DEBBY and Claudias visit

Just when things were slowing down after our daughters visits .. we happily are sharing our mission with Cousins Debby and Claudia. Before they came they said, <oh, we just want to see what a Senior Couple mission is like> So being the good Senior Missionary couple that we are we have tried to include some history of the area (Seeing Voltaires Chateaux next to our Apt). the Reformation wall (which is near the Institute).Then the next day we took a Temple trip up to Bern Temple and enjoyed the lovely grounds, We walked around the town of Zollenkofen, which is in the German part of Switzerland. On the way back from the temple we stopped at Avanches to see what we have named Rapuzles Caste in Avanches. The next day we went to our local Marche and then up to the ville Gex, set up in the Juras Mountains, It is here where we enjoyed another delightful baptism of Celia., the grand daughter of our good friend Frere Sienne. It is s fun to go to Gex ward and know  so many wonderful people, I am starting to get a little sad as I know that as summer approaches they will go on their vacations and soon we will be back to the states. After the baptism, there was a great feast of food and friendship.  Us cousins have enjoyed renewing memories of our youth, family history, slumber parties, taking alot of photos, learning a new card game,GOLF. and sharing our testimonies of the gospel.

Happy Mothers Day to all of you. Here we will have a visit with some friends and then serve our YSA at the CES broadcast,  It takes one week extra to show the broadcast here as to the time change .France will celebrate Mothers day in the middle of June.  We sadly say goodbye to Karina and Dan  and look forward to seeing the lastest edition in Aug.  Their last day here in Europe was their Tour de France which took them to Lake Geneva in Switzerland.  We had so much fun sharing stories and enjoying the country side.Karina really enjoyed the food ,especially the giant strawberry tart,.. shared by all of us!  I never laughed so hard as they prepared to leave and Dan had to wear all his clothes to make room for all the chocolate in his suit case! Au Revoir ma fils! Missing all of the rest of you and hope you find your day filled  with love from family, friends, and the gospel of Jesus Christ

We 
went to CERN again and this time I understood what it stands for-- Counsel European Recherche Nucleur. Dan and Jim love it.! CERN is trying to  figure out where we came from and where we are going. I am happy to say that I do not question the Plan of Salvation. After  We  got to hike Fort L'ecluse- which has been used for at Look OUT for thousands of years,,,as it is located at a cut in the Jura Mountains with the river rushing down below. The next day we went the Avenches, Switzerland. Every time we drive by this town I love to see the tall spires and castle looking town, but we have never stopped as we are always rushing to the Temple are rushing back from the temple, It is over an hour away, but has a beautiful view and Roman ruins from 70AD, It has an amphitheater, an Aventicum structure made of stones that were conveyed by barges from the Juras. This Roman wall surrounded the town and we were at the eastern entrance.The nest day we awoke to rain, At 8h, while studying the scriptures, like all good missionaries, our mission President called and asked to see us. Right after that our friend called to ask us to go on a tour of the UN,  This change of plans  worked out perfecting.  When ending up at the mission home which is very close to the UN.  This mission home opened 50 years ago in Chambesy and will now be closed as the new home is in Lyon. Our mission President said, <WELL DONE, When do you want to go home!> We arent ready yet!, our replacement comes in 3 weeks.!  We will help in the transfer of info for the summer months and tie up  all the loose ends. It is sad to think that we are getting ready to enter a new chapter in our lives.

Family fun, revisits and service

This week, we celebrated May 1 by doing some spring cleaning before Karina and Dan came to visit,  They flew into London and visited for a few days then into Geneva on Thursday,  Since holidays are a REALLY big deal here in France, we had an easier week at the Institute.  We are almost finished teaching our New Testament class.  I will be sad, as I have loved preparing and doing in detail research.  Friday we took the "Kids" to the classic visits of the Hills of Switzerland, the Cailler and Chillon,  Saturday is never complete without the visit to our local Marche . We had alot of fruit sec (dried fruit), Pain (bread), African food, and many fun different tastes. ; In the afternoon we went to Yvoire, France, a medieval town on Lake Geneve.  The day was perfect, with sail boats on the lake and a big beautiful rainbow. In the evening we had an African Evening, learning and honoring,Burkina Faso.  The ambassador of Burkina Faso received the Book of Mormon in a delightful ceremony..Sunday we enjoyed testimony meeting with our usual wide diversity of people attending and bearing testimony, After we went to Annesy France and visited three different churches, and strolled through the city with beautiful flowers and water running around and through the city. We ended the week with three baptisms from our Spanish branch. The Spanish baptism had talks in both Spanish and Portuguese, both  alot of them know French. Lucky us And Lucky Karina and Dan as they have gotten to use their Spanish every day

Relief Society Temple trip

I guess that they really did understand by talk on Societe de Secours (RS) a couple of weeks ago, because I was asked to organize one of the four buses going to the temple to celebrate RS birthday.  Our trip to Bern Switzerland included well over 200 sisters in a full ,very long day of Temple activity.  In our bus we had 5 languages all filled with the spirit of sisterhood and joy at attending the temple. We had 33 from Geneva 1 ward and equal number of YSA sisters throughout the stake.  The activities included the various ordinances inside the temple and classes in the adjacent ward for the others, lunch, and a meeting after,

Also this week I got a break  to take a girls day out with our friend Eliane . We went to Annesy, a favorite ville also called little Italy. that is at the base of the Alps and used to be part of Italy,  We shopped,  and went to many art galleries, as Eliane is an artist. We took the traditional 2 hours lunch break, but only for half of the time, as the rest was spent walking around the Venice- like roads. Two days without rain and in two days we will celebrate MAY DAY