Cena con Amici (Dinner with Friends)

 We were honored to have our old friends from the Reggio Calabria Italy Branch join us for dinner. It was a sweet reunion for us. They rode the bus for 25 hours to come for a week at the temple. Amazing, faithful friends!!  

Farewell Party - Lots of Hugs, Lots of Laughs, Lots of Love

 Our temple co-workers gathered at the Temple President's home for a farewell party.

The refreshments afterward turned out to be a delicious selection of dishes shared by our friends from Italy, Germany, and France.

The highlight was a surprise musical number performed by our English Class students. They sang "As I Have Loved You" in English and added a second verse which they personalized just for us. 

We will never forget our co-workers and friends we have come to love over the past year. It has been a privilege to work side-by-side with them in the service of the Lord. They are our "temple family"! We will miss them!!

Final Fotos

   We are a getting a bit snap-happy as we count down our final days in Switzerland. Here are some of the things that we don't want to forget about Switzerland.

 Bumping in to acquaintances at the train station like this sweet and humble couple who come to the temple daily. 

 Visiting cemeteries with grave sites decorated each season by family members.

 Gasping at prices. Product: Mt Dew, 6-pack of 20 oz bottles. Cost: $9.99 

Wondering what goes in to these Swiss-style cold cuts.  

 Wandering and walking in the woods. 

We are so glad that we took LOTS of photos that will help us relive and remember this amazing season of service in Switzerland. 

Say Cheese! - Class Photos

Our missionary grandson, Elder Dallin Sano, serving in the Taiwan Taichung Mission, teaches weekly English classes. 

He shared this photo of his class which inspired us to take a 

similar one of our students to send back to him. 

We hope he gets as much joy from this activity as we do! Our students (all native French speakers) teach us much more than we could ever teach them. We will miss them tremendously and will always treasure the times we shared!!   

Last Hurrah in Switzerland

We used our last Train Day Pass to travel to "Heidi" country in the Swiss Alps. It was a wonderful "icing on the cake" of our time in this beautiful country.

A tram took us to the traffic-free resort town of Mürren with origins from 1384. Lovely chalets, rustic hotels, and old-timers with walking sticks make this a really nice town to visit.

From Mürren, we took a long, smell-the-cows-and-goats, hear-their-bells, stroll downhill to the quiet farm village of Gimmelwald where we saw farmers hand raking their hay onto the tractor, visited two un-manned "honesty" shops.

From Gimmelwald we took the tram down to the Lauterbrunnen valley floor. Play this short video and ride along (keep watching to get the full impact of the experience). In Lauterbrunnen waterfalls gush out of the sheer cliffs that surround it.

Another train ride took us to Lake Thun where we boarded a boat for a lazy two-hour boat cruise. It was the perfect way to end our perfect day!! Switzerland is a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y breathtaking....from top to bottom, from nord to sud and from ost to west!!

It's tough to choose a favorite!

The Swiss Temple can't take a bad picture! The sky knows just what to do to show it off! We have enjoyed capturing it in all its splendor in all four seasons of the year we have lived next door to it.
We love to see the temple!! 

Quirky Finds in Bern

Sometimes it pays to get off the beaten path. Never know what you might find!!   

A squash plant growing out of a shopping cart. Who'd have thunk it?!  The clever gardener placed a sack of garden soil in the cart, broke it open and planted the squash. So cute!!  

This charming moss-covered old wooden chair is tucked into a plant filled corner garden. What a unique eye-catcher. The secret ingredient (humidity) is one that we are shy of at home in Utah. We love finding the unusual in unlikely places!