Laanjak: Stake Conference

We had stake conference last weekend. The Saturday meetings, including a leadership meeting in the afternoon, were all held in a chapel in Winterthur, Switzerland. I am always impressed when we get the members of the church together to see the power that is in a gathering of the Saints. There are really wonderful and caring people here, besides the few we know and love in our little branch.

One of the training sessions was about missionary work and making family mission plans. The most powerful suggestion that was made was how our family home evenings can be a powerful influence on the friends of our children. Of course it is different here in Europe, with so few members, but even at home in America, if our children's friends feel comfortable coming over and seeing the example of our children in a gospel centered life, it can have a profound effect on other families who may be struggling in the gospel or may not be members. One thing they mentioned was that, as the friends of the children were over and happened to stay for a meal, they became accustomed to praying before meals. Then when they were home, they asked their parents about praying before meals. In most cases, the non-member family parents were positive and appreciated that influence in their home.

The trip to Winterthur took about 2 hours (one way) and we were fairly late getting home that night. We were blessed to be able to ride with a member, so we could save on expenses together.

The Sunday session was in the city of Weinfelden, in another part of the stake in Switzerland. There are no buildings in the stake large enough to accommodate the meeting so they meet in a convention center there. This time we got there early enough to get better seats than last time we had conference there. They had a wonderful family orchestra and choir provide the music for the session. They had a large stage behind the speakers and it was well filled with about 100 people in this orchestra and choir, including many small children. Their first (opening) song was an arrangement of "Give, said the Little Stream." I hope to get a picture of the choir and will add it to this post when I do.

The meeting was really wonderful. Sister B had headphones for the translation in English. I understood most of it and struggled only on a couple of times when the Swiss dialect was particularly strong. The closing talk was by the stake president, President Conrad, who talked about dealing with depression, quoting some from Elder Holland's recent conference talk. He had a powerful message for us all about being patient and relying on the Lord to get through our struggles and the power of getting preisthood blessings to help in our difficulties.

We had the elders with us as we traveled on Sunday. On the way back, we took the "short cut" over the mountain. It was raining, but I wanted to show a couple of pictures. The last two are actually from another trip, but I added them here.