Elders Rowley & Nilsson; Elder Norris between Sister Larson and Elder Larson; There we are in front of the Bern temple. Elder Nilsson and Sister Robinson are off to the side.

FEBRUARY 10, 2010 WEDNESDAY

4:45 came all too early and it’s hard to get up when it’s cold. We had to get up that early to be able to get to Zollikofen for our temple trip today. Every night the heat radiators in our apartment turn off and they slowly cool. The hot water starts circulating at about 7:00 to heat up the apartment again. We were up and gone before the heat came on so it was pretty chilly. We’ve been in a deep freeze (below freezing) for the last month and the weather forecast says it’s going to stay below freezing until after next week. From then on it’s supposed to get on a warming trend and by the end of February, we should be into spring weather. Promises! Promises! We’ll see. This morning it was snowing when we caught our bus and, when we got off it tonight, it was still snowing. From the Midwest to the East coast in the USA we see that they are also in cold and snow up to their wazoo. Where is Al Gore and his global warming when you need him? Right now we think he’s hiding out.

We caught our bus at 6:17 so we could get to the bahnhof to catch the train at 6:31. We didn’t realize we were 10 minutes early until we saw the train schedule there. The time I wrote in my planner to be at the bahnhof was actually the time we should have caught our bus at home. We got on a different train anyway and rode to Winterthur where we would have had to wait anyway for our train to Bern. We got off at Winterthur and waited in the cold for the thirty minutes before our train came. The last few minutes we moved down the platform to where the 2nd class cars would be and discovered a heated waiting room that we could’ve warmed up in, but the train stations we’ve been in before haven’t had them so they were new to us. The train came and we got on. As we sat down two missionaries came up to us and said hello. Elders Zenger & Paschan, who are serving in Winterthur, were also assigned to go to the temple today. It was nice to be able to ride with fellow missionaries for the final hour and a half of the trip. When we got to Bern, we had to change trains once more to ride to Zollikofen. We met up in Bern with Elder Nilsson, Elder Tally and his companion and rode the rest of the way with them.

We rode the elevator from the train platform up to the street level and were walking along the sidewalk on our way to the temple. We had to pass through a covered walkway by a high rise apartment building and just as we were getting to the covered part, we heard someone yelling. We looked around and couldn’t see anyone and kept walking. Diana said it sounded like someone yelled “Larson,” but who could be yelling at us. We kept on walking and within seconds our cell phone rang. We answered and it was Elder Vincent calling us. He asked us to go back through the covered walkway to the other side and look up. There he was up on the top floor balcony waving at us from their apartment where they live. He told us to wait a minute and brought us a photo of himself with some alps in the background. We talked to him a few minutes and then he had to go. We continued on our way to the temple. Long before this I was sorry I hadn’t worn my overcoat; I thought we would always be in a train or bus and I hadn’t realized it would be snowing so much all day. Just as we got on the temple grounds sidewalk, even though we were walking carefully, Diana slipped down, not all the way, but onto her bad knee. Luckily, even though superficially it’s sore, it didn’t do any damage to the joint. Her hand hurts worse where she caught herself from falling all the way to the ground. Soon after I almost did the same thing. We brought our small umbrella, but by the time we got to the temple, we were covered in snow anyway.

Senior couples are always asked to do a sealing session in the morning and then an endowment session in the afternoon. We enjoyed both of them. During lunch we sat with the Neidharts, talked a little with Heinz Locher and Pres. Bolt. It was good to see some of our friends from Schwamendingen. We also saw Elder & Sister Hutchison and met Elder & Sister Fox, another senior couple serving in the Bern Outreach Program. After the temple experience we hung around in front of the temple talking with missionaries we know and especially Sisters Robinson & Jensen, Elder Middleton, Elder Nilsson, Elder Norris and Elder Rowley. The last three are going home next week and we’ll really miss them a lot. Elder Middleton is still serving in the Bern District as a Zone Leader. We took a lot of photos and then we had to leave to catch our train. Our trip home was long, but uneventful. On the way we texted Cornelia Schaer just to let her know we hadn’t forgotten her and that we hoped to see her at stake conference later this month. We left in the dark and got home in the dark.

Tonight Sylvain called and said he had a good day which made us happy. Soon after Silvia called and gave us a little information about Jasmine Hunziker with whom we have an appointment in the morning. And that’s about it for today.

The tender mercies for today was being able to see our missionaries before they leave for home next week. Another is that Diana didn’t reinjure her knee and it was a treat to be able to attend the temple again. There are so many tender mercies each day it’s hard to pick out just one or two. So here’s another. Charlotte, in cleaning out the mission home, found an old antique spoon. She knew we’ve collected a few spoons and so she sent it with Pres. Matern to give it to us today.