L: Zugersee from Rigi; M: Elders Pne, Harris Larson; R: Eler Harris, Me and Diana.

MARCH 16, 2009 MONDAY

This morning Elders Pine and Harris were here bright and early to do their emails. We wanted to catch the train to Arth-Goldau at 9:30, but the Elders took longer than expected to get the emails done. Diana fixed them a breakfast of fried potatoes and ham as well so we got a late start. At Arth-Goldau we took the blue Rigi-bahn up the mountain to almost the very top of Mt. Rigi. The last 400-500 yards was a very steep climb on foot, but it was well worth the effort. When you think of Switzerland, this is what you dream of. On the very top there were two telescopes, one looking the 180 degrees opposite of the other so both together covered the whole 360 degrees. They were mounted on a ball which had a pointer and dots indicating the names of the different peaks on the skyline. When you lined the dot with the pointer, you could read the name of the mountain or peak. Looking down you could see the Vierwaldstaedtersee, the Zugersee and various cities along the shores. We didn’t get to stay on top as long as we would have liked because we got the late start.

We took the red train down the other side of the mountain to a small town where we got on a ship to ride back to Luzern. The scenery was beautiful on the way down and we took many photographs to post on our blog. Riding the ferry was like riding through a picture postcard, smooth glassy lake, high snow-capped mountains with green foothills and picturesque villages and towns along the shoreline. The ride only took 45 minutes so it was soon over. We had to wait a few minutes for our train so we visited a bakery and bought a few yummy muffins, Berliners and pastries to tide us over until FHE tonight. WE got back to Zurich and took the tram to Schwamendingen to buy a few groceries before we went home.

Charlotte was going to go with us on this trip, but she remembered she had committed to cook lasagne for FHE tonight so she stayed home to do it. She cooked a wonderful meal which we all enjoyed. The lesson was out of the Joseph Smith Manual chapter 30. After the lesson came the game. The fourteen of us were divided up into pairs and given a slip of paper to write down a short description of a story or event out of the Bible or the Book of Mormon. The slips were folded and turned in, shuffled and each pair were given one back. Each pair had to act out the story or event while the others tried to guess what it was. Diana and I had the story about Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac. Pres. Bolt showed Diana where there was a real knife she could use to sacrifice me with. Fortunately, she used it in the charade, but didn’t actually use it on me. We think we’re getting too old and tired for these early mornings and late nights.