Happy Birthday to Jack

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Today is our grandson Jack's birthday.  Lynn does a great job of making cards for each birthday and she sends them electronically.  She made a humdinger for Jack which had 27 pictures on it about his life.  We sent it this morning.  We also sent him a birthday present.  We sent him a T-shirt and some chocolate bars.  We were able to talk to him on the phone, as well.  We are quite proud of him.  He is a great kid and is being made a deacon today at church. 

This week was a high kilometre week.  We did a lot of travelling.  We started out by going to Strasbourg to look at a new apartment.  We anticipated having a nice drive there and having some time to look around a bit and enjoy one of our favorite cities.  Not long after we left those plans went out the window.  On the way there we got in a huge traffic jam going into Luxembourg.  This is often the case when we travel through Luxembourg.  In any case we lost an hour there.

When we got to Strasbourg we wen t to the Elders' apartment as they had told us they had a small leak on the floor.  The small leak turned out to be a lake.  There was a wet spot on the carpet in the bedroom that was about 5 feet by 2 feet.  It was so bad that they had put a door across the water so that they could get to their clothes.  We knew that we had to empty that corner of the bedroom.  We emptied two armoires and a dresser and moved them into the other room.  Ed went down and tried to talk to the downstairs neighbour to determine what kind of damages there were.  No one was home but he did manage to get her on the phone later.  We followed up with calls to the mission office and set up a plan for dealing with this particular disaster.  There are always interesting challenges for us in our goings on.  This was one of several this week.

We finally did get to see the new apartment.  It was great and we recommended that the mission take it.  It was near the university and was very well maintained and great for what we needed.  By this time it was time for us to go home and we had literally seen no sites.  We made a quick trip to see the Storks in their nest and spent 15 minutes at the little zoo and then we headed home.  We got home at about 8:00 p.m.  We love Strasbourg.

On Wednesday we had to go to Paris for a Zone Conference.  Because there was a train strike we volunteered to pick up the Reims Elders to give them a ride.  It took us about 3 hours and 45 minutes to make the whole trip.  We had a good meeting with quite a bit of training about the Book of Mormon, baptism and contacting.  We had a pizza lunch and then headed home.  We did find out from President Babin that there was a new Missionary Couple coming in on August 19 and that they would be assigned to Charleville to replace us.  This will give us some overlap time which we think will be wonderful for us, them and the Branch.

As you no doubt have guessed we also got our return trip home itinerary.  We are leaving on August 29 and getting home in the late afternoon.  We stop in Toronto and Calgary before flying home to Lethbridge.  This, of course, is bitter sweet.  We love being in France and we have made many good friends here.  e also love the work we are doing here.   But we do miss our family and our home.  It is going to be an emotional roller coaster over the last few months here.

On Saturday we had a Consecration Day in Reims.  Our Zone Leaders were here to conduct a baptismal interview.  They could not get a train back to Paris because of a strike.  We ended up driving them to Reims where they took part in our finding day.  We also went to pick up two Missionary Sisters who couldn't take the train because of the strike.  After a lot of driving back and forth we finally got everyone to Reims who needed to be there.   The members in Reims were there and gave such support.  They began by feeding us a wonderful French meal.  Three of them went out contacting with us.    

This is the Cathedral in Reims.  It is much more ornate than Notre Dame in Paris.  It is very beautiful.  People here are very proud of their Cathedral which was started in the 13th century.  The first stone was put in the year 1207 but didn't finish it until 1275.  It is very worth seeing.

However, we got a call in mid afternoon from a "Friend of the Church".  He had had a leak in his house and as a result he lost all electric power.  He had 4 freezers full of food.  We ended up going to his house on the way home which is a half hour from Charleville.  We emptied all the food, carried the freezers to a different house, replugged them in and filled them up.  It took quite a while and we were quite tired when all was said and done.

Today we had a televised conference in St. Quentin.  This is a two hour drive.  We had 12 members of our Branch go.  We heard messages from Elder Christofferson, Sister Oscarson, Bishop Cause and another guy.  It was great conference.  We had a lunch together with our Branch and then headed home.  

We filled up the rest of our week with lessons, interviews, preparation and activities.  It was a great week but a busy one.

Au revoir de la France,
Lindi-lou and Eddie too