This entry is going to be difficult to keep at a non-novel length. We have been up to a lot this week. I cannot believe all that has happened in only seven days. It has been so nice to have Renee here to help with everything too.

On Monday Chad took a day off. We all went down to Lucerne for their annual Fasnacht festival to usher in spring. It is the Swiss version of Carnival. There was a lot to see. People everywhere were dressed so fantastically and so bizarrely. We were pelted with confetti a few times for not dressing up ourselves. I liked the floats too–they were so festive and artistic that (as the Swiss say), “there is nothing to say.”

• Photos of Fasnacht

We got some very happy news about our sea shipment on Tuesday. On Wednesday it arrived at our apartment. The crew seemed a bit distressed about the many flights of stairs to get to our fourth floor apartment with no elevator. They ended up backing up a truck in front of the complex with a handy dandy lift on it. It was a moving day miracle! In only a few hours our apartment went from empty to full of assembled furniture and unpacked boxes. It is so nice to sleep in our own bed and have a place to sit down and eat and…. We’re still using headlamps to walk through most of the rooms because I haven’t installed lights. 🙂

• Photos of moving in

During the week I got a lot done at work, for the first time in Zurich. 🙂 Before I had just been getting settled in. Now I’m working on fixing bugs in GMail. After fixing bugs for awhile I’ll be working on security and some future GMail features. I’m a lot happier with Google now, because they have started to fix all the concerns that Elisa and I have had. I’m glad I’m working there.

Friday morning we hopped on a plane early in the morning headed for Rome, Italy. What an amazing experience. There was so much to see. We walked from our hotel down to all the ancient ruins. The Colosseum and all the other ancient buildings in and around the Roman forum are enormous. It is spectacular. I really enjoyed going through Palatine Hill where all the old estates and gardens of the leaders used to be. It was beautiful out and we could not have planned better weather.  We walked all around town and peeked into quite a few churches. We stopped and rested our feet near the Trevi fountain where we threw coins over our shoulders to ensure a return to Rome. We had a great Italian meal in a cozy little restaurant and then crashed back at our hotel.

Saturday morning we went to the Saint Callisto Catacombs. There is a maze of four floors, over 20 kilometers of tunnels and upwards of 400,000 thousand tombs all hidden under the ground. The tombs had been created 1800 years ago. They are so old that if you opened one you shouldn’t expect to find anything left inside. We had a guided tour by one of the monks which was very interesting. We spent the rest of the day wandering around town. We discovered a huge market area and shopped around a bit. We returned to the the ruins with a guide book in hand to help us understand better what we had looked at the day before. Then we wandered around the narrow and winding streets of a neighborhood called Trastevere which is filled with brightly colored buildings and vines and terraces that are tangling all through it. We climbed up to a great view point of the city just after the sunset then wandered back into town for a very long but tasty dinner. The owner let us in at 7:00 even though the place didn’t open until 7:30. He was our waiter and explained all the details of the menu personally. He also told us the history of the building. It is built on the oldest synagogue in Rome and we were able to take a peek down in the wine cellar which is where the street level used to be. His wife does all the cooking and we had some wonderful food! His son is the sommelier and periodically came over to chat with us and express his very liberal views on Rome and everything else. We didn’t leave until 10:45! I was so tired I couldn’t even think about ordering one of their tasty desserts and I was a zombie on our long walk back to the metro stop to our hotel. Elisa was barely awake but she seems to have remembered everything noteworthy.

Sunday Morning we woke up too early and watched the sunrise over the Roman Forum. After breakfast and cleaning ourselves up back at the hotel we made our way to Vatican City. We waited in line, and waited in line, and waited in line and waited. After quite some time we then were herded through the Vatican museum with the mob of people who had all waited in line. Some highlights were the long corridors of marble busts and statues, the famous Raphael painting of all the philosophers on the steps and of course the Sistine Chapel. Just as we were finishing up in the Sistine Chapel the warnings were given of their closing. I also like seeing the Swiss Guard, dressed up in uniforms that make them look like jokers from a pack of playing cards. As we stopped to have some very disappointing Italian pizza we watched as the very aggressive and obnoxious vendors along the street all quickly picked up their goods and began to scurry off. Apparently they were not only illegal selling things but they were also illegally in the country. We saw as two officers tried to chase down a few of them. I was really surprised at how pushy people were, none of the drivers follow rules of the road, the city was dirty and I certainly wouldn’t feel safe in many areas by myself. We then finished up our sight-seeing with Saint Peter’s Basilica. It is so incredibly expansive! This was on my must-see list because I think it’s the coolest building in the world. There was the statue of Mary holding the crucified Christ in her lap. Standing in front of it is spiritual. There’s the statue of Peter that has his feet worn all down from the many people who touch them for his blessing. The Bernini Canopy is massive and intricate and one of my favorites. We picked up our things at the hotel and checked in at the airport. We must have had some false security from how smoothly things run in Switzerland because we had a bit of a scare trying to make our flight. We did make it (after some sprinting, some cutting and some crying) and realized how much like home Switzerland is already feeling.

• Photos of Rome

We got a chance to tell a Jewish couple we had dinner with this week about the Restoration.  It seems like missionary opportunities are coming very frequently.  It helps that we hang out with friends now!  The stake president in my first area in Chico California developed a program which he called “Fishing for Friends.”  The point is that to be fishers of men we just have to go out and make friends and love people.  In the process sharing the gospel will occur naturally if you are open about the gospel being the main course of your life right from the beginning. I always thought that was a great way to make sharing the gospel seem less intimidating.  And Elisa has always been good at giving a first discussion.

This week we went bowling for family home evening with two of the American families we go to church with.  The girls and the kids bowled on a separate lane with bumpers.  I always get apprehensive bowling because I know I am going to do horribly, but with bumpers it is not nearly as humiliating (of course you do not always have the excuse that the little kids need them).  I am never bowling without bumpers again!  Sadly, I still didn’t break 100.

We signed the papers for the apartment Friday morning.  Unfortunately, because it is part of a co-op, we have to figure out how to transfer a very large sum of money from US dollars to CHF (Swiss currency) this week.  Both our banks here in Zürich and in the states are not cooperating.  We are trying to wire money but apparently banks don’t let you wire money to yourself.  Big stressful issue. Chad’s employer may give us a salary advance, but since they haven’t responded to Chad’s emails we’ll need to overnight a check to someone in the US and then have them wire us the money.  This is just one sign of the difficulties that people at work have with communicating.  Hopefully we will be permanently in the apartment a week from Monday (when our temporary housing is up).

I was very stressed about our finances as it seems we are spending our money even before it is given to us. We are also trying to plan our honeymoon for Easter weekend.  With all of the move expenses it seems like the extra money we saved for our honeymoon has already been spent as well.  Chad and I ended up drawing up a new budget together. It became very stressful to see how all of the obstacles we have run into here have made our expectations for a comfortable life here and being able to take advantage of travel opportunities borderline unrealistic. Chad then taught me about compounding.  He drew up a plan for our finances and showed me how this would work out for us so we could be set for retirement.  It was really helpful to see a goal that we are working for with our finances.  For the first time I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed at our budget and rather saw that we are doing pretty good.  We wish we had done this ages ago.

It looks like compounding is a pretty powerful principle.  Sadly the obstacles and mishaps that have happened during this process of switching companies and moving abroad have piled up and become very overwhelming. When we left Seattle we didn’t understand the consequences or extent of some of the things that were already going wrong however more and more has been added.  We are hoping so much that changes are going to be made and the promise of a “nice and smooth” transition will start to be realized.

I was telling Chad that no matter what happens or is happening, to make this dream of living in Switzerland a bit more like a nightmare, we have been so blessed already.  We are stronger for working through these problems together.  We are humbled knowing we cannot do it without a lot of help from the Spirit and Heavenly Father.  We have been blessed with incredibly loving and supportive friends.  I unintentionally let my guard down last night while playing games with some new friends of ours and humiliated myself.  But I know they give me the benefit of the doubt and like others here are ready to overlook my character flaws because they genuinely care about me.  What a huge blessing!  I know there were times on my mission where I felt overwhelmed by all the difficult trials being compounded, but after all it will always be worth it because of the growth, the blessings and the love I received and had the opportunity to share.