Mini-Senior Conference - Part 2 - Bern and Zollikofen

From Luzern, we drove to Bern and the temple in Zollikofen. The temple has a building with accommodations, called a Herberge, where people can stay when they visit the temple and need to stay over night. The rooms are very simple and small, but cost little and are good for a quick stay. We had some sessions, discussion various topics and then had dinner and then did a session in the temple.

We found it interesting that they had a permanent decoration around the Relief Society room door. Talk about a centerpiece.

Here is our lovely group, minus Elder Schwabe who was taking the picture.

On Saturday morning, the brothers had a brain-storming session about how to best support our wives. The Sisters had a session at the same time about how to adjust to missionary life. Here is the board where we kept our notes. Read and learn!

Now I will show the pictures of the city of Bern. Bern was founded in the 1100s on a large bend of the Aare River. That way three sides were protected by the river and they could fortify the fourth side. Most of the city burned in the early 1400s and was rebuilt, but much of the style stayed the same, mainly streets with many, many archways in front of the stores and buildings. It is remarkable how well pedestrians are protected as they walk down the streets under these building façades. You will see this in many of the pictures here.

Yes it is Switzerland. See the red flag with the white cross?

A street showing the shops. There are also a lot of statue/fountains in the middle of the streets.

Bern was selected by the people of Switzerland to be the seat of government. This is the capitol building of Switzerland.

This statue is on the front of the building. To me it looks like a college professor saying, "read this and write me a report by tomorrow..."

looking out over the river area below.

This building has the year MDLX on it. Care to convert that to arabic numbers? 

another shot of the river area

Here is a protest taking place at the moment. Afterwards, especially with all the police around the area, I wondered whether it was wise to take the picture. Oh well...

Here is some of our group in the oldest part of the city. At the end of the street is the clock tower gate.

a little better view of the gate.

and the clock tower itself.

This is on the front of the monastery. On the left side are the people going to heaven; the darker side on the right going somewhere else. They were pretty serious back then.