MUSIK ABEND

Last night at the Center the YSAs held their first Friday night activity--a casual music evening of performing artists and other entertainment, followed by freshly cooked hot waffles.

For a beginning event, it was pretty darn good!

Pictured here are the performers, whose varied offerings were: an Israeli dance tune on the pan flute, Hawaiian love songs on the ukelele, clarinet jazz, Bach on the violin, and piano/vocals from musicals. And this is only a small sample of the talent available in this stake.

More musik abends will follow, I'm sure!

Gregor, Andy, Denis, Anna, Nadine, and Michelle. Not pictured is Sara.

And then all heck broke loose! A new facet was added to the ever popular (could I venture to say it is an obsession?) 'Round the World ping pong. They tried it on rolling desk chairs!

Honestly! What next!?

Is he going to eat the ball?

Earlier in the week we had a very successful highlight abend. The students were divided into groups and each group was given a scripture from the New Testament (this year's course of study) from which they were to create a Mormonad-type poster.

They were great!

I wanted to do an entire post about that evening, but somehow I lost the photos! I can see them when I scroll through them on the camera, but I can't see them when I try to get them for the blog. Hmmmm . . .

ZONE CONFERENCE SHENANIGANS!

We had a wonderful zone conference today

at the Basel chapel,

under the direction of our zone leaders, Elder Rowley and Elder Hafen.

President Matern taught us

in his energetic and engaging way.

Other missionaries taught us and we shared testimonies.

It was such an uplifting time together.

A lesson in trust challenged the missionaries to take courage and fall into the arms of their missionary friends.

Among others, Sister Luebke . . .. . . Sister Lehmann . . .

. . . and Sister Frederiksen . . .

. . . took the challenge.

Such courage! And fun . . .

(Did I say "uplifting"?)

FLAT AUSTIN COMES TO VISIT!!!

A flat image of our grandson, Austin, came to visit!

We were so happy to see him,

I just had to give him a great big hug!

He met our stake president, President Weidmann, at the Interlaken Ward. . .


. . . took a trip to Grindelwald . . .

. . . had a ride on the tram . . .

. . . attended zone conference . . .

(notice his name tag!)

And met our mission president, President Matern.
We think Austin likes being on a mission with us!

GRINDELWALD IN WINTER

Wouldn't you love to ski here?

OUR MISSION LIFE - in a nutshell

As we have reviewed our blog posts it occurs to us that we haven't described very well what it is we do here. We have been preparing to make a presentation to the missionaries at zone conference, and we can see there really is much we could describe for our history and journal. So here is a brief description:

Our mission is with the Institute Center For Young Adults in Bern, Switzerland, where our work is to bring people to Christ through reactivation and missionary work among young single adults, some of whom are pictured above.

Our goal has been to help the active young adults learn how to reach out to their friends and bring them into our Center where they can hear the gospel, have fun, and experience joy in a clean, wholesome, safe environment.

What we do: We --

• try to make the center inviting. We have painted, gently remodeled, added music and a current photo gallery of the young adults who come to the center. We provide refreshments after classes and an inexpensive dinner for those who come directly from school or work.
• love the young single adults. We greet each one who comes to the center and try to make them feel welcome. We describe ourselves as the center grandma and grandpa who listen to their joys and their woes! We heard this comment the other day, "Coming to institute is like coming home," so maybe it's working.
• attend a different ward in the stake each Sunday to meet with and encourage young adults, and to explain to bishops how we can help them with their young adults.
• speak in sacrament meetings, when invited, to promote institute, missionary work, and reactivation.
• conduct Family Home Evening . . .

. . .for those who wish to come on Monday. This is last week's FHE where we said goodby to Sister Longhurst. (Hi, Sister Longhurst. Was it good to get home?) "Flat Austin" attended too, hanging behind us!

• participate as "shadow leaders" in young adult councils, and Elder Grassli is a member of the stake high council.

• help with activities held in the center, such as waffle night, music evening, highlight evenings (special speakers and activities), missionary district meetings, and missionary lessons taught by the missionaries.

• send birthday and "missed you" cards, as well as "checking in" emails to young single adults.
• stay close to the missionary sisters assigned to the center and plan with them ways to enhance the reactivation and missionary activity here.

In addition to what we do, the missionaries teach investigators, and English classes and Stop Smoking workshops in the center. They are . . . . . . wonderful missionaries who never stop!

When they are not in the center they are out finding and teaching people everywhere.

This is too much fun!

Anybody reading this who would like to try doing what we are doing, let us know.

We can help!

SERGIO'S BIRTHDAY

To readers following our mission, I beg your indulgence once more to focus on family. Our dear brother-in-law Sergio celebrated his birthday by inviting us and a few friends to a lovely lunch in the nearby German countryside. He's such a cute and nice guy, and we were delighted to share the day. We have never been here for his birthday before, so this is probably a once in a lifetime event . His wife, Marlies . . .

. . . with her siblings Leonard and Greti . . .

. . . and the gathered friends . . .



. . . in the alcove of a delightful and charming restaurant . . .

. . . we so enjoyed the delicious lunch and warm companionship.

. . . and with my food obession, we have to share one of the works of art that were desserts!

A Good Day!