12 Feb 1929
John to Mother / Neuchatel, Switzerland
I am here hugging the fire trying to keep from freezing. It is really about as cold as I have ever seen it. This morning when we got up it was 16 below and now it is even colder. We went out to go tracting this morning but before we had gone over a block, our ears were just froze white. We gave it up and went over to that hall, found the toilet froze and so spent the morning getting the fire going to thaw things out a bit up there. Coming home from the hall I just about froze. There is a nasty wind with it and really the cold over here is much worse than at home. At home it is a real dry cold while here the cold is more wet because of the lake and it just goes right through you.
But here I am getting ahead of myself. I suppose you are wondering why I havn't written sooner. It seems like I just havn't any time and yet I don't do much either. There have been three and four missionaries around here lately, one of them about to be released and so perhaps that accounts somewhat for the loss of time. I guess I'd better start from the beginning and then I won't forget anything.
I left Grenoble last Tuesday night about 6 p.m and after a cold ride on the train I arrive at Geneva about 12 that night. I went up to the mission house and tried to wake them up. After ringing for about half an hour, the president finally got up and let me in. The next morning I had a talk with the president about my new branch and then went down to see Freres Creer and Barker who are working in Geneva. Frere Creer has been called home. His father is ill and not working and his mother is unable to keep him any longer. He has been here about 25 months so he has fulfilled quite a mission anyway. Frere Barker is getting along fine and will make a good missionary. Wednesday morning I took the train for Neuchatel and arrived here about 1:30.
It surely seemed great to come to Switzerland. Everything is much more progressive up he. The people are better educated and have a broader outlook on life. The cities are much cleaner than in France. The houses are painted and as a rule, clean. They are also more modern up here. The trains are run by electricity and the cars are somewhat like ours at home. That is with the seats on each side and an aisle down the middle. They are very clean and much faster than the French trains.
The city of Neuchatel is a little Swiss village of 20,000 inhabitants, situated on a mountain by the side of a large lake, about twice the size of Bear lake. It is a big B... only with just one side and much cleaner and prettier. It is certainly God's country. Pine trees, brooks, lakes, mountains just like you imagine it would be at home. The buildings are different than in France. They usually have steep roofs and the Churches have long spires like you would imagine. The people here are about half German, however they know French too and that way we are able to get along. We are just about in the Swiss-German mission; in fact a town, Bieme, which is about 20 minutes from here is in the Swiss-German; also Berne where were yesterday.
The branch is perhaps the largest outside of Belgium. We have about 75 members on the books. About 35 or 40 of these are active. The city is one of the leaders of Protestantism and there are a great many sects here. The city is tracted about once every year and that makes tracting rather disagreeable. We have Priesthood meeting, Relief Society, Sunday School, M.I.A. as well as our regular sacrament meeting. The president of the Relief Society and of the mutual as well as the superintendant of the Sunday School are members of the branch. A great deal of the preaching in sacrament meeting is done by the local brethern. So all we have to do is be janitor, clean the hall up, make fires, keep the people coming to church, settle fights, find new friends, visit the old ones and preside at the meetings. However this keeps us on the run. It is surely a change to be in a big branch like this.
We have a very good hall with two class rooms, and if they would all come out to meeting it would be just like at home. this will probably be the last move of my mission. I will no doubt stay here for 10 or 12 months and you see that will just about be the end. I am sure that I am going to like it here very much. The only thing is the expenses. It costs as much and maybe even more to live here than at home. We pay 40 cents a meal for meals and about $10 per month for the room. The saints feed us quite a bit, but even at that it is awfully expensive. Cloth and things like that cost more than at home. On top of all our expenses the president wants us to go down to a little city about 20 miles from here to tract three days of the week. This will cost us about $6 a month. I am wondering how I'm going to make ends meet. However I suppose I will find a way to get out of it all right. I had some money saved up when I was in Grenoble but the move up here, the conference in Besancon Saturday and other additional expenses has just about eaten it all up.
I suppose you have received the card I sent from Berne yesterday. Berne is the capitol of Switzerland. It is in the German part of Switzerland and everyone over there speaks German. It was surely a lot of fun trying to find the French consel to get a visa. The buildings are all built out over the sidewalks and the streets aren't even as straight as in France. It is surely a quaint old city. It was so cold there that we about froze, however. I was glad to have the opportunity of seeing the German people and being in a German city. As I have mentioned, we had a conference in Besancon next Saturday. I'll have a chance to see Chuck again. He works at La Chaux de Fonds - a city about an hour from here. We will no doubt see each other more often now...
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