Andergram Adventures: Palermo Stake Annual Temple Trip

The Palermo Stake on the island of Sicily schedules an annual temple trip at the Bern Switzerland Temple. This year will be the last Palermo Stake Temple trip to Bern since the Rome Temple will be dedicated in March of 2019. I saw the post on the bulleting board in May, it was in Italian but I could understand the main idea and immediately wanted to be able to take advantage of this opportunity. Pirade Pappalardo was very helpful and made some calls for me and connected me with the people in charge of housing and transportation. By the time I worked out the translation and contacted the right people I was told the bus was full as was temple housing, so if I wanted to go I would be completely on my own. We decided to explore the options and see what could happen. I sent a message to the Military Relations Department in SLC; they were very supportive of our participating with the Palermo Stake so the next step was to clear it with our Mission President. I sent the information I had received from the Military Relations Department to President Pickerd and up the flagpole it went to Elder DeFeo. It was only a few hours before we had the answer that we were cleared to leave Italy and travel to the Bern Switzerland Temple. We booked a flight to Milan and reserved a car to drive through the Italian Alps to Bern Switzerland.

Bus loading outside the Catania Chapel for the Bern Temple

Northern Italy is very different that Sicily. I was amazed at the greenery, trees of all kinds everywhere, lots of lakes and rivers, rugged mountains-some with snow still in the tops and a very big city. Absolutely beautiful little hamlets cleared on the mountainside and a castle in every village. It was exactly the architecture I expected to see.

The Bern Switzerland Temple was announced in 1952, ground breaking was 1953 and it was dedicated in 1955. It houses some church art that I have never seen before, it is region specific and beautiful. The Bern Temple, originally known as the Swiss temple, is also known for another first; it was the first temple to use a video presentation of the endowment ceremony. This was done, because the patrons of the Bern Temple speak a variety of languages. The films made it easier to meet the needs of those attending. David O. McKay originally dedicated the temple September 11th through the 15th 1955. Many in attendance at the dedication had traveled very long distances and wanted to be able to attend a temple endowment session, so sessions started the day after the dedication at 5:00 in the morning. By the end of the day, 22 sessions had been held in the temple at which 900 people had been in attendance. There were 40 members of the Catania Ward that attended the Bern Temple with us. Reed Raul Anderson, Garrett and Cindi's son, was born nine days early while we were in the Bern Temple. We sure feel the blessings!

The flowers and landscape was beautiful on the temple grounds.

Still need work on the selfie skills, Paride Appaloardo.

Swiss Clock tower in Zollikofen, Switzerland

Housing on the lake in Bern, Switzerland

Einstein Museum in Zolliikofrn.

On the return we stopped in Bergamo, Italy where our friends Dave and Sharon Nielsen are serving as YSA Senior Missionaries. They gave us the whirlwind tour of the high points Milan. It is always great fun to exchange ideas and methods of missionary work. One of our Rome missionaries Lorenzo Faronniti was from Milan, but we were unable to make contact with him during the short time we were there.