Vieille Ville's St. Peter Cathedral; Robert, Diana, Mary Kaye and Dennis Doyle; longest wooden bench in the world.

JUNE 17, 2010 THURSDAY

We had been looking forward to this day for about a month and now here it was. A month ago we asked Pres. Matern if we could visit our friends, the Doyles, serving in the Geneva Switzerland Mission home and he surprised us by saying we could. So this morning, filled with excitement and anticipation, we took the 9:09 train in Schaffhausen and were in Geneva by 12:36. The Doyles were expecting us at 1:15, but we wanted to get there a little early so we could find a good spot for them to come pick us up. It's a good thing we did because we came out of the train station on the back side, but after walking around the block, we found the front side. The only problem was we only saw taxis and thought the area was restricted for other cars. We found a spot on the corner of the train station and thought the Doyles would be able to see us when they drove by. We finally spotted Dennis turn the corner and drive right in where the taxis were. I took off running to catch him and thankfully he was driving slow so I was able to catch up to him. When Diana got there, we jumped in and away we went.

Sister Doyle does a much better job than I do in writing down our travels and experiences of the next three days so it was easier and better to just copy here account and paste it into our journal. At the end of this first day we were tired and it was late so we didn't write anything. Friday and Saturday we wrote our journal, but still we added Mary Kaye's account anyway.

The proselyting missionary couple, Robert and Diana Larson, of Sandy, Utah, serving in the Switzerland Zurich Mission, have spent the last three days with us and are on the train going back to their mission. They should get there about 8:30. It was a wonderful time together.

They arrived by train, using their rail passes, at 1:00 Thursday in Geneva’s gare. Denny left from our mission office to pick them up. We had gone in to the office early for me to get as much work done as possible with letters and emails relating to the new missionaries. It became apparent, however, that I was not going to be able to complete the tasks before time to go to the train station, so I suggested Denny go, take the two of them to some of the sights we had planned to show them in downtown Geneva, and call me from time to time to see if I were anywhere near completion.

Denny had been able to take the pictures of the missionaries alone, with their group of 8, with their new senior companions and with President and Sister Murdock. They were on the flash drive, on my computer. I did not receive the list of which new missionaries were assigned to which trainers until minutes before they were to learn themselves, so I did not attend the emotional pairing up. I went right to the work of matching the names on “1^st Assignment” letters and “Trainer” letters and getting them printed off.

Elder Sorensen invited me to come to the luncheon, but I asked to be excused so I could finish what I was doing. When he told Sister Murdock, she brought me a plate of the wonderful taco salad! I was grateful. It really hit the spot! The printing of the letters was not as smooth sailing as I had anticipated, but as I was nearing completion of the last of the letters, President Murdock came into the office to sign them all and to fold them and put them into envelopes for the 16 missionaries. He apologized for not getting the names to me earlier, but with them all printed and signed, I could honestly say that it was just fine!

As he walked out of the room to hand out the letters to each team as they left for their trains, I felt relaxed and turned my attention to sending the emails to their parents. I was not able to bring up the photos to attach to the emails, however, and added a line to each of the letters, stating that I had photos to send them via their emails in a few days and then sent off the emails in record time! When Denny called, I told him I was finished, and the three of them could come to get me.

Rather than wait in the office, where the Elders were congregating--all their tension-filled duties were done, too, and they were hyper and happy and loud and expressive—I bid them farewell for the weekend and went outside to wait. It was cool and misty, so I waited with my umbrella overhead and walked a few times up to the corner and back. They took quite a long time. Hinmans dropped in to pick up a fondue pot from Sister Murdock to use for tonight’s fondue party at the Yverdon Young Adult FHE.

Day 1 Aventure: When Denny arrived with Larsons, I got into the backseat with Diana. It seemed so natural for us to be together. The three of them had been able to visit the Vieille Ville’s St. Pierre Cathedral. The men had climbed up to the top of the tower to take pictures overlooking Geneva. Even overcast, it was a beautiful sight, and the jet d’eau was on, too. They had walked through the narrow, ancient streets of the old city, posed by the canons and walked over to the longest wooden bench in the world. Then they came for me and had a quick glance of the beautiful twin houses that make up our mission home and office. We stopped to mail letters at our Chambésy post office and drove out to the medieval village, Yvoire, in France.

It was beautiful, even with the clouds overhead. It was cool and comfortable, lush and colorful. We hadn’t been there 15 minutes when, lo, and behold, the Larsons met dear, dear friends from their first ward in Zurich, the Bolts!!!!! We’ve been hearing about the Bolts for over a year—Kathy and Hitch. They are great people. We fell in love with them immediately. Such a surprise meeting. It was a thrill for them all. Robert and Diana really have made eternal friendships with Bolts and others in that ward.

We sauntered through the village and the shops to our hearts’ content. We all bought items and took a million photos before deciding to leave the bustling crowds behind and head for our place in Ferney! The two had packed LIGHTLY, bringing only a small backpack each, so getting them settled in the apartment was an easy task. On the way back we were excited to take them to the Einstein house and they were too, because they've seen the many pictures on our blog. We got their pictures and then went to our apartment to relax.

At 8:30 we walked up the street to the Chinese restaurant, Le Palais Chinois, for dinner. They treated Denny and me to a great dinner. They had lemon chicken and sweet & sour chicken. I had the sweet & sour pork and spring rolls. Diana has been off sugar for several months now, since Sylvain has been working at breaking his alcohol addiction. She is showing him her support by overcoming her sugar addiction. She does not ever cheat! Impressive to say the least! And she is also looking very trim!

We talked and talked and talked. No one ever tries to hurry patrons in a restaurant, and we were there a couple of hours at least. Our conversations were primarily related to our mission experiences, which we have faithfully recorded daily in our respective blogs, so as we brought up incidents, we were all heard to say repeatedly, “oh, yes, I remember you telling that on your blog!” We were dead tired tonight, though, and only wrote a sentence or two on our blogs. When we put up our pictures, Robert showed us how to crop and adjust colors and contrast, etc. Oh, for heaven’s sake!!!!!

We went to bed by midnight, eager for tomorrow to come.