Week of 11 July 2010:

This is why buses here are called "accordian" buses








July sunflowers begin to explode: We went up to Renens to bid farewell to Lam (the African refugee who’d been baptized in April of 2009). He’s now serving as 2nd Counselor in the Elders Quorum. On the way back to Geneva, we risked life and limb by stopping on the edge of the freeway (cars whizzing past at 80-90 mph) so Dede could take pictures of sunflower fields that were starting to bloom. Monday was hot again- in the low 90’s, so Dede began the day baking up a storm, trying to prepare for the week’s needs before the temperatures got too fierce: a loaf of banana bread, then a lemon pie, and finally a “clafoutis” (a tarte having a sort of pudding topping with once-frozen cherries embedded in its surface). Meanwhile, I worked on updating the journal, and since we’d recovered our camera, putting 4 weeks’ worth of materials and pictures up on our mission blog.






Sunflowers replace colza as the source of gold in the fields


Happy faces, even in 90-degree weather














Wednesday we enjoyed the half-mission zone conference (Lausanne and Geneva zones): Some ideas: As leaders, we are called NOT just to maintain an ongoing effort, but to move the work of the Lord forward and upward. A very comforting idea is that a GOAL is a DESTINATION, not a prediction of results that can only be success or failure. Pursuing a goal was likened to someone waterskiing: you have to hold on for all you’re worth (i.e. die before letting go of the rope). We succeed as we move toward the destination, not only when we arrive there. During the conference, a great tender mercy was a phone call we received from Br Tschumi. He asked if we could reschedule our dinner appointment with them – which he assured me was for this very night – even though WE had written in Dede’s planner that is was for the following Wednesday – this was important, because we already had a dinner appointment with the Bustamante family. We’d have offended the Tschumi family had we not shown up, figuring all was in place for next week. So we rescheduled for Friday.




The Bustamante family treated us to another great Peruvian dinner


In spite of our disbelief, things have to wind down: We have started to “pack” the things we’d take with us on our trip with Heidi and company – to make sure they would fit into a medium and a small suitcase. The rest of the things, we’ll plan to ship home before we go – since the Swiss Post says we can “mail” a suitcase. Friday evening, we enjoyed a hamburger dinner with the Tschumi family. The side dishes were (black) olive-flavored (and colored) noodles, Swiss bread, pineapple chunks, and a green salad. We learned that Br Tschumi works in a very prestigious watch business in Geneva – Patek-Philippe. He does “after sales service” = repairs to watches that have cost up to half a million dollars (each). When we mentioned that we planned to visit their museum the next day, he urged us to come by his place of work so that he could give us a little tour and provide us with VIP passes to the museum.






One of the 25 or more watch companies cater to those who take time for flowers







Christian Tschumi welcomes us to the Patek-Philippe Watch Company









Hey, “watch” this! Saturday, we visited Christian Tschumi at the 6-story building along one of Geneva’s main elite shopping streets, the “Rue du Rhone.” Even the entry was impressive: For security, one presses a button that allows a relatively narrow glass door to open and admit us into a little chamber in front of another glass door. When the door behind us is locked, then a man in a suit and tie (nevertheless a security guard) opens the door in front of us. After announcing our purpose – to see Br Tschumi, another man directed us to an elevator, where he used a fingerprint recognition pad to activate the elevator that took us to the third floor, where Christian was waiting for us – in his white lab coat and gloves. Christian showed us several watches individually displayed behind thick glass windows and explained that for 170 years, the company has been making some of the best mechanical watches in the world. He brought one out from its display window and opened the back to show us some of the mechanisms. One piece oscillated and he explained that its function was to compensate for the effects of changes in the force of gravity and maintain incredibly precise time – to 5 decimal places within a second, as we recall. There was also a mechanism that compensated for different days of each month; at the end of a month, the indicator automatically switched to the first day of the next month, regardless of whether it was February, March, or April, for example. There were two wee gongs that would strike a little bell every minute: one ring for each hour, two gongs for the number of quarter hours that had elapsed, and three strikes for the minutes past the quarter hour – so one could tell the time at night by listening. The watch was set to astronomical coordinates rather than lunar or solar, because those are much more precise. That particular watch would sell for a bit more than half a million dollars.





The door of a 100-year old safe decorates the reception room at Patek-Philippe




When we asked who could afford such a watch, he told us it would be either the middle-eastern oil barons or the newly rich Chinese millionaires/billionaires who didn’t know what else to do with all their money. Most of these watches were for collectors, not to wear on the wrist. One of their watches had been made in the early 1900’s as part of a competition to make the most complex timepiece ever – it took years to accomplish. It sold originally for a bit more than a million dollars, but recently had been bought at auction for 11 million dollars. That evening, we went to the Volpicelli’s for a barbeque organized by Laetitia for the Geneva young single adult international family home evening group. A fun game before the grills were ready involved our writing the name of some celebrity on a post-it note that we then affixed to the forehead of the person to our left. The object then was for each person consecutively to ask the group a yes-or-no question in an effort to guess the identity of the person whose name was on our forehead. When we got home, we had an email from Europcar indicating that the car we needed was available and the reservation had been accepted!! HOORAY!! We then spent from about 10 pm until past midnight in a Skype computer call to Heidi, Dave, Deanna and her sister Carolyn to discuss plans for the upcoming trip.