The Lake's Alpine Mission: The Temple and Bern

We had a wonderful visit to the temple in Switzerland in January. We left very early to meet our friends, Jorg and Gerda in Austria, and then rode with them to the temple. As we walked to the temple, I noticed a group of missionaries coming from the other direction. What a thrill! I raised my arms in delight and noticed one of the missionaries do the same thing. I realized it was our former District Leader who had been transferred to Zurich! We hurried to greet this group and snapped a quick photo. There were 15 Elders and 4 Sisters who joined us on the 10:30 session. We always enjoy associating with the missionaries, and this was a very special experience. The session was in Italian, so we all wore headsets. We discovered later that this was the first time for a young Italian woman who had been called to serve as a missionary. Her boyfriend was with her. He has already served a mission and will now wait for her to serve. We were impressed with their faithfulness and dedication to serve the Lord. It is also a sweet love story.

Gerda, Diane, Elder Ormsby, Bob

Gerda and Jorg Stubbe

Although the temple is called the Bern Switzerland Temple, it is actually located in Zollikofen. The capital city of Bern is located a little bit south. This temple is special because it is the first temple built by the church outside of North America and Hawaii. It is also the first temple to use a film to teach temple instruction in different languages.
Whenever we've attended the temple, we've done two sessions and then headed directly back home. On this occasion, since it was a nice day, our friends offered to show us the city of Bern. We were grateful and took them up on their offer. We drove the short distance to Bern and parked the car and then walked into the old city. It was cold but we loved seeing this beautiful ancient city that dates back to the 12th century. It is built around a bend in the Aare River and is considered the gateway to the Alps.