"Roman" Around France

Sunday, January 18

We saw a lot of France this week.  We started off on Monday going to Paris.  Lynn had to get some legal stuff done for her visa.  I have to do the same in February.  We stayed overnight and came back on Tuesday.  We saw some amazing things.

We took the "Fast Train" into Paris.  It only took 1.5 hours.  We then took a metro to St. Michel which is the station right beside Notre Dame Cathedral.  After a great lunch of a "Kebab" (a Middle Eastern sandwich) we walked about a kilometre to our destination. 

Yummy Kebob with Andalouse Sauce

We were heading to "Les Arènes de Lutece".  This is a very little known tourist attraction right in the middle of Paris.  It is a very well preserved Roman arena that is really awe inspiring.  We actually ate a bag lunch there.  It was incredible to be sitting in a place where Roman citizens sat 2000 years ago.  There were bleachers and passageways and arches.  It was a little weird, though thinking about the dastardly things that probably occurred there, too.  The arena is quite hard to find.  It is hidden behind a row of buildings.  The only indication that it is even there is a historical marker beside an archway.  You go through the arch and you are there.  We also took a short walk over to where there are some Roman baths that are still visible.  These are a little less preserved but are just as awe inspiring.

Notre Dame in the Background and the remnants of this church. Information in French follows.

Walking from the church to the arena

The Archway into the Roman Arena uncovered in the late 1800's but built in the 1st century.

The bigwig seats for the show in the Arena

Musée Cluny 

Middle Ages & Roman Baths Museum

These Baths were build in the 2nd century.  Amazing.

For those of you who think that I lack culture I want you to know that we also visited an Art Museum in Paris - Le Musée D'Orsay.  There I was looking around at some of the greatest Impressionist paintings by Gauguin, Renoir, Monet, etc. pretending that I knew something about them.  Lynn was a natural in there.  She fit right in.

Some of my favorites........Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

Paul Signac "Entrée du port de la Rochelle".  Since my family hails from LaRochelle I thought I'd include this.

Glare and all!! I love this painting by Henri Geoffroy "Le Jour de la visite à l'hôpital".  It reminds me of when I was just a little girl in the hospital and my dad came to visit me right when visiting hours were over.  I remember how devastated I was to be in there, feeling all alone etc.  This is really beautiful and sad.

José-Julio de Souza-Pinto "Les ramasseurs de pommes de terre". 

Julien Dupré "La Vache blanche"

Claude Monet

Camille Pissarro

Renoir "Madame Renoir et son fis Pierre"

Renoir "Bal du moulin de la Galette"  We have this in our house at home.  Wow the colour is nothing like the real thing!  

Oswald Achenbach "Une fête à Genazzano".  I love this painting.  Because it is hard to see I've taken 3 other closer shots.

Rosa Bonheur 

While we were in Paris we attended a missionary lunch and we made a connection with a young sister missionary who is related to our son-in-law, Tyler.  Her father and Tyler's mother are cousins.  We were able to take her picture and when Lynn posted the picture on a missionary family Facebook page her father commented on it.  A conversation ensued.  When we compared notes we made the connection.  What a small world.

An Artist at work just across from the Pompidou Center and right near our LDS Visitors Center

The Mission Home in Le Vésinet

Back in Charleville we continued to do our missionary efforts of finding lost members.  We spent a great deal of time this week doing this with some success.  We also continue to try to speak to people we meet about the Church.  Part of our mission is supporting our Branch members, too.  With this in mind I attended a meeting this week to do this very thing.  I met with a member from St. Quentin to learn about a program that I can use to help others in a counselling kind of a role.  It was interesting.  I had this meeting after our regular District Meeting with the other missionaries in our district.  This meeting is always held in St. Quentin which is about 2 hours from us but only 117 kilometres away.  This week we took a wrong turn and went through about 15 additional Villages on our short little detour.  It actually took us the same amount of time.  

A January day in France on the way to our District Meeting in St. Quentin

Just a passing beauty

Guise "Old Tower"  We need to check this out one day when we have more time.  We drive past it every week.

On Friday we learned that a member of our Branch passed away and so we have been planning my first funeral as a Branch President.  That will happen tonight.

Today I had a meeting in Lille with all the bishops and branch presidents in our stake.  It takes 2.5 hours to get there, 3 hours of meetings and 2.5 hours to get home again.  I think I will sleep well tonight.

We have the fortune of celebrating our granddaughter's birthday today.  Well, I guess she is celebrating it not us but we did have an opportunity to phone her and sing "Happy Birthday" to her.  We try hard to include our family as part of our mission as much as possible.  They need to feel of our love and we need to feel theirs, too.

Again, we are blessed to be here serving a mission in France.  We love what we are doing and we know we are doing the Lord's work.  We can feel his presence with us daily.  How fortunate this is for us!

Well, that's all I have for this week.

Au revoir from La France,
Lyndi-lou and Eddie, too.