Geneva

I will try to respond to some of
your questions that you asked:
Do you live in the mission home
or an apartment? I live in the mission home.
The mission home actually has two parts,
two houses; the mission president and
his wife live in one, and we and the 3
office elders live in the bottom of the
other. The main floor in our part of
the mission home are our offices, a board
room, etc.
Are there just 2 AP’s or more
and besides transitioning mission
presidents what will you be doing
differently? There are only 2 assistants:
Elder and myself. He is great though,
one of my favorite companions.
We are actually working on creating a
binder for the new mission president of
what happens in the mission. It will be
interesting because for the first
three weeks of the new mission president
elder and myself will do everything,
and then I will get a new companion and
we will continue to help the
new mission President.
I know you had several splits with the
AP’s when you were a Zone Leader so
will you travel around the mission and do that?
Actually we are trying something differently.
Normally we would do half of our 9
exchanges in other cities, but because of
everything we need to do here we are
going to have all 9 exchanges here in Geneva.
Will you travel a lot or infrequently?
We will travel a little bit. We are going
to all the zone conferences so that should
be fun.
Will you still be in a car or just
travel by train, etc.?
We have our own car with a GPS.
What part of Geneva do you live in?
We live in Chambésy, which is actually
where all of the embassys our for other
countires. Our mission home actually
was built as an embassy for a small
middle eastern country. It is amazing
though, we live 2 or 3 minutes from the
United Nations. It is amazing.
This week was very different from many
of the other weeks I have had here on my
mission, but it was great none the less.
I finished up my time in Chalon sur
Saone with a bbq with the professional
Tongan rugby players, where we got to
play a little rugby tough after in our
suits. I love that family and
will really miss them.
The next morning my old companion and
myself took a road trip to Geneva where he
picked up his new companion. After about
15 minutes of arriving I had to give a
talk to the new trainers on their
responsibilities, which was weird because I
have never trained (maybe at the end of
my mission). I then got settled in here
at the mission home where my companion
and I live with the 3 office elders. It
is great though because we have 3 bedrooms,
a garage, 2 bathrooms, 2 showers,
a huge kitchen, and a mini work out room
with a bench press. Not the kind of
mission most people would expect,
but thats Geneva.
The next morning we woke up at 5 to take
the missionaries going home to the
airport with our mission president.
That was an interesting experience, seeing
the missionaries I love and have worked
with going home. It was nice to see
some of them one last time though.
We didn't have much time to do much
finding or anything because of all
the stuff we had to do. I only got
to contact people on the streets
for about 30 minutes this week,
which is crazy because I think I
skipped dinner 3 times this week!
Its great though, I feel like I
am really helping people and the work.
We have been working on all the
zone conferences and under the mission
presidents direction we created a
2 and a half hour activity that
we will be doing with all of the mission.
It will be about using the Book of Mormon
in teaching, and there are about 5 mini
workshops we have planned involving
what we have found to be the 25 most
commonly asked questions by investigators.
They will learn how to better respond
to these questions while using the Book of
Mormon. I am way excited for this
activity. We will be doing that in
Lyon on Wednesday.
Tomorrow we have a zone leader council
where myself and my companion will teach
the zone leaders on being 'leaders.'
And then we have an exchange on Friday
with the zone leaders who are from
Annemasse, France here in Geneva.
I love being here in Geneva.
It is my dream.
There are actually four wards here
in Geneva: 2 french wards,
an English ward, and a 'spanish' ward
if that shows you how diverse this place is.
We actually attend the two French wards
so we spent a good 6 hours at church
yesterday which went really well.
This week looks like it will be great
and I am excited for all of the great
things that will happen.

Elder Bubba