Week of 4 April 2010:

He is singing: "Spring is officially here!"
{Click on the picture to enlarge it}













Food for the soul and for the tummy: General Conference was wonderful. As President Monson said, the priesthood conference may have been one of the best ever. During several of the talks, I was strongly impressed that these church leaders are indeed authorized servants of our Heavenly Father. Elder & Sister Doyle had kindly offered to provide a beef stew for lunch in the hour between PH and the Saturday afternoon rebroadcast, and we were going to provide a salad. Elder Doyle picked me up for the pH session, and Dede was going to pick up Sister Doyle and then Shannon Walch. The hitch was that our cell phone didn’t work, so Dede waited for Sister Doyle in their parking lot, while Sister Doyle waited upstairs in their apartment for Dede to call. Dede gave up and drove back out to the street before she thought that maybe she could find the correct doorbell to ring. Fortunately, the mailboxes had numbers corresponding to the bells, so they were able to get together. When they arrived, it turned out that Sister Doyle had also made a peach cobbler and brought drinks and rolls – and the stew was plentiful. But they hadn’t received a response to the email to ask if they could pick Shannon up an hour earlier than arranged on Saturday. Consequently, Dede and I drove out to get Shannon at the originally appointed time, while the Doyles shared dinner with the missionaries. But there was still plenty when we got back, just as the session was beginning (so my wife and I sat behind the table and ate while watching the broadcast).

A face smiles at us from this wee flower













A stay-at-home mom (and dad): Because our car was VERY low on gas, the Doyles had let us use theirs for the last session (10-midnight because of the 8-hr time difference). Monday morning, I went to get gas for the car so we could go to our missionary district meeting at 10:30 am. But the French celebrate Easter on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which meant that no one was available to sell fuel – and the machines wouldn’t accept an American credit card – any of the three I tried. When I drove over to the Carrefour station (the large grocery store itself was open) the same result – without a European card, no gas! We phoned the Doyles to see if they might give us a ride to District meeting, but they were already on their way to pick up the sister missionaries, and there would not have been room for 4 passengers besides the Doyles. We then phoned the Jones, but their daughter had just arrived and was suffering from allergies, so they were not planning to attend. So we were “stuck” at home for the day. We thus studied some French, rescued – we hope - a little weeping fig someone had thrown into the garbage, went for a walk in the spring weather (taking pictures of colorful cars and birds), and had time for a recovery nap. I worked on the three monthly reports for the Centers for Young Adults that had to be sent to Frankfurt that evening. The specific tender mercy here was that had we gone to district meeting, we’d not have been able to get the plan rewritten nor the reports prepared – an incredible blessing – which at first I’d thought was simply my stupidity for not buying gas on Saturday when we had the chance.

Spring heather blossoms in early April













Pride plus bad decisions can be disastrous: President Murdock had asked that Elder Doyle and I serve as his counselors for a disciplinary council for a young missionary who needed to be sent home. The eternal salvation of the individual who has transgressed, by facilitating repentance, is the main reason for holding a disciplinary council; the next most important objective is to protect potential victims from an aggressor; the third priority is to protect the name of the Church. During the Council itself, a spirit of love was palpable. The missionary was advised that his parents themselves would go through different stages of grieving, including hostility and anger. When the Council ended, we all embraced the missionary. The day was sad, yet we all felt Heavenly Father’s love for this young missionary. Looking back, I recall some instances of pride and lack of a willingness to submit to authority that had been displayed prior to the transgression. Then, instead of stopping inappropriate communication immediately, it was allowed to continue, and eventually led to the missionary’s downfall. After all that, Dede and I still had to prepare dinner for the family home evening in Yverdon. It was a Middle Eastern casserole with ground beef, eggplant, pine nuts, and diced tomatoes, served over rice. For salad, we had tabbouli. Dessert was a chocolate fondant with Crème Anglaise.

If advertising for 1 thing will pay,
doesn't it make sense that advertising
for several things will pay more?













The un-sewing was painless: Friday began with a visit to the surgeon to have Dede’s 3 stitches removed. We also gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon in which Dede had inscribed our testimony and reminded him of his first surgical patient, who was LDS. He graciously accepted the book and thanked us for our interest in him. After printing 28 photos of our young adults in activities at family home evening or after institute classes, we took our rice pudding and headed up to Yverdon. This time, in order to make sure we had an accurate record of those attending, Dede went to Sister Vigliotti’s class, and I went to Aurélie’s class. In all, 24 participated.

The Swiss use forsythia for freeway dividers
(oops! At 120 km/hr the buildings were in focus)



Our stab at marketing the Yverdon Center: Most of Saturday afternoon was spent working on a brochure the missionaries in Yverdon could distribute to young single adults they meet on the streets or as they contact people door-to-door. It is printed on both sides of a sheet of paper that is then folded to make three sections; color pictures of the chapel and of some young adults at a fondue party are included, as are class schedules and a list of activities for the rest of the spring term. A dinner at the mission home was to honor the new couple, Elder and Sister Asay, by treating them to the Swiss traditional dinner of “raclette,” which means the scraping of cheese that is then melted and added to boiled potatoes. After dinner, President Murdock shared recent experiences from the mission in towns that were once very “dead” but which become invigorated as missionaries catch the vision of what can happen when members invite the missionaries to help them introduce their friends to the gospel message.