Chocolate cereal for breakfast anyone?
This is Switzerland, after all
French, Spanish, and Russian? At Monday’s family home evening, there were more than 35 people in attendance, of whom 15 were non-members. Délicé, a young Spanish sister from the ward, taught an enthusiastic lesson. I had been asked to speak with a visitor named Alex, from Russia, who spoke neither French nor Spanish. We sat together near the back of the room, and I tried to translate a few things from the flyer the Jones had given him. After about 20 minutes, he realized he wouldn’t be learning much in the two foreign tongues, so he excused himself and left. After FHE, Margareth asked me to help her set up the projector connection for a class she would teach that evening to people looking for work. It took three different computers before we found one that had a plug that would accommodate the projector cable that I knew worked (the other port, USB, didn’t work). But then after FHE refreshments, about a dozen Spanish folks stayed for her class, most of them non-members.
A wonderful “blast from the past:” Wednesday we headed up to Yverdon to go visit less active young adults with the elders there. We ate our lunch en route. Our first visit was to the Perrier family in the nearby town of Orbe.
My biggest catch, at the entry to the village of Orbe
The mom was asleep (she works nights as a nurse), and recently-turned 18 year old Rachel was not home, but we visited very briefly with her brother, who had just been baptized a month earlier by his dad. We then drove 45 km to the town of Villars-Borquin to visit the Toro-Diaz family. The young man we had hoped to find (Jonathan) is a student who has his own separate apartment in another part of town and who spends all week in Lausanne studying carpentry.
A child's trust, a 6-foot painting by Sister Diaz
But we had a pleasant visit with his mom, his 13-year old sister and 2-yr old little brother.(Mom is the ward’s pianist and quite an accomplished artist: her picture of a little girl with the Savior - showing only part of the Lord - is shown here).
Along the way, the elders told us that Anthony (the ward mission leader) had told them last night that Andres and Eve ware engaged!! We had often thought that they would make a great couple. He had consistently been very helpful with Eve’s 15-month old son Noah. We returned to Geneva to start cooking a beef stew for the Yverdon FHE. A real highlight of the day came in the form of two email messages. One was from a former member of the UCLA branch (where I’d been from 1972-1979) inviting us to a reunion this June, and which included a mostly complete membership directory from that time period. But the best news was from Bob Millard, who had been our Branch President when we got married in 1976. He too wanted to notify us of the upcoming reunion and wondered if he’d obtained our correct email address.
Sometimes, the ‘best-laid plans’ go awry: Thursday evening when we arrived in Yverdon, I took the elders with me to St Croix to pick up Anthony. We got back at 7:15, but no one else showed up until 7:45, when Andres, Eve, and Noah came in. The three of them had already eaten, so we decided to go ahead. Shortly before 8 pm, Jenny Pike came in, having taken the train from Neuchâtel (a 45 minute ride). Bastien never did come. So we shared dinner with Jenny. About 8:20, Andres came into the kitchen to tell us that he and Eve had an 8:30 appointment. We said we’d immediately stop eating and begin a very quick home evening, but he indicated they would have to leave now in order to be on time; he added that they’d only come for the “spiritual part” of the evening. We were really embarrassed that we hadn’t learned of their schedule or their intent, and we hope they’ll come back next week. FHE itself was a bit strange also: Jenny speaks only English; Anthony speaks Spanish and some French, but no English. So Elder Bellamy gave his lesson in English and French, with translation as needed for Tony and Jenny. Since it was after 9:30 pm when we finished, we gave both Anthony and Jenny rides home. That put another 100+ km on the car. Then on the way back towards Lausanne, night road construction had begun, and a detour thru about 6 little villages made us even later – we finally staggered into the apartment around midnight.
A giant snicker-doodle plus an ‘Improv’: Friday, we prepared for the Advisory Council meeting with President Maerki and the YSA leadership. I also printed 24 photographs of various young adult activities that had occurred since last June. We wanted to put these up on the bulletin board in the RS room where the main Institute class is held each Friday. Meanwhile, Dede made a giant cookie sheet of “snicker-doodle.” We didn’t have enough ingredients for 4 dozen regular cookies, so we thought this would work if we simply cut the sheet of cookie into 48 little rectangles. – And it did; the kids loved them – and so did we. The first part of the activity after Institute classes ended had two young adults sit facing each other;
An improvised interview is serious business
The "mission impossible" dialog in the fillm version isn't as funny as ours
one was to be the interviewer and the other, some celebrity that the group had chosen (for example, the President of France or Paris Hilton, the rich young heiress in the news a couple of years ago). But then each person was given an additional constraint, either to be timid or to speak with a Swiss-German accent, or some such characteristic. The kids tried to out-humor each other, and it was hilarious. The second part of the activity was for small groups of YSA to take turns providing dialog to accompany a silent clip from a current movie that was projected onto the whiteboard. One of the movies was “Shrek;” another was “Mission Impossible-3;” a third was “Ice Age-2.” Again, the kids roared with laughter.
A real feast for the Jones and Hinmans
New friends from Peru: Saturday evening, Elder and Sister Jones picked us up to take us to the home of the Pantagosa family for dinner. Sister P is the actual sister of Sister Miranda, whom Dede had helped at the Institute to get some of her ancestor’s names ready to take to the temple. The family was so grateful they wanted to do something kind in return, and the Jones’ had known them for quite a while by attending the Rive Droite Ward, where Br P serves in the bishopric and whose daughter Susanna attended Institute before recently going to Logan to attend Utah State. Since they are from Peru, they had prepared a dish called “causa,” which was a loaf formed from a layer of mashed potatoes flavored with lemon juice on which was a layer of tuna and chopped onion, and then those two layers were enclosed in another layer of flavored mashed potatoes and decorated with a ¼ “ string of mayonnaise. The loaf was topped with a row of black olives. And that was just the first course. The main course was stuffed green peppers next to a mound of rice.
Peruvian "causa" is fantastic
Baked apple supreme
Rather than using both rice and hamburger as we do, they had used fried hamburger and chopped hard-boiled egg to stuff the peppers before topping them with cheese. The dessert course was a peeled and cored apple for each of us that had been baked with butter and sugar, whose plate was then decorated with shavings of chocolate. Another highlight of the evening, besides the great company, was being able to visit in English for an hour or more with 19-year old Diego. Apparently he is a nephew they are adopting; he’s been here only 2 months, and speaks fairly well. It was just a delight to exchange thoughts and stories with him.
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