In Switzerland, we had 100 missionaries working in Switzerland and 10 in Lebanon. In Switzerland, all hundred of them would have an average of 25 baptisms a year. We knocked door after door after door all day long. Our district leader will give us an area with the names of the street. We have to redo the same area six times by the sixth time they were almost showing the rocks, “You’ve been here before!” It was hard, almost no success. In Switzerland, in 18 months, I didn’t have any baptisms. In Lebanon, in 6 months, 12 baptisms.
Even though they’re most Muslims, but we worked mainly among the Armenian which were refugees from Syria. They were very acceptable with the gospel, and they were very poor, too. I met a family man, a husband and wife and five kids, two or three times a week. They had to eat popcorn because they didn’t have anything, anything else to eat. But when they invited the missionaries, they had a full table.
It was very spiritual. And we had two branches in Lebanon, one in Armenian, and one downtown in English. For Americans, they used to serve the army in Lebanon. So only two branches. So I doubt there’s any church in Lebanon by now. Probably not.
There was a ward. I even during my mission, I helped to build a chapel there in Zurich, the other, the other places, small towns. I don’t know how many wards or branches there were in Switzerland, because the church was very small in Switzerland, but in then Zurich, they had about maybe 100 members at any sacrament meeting. My first area, or second? I think was the second area. President Ezra Taft Benson went to visit with us there in Basel, the church was just as big as in Zurich but in other small places, only very small branches. And my last interview in Lebanon was done by Ezra Taft Benson before I finished my mission.