Going to Church

Church in Switzerland is pretty great.

Today was the primary program and my cousin is the music director. So we tried to arrive early. Thus, of course, we arrived sorta kinda early. My cousin got everything ready and her daughter went and sat on the stand. Meanwhile, the twin 2 year old boys and I went and sat down in the back.

The building is interesting. It looks like a new building. But in the basement where the nursery is it's a part of a former bunker. The sacrament room has one main entrance and one simple door in the back. There aren't any benches, but rather only chairs. It reminded me a lot of church at BYU-Idaho.

Soon an older gentleman came over and asked me if I was using a certain seat. However, I had no idea what he was saying at it was either in Swiss German or High German or another language.. In anycase it was in another language. I made gestures expressing I have no idea what he's talking about. And I said, "I'm sorry I don't understand." However, he knows English. So that was awesome.

They gave me these little translator things that make it look like I'm wearing a very non-attractive stethoscope. However, taking care of twins causes me to frequently take off the translator things because it's really hard to hear anything the boys say when I wear it. The older gentleman was really helpful when things fell. Sweet man.

The primary program was focused on the Old and New Testaments. It was nice. What was interesting was that every once in awhile the children spoke in English.

No matter where you are in the world, the Holy Ghost is the same. It's wonderful.

After Sacrament Meeting, I spoke with the gentleman next to me. He wanted me to know how special and how blessed my generation is. When he was a young boy it was before the World War II and the missionaries came. It touched something in his heart. It was powerful. But then WWII occurred and the missionaries left. He'd study the Bible cover to cover multiple times. And the scriptures that touched him the most was about the living waters and the bread of life and if he partakes of it he'd never hunger again. It was powerful because he was starving. He had no food. He really was starving. He had brushed against the Gospel but wasn't able to partake. He was saved by the Americans. The American planes flew overhead. The war was over. Then there were American missionaries that came across him. He was so happy. He had not thought that he would ever see them again.

Sunday School was fun. It felt like a normal Sunday School. The lesson was Lesson 34: “Keep the Ordinances, As I Delivered Them”. Good lesson. All in High German.

Then I went to Relief Society. I was lucky enough to have sister missionaries in the ward today. One of them has been in Switzerland for only 4 weeks. She was from Idaho and even went to BYU-Idaho for two years. It was kinda funny. But she was very helpful in translating for me.

However, this sister missionaries were the ones giving the lesson today. The lesson was "Chapter 40: Temple Work and Family History". It was a lesson I had my last week in America. It was fascinating. You know how in American the lessons we have about genealogy work is mostly about going to new.familysearch.org as well as doing indexing? And of course going to the temple to do work for the dead. But in Switzerland the focus is on going to the churches. You know, the churches with records dating back quite a long ways into the past? Where you have to go talk to the Catholic priests for access to the records? Yup. That's what the Europeans do. They discussed how many hire people to look up their genealogy for them and how those without money usually have the time. So each has their own talents and availability for this. But I also learned how important it is for Americans to do their genealogy work. One family was finding their ancestors and many generations back they found a line whose temple work was all done. It was quite the surprise for them. But what had happened was that an extremely distance relative in the states had done his or her own family history and temple work and as a result made it easier for this new family to finish up their line until the common ancestor.

Both the Americans and the Europeans do the temple work and family history, but it seems to me that we each have our strengths and weakness and we help each other out.

The Europeans find the written records and go through that process.

The American use the technology to help organize those that had lived in that past.

Isn't that fascinating? I thought so.

I love the gospel. I truly do.