Faith , Hope and TIme

Our time is quickly passing as we are ending our second January here in Geneva/France.This week we tried a combined FHE with Sp and Mongolian. Each had their own language specific lesson and then the combined activity was musical chairs, I spend some time finding a good mix of tunes and they said I wad a great DJ, Little do they know, it is one of my fav games.On Tuesday we have our other FHE which been anyone other than Spanish speaking. I didnt expect the Mongolian crowd, but back they came. I had prepared a lesson on CTR for Primary a few week back so I brought that out and we ended out having simple examples of choosing the right and, of course more non- language games. At my PT appointment he had me do 15 minutes of weigh lifting with my bad knee and balance boarding on one leg.( way too.much so, consequently I am back to a crutch) Then on jeudi (thursday) I thought our rendez-vous(Appointment) was Un hour but it was Onez hour so we came two hours late, By Thursday I had spent three painful days limping around. Too much too soon,I believe, At Insititue one of our Mongolian Investigators came , after 1/2 hours talking I find our that she came in second in her national ballroom dance competition. I showed her my Mongolian dance and she showed me her ballroom dance!! She decided to stay for class. It was our last day of the semester and we had planned on reviewing the scripture mastery, My first question was>Tell me your fav scripture and quickly found out that she had never read one word of bible or Book of Mormon. So, again, I changed my lesson plans and we did a simple lesson on prayer. Lat night we had our first future Mongolian Priesthood holder and today Jim had the honor to confirm Ambuu.. As this month ends, Jim has a beat that it will not snow here.. So far it has flurried but nothing has stayed on the ground, As much as we love the snow we are happy just to love at it in the mountains. The blessing of really pondering,and reading the Book of Mormon each day has been the highlight of the month

strengthening our testimonies and My knees

This week we have found our routine of reading of the New Testament for our class and the Book of Mormon for our couple studies...is working. We are using BYUtv as a guide and much added info, Each morning there is 1 hour on BYU with professeurs of ancient scripture discussing what we have studied and each day I go ."wow, I didnot see that" or, Wow, so that is what that means" Did I really read that section?" And then I go back and redo. I am still using my hands to communicate( in any language, which is really important when we go to Physiotheraphy for my knee. He has advised swimming and bicycling, and some kind of balance board- all very interesting-- LUCKY ME. So we are trying to keep a balance as we demonstrated in cup stacking and balloon holding ( each object has written something that is important in our lives ) both great ideas for FHE. We cleaned the chapel.. two different ones this week. and I attended Relief Society Homemaking ( in the photo you can see our world wide web of Sisters. And our two neighbors, Jenny (our dear friend) and our Muslim friends have/are having babies..The GOOD work continues as there were four callings given to our Mongolian Sisters today ,one as a translator , Gospel doctrine.Mongolian and two as Ward Missionaries, and these are the Sisters that I danced with way back in November (when I could dance!)
Lovr, MOM, Soeur PAt.

a visit to CERN et Musee Olympic

With the help of Elder and Sister Graff we completed two quilts for a project for refuge children, Our Mongolian friends had fun and we learned (sad to say) that quilting is not a skill that is learned in France/Switzerland. We plan on doing more with this project. Last week we visit CERN which is a very famous underground project shared by many European Nations. It was started more than 50 years ago after WW ll as a project to study matter and anti matter and in the process they invented the world wide web (that is the simple explanation I can give, you can find more info on line.) Along with the Red Cross and UN. this is what make where we live very famous. CERN, or in French, 'Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire' (European Council for Nuclear Research,http://www.cern.ch/) ~ the largest international collaboration in the world., This facility hosts a huge particle accelerator 100m underground: the Large Hadron Collider, a 27km tunnel where physicists recreate the Big Bang conditions by smashing protons together head-on at nearly the speed of light. As you can well image, Jim had a blast and of course I loved visiting with people from everywhere. And then today we went with 2 missionary couples to the Headquarters of the Olympics which is centered in Lausanne Switzerland.. We look forward to two more baptismes of our Mongolian friends,,,and talk of making a unit. WOW are we blessed. As you may be able to tell from the photo on the blog, the crutch is becoming a crutch so we re kicking the habit . We are enjoying our intense study of the Book of Mormon, in keeping with our New Years Resolution.

A NEW Year and opportunities for Service

Our mission had an article recently published in Utah described how an African man baptized in Geneva was thought to be lost when he was deported to Congo where the Church did not yet exist. After some research, however, the missionaries who baptized him realized, 28 years later, that this man was responsible for thousands of conversions in his home country We also had two more Mongolian girls Baptized this week! What a blessing! This week was filled with opportunities for service. Our Next door/Muslim neighbors had their 5th. first girl. Mary. I had a feeling the mother was pg (cant tell with the coverings she wears) I did not see her outside with the boys and then on Sat, her husband told us about the new girl. So I researched the food restrictions and prepared a welcome home gift, The morning after she came home I was surprised to see her coming down the stairs ( no climbing restrictions?) and she thanked me and invited me in their home and I held the brand new baby.I held this tiny,tiny , very dark baby and felt the love, as I do for all newborns. I also wondered about restrictions on newborns AND strangers holding their daughter;.There was great, energetic joy from her high energy siblings. Another neighbors needed help with baby sitting, so I said < Mais oui> , three tiny children and a big dog and NOT one new a word of English. I was lucky that they had children books that I could read to them ( that is about how good my French is... ),then a third neighbor needed help , with car break down, baby sitting, and cheering up, as her husband is working out of town for 3 weeks and she is due with her 4th in 4 weeks. Jim helped with the car break down and driving. Then final service was Jim helping a non-member family move on Saturday while I rested and prepared for the Sabbath. Our big treat all week was watching Pajama Game, a very old musical with Doris Day. It is like Grease only it takes place in a factory in the early 1950's. Today was fast and testimony meeting for us and I really felt the spirit, We had an American, Nigerian Philippians.Swiss, Mongolian. Guyana,,new member Philippians. non member Guatemalan, and Utahan, Bishop Spencer Kimball (grandson of Pres, ) challenges us to new years goals of Praying very day, FHE, walking the walk, and Reading the Book of Mormon everyday. What a joy it is to read the Book of Mormon again! I tried to read it in French here and still do, but I have missed really enjoying the spirit and message.I close this blog with love and joy and blessings to you all. You are missed and loved by us,