~Lyndi-lou and Eddie too...~: FOOOOD

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Well, we are not even at Christmas yet and the eating has started. We had 3 major food events this week.

We started off with the Christmas Conference for the Mission. This was a great event and a very spiritual one. We heard a great presentation, complete with photos, from Elder and Sister Todd on the Paris Temple. Each missionary received a Paris Temple recommend holder from the mission. It is absolutely beautiful and means something special to everyone who received one.

Primary Children from a Utah sent these little notes to our Mission to show their support for us here. What a treat it was to see these.

This is our Mission Office. It shows a traffic circle that is typical. There are 7 roads that meet here. We find them very efficient and wish we had more back home in Canada.

Some of the Canadians that were at the office at the same time on Monday.

The temple is going to be a great asset to the members and non members alike in France. For example, in our branch we are in the London temple district. To do a temple trip we need to drive for 5 hours and take a 2 hour ferry ride. Because it is such an undertaking we also stay at the temple for 5 days and do as much as we can. Of course, it is always a beautiful and spiritual experience. It is also a time when we bond as a branch and a stake.

When the Paris Temple is dedicated in 2017 our members will be able to go to the temple and back in one day. Therefore, they can go whenever they want and do not have to go when it is our stake's week for the temple. The temple grounds have a park which is open to the public to come and enjoy the peace and serenity of the location. What a huge blessing that will be.

Getting back to the Christmas Conference, Ed also gave a talk a talk about his conversion. This was very well received and touched many of the missionaries there.

At the Christmas Conference we had the first of our 3 food extravaganzas. As couple missionaries we had the responsibility of helping with the food. What a great meal this was. We had turkey with a mushroom and chestnut gravy along with mashed potatoes. This was our main course. As an entrée we had a salad made from lettuce, cheese, apples, clementines, cucumbers, cheese and peppers. For dessert we had a chocolate mousse with lemon sauce. And of course, we had the ever present baguette. What a great meal!

We took advantage of being in Paris to connect with other missionary couples and to visit some sites. We went to Galéries Lafayette, a high end shopping experience in Paris. It was a little too pricey to buy anything. We also visited a cool little section of Paris where there are pedestrian streets and nice little shops. We went out for crêpes with another couple near Notre Dame and had an ice cream afterwards. Are you seeing the food theme here?

Ed just happened to run into Père Noël on the Champs Élysées

It's unusual to see a Nativity here in France.

Little shop with lovely decor for Christmas.

Galeries Lafayette

A M A Z I N G!!! Lynn was in her glory here looking all around at all the Designer clothes etc.

Our second food event was our Branch's "Goûter de Noël" or Christmas snack. This was a huge success. We had snacks of every kind, both sweet and unsweet. There was enough to feed the French army. We played an awesome game about exchanging gifts. We had great attendance, over 40 people and about half of them Friends of the church. Our friend from Sedan read some of his spiritual poetry again and we sang Christmas Carols again. What a great way to bring out the Christmas spirit and to share it with others. It was a great bonding activity.

Pére et Mama Noël

As usual for our Goûter de Noël we had Gauffres or Waffles. They are so delicious. We got the recipe so we're all set.

Thanks to Isabelle for some great photos of our activity

This is our fun game. Elder Adams is stressed out about the possibility of loosing his coveted Star Wars box in the action.

Our Carol singing with Elder Daines at the piano.

On our way home we passed Charlevilles annual run called Corrida. Everyone dresses up in something fun and runs 4 times around the downtown area. It's quite well supported and fun. This year there were 2000 runners. Quite fun to watch. Ed would have liked to have run in it but no such luck. Too many conflicts.

Today we had a great sabbath day at church. There were 20 people in attendance. We had a little Christmas program which involved reading about the birth of the Saviour from the New Testament in French and in English, interspersed with Christmas hymns. We then heard from our visiting High Councillor, Christian. It was really a wonderful service.

Following church we had our third food extravaganza. Whenever our High Councillor is here we have meal. Today was no exception. We had leftovers from our "Goûter de Noël" from yesterday. We also had stew, bread and cheese, corn on the cob, lentils, sausage, sweets, foie gras and veggies. It was fun visiting and talking with each other afterward. We sang more Christmas Carols around the table.

On the home front we had one more birthday this week. Our son-in-law, Tyler, is a year older as a result. Lynn made him a nice card and we tried to phone him and ended up leaving a birthday message. We hope his celebrations were lots of fun.

Ed's mom ended up going to the hospital on Friday. She has been falling lots lately. So much so that we got her some hip protectors. She has also been quite agitated and had a high fever. We have been worried. It turns out that she had and infection and is now on antibiotics. She is improving.

Since we have moved to the home front. Ed's mom and dad and Lynn's mom had a wonderful event a couple of weeks ago. All of our children and grandchildren had a Christmas dinner with them. They booked the eating/meeting room at St. Therese. It was a great meal and they had a great time. Grandchildren gave a little performance, gifts were shared and Lise-Anne gave a little talk. We were able to be part of the action by phone as we talked to our parents and Kevin while they were at the meal. What a great tribute to our parents. They were touched.