Beauty and the Beast

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Before anyone gets the wrong idea from the title, this isn't a post about Lynn and Ed.  Well, technically, it is a post about Lynn and Ed but that is not how we got the name for the title.  After all Ed is not that beautiful and Lynn is not that Beastly.  The title also does not refer to our two new young missionaries that arrived this week. They are lovely young men.

The title refers to a castle we came across while doing our missionary work for this week.  We were going to Belgium to Home Teach a faithful member of our ward.  On the way there we decided to try to locate two members who were on our ward list but whom we have never met.  One lived in Fumay in Northern France and the other lived in Givet, right on the Belgian border.  As it turns out on the way from Fumay to Givet we passed an old castle that was somewhat in disrepair but looked so cool.  It reminded us of the castle from Beauty and the Beast.

On the way back from Givet we decided to stop and explore.  The castle was in a little Medieval Village called Hierges.  It was typically French, with cobble stone streets, a little square, a restaurant and a castle.  The castle was built on a hill overlooking the town.  The towers and walls were crumbling somewhat but it looked awesome.  We walked up to it and explored a bit.  We were somewhat surprised by the fact that there seemed to be someone living in a house/tower that was on the grounds.  When we finally got to our friend's house she told us that there is still the Baron de Hierges that lives there.  Wow!  Such history.  It was built in 1545 on a sight that used to have a castle built in the early 11th century.

Lynn felt like she was right in the middle of a setting for a wonderful novel!

That was Monday.  On Tuesday we put the finishing touches to our new missionaries' apartment.  Elders Christiansen and Brown finally got here on Wednesday. We picked them up at the gare (train station).  They are perfect, very enthusiastic, with lots of great ideas.  They hit the ground running, contacting people right away.  We took them to their apartment which they loved, had supper, showed them around town and went over our Branch list to give them an idea of who was who.  They will be a great resource for our Branch.

Elder Brown above and Elder Christiansen below helping us prepare Sunday dinner.

On Thursday we went to Le Chesne for Home Teaching.

Home Teaching Message this month.  Agony in The Garden by Frans Swartz

 We brought the missionaries with us to meet the Dampt family.  They live about 45 minutes away.  We had a great visit and a great lunch.   We had a great trip through the forests of the Ardennes on little country roads.  Our new elders who had spent time in Paris love being away from the big city for a while.  

After supper we went to Bivers for Home teaching and ended the night off at folk dancing in the Echelle castle.  So it's been a bit of a castle-y week for us.  We do love folk dancing.  We have met some great people, many of them farmers from small villages and towns around us.

This week is birthday week in Ed's family.  His Mom's birthday is March 17 and his Dad's birthday is March 20.  Ed's brother, Darrell and our daughter Amy have birthdays on March 19.  Back in Lethbridge they all had dinner together and then went to a play in Raymond.  Darrell was here visiting from New York which was great since we weren't able to be there.  Actually, we took advantage of Darrell being there by giving us some help on the home front with some things we had to get done for taxes, etc.

Friday Ed had a Branch presidency meeting and the new missionaries got to meet Brother Biver.  They are being very well received here.  After all, there have not been missionaries here for 8 or 9 years.  Needless to say our members are overjoyed to have the support.

Saturday was a regular Saturday.  we did our studies in the morning.  Ed washed the car.  We went shopping.  We met with the missionaries to go over some things before church the next day.  

We had a great day at church today.  We had a Branch Council meeting, a great lesson and some great talks.  The missionaries met the rest of the members.  We had them over for lunch afterwards.  Then Ed finished the Branch history report for 2014 to send to the stake.  

There you have it.  Another great week in France.  Bye for now.

Au revoir de la France!
Lyndi-lou and Eddie, too