SCHWEIZERDEUTSCH AND THE ALPS

 Dear friends,
This mission just keeps on getting stranger.  This past weekend we completed an assignment to take pictures in Switzerland of the scenery and of the Swiss members.  These images will go into the media library and be available for the Swiss Country Newsroom webmaster to illustrate webpages and news stories. We traveled 4 hours south to Bern on Friday and attended the temple in the evening on a French session.  The temple is very large and on a large and beautiful piece of ground, as it once served all of continental western and eastern Europe.  It has 4 session rooms and patron housing.  Always fun to be with the Saints in the Temple.  Saturday we got up early and headed south about 45 minutes to the shear, awe inspiring, larger than life, majestic Swiss Alps with their valley chalets complete with manicured fields, bell clanging cows and life-size Fischer Price cog trains that crank up the steep switch-backs to get nature lovers closer to the mountain.  We have decided this is the most beautiful place we have yet to see and feel just a little bad we didn't bring the kids here on their visits last summer.  Guess you will just have to come back.

 We could drive up past Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen where we parked the car and boarded the cog train to take us to the base of the glacier field below the monster mountain legends of the Eiger (ogre) Moench (munk) and Jungfrau (young woman).  Our plan was to follow Rick Steve's recommended mountain top hike over some fairly flat terrain for about an hour, with unspeakable views of the mountain peaks and valleys in every direction, then hike down the mountain to a train station lower down the mountain since the aerial tram at the end of the hike was out of seasonal service.

 I was only a bit nervous as there were no other hikers on our trail.  We had the place to ourselves and had to keep pinching ourselves that this was for  real. (Ok, there was the one other guy who took this picture)

 These are the three mountain legends and this picture does them no justice - just one of those things where you have to be there.  A plaque at the bottom of the Eiger (far left) shows the different first routes taken by climbing teams that successfully scaled the face to the summit.  I studied the face and could not imagine any route being possible.  It looks literally straight up no matter how you approach it.

 This is where it got tricky.  At the end of our hike we had to descend a few thousand feet to catch the cog train back down to our car.  The slippery narrow trail zig-zagged down between these snow fences,( an engineering feat in themselves), so we were comforted that if we fell, a fence would catch us about 50 feet further down.  The mountain was so steep you could walk along and hold on the hill on the uphill side for balance.  Again, we were the only people on the mountain, so I was a bit apprehensive about what it was we didn't know about this trail.

 Only ?  kilometers to go, don't sprain an ankle now.

 Ok, we made it alive.  If you look carefully at the horizontal brown lines drawn on the tops of the mountains, above the trees.  Those are the snow fences we snaked down between for about 2-1/2 hours to get to Wengen and the train back to Lauterbrunnen.  We count this as one of our great adventures and a highlight of our P-day experiences here.

 On Sunday, Elaine took hundreds of pictures in the Winterthur Ward just outside of Zurich.  We were hosted by our Swiss Public Affairs Director, brother Mattias Weidmann.  He and his wife Doris are parents of eight children. The youngest 3 daughters are still at home.  They will be in Utah next summer for a trip as a last outing before the oldest here goes on her mission. They have friends in Midway that live on Winterthur street, so we hope to see them and maybe take them for a ride in the boat.

 We had fun at the Shroeder family home (see below) taking pictures of their family home evening.  Their children were so darling, it made me tear up a bit thinking of and missing my own grandchildren.  Our special FHE treat was a Swiss Sundae with Chestnut paste spaghetti (see above) over ice cream with extra cream on top along with chocolate syrup and a meringue kiss.  What a cute family. The oldest is Emily in the second grade and already learning English.  Most in Switzerland seems to know at least 3-4 languages.  They speak a native  "Swiss German" here too that Elaine had great difficulty deciphering.

  We spent a few hours in downtown Zurich before heading home.  This is one high-end town of luxury and premium products.  The pictures here are of an amazing candy store.  Just like the movies.

 When we saw the fun clothing in the windows down town along the river, we thought Spencer would like this town.  Wild plaids, checks, knickers and bow ties.  Elaine was particularly taken with the leopard skin house slippers in this window.