “misunderstand” every instruction where possible. It was hard to stop their laughing.


Unless someone tells you differently,
how do YOU put toothpaste on a toothbrush?















Then I asked Anthony to instruct me how to put on my suit jacket.


A young adult homemade “fashion” show: Friday, after a wonderful breakfast of hot chocolate (Nestlé’s here is much better than in the states),recently thawed raspberries, and baguette with unsalted butter (left over from last night at Yverdon), we printed some photographs of our young adults to put onto the bulletin board and drove back up to Yverdon for Institute classes and their activity, this time WITH a fresh German chocolate cake to replace the one we’d forgotten last week. At the Young Adult Council, Dede wondered if we should ask them to explain things they’d discussed in their “secret” meeting (secret because they all spoke so fast in the 30 minutes available for the meeting, that we understood only words here and there, but no sentences).

Final touches for that "masked man"








If you don't like Princess Dana's costume, shoot the tailor or the designer - or both








Prince Eric arrives

The activity after classes was a “make-your-own-costume” fashion show (called “A Slum Fashion Evening”) out of plastic garbage bags, newspaper, tape and staples. While only four ‘contestants’ and half a dozen ‘helpers’ participated directly, it was also lots of fun. Another tender mercy was that in spite of heavy bursts of rainfall on the way home, as we entered the driveway, the rain essentially stopped, allowing us to walk down to the apartment building ‘unscathed.’ Even though we’d read scriptures before going up to Yverdon, it was nearly 1 am before we got to bed.


In the opera “Hamlet,” everybody either goes insane or dies at the end anyway: Just as we were about to leave to attend the baptism of Sergio Bustamante, whose 8th birthday was Saturday, we realized that although we had thought to be able to slip out at 6:40 pm to attend the opera (Hamlet), for which we had paid $25 per ticket back in September, the time change to daylight savings time had already occurred, but not yet in Europe – so it was due to begin at 6 pm our time, not 7 pm - and the baptism was more important anyway. We arrived just in time to take some pictures of the family, and as we did so, in walked two of Sister B’s sisters, who had flown here from Barcelona, Spain for the event.





Sergio Bustamante and his family(+ 2 friends), before his baptism



"If this is my birthday, where are the candles?"














There were hugs all around – except for the men, of course. In addition, there were quite a number of South American visitors who had been invited from the French class taught by the sister missionaries. Sister Allred had felt impressed that afternoon during the spiritual thought the missionaries try to share at the end of their lesson to introduce them to the Book of Mormon. To her surprise almost none of them had even heard of it. So after distributing some copies, she suggested that if they liked, they were welcome to attend a baptismal service – and about 15 of them came.