Week of 13 June 2010:

An accordian bus zooms past us on our way into Geneva









After Monday's Spanish
family home evening,
Elder Jones receives a wee
farewell gift from Bp Volpicelli




The Jones end their mission
by thanking the Spanish
home evening group





















Only minutes before our camera is lost,
Elder H pauses to smell the roses
at this little chapel overlooking
Yverdon - recently built, in 1769


An interesting conference story:We went to Stake Conference in Geneva, a transmission broadcast from Salt Lake, featuring talks on light by Elder Paul Johnson, also by Sister Cook (YW general presidency), and Elder Bednar (who spoke about revelation being usually gradual – like watching the sunrise, a little more light every few minutes, before the sun rises over the horizon, or if it’s overcast, sensing the increased light). Elder Bednar also related a story from his experience as a missionary in Munich, Germany. He told how then Elder Packer had phoned the mission office to see if someone could come to the airport in Munich and bring him and his wife to the mission home to see about arranging transportation to Berlin by train, since the airport was closed because of bad weather. Elder Bednar and his companion did so, helped arrange their travel, and then took them to the train station. Once the young missionaries were satisfied that the Packers were safely aboard and settled, he thought they might get hungry on the long train ride, so he gave Elder Packer a 20-mark bill. It was 20 years before he learned what had happened subsequent to that act, when Elder Packer came to a regional meeting where the Stake Presidents all introduced themselves and Elder Bednar (now a Stake President) asked Elder Packer if he happened to remember the incident. Elder Bednar’s purpose in relating this incident was to show that inspiration or revelation usually doesn’t announce itself as in the turning on of a light in a dark room, but rather comes ever so quietly, and often just as an unrelated feeling. President Packer concluded the addresses. He amplified the story Elder Bednar had begun. He told how he and his wife had come to the Berchtesgaden Germany servicemen’s conference in 1972 to re-organize the stake {that’s the conference I’d attended back in 1968 and 1969}. Bernie Fisher, an LDS pilot whose plane had been shot down over North Vietnam and who’d spent 5+ years as a prisoner of war there without caving in to torture or other efforts to get him to renounce the United States, and for which he had been awarded the US’ highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor {and whom I’d heard speak at one of those servicemen’s conferences} had driven the Packers to the Munich airport for their next assignment in Berlin. He told how when they got to the mission home in the evening, Sister Packer had rummaged around and found some soup they could heat up, since they’d had nothing to eat all day at the airport. He told how Elder Bednar had run alongside the train to give him the money through an open window. He told how as they got into East Germany, the train crews changed, and the new crew had police and communist army guards checking passports. He said that he likes everybody, but sometimes he could make an exception, and this was one of those times. The guy that took their passports was very surly and mean. He came back several times with one sort of complaint or another. Finally, Elder Packer was made to understand that his wife’s passport was not acceptable. The United States had changed its passport policy and that all former 3-year passports would automatically be extended to be valid for 5 years and would not need to be renewed until after the 5 years had expired. All the countries in the world, except communist East Germany, accepted the old passports. The result was that they would stop the train and expel Sister Packer. Desperate, he tried to think of what to do. After several arguments, even though he spoke no English, and the guard spoke no German, he knew things were grim. Then he remembered the 20-mark bill Elder Bednar had given him. He gave it to the guard, who came back a few minutes later with Sister Packer’s passport stamped with a Visa that would allow her to continue the trip. Surely Elder Bednar had been inspired to give him that money, though it took 20 years for him to find out why he had been so prompted. President Packer then joked that Elder Bednar had asked for the money to be reimbursed, and then with interest over those 20 intervening years.

Where is our camera?? Monday night, I had difficulty sleeping, but the tender mercy was that while I lay there, some ideas came for Thursday’s family home evening in Yverdon. They were phrases from talks by general authorities: “Walk toward the light” and “Do all you can, and then let God make up the difference.” Tuesday, it seemed to us a miracle that I was able to get online and actually locate the talks, beginning with stories by President McKay in the late 1960’s and then by Elder Packer a few years later (and re-quoted in a talk he gave at BYU in 1993). That evening, while Dede worked on painting faces on the little dolls the young adults had put together for hospitalized children recovering from surgery, I was able to outline almost the whole lesson for family home evening. When we got home, around midnight, we noticed that the camera wasn’t in any of our bags. It seemed too late to take a flashlight and go look to see if it had fallen to the ground by the car, since the more likely thing was that we’d left it in the kitchen in Yverdon. Wednesday morning was French class, and as we walked out to the car at 9:45 am, there was no camera to be seen. We felt it wise to drive back up to Yverdon to see if our camera might be in the kitchen. No luck.

Smores take the cake: Friday, the young adults had planned an outdoor barbeque, called “grillades” (ie grilled stuff). In preparation, in addition to buying some Swiss sausages, we made a large pasta salad: we chopped up a cup each of cucumber, tomatoes, olives, red pepper, and added a couple of small chopped green onions, and a can of tuna. We also took two boxes of Graham crackers, 10 chocolate bars, and a bag of strawberry-flavored marshmallows (we couldn’t find plain ones) to make “smores.” They were a hit.

Restaurants can be expensive – especially for our young adults: Saturday,we got back to the Geneva chapel by 11 am Saturday for the baptism of Bruna Oliviera, a special young adult from Brazil. Seminary and Institute graduation services began in Yverdon at 4:30. I asked Bp Bonny if he had heard anything about a camera having been found, but he hadn’t; he said he’d keep his ears open, however. Afterwards, the young adults went to the Maison Blanche (the “white house”) hotel/restaurant for dinner. In all, there were 20 of us to celebrate the end of the academic year. Amazingly, the bill was 790 francs (nearly $800) – our part was a “mere” 59 francs. We slipped away around 10 pm, having eaten way too much.