Saints and Soldiers

Sunday, May 1, 2016

As you can see we borrowed a title from a well known LDS movie.  As you read you will see why we picked this title.  

We had a great week once again.  Some great things happened this week.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we sometimes refer to ourselves as saints.  It is just a shortened unofficial nickname we use.  One of the things we do in our church is Home Teaching.  We visit each other, share a spiritual message and provide help and support to our fellow members.  On Tuesday we went up to Belgium.  We had a lovely visit and lesson.  We also had a nice snack.  We made arrangements for a service opportunity with the young Elders for later in May.  

We also had a Home Teaching visit in Le Chesne with the Dampts on Thursday. We had a visit, a lesson and lunch.  When we visit with them they always serve us lunch.  Our Belgium member is one hour north of Charleville and our Le Chesne members are 40 minutes south of Charleville.  So even when we home teach we cover a lot of country and it is all beautiful.  

We had a lovely surprise on Monday.  I had a meeting at the church and afterward we got invited to lunch with two young single adults.  They treated us and the missionaries to a home made pizza lunch.  We had lunch and played a cool game, as well.  The young missionaries joined us.

We took this picture in support of our good friend Brandan Motiuk who was a missionary here and went home to have surgery.  We want to wish him well in his recovery.

Tuesday night French Gospel class.  Everyone is learning French from a pretty good-looking teacher.

Now for the soldiers.  The army invaded Charleville-Mézières this week.  We have a French army base in Charleville.  This week they had war games in the downtown area.  I knew about it because it was mentioned in a magazine that the city puts out and I had read about it but Lynn was totally unaware.  When we went out on Tuesday she saw soldiers running around with machine guns and she said, "Ed, there's something wrong."  It would have been a perfect time for Ed to scare the crap out of her but he, being the nice guy he is, broke it to her gently.

There were over a thousand soldiers in the downtown core.  They were backed up by troop carriers and large armoured tank like vehicles.  They also had helicopters and boats. They even had to build a bridge spanning the canal in one spot. The exercises lasted from Tuesday to Friday.  It was kind of funny because after the initial impact of seeing the city overrun with soldiers the general public just ignored them and walked around among them like it was a normal occurence.  

Right across the street from the Church.

We had a great book festival here on Saturday.  There was a large selection of new and used books.  They were in Place Ducale and on the downtown streets.  Ed found some great deal on some Asterix books, only €3.00 each.  As usual, it was very well done.  There were booths set up for kids' activities.  There were tents with couches for reading and there was a large pavilion for buyers to set up tables.  Authors were also present for selling and book signings.

He's happier than a Sanglier in mud with all those Astérix books.

A little library/restaurant combination around the corner from us

We often see adults riding scooters here.  Lots and lots of them use them.

Ed walking down one of our cool little streets

We talked to all of our kids this week for one reason or another.  They are all doing well and we love talking to them, being part of their life and supporting all that they are doing.  They have been a great support for us on our mission and we appreciate all that they do and for their prayers for us, too.  

Speaking of saints, we got some great news this week.  President Uchtdorf will be visiting Brussels on May 10 for a devotional in the Brussels chapel.  He is the second counsellor in the general presidency of the church.  He will be giving as fireside of sorts.  Our Stake and our Branch have been invited to attend.  What an awesome opportunity.  Ed read the invitation over the pulpit this morning and everyone was excited.

Now, you can't top that news release so we will sign off for this week with that.

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