Upon release from the Central German Mission in January 1969, I was given permission by the First Presidency to fly to Switzerland for a few days to research the family history of my grandmother, Elisa Franziska Hess Leuthold and my grandfather, Heinrich Leuthold.  After visiting for a day with my former missionary companion, Judith Hachler, and her family in Zofingen, I went by train to the Swiss Temple in Zollikofen.  On entering the temple, President Robert Simond, a counselor in the Temple Presidency, asked me why I had come to Switzerland.   When I explained my desire and where my grandparents had lived, he said he felt an impression to call some members of the church who lived in the area where my grandfather was raised and see if I could stay in their home that night.  Right then he went to a phone in the temple and called the Stalder-Mauer family who agreed to pick me up from the train station that night.   After the temple session, President Simond kindly took me to the train station.  It was dark as Brother Stalder-Mauer  and some of the children picked me up in Meiringen and drove me to their home in Innertkirchen where I met Frieda Stalder Mauer.  Because of her choice to care for her invalid mother, she did not marry until age 40 but now had 5 beautiful children.  As I entered their home, she questioned me as to my grandfather’s name.  When I said Heinrich Leuthold, she exclaimed that their family were also Leutholds and that they had had a professional genealogist research the Leuthold family in that area.   She asked if she could call her brother and have him bring over the family history.   At bedtime after Brother and Sister Stalder were in bed, they called all the children in for family prayer around their bed and asked me to say the prayer.   I stayed up many hours late in the night, copying the records from their book that pertained to Grandpa Leuthold.  The records that were missing were of Grandpa and his parents and siblings as well as that of his father’s family.   The next morning when I woke up, everyone seemed to be gone but on the kitchen table was a nice breakfast.   I ate looking through a large window to the magnificent snow covered alps.  Sister Frieda Stalder-Mauer returned and said she would drive me to Guttannen/ Boden where Grandpa was born and had lived until he left for America.   We drove through the heavy snow and ice along a narrow valley in her volkswagen “bug”, stopping part way along the valley to buy cups of hot chocolate.  Upon arriving in Guttannen, Sister Stalder Mauer showed me an old  weathered structure that had been a hotel, perhaps once owned by Grandpa’s mother.   After the death of her husband, Johannes Leuthold,  the hotel was lost to Margaritha Rosti Leuthold,  due to men who swindled her out of it.   She was distraught at having 9 children to care for and perhaps had a breakdown or the men had her somehow put away.    Ship records state that Jacob(age 15), Andreas (age 11), Magdalena(age 10) and Henry (age 7)left with one suitcase for America to stay with their older step-sister in New Jersey.  A physician neighbor of their step-sister wanted to adopt young Henry but Jake said no, they would keep the family together.  Magdalena returned some years later to Switzerland to visit her mother and was heartsick to see that her mother did not remember her.   

Visiting Guttannen in 1969 was like stepping back in time.  The women in the village still wore long skirts with several layers of petticoats for warmth and horses were drinking at troughs.  Sister Stalder-Mauer helped me locate the person in charge of the records  who looked up  Grandpa’s family information.  I met an old man with a deeply wrinkled face and bright blue eyes who was 104 years old.   He remembered Grandpa growing up in Guttannen as a boy.   How I wished I would have asked him what happened to Margaritha Rosti Leuthold, Grandpa’s mother.  We then drove back to Innerkirchen where Sister Stalder-Mauer helped me catch the one-time-a -day mail bus back to Meiringen where I caught the train to Alpnach Dorf where Grandma Elisa Franziska Hess Leuthold was born and grew up.

I can testify that this was a miracle.  President Simond was inspired in the Swiss Temple to call the Stalder-Mauer family.  This was revelation.  The Leuthold records pertaining to my grandfather, Henry Leuthold’s family, had not yet been submitted to the temples.  I give thanks for Heavenly Father’s guidance and loving help from so many along the way.