The Todds in Geneva

June 1, 2011

Dear Friends and Family, I know you think we have dropped off the edge of the earth but we have not and to prove it we are finally going to enter a new posting on our blog. Someday I hope to fill in the missing months but the time is not now. I would like to start off mentioning that our mission, the Switzerland Geneva Mission, will be combined with the France Toulouse Mission on July 1 and will be renamed the France Lyon Mission. The mission home will be moved to Lyon as soon as they can find or build a home that will fit the needs of being a “mission home”. Until then, we will be in Geneva and President Murdock will run the new mission from here. We will continue to be the office couple. We are very busy working on the administrative side of combining two missions. We will send one of our Zones, the Nancy Zone, to the France Paris mission and add four Zones from the Toulouse Mission bring our missionary numbers from 84 to 143. That should keep us all busy!

Now to some fun news. We had the great joy of having two of our children, and their spouses (we really think of their spouses as our own children, too) Rachel and Justin and Amy and Jon, come to visit us for three fun-filled days. We were able to take one day off from our duties at the office to spend with them and then we also had Saturday and Sunday with them as well. Because we have so many pictures we are going to do a separate posting for each of the days, so check back soon!

For the couples their trip began in Paris – ahhhhh Paris.

Jon and Amy arrived on Sunday and Justin and Rachel on Monday. From all accounts (and many, many pictures) they had a wonderful time. On Wednesday morning they flew to Rome and did a whirlwind tour of that fabulous city. Now we are thinking that would be a great place to go on our way home as well. Thursday night they flew into Geneva, tired and sun tanned. We brought them home to our apartment where we had covered the floor (literally wall to wall) with twin size mattresses that the mission was getting rid of. Not the best but they worked out better than the blow-up kind. Friday morning we hopped in the mini van we had rented and headed towards Mont Blanc – the highest mountain in Western Europe. On the way we passed by green mountains with small villages scattered over them, waterfalls and very tall mountains.

There was lots of ooohhhing and ahhhing. The road to Chemonix where Mont Blanc is located is a wonder in itself. It raises high above the valley floor on what looks like spindlly posts. I just prayed we wouldn’t have an earthquake and tried not to look down.

Chemonix is a charming ski resort with lots of tourist shops and sidewalk cafes.

The couples decided not to spend the money and time to go on the tram to the top of Mont Blanc so we just looked around a bit. Soon we were on our way to Annecy. We stopped along the way at
an Aire (Rest Stop) that had shade and picnic tables.

We shared chicken salad on croissants and fruit. It was a great stop. Justin and Jon found a little animal to play with. We’re not sure what it was but maybe a mole or something.

After, we decided to go to the Gorges du Fier in the Annecy area.

This is an area where the river that travel over and around the rocks and it has made a slot canyon that is very deep and impressive. Here is the beginning of the canyon.

They have anchored a walkway about 2/3s of the way up the gorge so you can walk into it and see what Mother Nature can do. It is so amazing.

It turns and twists and is so far down to where the now calm river is.

Along the walkway is a measuring chart of high water levels for different years. The highest water level was around 2006 and it would have been way above our heads as we were standing on the walkway – that’s a lot of water!

It is so beautiful with all of the lush greenery and the shadows and cut out rocks.

After, and near by the Gorges, we passed by a castle that was closed and being renovated.

It, as well as all the castles we have seen, sat on the top of a hill with a wonderful view of the surrounding valley – all the better to see the enemy coming I suppose.

After leaving the castle we drove over to the center of Annecy.

Because this post is so long I will continue with Annecy tomorrow so check back.