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 nightOur 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.
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When we first reached Zolikofen, after a day at the temple, I was so tired that I did well to feed Lou and myself. We soon became accustomed to the demanding schedule of the temple. We worked early one week and late the next week. On our early weeks, we would invite other couples in to dinner. We usually had guests for dinner about two nights a week and quite often on Sunday. We usually invited a couple who spoke no English and a couple who spoke the other language as well as English. In that way, we were able to communicate with our non-English speaking friends. We would be invited to dinner by the other misssionaries. The temple personnel also invited us into their homes. I learned that when you were invited into the Swiss homes, you always took flowers to the hostess. I did a lot of (American) cooking in Zolikofen. It stopped after we moved to Germany. We lived in one room and shared the kitchen and bathroom with three other couples.
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