A week at the temple in Switzerland

We were so blessed to be able to go to the Swiss temple for the whole week.  On Sunday afternoon, we took the 3:30 train from Battipaglia.

And we travelled about an hour to Napoli, where we met other members from Pozzuoili and Napoli, and Castle di Mare.  We all climbed on a charter bus and left Napoli around 7:00 pm.  We made a couple of other stops to pick up more members from our stake.  Our final pickup was in Rome and we left Rome about 11:00 pm and traveled all night to Switzerland.

One of our young adults, Greta, traveled with us on the bus.  We enjoyed talking with her, and sharing the bus space with her.  

From Rome it was 15 more hours until we reached The Temple in Zollikofen, Switzerland at 2 pm Monday. That is a long bus ride.  I don't sleep sitting up on a bus at all, but at least the temperature in the bus was comfortable. I survived.  We got checked into the patron housing, which is right across the street from the temple. It was raining when we arrived.  The first thing we did after arriving was to walk to the grocery store to get food for the week.  Here is Greta, me and a good friend from Napoli, Lucy. 

The D'Andolfo family came to the temple also, from our branch.  They drove their van though, so they missed the bus ride. (Lucky ducks!)  Their oldest daughter got to do baptisms for the dead for the first time.  We were all there to support her.  It was a wonderful experience.

  Flavia was going to come too, along with her boyfriend, and her non member sister and non member mother.  But she got pneumonia and her doctor said that she shouldn't travel and be around so many people.  Due to her Leukemia, she does not have the immune system to fight disease.  So at the last moment she couldn't come. And then that made it so her family didn't come either of course.  We were looking for some good missionary teaching times with her mother and sister.

We met several new friends, most of them from our Stake.  There was a new member sister who I saw doing Babtisms the first morning.  I found out that she was a new convert.  She and her husband joined the church in January.  We loved hearing their conversion story and also the story of how they met.  She was from the Dominican Republic, and he is from Italy.  He went to the DR on holiday and met her and fell in love.  He returned soon after and they got married and he brought her to Italy. 

Their names are Lucy and Vincinzo.

I love her natural curly hair!

I wish we would be here next January when they hope to go through the temple to be sealed.

We met a young man named Simone whose grandfather is in our branch.

I got to be friends with a sister named Sister Barbara.  It rained all week and she forgot to bring an umbrella.  I walked with her over to the temple one morning, sharing my umbrella with her, and we were friends ever after.  Here is her picture below!

Eating all together as a stake for every meal is quite an experience.  There is a large dining hall in the basement of the housing. Two walls are lined with refrigerators.  There is also a big kitchen with 10 sinks and ten double stove top burners.  In the middle of the kitchen there is a huge island for food prep and the kitchen is all outfitted with pots and pans and dishes and utensils. Thirty different Italian families all cooking their regular family pasta together is such an awesome experience.  One I will always remember.  The first picture below is Stephania and Jocelin, from our branch.

We did a couple of endowment sessions each day, and Paul helped do confirmations for the youth in the mornings.  The Swiss temple has four main languages that it works with: French, German, Italian, and English.  At youth meetings and firesides, there would usually be three people up front; one giving the talk or directions in French or German, and then someone else translating that into English and then another person translating that into Italian.  It was so amazing how smoothly everything worked.  Last night, we had a fireside at the stake center next door to the temple.  The Temple President and his wife spoke.  President and Sister Spirling.  Before they spoke, the youth from our stake sang a song that Mary Lisota would have been proud of.  It's the song that Mary Lisota taught the YW/YM in the Afton 1st ward. It was the medley of Sisters in Zion, and armies of Helaman.  They sang so beautifully.

After they sang, we heard two wonderful talks by the Spirlings.  Sister Spirling talked about an incident about six months ago.  She looked out front of the temple and saw two young men dressed in work clothes, and she thought they were there to help the gardener.  They had big boots on.  A few minutes later, she noticed the same two young men, inside the temple at the clothing desk to check out temple clothes.  She thought she should say something to them about their manner of dress.  She said she told them that they were so welcome to come to the temple, but she wondered about their choice of clothing.  They immediately apologized, but said that it was the only clothes they owned.  They were US soldiers and were on leave from Afganastan.  The only place they wanted to come to was the temple, and Switzerland was the closest temple.  They only had this one morning before they had to head back.

She said her heart melted and she hugged them and welcomed them and honored them !  It was a good lesson to her not to judge anyone, and also a good lesson for me.  We never know what people have to go through to get to where they are. 

Here is Lucy from Napoli.  Last year she was at the temple too and it was the week of Paul's birthday, She walked to town to buy him a birthday cake.  We have been friends ever since.

Here is a picture of Paul and I after we did our last temple session on Friday.  I am not sure if we will get another chance to be here again.  

We loaded up the bus 

and I was able to get a picture of this cute couple.  He is the bishop down in Dispoli.  He speaks English beautifully.  He is currently out of work  (as most all of southern Italians are) and yet they somehow saved enough to make this trip for a week at the temple.   What a great sacrifice the saints here make. I wish I had taken a video of him singing cute nursery songs to his 18 month old daughter, in English.  We asked him where he learned them so well.  He said from YouTube!

On the long ride home, I saw everyone talking and sharing testimonies and sharing friendship.  Brother Granduli from Pozzuoili is the stake young men's leader.  He is so energic and fun to be with.  He was sitting close to us on the bus.  I saw him talking with a few of the young women from our stake.  He had out his Book of Mormon and was showing them different scriptures to answer their questions.  They were in deep conversation for over an hour.

  I am so thankful that we could visit this beautiful temple again.   We tried to enjoy every minute.