This is an interesting story about what happened to my family approximately 19 years ago in the Swiss temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
At that time, in 1988, my wife and I lived in Asti, Italia. My wife, Giovanna, was expecting our first child and the closest temple was in Zollikofen, Switzerland. We had been to the temple previously only a few times and we enjoyed being there. A trip to the temple would require several hours, and as new parents we were extremely concerned with all the changes that would happen after the birth of our first son. We were thinking that probably we wouldn’t be able to go to the temple for several months, at least.
Therefore, in spite of Giovanna being seven months pregnant, we decided to accept the invitation of a member of our branch to go once more to the temple. Our relatives were not active members of the Church and this idea seemed to them a little crazy, but we felt that it was the right thing to do.
The trip was good and we went to the temple. While we were there, inside the temple, I had a marvelous feeling about the joy of being father. I had never been a father before and therefore that feeling was amazing. In fact, that feeling started growing so strong that I thought: “whow, how can I expect two more months, after having such wonderful feelings?”.
Half an hour later we were outside sitting in front of the temple when suddenly my wife started feeling in pain. We were not sure what was the problem but we thought it was nothing serious.
A little later, however, the pain came back and stronger until a friend (who already had children) finally told us that probably the baby was trying to come out! That didn’t seem good. To be in a foreign country, away from family and friends, not speaking the language (German), and especially having to deal with a possible premature birth was something really scary.
However, the people who took care of the housing for members of the Church traveling to the temple, Monique and François Portellano, were extremely helpful and directed us to the nearest hospital, in Jegenstorg.
At the hospital the doctors realized that Luca, our son, was trying to come out sooner than expected. They tried for several hours to stop it, but it was impossible. On May 13, 1988, around 12 pm, he was born, weighting only 3 pounds.
That was one of my first great experiences with inspiration and revelation in the Temple. After that, I learned that strong feelings in the Temples have usually practical consequences in our lives if we pay attention to them.
To keep Luca alive, since he had a problem in his lungs, the doctors put him in intensive care and there he was for a couple of weeks. After that they decided that it would be less expensive to move him to Torino, Italy, using the hospitla plane than keep him in intensive care for longer time.
Luca was bound to stay in Torino’s hospital for another two months before he was able to come home.
In the first year of his life he needed a lot of care and it was particularly interesting for us to hear from an Italian doctor, not a Mormon, that we had been lucky that he was born in Switzerland, close to the Bern University Pediatric Hospital where they were experienced and fast enough to save him.
Coming from a non-Mormon that was a confirmation of what we already knew, that our trip to Switzerland, to go to the Temple, was the right decision and one that probably saved Luca.
