Making my own history

This week I'm doing Grandma detail with these cute kids.
I'll be back here by November 1st.

Temple Leaders

Garnet and George Standish - counselor in the Swiss Temple Presidency

13 October 1989 - We were set apart as Swiss Temple Workers by President Standage. He promised us health and satisfaction if we were obedient to the laws pertaining to such. He also put great emphasis on the love and appreciation for us by them and Heavenly Father, and the admonitions to be kind and helpful to fellow workers, and especially to the patrons

Hilde and Louis Ringger - temple president

18 October 1989 – When we met the president of the temple as we were invited up to his home for dinner, he told us he wished they would just send us straight over to him, and he would instruct us. Then he said, “Forget about using German and use English until you feel comfortable using German. This is an international temple, and the primary language is English.” This put us at ease right away.

Max - counselor in temple presidency and Jan Berryessa

. . . a beautiful country

This is a beautiful country, and we want to get out and see as much of Switzerland as we can.

Flowers everywhere!

Rather typical of the city houses around Zollikofen, Switzerland in the fall.

We walked past this beautiful red tree on our way to the Post Office and the store. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting my camera until many of the leaves had fallen off.

Winter in Zollikofen - we didn't get a lot of snow, but had many beautiful frosty days.

The forest behind the temple

walking from the apartment to the temple

the temple president's home

Swiss temple in winter

Home, Sweet Swiss Home

Leona studying for German class.

Where Lou spent a lot of time - the computer!

The Church built an apartment house on the edge of the temple grounds – 16 apartments. We had a lovely apartment with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and plenty of storage cupboards and closets and a storage room downstairs for our suitcases, boxes, etc. The apartment had everything we needed in it; all we brought was our clothes.

One of the great things about the apartments in Switzerland was that they were big enough for us to have other couples or several couples in for dinner. It was a great way to get to know other missionaries better and a time when friendships really developed. For farewells and holidays, we took our tables downstairs to the main hallway where we had covered dish dinners and some great times as a total group.

Temple view from our apartment window

The temple at night

Our bedroom window opened toward the temple and at night we could lie in bed and see the temple all lit up and beautiful with the moon always shining over it – or so it seemed. Out our other window we could see the chapel which was next to our apartment house.

Walking back to the apartment from the temple.
This shows about half the distance.

Also located on the temple grounds was the ward meetinghouse where we attended church. The temple and the church were within a two-minute walk from the apartment. It was about a 15 minutes walk to the shopping area of Zollikofen, where we had a savings account at the bank, a post office, and all kinds of stores. However those stores were more expensive than at the big mall which was about 5 miles down the road.

When we arrived in October 1989,
the forest behind the temple was beautiful.

The forest was right behind the temple and we often took walks in the forest – sometimes by ourselves and sometimes with other missionaries. Several of us always went for a good long walk on Sunday afternoons. The Swiss families love to take walks together and there are many beautiful places to walk. This was also true in German, but to a lesser degree. We soon learned the great joy of taking longs walks in the woods and around the edge of the little town in which we lived. We could see the beautiful Alps off in the distance, about an hour drive to the base of the Alps.

And they're off!

After church in Pleasant View before leaving for Switzerland
Colleen - Leona - Jessica - Jimmy

8 October 1989 – We were in Pleasant View today, for our last Sunday before leaving for Switzerland. Jim and Tesi and their family and Kari and Dave came for the weekend. In our Fast and Testimony meeting Kari sang, “I am His Child.” I never heard her sing so well, and she always sings beautifully! Her voice was so full and every word was so clear and distinct. I was so proud.

11 October 1989 – The big day! We had spent three days in Salt Lake for temple training, and this morning we left for Switzerland. Lou and Colleen and the kids came to the airport. We were glad to have them there to see us off. Jessica really cried hard when we left. We could hear her as we went down the ramp to the plane.

Grandma and Grandpa arrive in Switzerland!
Leona - Chuck - Tom

12 October 1989 –We arrived in Zurich to begin our mission. We could see Chuck, Carol, Jeremy and Amy looking through the big window outside of the customs area. It sure was good to see familiar faces in a strange land, and to know that they can take us where we were going. They took us to a shopping mall near Zollikofen and then they took us to the Missionary apartments. They had the key to the apartment for us and had already been to our apartment, bringing food from the PX in Germany and filling our refrigerator and cupboards. I think we were the first missionaries to get that kind of reception!

While at the mall, Mother lost her purse. We thought she had left it in Tom’s car, so we were not concerned until we got a call from the US Embassy saying that they had Mother’s purse! The temple recorder took us over to the Embassy to pick it up. We never would have found the embassy by ourselves. Everything was in the purse! The bills, the change, the credit cards, the passport, the hairbrush were all there along with the name and address of the man who had turned it in.

It's probably unusual for senior missionary couples to serve in an area near their children, but Louis and Leona had that opportunity since Chuck and Carol were not far away in Germany. Dad recorded this about that bonus:

We spent most of our weekends with Chuck and Carol. They would pick us up on Saturday at noon and bring us back on Monday afternoon. Chuck was the Bishop of the Servicemen’s Ward in Mannheim. He was working at the Mannheim Army Depot as a civilian. Each weekend they would take us to see some special sights, famous towns, museums, etc.

And as this picture shows, the commissary privileges were really appreciated!

What do I do with all this food?
January, 1990