Amazing Day.

So I know I was going to start posting about France, but I have to first post about today.  Because it was amazing and awesome.

Here are Jethro and I riding the train this morning to Zollikofen, which is where the temple and stake building is.  Brett went to our normal ward building in Bern to run things there.

And here we are after the conference was over, with the speakers of the conference.  Namely, President Uchtdorf and his wife, Elder Anderson, and also Sister Linda S. Reeves.  (p.s. I just took my very very old camera, which is now Jethro's, because it is smaller than mine and I thought it might be better to be a little less bulky/conspicuous, but it took lame fuzzy pictures and now I just wish I had brought my good one.  Oh well-pretty happy I brought one at all!)

 Here's Elder and Sister Fox playing their Alphorns (which Pres. Uchtdorf joked was proxy for Moroni's trumpet :) ).

So Jethro got a thumb's up from President Uchtdorf during the Alphorn song (we were standing right across from him), and a little bit later Jethro shook his hand hand and Pres. Uchtdorf asked what his name was.  It was soooooo cool.  I shook his hand too, and Sister Harriet Uchtdorf's.  When I went over to Elder Anderson I said, "Can I shake your hand?" and he said, "I want to shake your hand!"  It was awesome.  I chatted for a minute with Sister Anderson. 

What an exciting, amazing experience!!  Here's Jethro and the youth with Pres. and Sister Uchtdorf:

The conference was a regional one, and it was being broadcast to 31 stakes and 1 district in Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Albania, and maybe more countries that I can't remember.  But the stake center in Zollikofen (where Jethro and Hazel were both baptized) is quite small, so even filled to capacity there were only about as many people as maybe a half-filled chapel in Utah.  I think pretty much everyone who wanted to shake hands with President Uchtdorf and Elder Anderson had the opportunity to do so.  He is so kind and warm and friendly and awesome.

He said that recently they were in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was talking with his taxi driver who was very impressed with the church's familysearch website.  Pres. Uchtdorf asked her if she knew why the church did so much with geneology, and she said no.  He told her, "Well, I only have a short time {because it was just the ride from the airport to the hotel}, and I'm not so good at explaining, but there are these missionaries I can send to you..."  Ha ha--little did she know how good he would be at explaining.  :)

Also, Sister Uchtdorf spoke and told about the temple trips she took as a young woman from Germany to the Swiss temple, and how it was always fun driving in the buses, singing hymns, and playing on the temple grounds and how it was like a little bit of heaven.  She said that her mother always bought some of the delicious Swiss chocolate, and it was less expensive then, so she made sure they had a good supply.  I told Brett that what I had heard was that we're commanded to eat chocolate.  :)  But she also said you should make sure to create temple memories for your family, and include the temple in your family vacations.

Sister Reeves told a story about a time when she and her husband were in Switzerland and they were watching a helicopter that had a rope coming down from it, waiting anxiously to see what the rope was holding because it was blocked from their view, and were amazed to see it was a cradle holding a cow.  Later, in Elder Anderson's talk, he said that his theory of why Swiss cheese tastes so good is because the cows are so happy here, and how you always see smiling cows in Switzerland.  :)

President Uchtdorf's talk was awesome about testimony and how we have to recapture it day by day, and not getting complacent or thinking you have done enough.  He said 'tough times don't last, but tough people do.'  He also said that this was a day worth remembering, and I will!