This Friday night was my mission reunion. When you go on an LDS mission, there are reunions held semi-annually for the first few years after your mission president gets back. Well, it’s been more than a few years, in fact it’s been seven since I got home and 10 years since my mission president and his wife first arrived in Geneva to take over the mission for three years (that’s how long mission presidents serve).

Megen, Trina, me, Mandy and Mandy’s cute baby. Megen was the first sister I met after arriving in Switzerland. We went out in Geneva to talk to people on the street. And now, almost eight years later, here we are.

It was so fun. Obviously, not everyone is able to come out to Salt Lake for a reunion, but there were quite a few people there. It was fun to see people I hadn’t seen in years and to see how their families had grown. One of my favorite Elders (that’s what we call the male missionaries) was there and I was excited to meet his wife, who also served in the Geneva Switzerland mission, but after my time. It was fun to meet the spouses of the missionaries I knew and to see how well they all married…their spouses are fabulous. And I’m sure my opinion isn’t biased by the fact that a few of them said such nice things about me. I love unexpected compliments from people I don’t know well. Wait; are those the only people who give me compliments? Hmmm, what does that say about me?

One of my favorite things was just sharing the fun stories from the mission, as well as hearing about how people in the mission are doing. I definitely want to be better about keeping in touch with people…both missionaries and my friends in Switzerland and France.

Anyway, the following are some of the pictures I took (I took a lot because I wanted to make sure that my mission president had pictures of everyone…but I won’t bore you with all of them).

Me and Lindsey Spendlove…my second companion. We were together for three months in Lyon, France. She’s absolutely fabulous!

Elder and Sister Ralph were one of the sets of senior missionaries with whom I was able to serve. They kept all of our apartments and furniture in happy, working order.

That is my mission president, Rex Allen, talking to a couple of people from the mission. I don’t know either of them as they served before I did.

And this is Sister Allen (with Michelle and Mandy). She is absolutely fantastic. She was our mom away from our real moms…and because I lost my mom a few years before my mission, it was really fun to have a mom there who worried about me as much as my own mother would have…and she still does.

The Sillitos…he served in my mission, she went to Belgium and they are just fun people. We had some great laughs, both on the mission and Friday night.

And this is Marianne and Steve Jackson with their oldest daughter. Steve kept me laughing throughout the mission. I was lucky enough to be in two different areas with him. While on the mission, he and one of his companions made this hilarious video on one of our preparation days. I laughed soooo hard when I watched it. I was telling his wife about this (she also served in the mission) and she said, “Yeah, when Steve showed that to me, I thought, ‘That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen,’ and his response was, ‘Well, Soeur Andersen thought it was funny.'” Hmmm, once again, what does that say about me?

Bobbi (Freeman) and Mark Edwards; she was my companion for two months in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland…in the dead of winter with meters of snow. I’m not sure how we managed. And the others are two of the Allen’s children, Andrew (I think) and Angela. They wer just little kids when we were out there, and now Angela is almost 21. Oh, the joys of getting older.