My New Calling and Living in Switzerland

Posted on September 13, 2011 by jenelle

I live in Switzerland, and I now teach seminary. I remember when I found out I was having twins, I thought something like “AAAAAHHHHHHH!”. A few weeks ago, the bishop in our ward gave me another “AAAAAHHHH” moment when he invited me to teach seminary to the teenagers in our ward. Via Skype. I actually laughed. Skype? Seriously? I think he thought I was a little nut-so and maybe he should reconsider. (Some days, I don’t think that’s far from the truth.) Maybe he thought I didn’t understand. I felt like I couldn’t stop laughing. You know – that “you’re joking, right?” kind of laughing. Later I talked to two other seminary teachers in other wards who also teach four days a week with Skype, and they’ve had great success.

I can teach in English. We have six students, four German/English-speaking Americans and two German/English-speaking Swiss. They are all awesome kids. I teach one night a week after youth group and one morning a week via Skype. Early morning. 6:30 to be exact. We have students from two different cantons (like states) in our class, which means trying to coordinate two completely different school schedules (ya, I think I’ve spent no less than eight hours alone on getting this schedule right). If I can keep up with preparing lessons, we’ll add one more Skype morning to our schedule. Our first class was on my birthday last week. The students sang happy birthday to me – twice! I really enjoyed it!

Did I mention I live in Switzerland? And I have three kids ages four and under? Did I mention that in Switzerland a “big” family is two kids? Did I mention we’re studying the Old Testament? Did I also mention I’m taking German lessons – trying to improve my pathetic Deutsch? I’ll be honest. This calling has totally thrown me. I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water as it is.

Some days, I am so excited. Giddy even. I love the Old Testament! It has already been awesome to have a very compelling reason to dive into the scriptures rather than surface reading. I’m pretty sure that is one of the reasons I have this calling is to help me stop coasting and start engaging. I have already felt taught by the Holy Ghost on several occasions. I’ve missed feeling so enlightened. I absolutely love this feeling!

I would be lying if I said there weren’t days I’m the opposite of excited. The Sunday after I was called, Jonathan was translating sacrament meeting (English-speakers wear headphones if they want translation). I wrangled all three kids through the whole meeting and nearly made it. As the meeting progressed, I started having my own pity party because the kids were starting to get difficult. Of all the people, why did they pick the foreigner with two-year-old twins and a four-year-old? Wasn’t there somebody, anybody, who had a little less going on than I did that could do this? How in the world was I supposed to keep up? I couldn’t even get through sacrament meeting. When was I supposed to prepare not one, but two lessons a week? Every week? AND keep up on my reading of the Old Testament? I started thinking about how few other callings there are that require teaching every week, let alone more than once a week. The kids were about to start shrieking and I was about to start sobbing. So we went in the foyer. A few days after that, I cried myself to sleep.

I feel like Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities in regard to this new calling:

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way.

To be honest, living here has been hard on so many levels. On the church side of things, it hasn’t helped that I don’t understand most of what is said (it’s all in German) and for the first seven months of living here I spent most of my Sundays in the nursery because Annika was having a hard time in class. Then the twins turned 18 months (hallelujah!) and we literally doubled the nursery with three in at the same time. But they weren’t too excited for a good many weeks about being there. Then Annika moved up to primary and again had a hard time. And then the nursery teachers stopped showing up. We moved here a year ago last August, and it wasn’t till the following March that I attended my first Relief Society meeting. I knew no one. I didn’t understand anything (no translation). I kind of wanted to go back to nursery. At least there I could talk to my kids and they sort of understood me. They actually cared I was there. It has been a lonely time for me. Can you hear the pity party? It took me till March to get up the courage to talk to the only Swiss mom with young kids who sort of lives near me. In German. And see if she wanted our kids to play together. Jonathan came around the corner at church just at that moment and could translate because neither of us could understand what the other was saying. But she was up for it and has been so patient and kind letting our kids play together. She is very patient with my German and knows enough English we can get by if I don’t know how to say something (though it’s usually in German). I’ve so appreciated her friendliness.

It has only been these last two months of living here that I have begun to feel somewhat acclimated here in general and in the ward in particular. I feel like I’m starting to sort-of make a couple of friends. Granted, they almost all live in Zug, which is half-an-hour away. But, it is improving. I don’t dread going grocery shopping anymore. I don’t worry about meeting other moms at the park and trying to start a conversation in German (my original plan for making friends here, which didn’t pan out). I can speak enough to get by now. I’ve learned showing you are genuinely trying to speak German (and learn their language) goes a long way with the Swiss. Contrary to common belief, the answer to the English question is not always a yes, especially when you live out in the country like we do. My conversations (such as going to a doctor or government place) usually start out saying “Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch” and then asking if they speak a little English. Then I tell them I will try in German. If I don’t know a word, I just use the English word and hope they know it. Usually we can get by. Do you know how long it took me to get an appointment with a pediatrician for the kids’ yearly checkup? A year! Jonathan finally just made it himself. Why so long? Because talking on the phone in German is so intimidating! You don’t have facial expressions or hand gestures to help. I’m embarrassed I was chicken for so long.

Fortunately, I have amazing visiting teachers who I know care about me (granted our visits are usually in German, but it’s good for me and my German is a little better now, so I can get by). I’ve had a testimony of visiting teaching for years and years, but it has only been since having the twins and again with moving overseas that I now know I NEED visiting teachers. My visiting teachers back home were a god-send. And so are the ones here. I thank Heavenly Father often for these women, their love, their service, and just plain coming to see me so regularly. They haven’t let language stand in the way, even though I’m sure it’s not been a picnic for them visiting a foreigner they can’t really talk to. Even though I don’t always know what they are saying with their voices, by their actions and compassion, I still know they sincerely care for me. This is sad to admit now, but last winter, sometimes they were the only people I would see, other than my husband and kids, for many weeks. In an eight-week period, my kids, Jonathan, or I were sick for six of the them. It was often much easier to just not go out with three sick little kids by myself in the winter in a new country where I barely spoke the language. One Sunday after being sick for a long time, we stepped outside of our apartment to go to church. I realized that I hadn’t been out that door in over three weeks. So when I say I never saw people for weeks at a time, I am not exaggerating.

These last three years with a very sick, sick pregnancy, then two crying babies and one crying toddler for an entire year while suffering from post-partum depression and trying to take a German class, and now living overseas have been so challenging, hard, stretching, humbling, crushing – often more than I could handle. Am I painting a bleak picture? It hasn’t always been so bleak, but it has been very hard. I’ve seen so many small miracles and tender mercies that I know are not by chance happen over the last few years. I know this is where we’re supposed to be. But I feel like a two-year-old sometimes – ”No! I don’t want to do that!” and cry and have my own little tantrum. I cannot deny all the help we’ve had both from people and from above. I am thankful for my Savior’s patience with me. And my husband’s. He is such a good, good man. Such quiet strength. He is disciplined and diligent and loving. He quietly serves our family. He is a tender father and so much fun, too. Again, so patient. I love his sense of humor, his witty and funny and sometimes a little bit corny jokes. I think they are all so funny! I love it when my nerdiness comes shining through without me realizing it, and he puts his arms around me and says “I love you!”. He is my greatest blessing.

The Math

Posted on February 14, 2011 by jenelle

2 miserable teething toddlers + 2 poopy diapers smeared on the walls + 1 mommy with a raging headache =

1 dirty, unvaccuumed house + 137 toys strewn about + 0 dinner made

Can we throw some dark Lindt chocolate in there to even the playing field for me, please? Or a vacation*. I wouldn’t turn that down.

I think I might cry.

*A long period of being child-free constitutes a “vacation”. Like this.

PF’s

Posted on February 5, 2011 by jenelle

If you get squeamish reading about the smelly side of having little kids. . .

SKIP THIS POST.

You have been warned!

I am raising Poop Factories. That’s the best way to describe the last several weeks. I have sat in poop, had poop down my jeans, up my shirt, in my bra. I’ve scraped it off bedroom floors, wiped it off underwear and the kids’ table, and found it smeared on high chairs and on sheets. There have been pee puddles on my pants, on bedroom floors, and in the bathroom. And that is just in two weeks. I am done. Done. Done! I’m disgusted out!

Nicolyn is the worst of the culprits. I don’t know how she produces so much of the smelly stuff on a daily basis! She has about three very large poopy diapers a day. If she saves up for only one or two diapers worth, it is like a volcano and cannot be contained. When we drove back from Nuremberg, Nicolyn’s diaper had exceeded its bounds. Her carseat was covered. Her pants were covered. She was a stinky mess. Clara had also pooped, but hers was contained in her carseat and diaper. Jonathan had the poopified Nicolyn walk to the elevator and up to our apartment. I followed with Annika and Clara. As I started walking, I saw brown globs on the floor trailing all the way to the elevator. Was it dirt? Mud? Of course, you know the answer. It was the Poop Factory. Yes, she had THAT much poo that she was prolifically dropping large remnants of the stuff out of her pant legs. How can one little person produce so much?

Last week I was in another room and overheard Annika saying something about “wiping it off Clara’s foot”. Those words can’t mean anything good. I immediately went in and saw Annika trying to wipe poop off Clara’s foot (smear around would describe it better). Then I saw a big mound of soft poo on the carpet next to Clara. It was a little hard to find at first because our rug has a myriad of patterns and it kind of blended in. But it was Nicolyn who was the poopy one. She had exploded! Clara had walked in it and Nicolyn had put her hand in it. I’m proud to say, I calmly cleaned Clara, then also calmly moved on to Nicolyn. It had exploded halfway up her back. She had to be completely stripped. After a while, she was finally cleaned and in a new diaper. Then I, still calmly, cleaned the rug. After the poo was cleaned up, I went to get the carpet cleaner (which we bought to clean up another poop incident). I put the massive, disgusting diaper in its pail and went to wash my hands. Those of you who wash your hands 20 times a day like me and whose hands are chapped and bleeding even with applying lotion after every wash, try to find ways to minimize yet another washing. I say that to explain why I took time to use the bathroom myself. I noticed as I was washing, that my pants felt a little wet, which I attributed to all the wipes I’d used. Maybe I sat near one and it soaked my pants at little? I looked in the mirror and saw a small poop blob on my chest. A little annoyed and with no idea how that got there, I changed my shirt. Then I got the carpet cleaner. I walked down the hall back to the living room and saw it. A poop blob on the ground. I suddenly knew why my pants were moist feeling. I saw another poop blob down the hall a bit further. I turned around. My backside was covered in poop! And because I had used the bathroom, it had somehow made it into my pants and on my undergarments. When I had changed my shirt, my undershirt still had poo on it. The act of changing my shirt had moved my shirt enough to get poo on my undergarments. I stripped down. While taking off my shirt and undershirt – I somehow got it on my bra as well. After completely changing every piece of clothing and cleaning up, I uncalmly went back into the living room, hoping the kids were not playing in whatever poo piles I hadn’t seen but sat in. I tackled poo pile number two, checked for any more poo (none) and finally sprayed the cleaning spray, by now very irritated.

The last three days have been nonstop. Clara has discovered how to take her pants and diaper off, particularly at nap and bedtime. The first day, I walked in to find a log of poo along with a very large pee puddle on the floor with about six stuffed animals swimming in it. Clara’s diaper was nearly dry, on the floor. It had probably been off for several hours. That was also the day Annika cut herself very slightly on a pear can. She managed to still bleed several good-sized drops, which made her go ghost white and throw up on the floor right after she had eaten lunch.

The morning of the second day, I found both babies stripped down to their birthday suits, with Nicolyn’s poopy diaper on the floor (Clara was just wet). They were mighty proud of their new abilities – wanting to show me all they had managed to take off. I’m sure my reaction was not what they were hoping for.

Later on day two, Annika had “helped” the babies by giving them at least 50 tissues in rapid succession (caught her in the act), which they wiped their noses on and crumpled on the floor. Add to this that these tissues are from our coveted remaining Costco tissue boxes we brought with us…I was not a happy camper. While putting Annika in time out, the Poop Factory struck again. I smelled poo and found Nicolyn and about 15 tissues covered in poo along with their children’s table, little chair, and the floor. Her diaper was still on, but she had exploded. Her shirt and pants were covered.

The evening of day two, I taped them into their diapers with packing tape (an idea I snagged from my friend Alie Thompson). It seemed to work. But for naptime today, day three, I forgot. As I walked by their room after they had been in bed for an hour (note – “in bed” does not equal “asleep”), I could smell it. Poop. For it to be that strong of a smell, it could only mean one thing. There was at least one diaperless babe in there. Clara had done her business on Nicolyn’s bed, diaper free. Poop was smeared on the sheet. Nicolyn hadn’t gotten her diaper off, but managed to dig a big chunk out of her diaper to throw on the opposite floor. They and their rooms are now cleaned, and they are taped into their diapers. I think by now they may actually be asleep.

The bright side in all this bodily excrement is that Annika is now mostly potty trained! She has gone a whole week without an accident of any kind (to earn a reward). She has had her share, though, this past month, of poo and pee in places it shouldn’t be. It’s kind of felt like a whole month of wading in the stuff with the three of them combined.

Thank you for your time. I feel a little better.

Jenelle Is Above Average – Again

Posted on October 14, 2010 by jenelle

You’ve probably noticed Jenelle’s an over-achiever. This is true, even down to her bones. Some people have a sixth sense or are double jointed. Jenelle managed to grow an extra bone – in her foot. One day, while being an over-achiever mom, Jenelle was down on the floor playing with her kids when her bone decided to make its presence known. She felt a pop and lost her balance. Feeling sprain-like, Jenelle assumed whatever happened would get better on its own. When it continued to cause pain after a week, she managed to get an appointment with a doctor for the morning she and Jonathan were leaving on their five-year anniversary-get-away weekend (including hiking and biking in the plans), which was also a mere two weeks before moving to Switzerland (it was planned before they knew they were moving). She came home from the doctor with another new appendage.

The bone had made her foot prone to injury and injure it she did with a torn ligament.

In the last two weeks, Jenelle has finally been able to let go of some of the extraneous things in her life, including “The Boot”, but she’s still got to baby her prima donna foot for a while yet – luckily, just in tennis shoes for now.

Jonathan has tried to tell her that in the future, she doesn’t need to go to such extremes for a little extra attention. He reminded her it was not very effective in garnering the right kind of help in the airport with three kids, 12 checked pieces of luggage, four bike boxes, three car seats, and a questionable number of carry-ons. There was no ride on the special airport shuttle for late or disabled people out of it. No one waved us through the lines. Security even required the boot be taken off to go through the scanner.

He recommended Jenelle find new outlets for her over-achieverness, such as hula hooping or knitting.

The Little Women Go to Switzerland

Posted on July 13, 2010 by jonathan

The Vance family is moving to Switzerland. Jonathan has accepted a position with a company near Luzern.

Why? They have great chocolate in Switzerland. The bread is really good, too. The mountains are a bonus. And Jenelle and Jonathan think it would be fun to live in Europe again for a few years.

The Vances will miss the many wonderful people and experiences they have had in Oregon, but they are excited for this new adventure. They currently plan to move in mid-August.

The Road Warrior Princess

Posted on July 11, 2010 by jonathan

As any almost-three-year-old can tell you, international travel is not to be taken lightly. That’s why the Road Warrior Princess makes no compromises, as seen in her recent trip to Switzerland and Germany.

Annika left the comforts of Oregon prepared:

princess crown — check;
DVD player — check;
pink princess roller bag that Annika insisted on pulling through the airports herself — check.

Her efforts were rewarded with a great trip that included:

first flying the whole family to Houston so the twin babies could stay with Nana and Grandpa Dell (or, as the twins call them, “Mommy and Daddy 2.0″);
flying to Zurich, Switzerland with Mommy and Daddy, then driving to Munich;
during the drive to Munich, repeatedly asking when she could see a castle (an important topic for any princess, of course);
visiting two castles (the Residenz in Munich and Linderhof Palace in southern Germany);
celebrating Mommy and Daddy’s 5th anniversary by dining at one of Munich’s hottest vegetarian restaurants (no, you don’t need to adjust your computer);
Daddy spending a Saturday morning in Mike’s Wunderbarer Waschsalon (free wi-fi included), which reminded him of the last time that he went to a laundromat in Germany and obtained change by taking his mother to her first Turkish grocery store;
driving through Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland in one day;
staying at a lovely hotel in Luzern, Swizterland, where Annika could run up and down the halls and eat delicious waffles every morning for breakfast; and
renting bikes on their last day in Luzern and taking a lovely afternoon ride.

Jonathan & Jenelle

And their Swiss Misses in Switzerland

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