The Young and The Restless

Sunday, March 29, 2015

In April our Mission is organising a conference for Senior Couple missionaries.  Ed is in charge of organising a visit to a château and lunch.  This does not sound like much but our conference will be held in Tours which is in the Loire valley.  This is château heaven.  There are hundreds of châteaux to choose from.  

After some research and because it is only half an hour from where our meetings will be held, the visit will take place at the Château de Chenonceau.  

This is a huge palace built in the 15 hundreds that housed royalty.  It houses a number of historic artefacts, beautiful gardens and a wax museum.  We will be visiting it on April 15 and will be having lunch in the castle at a cafeteria type restaurant that is located there.  It will be amazing.  We are looking forward to going to the conference, discussing things that are pertinent to us and being together with our fellow missionary couples.

Back in Charleville-Mézières, it has been great having our new missionaries here with us.  However, everyone has taken to calling them the "Young Missionaries".  You can fill in the blanks as to what that makes us.  Ed reminded us all that it's better to call them the "Younger Missionaries".  After all, you are only as old as you feel!  They have been a great addition to our team.  We've had them over for lots; for dinner twice, checking and writing their e-mails, and for haircuts.  They even took us out for a kebab (French fast food) to show their appreciation.

They are doing great work.  They already have given lessons and have others scheduled in for a handful of investigators.  We know that they will make a difference in our Branch and look forward to the changes that will happen.  They have lots of energy and pep and go full boar.  Oh no! It's sounding like they are younger and we are older.  We'll just keep that to ourselves.

On Thursday we had the pleasure of driving to St. Quentin with them to our District Meeting.  They were amazed at the scenery and the number of little villages we went through.  We had a great lesson and a great meal.  We took the main dish of beef on a bun and our new District Leader, Elder Bigalow made us waffles and all the fixings for dessert.   

Going clockwise, Elder Wilson, Elder Bigalow, Zone leaders; Elder Beck, Elder Player, Elder Brown, Soeur Lusty, Soeur Brazil, Elder Jones and Elder Christiansen.

 With an emphasis on unity all ten of the missionaries in our district wore something with stripes on it.  We stopped and did some shopping on the way home at Auchan which is the closest thing we have to a Walmart in France.  Usually it means we can find some good deals on food.

As always we've had a full week.  Ed went home teaching to a member who is in our Branch.  It was the first time that he met him and he really enjoyed his company.  He is very enthusiastic about the Gospel but finds it difficult to attend church with his busy schedule.  He is a doctor and his practise is really busy, including in the evenings 6 days a week.   He also works at the hospital sometimes on Sundays.  We will obviously be visiting him again along with those other missionaries who make us look old.

Ed also had the opportunity to go to a lesson with our new Elders this week.  We were teaching someone who is really interested in our church.  We had a great meeting with him.  He had lots of good questions and is looking forward to coming to the church when he can.

Lynn is working on a talk that she is going to give on May 17.  She likes lots of lead-in time because of the language issues.  However, she is making great strides with the language.  She has a French lesson every week after church with Kate, our member from Belgium.  Lynn is a student of the language, always asking why and trying to figure out the various nuances of French.

We travelled to Troyes this week to do an apartment inspection.  It is just east of Paris.  On the way we randomly saw this lovely arch on the side of the road.

A cool arch on the way to Troyes

Also on our way we passed a site of a huge WW 1 Battleground and two cemeteries where there are 30,000 French and 14,000 German Soldiers buried.  Great feelings of gratitude for the sacrifice given by others for our freedom enveloped both of us.  Very somber feeling indeed.  Interestingly, before we knew any of this, Lynn had been pondering the possibility of there having been a battle there, imagining soldiers on the hillside scrambling for cover etc.  Just after the cemetery and town of Souain, France we passed an extremely large, current Military Base and Operations.  A bit gut-wrenching the whole experience.

Battle of Souain

We got our first traffic ticket this week in Troyes as well.  There was virtually nowhere to park which is typical in France.  We pulled up on the sidewalk which everyone does in France.  Imagine our surprise when we came down and a French gendarme was writing a ticket.  Ed pleaded with her but once she had started writing out the ticket she was obliged to continue, so she said.  Anyway, we paid the fine and went home 35.00€ poorer.  But we did see Église de St. Madeleine, a cathedral from the 12th century that had the most intricate designs we have ever seen.  We also went to an outlet mall and amazingly we didn't buy anything other than supper.

We had the pleasure of going to Biver's house for supper yesterday with the younger missionaries.  We have come into a good thing.  They get invited to dinner but they need a ride so we get invited.  I'm sure it's for the pleasure of our company too.  We had a great evening - a super meal and a spiritual message.  It was the first time the Biver's had had younger missionaries in their home for about 9 years.

At church today we had our Fast and Testimony meeting because of General Conference.  We were richly fed by the testimonies of our members.  Many testimonies referred to missionary work and to the prospect of building up our membership in Charleville-Mézières.  It is an exciting time in our Branch.

After being fed spiritually we are ready for the upcoming week.  Bye for now.

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