Sunday, August 22, 2010

Family Temple day at the Swiss Temple






Going to the temple can be hard, but the St. Gallen Stake makes it just a little bit easier for families with small children. Every other month, the stake sets up a stake temple day, where the stake blocks off the entire day for the temple, and they watch the kids while the parents go to the temple. So we rented a car and drove the 2.5 hours to Zollikofen Switzerland to enjoy a Saturday at the temple. The stake has a whole morning and afternoon's worth of activities set up for the kids, with a theme and different stations and everything. This month the kids had games, sports, and activities that had to do with how they use their bodies to do things. So they played sports and talked about what their little bodies could do. They rented out a nearby gym at a school and they played basketball, climbed ladders, jumped on trampolines, etc. Everett was super excited, and at the end he told us "Let's go to the temple again." We also were informed that we should pack up a lunch for everybody, and we all ate together after the session. We all had a great time, with one exception. For the nursery-aged children, they had a "Kindergarten," which is identical to nursery. As we expected, Liam struggled. Well, struggled is probably not the right word. Liam cried. The women up there mentioned that he stopped a few times when they played with animals and sang a few times, but for the most part, he cried. We returned from the session to alligator tears and a runny nose, but within a few minutes he was back to his cheery self. As a disclaimer, this temple is EXTREMELY international. It serves Switzerland, parts of Austria, Germany, France, Italy, and other countries, I am sure. The session was in French, and there were people from all over the world in the temple. It is such a special place. It feels like the Church's UN, or something, and it is so great to feel the strength of these super strong saints.

3 comments:

3stockdalekids said...

that sounds so cool, i wish every stake set up something like that. i'm glad you guys got to go. i feel sorry for liam i hope it gets better sometime. everett seemed to have a great time on his own,awesome.

Joanna said...

What a great idea! We should do that and get the YW to help - if they planned it and carried it out it could be a good YW value project for PP! I am so glad you took pictures of the Swiss temple - it's almost identical to the NZ temple so you made me homesick (even though they're on opposite sides of the world!) This is the kind of temple I draw when I draw pictures of the temple! Love it!

Karisa and John said...

What an impressive set up for the kids! Was this the Zurich temple? I want to start that temple kindergarten program for our stake! Even though the Chicago temple is only 1 1/2 hours away, it's still a big production to get there when you have little kids.

Here's our blog in case you're ever curious:
http://johnandkarisa.blogspot.com/

My mission trainer Janet (Perkins) Hausen is living with her husband and 2 sons (ages 2 and 4) in Geneva. They just barely moved from Marseilles, France, about a week ago, so I don't know how settled they are yet. So if you're ever in Geneva, I'm sure Janet would love to meet up with you. You actually know her (I remember we made this connection once at BYU)-- you guys taught English together when you were in China. Here's her blog address if you want to contact her or remind yourself what she looks like!
http://4freedomfries.blogspot.com/