This is in reference to a walking tour of Interlaken,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04sQherhM5g.
Just some background, Interlaken was my first area on my mission. I started my mission in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah in May 1986.
I had a horrible time.
I went to Interlaken two months later having had German crammed into my skull. I arrived at Interlaken West terminal. I walked by that station every day I was there.
For the most part, I haven’t been too vocal about my time there. I was only in the country for a few months before I was sent back to the US. I hadn’t even talked about my mission much until about 10 years ago. My wife knew I did not have a good time and never pressed me about it.
I didn’t stay in Switzerland long. I was sent back to the US for various reasons.
So, even after all this time, I think I avoided even videos about Interlaken subconsciously. I’ve watched videos about Grindelwald which was up one of the valleys that I visited once. I don’t know why I decided to watch the video about Interlaken. I think what sucked me in was about 30s in, there was a shot of the West train station. Dang but that made the feels flow, so I decided to stick around. Bennet even sat down to watch.
The video starts out at the main park in town, https://goo.gl/maps/6J2ywuaEMrBzoy2B7. I really didn’t remember it at the time. I know I should have. I had blocked so much of this out of my head. I hadn’t even looked at the city in google maps until I started writing this. It isn’t that I hated the place. Even now I call it the most beautiful place on the planet. I’ve always felt that way. I was honored to spend the little time I had there, but there was more than just the place.
The video went on. I honestly did not remember the buildings that I saw at first. Only little by little did that park creep back into my memory. Yeah, I'd been there lots of times. Almost daily. And then they walked deeper into the town. That was a beautiful river but I don’t remember it at all. I was trying so hard to remember it. Tracy knows I have a bad memory anyway, mostly due to things on my mission, like the inability to remember names. I’ve taken her to other things in my mission travels that were much less impressive than my memory tells me. Anyway, the first real thing that I remembered quickly was the dam that had a covered area and the canton flag. That I remembered immediately.
About the time I was mumbling something about now remembering crossing a bridge everyday, there were other comments. Tracy has been vocal about wanting to go there. She commented on the beauty of the place and mentioned how sad it was that I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. I responded that I really do wish I had enjoyed it. It is a remarkable place. Some resentment was building up in me about that time, and why I couldn’t have enjoyed it.
Then there was a certain shot that looked very familiar to me. The location is here, https://goo.gl/maps/TwYWhniM872NAcuu6. In the video, it is here, https://youtu.be/04sQherhM5g?t=1810. I’m not sure what hit me. Just that side street. Then he pans and turns east. I gasped. I had so many years of repressed memories unload on me in just a few seconds.
While I was there, there was one family that helped me and was so kind, I can’t fathom it. The Schaffners were so kind to me. They fed me, and helped me with comfort and normality. And now to why this matters.
I had severe depression. It wasn’t tied to being away from home. I’d been away to school for two years before my mission. I had wanted to go on my mission. I wanted to tell people how much the church has helped me with my life. I had such good friends in my church school. I enjoyed my time in the church so much that I wanted to tell people about it. All my time there, I’d been told being a missionary, or a returned missionary, was how you be a good person. I wanted to be a good person. The person I married deserved to be married to a good person.
My last semester was difficult and made me doubt my career choice. In the MTC, I saw a side of the church that I had never seen before. I had the salvation of the world start to be put on my shoulders. I was separating myself from all that I cherished and cared about. That was the beginning. I started shedding pounds. Getting into Switzerland, I had to be an extrovert and talk to people about my personal beliefs. While I knew that going in, it hit home. I was an introvert and I had to make even more changes to my personality. To talk to people, I was told that I had to not exactly misrepresent who I was, but not be open about it. I am pretty sure we couldn’t wear our nametags unless we were in the church itself. Sometimes I felt that I was lying to everyone. It wore on my conscience.
Also, and probably most importantly, I didn't receive any money while in Interlaken. I was starving. I don’t know how much you know how little you can enjoy a place if you aren’t being fed. I was already down a lot of weight because of depression and now I didn’t eat because I couldn’t afford to. Even Sister Schaffner, when she took in my pants !Six Inches!, asked me if I had ever fit into them. We couldn’t tell church members anything but positive things, so my companion said something like it was the exercise.
Seeing their store again made it all real. There it was. Their paper store. Above it was their home. It all came crashing at me. My companion at the time was kind of a jerk, but he did loan me some money so I could buy some macaroni once. I think his expression was, “Macaroni fools our stomachs into thinking that we ate something.” All kinds of kindness struck me then. The members tried their best to feed us. One woman came to church and gave us each 100 francs because “God told her to, that we needed it.” I was so thankful because I could finally eat more than what I snuck out of the Schaffners’ fridge or the lunches that we had with members every third day or so.
My one trip to Grindelwald was with a family that took pity on us so that I could finally see something. I’m pretty sure my companion was telling people that we (me) simply couldn’t afford to do anything. And that also had created some resentment in me. My parents didn’t have a lot of money and they were funding me and it was the most expensive mission in the world. This was before they pooled money from all the missionaries. My parents had to pay for everything, and yet, for some reason, Zion’s Bank wasn’t getting the money to me. I hated asking my parents for anything, yet I was begging them to get me something. To be clear, it wasn't that my parents weren't putting money in my account, it was that the bank wasn't getting it to me.
But even with all these moments of goodness that had just struck me, the overwhelming feeling was how hungry I was there. I was hungry all the time. Switzerland has incredible food, and I didn’t have any of it of my own resources other than a few yogurts, which was amazing, and a loaf of bread once.
Further on, the videographer walked over a bridge, and by that time, I knew that was the bridge I thought of. Then back to the train station. One of my memories was talking to a man there, waiting to cross the road, and I reached down to pet his dog and he slapped my hand away. I know that was because I’m an overly invasive American for me to do that, but it also made me realize, at the time, that they didn’t want us there. The world doesn’t want missionaries. And that impression was driving the depression deeper. Mind you, I didn’t even know it was depression until I read the symptoms sometime in the 2010s and “Holy Crap, that was me!”
During this portion of the video, I was quiet, and my wife was worried. I had slipped into my feelings. So much had struck me. And I’m still somewhat dismissive. A few years ago I asked my ex-girlfriend what I had said about why I was sent back to the US. She said it was something about the food not agreeing with me. I honestly don’t know what my excuse was at the time, but I was taken by how I had lied to everyone on my mission, trying to put on a good face. My parents knew that I wasn’t getting money. My mission president had tested me on my language skills (no problem there, I impressed him) and also tried to see if it was homesickness. But he knew, even through his excuses that God had changed his mind about my being there, that it was money and my situation. I was starving.
I hadn’t made it much past the train station again. I have too many feelings about it, and I can’t process it all now.
My anxiety never went away during my two years. I didn’t gain weight back until I got married, I think. After a year out, I did shift my personality because my focus was to return to school and just survive in the meantime. I wasn’t suicidal, but I did want it all to end. I was outrageously unhappy. I wasn’t made for missionary work, even if my intentions were good.
In my return to school, I paid for everything. I worked my way through the next 3 years and Tracy and I even had some savings by the time we graduated. Still, I didn't talk about my mission much until around 2010. It was a dark part of my life.