Monday, March 14, 2016

Swiss temple trip and Black Forest hike

The Frankfurt temple is currently closed for renovations, so in the meantime one of our nearest temples is in Bern, Switzerland. What a great excuse for a road trip! I looked at the map and thought it made sense to make a pit stop in the Black Forest and go for a little Spring hike to a waterfall.

But I was not expecting THIS! This is how much snow greeted us in the Black Forest.  We were not prepared for snow- no gloves, no boots, and I was even wearing my Keens with no socks.

We reached the Todtnauer Wasserfall trail head and weren't sure if we dared take the kids down the slippery, snowy slope.

It was a sunny, gorgeous day though, and we had time to take it slow, so we decided to give it a try.

Rob blazed the trail and kicked in big foot prints for the rest of us to follow.  (While carrying Amelie nearly the whole way.) And there were handrails part of the way which were extremely helpful.

The falls were really pretty with all of the melting snow and ice.

The kids did slip and slide on their bums sometimes, but they seemed to enjoy it.

We had the whole place to ourselves which is an added bonus of hiking in the snow I suppose.

We're glad we took on the challenge, even though it really was a challenge. We rewarded the kiddos for being such troopers with lunch at McDonalds. It has become a bit of a tradition of ours to get the kids a meal at McDonalds when we travel. They love it and it is a low stress meal when traveling with four little ones.

In the evening Friday we arrived at the Bern temple. Rob and I were both able to attend the temple on Saturday morning while the kiddos played in the neighboring chapel with their friends from church.  Some helpful teens from our church babysat the rowdy crew.

After the temple we drove into downtown Bern to get some lunch and enjoy the city a bit.  We tried to go to a traditional Swiss restaurant to have raclette for lunch... but the place was packed, expensive, and our kids were tired and cranky.  It would have taken hours to get through lunch, so we bailed and went to the Indian buffet next door. Yes, our children preferred Indian food to melted cheese, and the buffet made it a much faster meal.  It turned out to be an incredibly expensive meal (welcome to Switzerland!) but the food was also really, really delicious, so that was some comfort.

It was market day in front of the restaurant so we browsed and bought some Swiss cheese and chocolate to bring home with our remaining Swiss francs.

Swiss-style busking?  
Jake was impressed and gave the man some coins. All in all, it was a quick weekend getaway and we feel we have a love/hate relationship with Switzerland. We spent a long weekend skiing in Switzerland about 5 years ago and came home from that trip feeling the same way.  It is a GORGEOUS country, and who doesn't love a diet so heavy in cheese and chocolate? But the cost of everything is incredible. We are happy to be back home in Germany!

Saturday, March 12, 2016

I hope they call me on a mission

Last weekend we held a Primary activity for the children at our church. It was a Mini MTC.  MTC stands for Missionary Training Center, which is where Mormon missionaries go to learn the ropes, and their language if required at the start of their missions.  They spend up to eight weeks there and then are sent out around the world by pairs, as you know.

At our Mini- MTC experience we had five missions.  The children received mission calls, just like the real deal, and missionary tags.

Each group of mini-missionaries attended classes on the culture of their country, nutrition (talking about the Word of Wisdom and having a snack,) life skills (ironing, sewing on buttons, taking care of their belongings,) missionaries in action (practicing knocking on doors and talking with people about their beliefs,) and P-Day (the one day a week missionaries get to do laundry, write home, get some exercise or be tourists or shop- our minis wrote letters and played red light, green light.)

There were so many adults involved to make this activity a success and they seriously did awesome. I was able to just move around and check-in on the classes and I was so impressed by what all of the teachers had prepared for their groups.

The kids were engaged and changed classes every 20 minutes which helped to keep them interested and focused.

I love getting to be in Primary with my kiddos and trying to help them develop their faith and have opportunities to learn and have fun too.

Someone I know recently insinuated that we "brainwash" kids in Primary.  I disagree. I thought about that comment a lot with this activity because I can see how from the outside someone would say we are brainwashing them into going on missions.  But I was there. These kids had a blast learning practical things for every day life.  We talked about the hard parts of being a missionary as well as the highlights. They asked great questions! They expressed their own beliefs.  They had respectful conversations about religion!!! Frankly, I'd kind of like to send a few Presidential candidates through our mini-MTC experience.

I love Primary. I love getting to learn from these children and to teach them a thing or two as well. They are smart. They are strong. And they will be fantastic at whatever they choose to do.