“A religion that became a people”

That’s a paraphrase of something I think I read somewhere by some scholar distinguishing the growth and development of the Mormon church from others. I have sometimes wondered whether in the course of preaching the restored gospel across the world we may also be unintentionally inculcating an American cultural bias. Since the church was restored in the US and is still largely lead by North Americans, that may inevitably be the case, but the restored church was created from individuals from many different cultures and backgrounds as a “people”. I am no more French Swiss than the members I met at the Bern temple or the Neuchatel ward are American. Because of their acceptance of the gospel and its standards they are just as different from many other Swiss as I am different from much of what passes as our American culture. We really are fellow citizens in a distinctive gospel culture and (apart from the language) I felt very much at home with each of them that I met.

The Bern temple is beautiful both outside and inside. At many temples (such as the Dallas temple) the front door to the temple is largely symbolic, since for various functional reasons entry is from side doors. At the Bern temple, however, you enter right through the front door. I liked that. The ordinances are in French (and some Italian), few people spoke English, but it seemed to all work out very well. More about that experience separately.

The Neuchatel ward meets in an attractive and efficient multistory building with a comparatively small “foot print” in a nice residential area in the nearby town of Peseux. It reminded me of the church buildings in Guanajuato and San Francisco. 
   

      EVIE'S Clarification:  Neuchatel is a canton (or county or province), and the city of Neuchatel is the capitol of that canton.  Bern is, likewise a canton, and also a city.

Neuchatel is in the French speaking part of Switzerland so the language was a challenge. Once you get away from the larger cities or businesses catering to tourists fewer people than I expected spoke much English (but they all take it in school). When we sat down in the congregation for Sacrament meeting a missionary, speaking perfect English with an American accent, came up and volunteered to translate. If ever anyone was perfectly prepared with the language skills for this mission it would be this elder. His mother is from the United States (Oregon), his father is French and he grew up in Germany. So (to the extent translated correctly) we were able to enjoy more than just the spirit of the meeting. I’m not sure what I expected, but what struck me most was that it was more alike than different from a sacrament meeting in the Flower Mound 1^st Ward. The announcements consisted of a youth discussion at the Bishop’s home that evening, changes in the Sunday schedule for Christmas, a youth dance the coming Saturday and an upcoming “super Saturday” activity.  The program included a short testimony by a missionary being transferred and well prepared talks about faith (the assigned theme for the month), quoting Paul, Alma and talks by Elder Packard, by two brethren with evident maturity and experience in the gospel.