Black and White

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Today was Sunday




Today was Sunday, it is my favorite day of the week. Each Sunday, we go to church to partake of the sacrament, strive to learn more of the Savior and be with the other members of our ward family. Today, as I walked down the hall a little voice called out Suuu-i-Sunnn!!! I turned to see my little friend Divine. Divine's family comes from Nigeria and they are some of the wonderful people that we get to rub shoulders with here in Geneva. After Divine and I greeted each other with a hug, we decided that our clothes matched, so we took a picture together. See how we match? :)

After church we had a pot-luck luncheon to spend a little more time together and to say goodbye to the Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Murdock. They have served three years here in Switzerland and France having stewardship over 200 missionaries in that time. They soon will be released to go home to see family and get back to their lives serving in the church, being parents and grandparents. We will miss them so!! They have been great examples of love, service and sacrifice. Before the pot-luck ended, the Bishop presented them with a large book with beautiful pictures of Switzerland. As a ward, we have spent the last few weeks passing this book around so all ward members could write a message to President and Sister Murdock. After the presentation of the book, we stood around them and sang all three verses of, God Be With You Till We Meet Again. Yep, it was a teary moment and a GREAT day.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Pork and Snail

Going grocery shopping in France can
be an adventure. Escargot is EVERYWHERE and in MANY things.
I tried it once a long time ago. It was served in the shell and was chewy and garlicky, but I could not get over the fact that it was a snail. I spent many childhood days having to pick slimy snails out of our California garden to keep them from eating it up, so thinking of eating one of those snails is something that I would rather not do.

Recently, I had a run in with escargot again. I found out the hard way that you have to be careful that the sausage you are buying is not pork and


snail. I made that mistake recently, but never again. Paul, Laura and I ate the sausage not knowing that it was full of snail. The next time I went to buy sausage I looked
at the package closer and found that the cute little pig on the wrapper was being followed by a slimy little snail. I asked the Butcher what that meant this time and he said in French, "Escargot et porc tres-bien ensemble." I almost turned green on the spot. I don't dare tell my family.
My new French Phrase this week to use is, "Est-ce avec escargot?" (is this with snail?) ...because if it is...I pass.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

At last SUN!!!


The last couple of days have been full of rain, but today the sun showed it's warming rays all upon our lil' part of Switzerland. The lake and mountains around were glorious. Paul and I have had some great walks lately, but the sun and the mountains made this walk among the grape fields overlooking Lake Leman a definite do-over!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A morning walk in France



Today I started my day with a walk in France with my friend. The woods were lovely and the red poppies were a welcome end to the morning exercise. I even found another heart in the path, which I left in place for someone else to find another day. I did some quick grocery shopping and then I was off to meet Paul. He joined me at our train station to go to our Mairie (town hall) to inquire about yearly train passes. The kind woman there did not speak English. I understood every third word, but we got the gist of what she was telling us. At least we think we did. One more reason to keep working on French.