4 T's

Sunday, July 31, 2016

This is the last day of July.  Tomorrow is August, the month we are to go home.  We will try to keep our nose to the grindstone for the little bit of time we have left.

The first T we would like to address this week is trials.  As we wrote last week in our blog, one of our members was beaten up by 3 men because of the colour of his skin.  Ed helped him by being there for him and by taking him to the hospital.  As this week began this particular trial was not over.  Stephen and Ed went to the police station to file a complaint.  In order to do this they had to return to the hospital to get a certificate from a doctor of the nature of the injuries.  All was done and the complaint was filed.  We hope to put this unfortunate event behind us and move forward.

Testimony - the second T focussed around an activity we had Wednesday night.  We had a Cultural Activity that focused on the international nature of our church.  We had presentations from 7 different countries from members of our Branch and from the missionaries.  The countries represented were Canada, USA, France, Nigeria, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and French Polynesia. They displayed things from their countries and provided snacks to eat.  They testified of the gospel.  There were also a slide show, songs and dancing.  It was a truly marvellous evening that was a testimony of the worldwide nature of the church.  Ed shared some facts and growth of the Church around the world.  

Our District Picture and our 15th transfer

Beauty using my sweater as a great headpiece.

African donuts, Polynesian banana cakes, Zimbabwean Sadza, Canadian Maple Syrup caramel popcorn, Dutch cookies, American hotdogs, and French cheese and bread were our treats.

Our third T should be no surprise - travel.  As is often the case we did some travelling this week.  We headed off to Strasbourg on Thursday to help the missionaries there organise their new apartment.  Two weeks before Elder and Soeur Van Diver headed there to help them move and clean a bit.  They recommended some things they needed and sent the list to us.  We went there this week to purchase those items and to help set up the apartment a little better.

As a result of these purchases and a little elbow grease we set up some shelves in the kitchen for kitchen materials.  We got rid of some garbage and took a packed car of excess stuff with us to be taken to the dump.  We set up chairs, shelves, trolleys and beds.  We moved some things around and got rid of unnecessary things.  This was a two day project but the results were rewarding.  The apartment looks great and the missionaries are happy as a result.  

The view from our hotel

Lucky dog!

Eating spatzle overlooking the canal from a little outside café.  Heaven right there!

On the way home we were fortunate enough to go by a dump and we were able to get rid of all the garbage we had en route instead of  waiting until we got back to Charleville.  How lucky was that! 

The last T has to do with transfers.  This weekend missionary transfers were announced.  This affects us in two ways.  We are losing a missionary and gaining a new one.  Elder Asato is being transferred to Auxerre and we are getting a "bleu", a new recruit straight out of the Missionary Training Centre.  We will miss Elder Asato and we thank him for his service and for all he has done for us and the Branch.  He is a great guy and you should hear him speak French already.  We wish him well. 

Today was Elder Asato's birthday and Elder Hein's was on the 15th while we were away.  Clara made a birthday cake for a celebration after church today and we had them over for dinner tonight.

He asked for Poutine.  This is the closest we could come up with.  Served with a salad and the dessert below.  It tasted pretty great

And of course the French desserts!!

Today one of our good friends Karine presented us with a beautiful handmade blanket that she made. We were so surprised and felt so grateful that she did this for us.  We will treasure it as we treasure her friendship.

What a treasure.  Each square is made with a different pattern.  What a generous and thoughtful gift.

Beaty decided it made a good wrap.  It is so soft and warm.

And there we have another week under our belts.  Thank you for reading our blog.

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

Castles, Consecration and Conflict

Sunday, July 24, 2016

This week's title reflects the ebb and flow of our week.

We did, indeed, start out the week at a castle.  On Monday we took our Elders to Bouillon to visit the Chateau de Bouillon.  We had a wonderful time together.  We visited all of the areas of the castle and had an opportunity to watch the Falcon show.  As a matter of fact Elder Asato was picked to participate in one aspect of the show which he did gladly.  

After the visit to the castle we went for lunch, Belgian frites of course and a sandwich.  We went shopping in Bouillon at Colruyt which was a different kind of store kind of a cross between a Costco and a Safeway.  It was kind of interesting.

We have recently found out that we will more than likely be going home around the middle of August.  This will be great.  We are quite worried about Jarom, our grandson, who is quite sick and most likely has Crohn's disease or colitis.  He is undergoing tests and treatments with his doctor in Brooks and at the Alberta Children's Hospital.  We would love to be home to be able to support him in any way that we can.  We are praying daily for his health.

As a result of the prospect of going home earlier than expected we have started to clean up and pack up.  We actually packed some suitcases this week and did some good cleaning and de-junking.  

On Thursday we headed to Kate's house in Belgium to do some service and to offer the Home Teaching message.  We helped out in her back yard.  We hauled some stuff to her car to take to the dump.  We also put up some bamboo on her fence line to make it more private and more aesthetically pleasing between her house and the neighbours.  

At 4:58 we caught a train for Paris.  We combined business with pleasure.  We met up with Ed's brother Darrell and went out for a felafel sandwich.  We headed to his apartment to stay until Saturday.  On Friday we had a zone activity in Paris.  

Now for the consecration part.  On Friday morning we went to the Paris Lilas Church.  We had a formation on testifying about the book of Mormon.  We had a recent convert testify of the importance of the B of M in her conversion.  We then went to Place de la République.  We set up a giant Book of Mormon that had been made out of wood.  We spent the afternoon testifying of the Book of Mormon and handing them out.  As a zone we gave out 80 Books of Mormon.  We personally gave out 8.  Afterward we went to St. Germain en Laye to recharge our missionary batteries at Consecration Hill through setting goals and peaceful study.   We both loved the experience and Lynn especially felt confident contacting people in French and personally felt it was one of the most enjoyable days she has had here.  Her French language skills have really blossomed.  

Ed and Elder Bize from Lyon

Lynn and Sœur Romney (Mitt's grand-daughter)

While we were away Darrell had some students over for a film shoot whom we met when we got there around 7:00 pm.  He, too, had an interesting day.  When everything was cleaned up, we prepared a dinner of our version of Asian Salad and a French Flan.  We all went to bed exhausted.

On Saturday we visited the market in the morning and went and visited some cool streets of Paris in the afternoon.  

Look at the slant on this building on Rue des Barres.  It was pretty awesome.

These are pretty cool too

Rue de Crémieux.  Such a great little street with cool little paintings on some of the houses.

The cat jumping over to catch the birds.

We love this little Deux Cheveaux.  

We headed back to Charleville and met up with a former missionary, Kolby Dayley, who had returned to France with his family.  We had a great visit with them and looked forward to seeing them at church.

Church was great.  We had 30 people altogether.  We had the Dayley family visit and another family of five who were here on holidays, as well.  Christian Carpentier, our High Councillor was there, too.  We heard great talks from Kate and Christian.  After the meetings we had a Branch meal, a great time for visiting, and we took pictures.  We went with Elder Dayley's family to the lake where we did our baptisms.  They went to visit his former 

apartment and then they were off to Caen.  We had a lovely visit with a great missionary.

The conflict of this week's title started when we were at the lake.  We got a call from Stephen, one of our members, who told us he was being hassled by some men.  In fact they were trying to beat him up.  We decided to go over there and were met there by the police.  Stephen gave them a statement.  Three people were involved and at least one of them lived in his building.  The Security guard testified what a great young man Stephen was.  He would harm no one and had never, ever caused any problems.  But he had been punched and choked by these men.  The police were going to look for one of the men who left the scene.  We (Ed and Kolby) took Stephen inside where we met his attacker.  This man was drunk and made racist comments about Stephen even while we were with him.  Fortunately a big friend stayed with Stephen and the security guard for the building will step up patrols on Stephen's floor.  Stephen was afraid and visibly shaken.  He would do nothing to bother anyone but that doesn't always matter when alcohol and prejudice are involved.  Ed will do what he can to help Stephen through this situation this week.  He may need to move or his attacker may need to move.

Despite this setback we continue to love our mission and we love serving the Lord.  We love our members here in France.  They are a great support and an example.  We are so fortunate.

That's it for now!

Au revoir de la France,

Lyndi-lou and Eddie, too.

   

London

Sunday, July 17, 2016

We are once again saddened this week by the horrific attack in Nice.  Our hearts and prayers go out to all affected by this senseless act.  

This week we headed off to London for a temple trip with our Branch and Stake from Monday to Friday.  There were 11 people from our Branch families and Cheryl and Neil also met us there.  

We took Frère Dampt with us and Soeur Dampt went with her daughter who followed us all the way.  For the first time we took the tunnel across the English Channel.  It was very different from the ferry.  At the departure point there is a huge snack/shopping/eating area.  You park there while you are waiting for your departure.  When your departure time comes you drive onto a two story train.  The crossing only takes 25 minutes and then you are in England compared to a 2 hour boat trip.  It was okay.  Lynn prefers the tunnel but Ed prefers the boat.

Boarding the Train

Inside the train.  Ready to go through the tunnel.

When we got to the other side we had a 75 minute drive to the temple.  This is mostly on a freeway but it gives you a good opportunity to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road.  The opposite side of the road is kind of cool for a change.  We just remember to keep the edge of the road by our left shoulder and it works well.  On the drive we passed some beautiful little towns and villages on the way to the temple.  We were in the English countryside and we very much enjoyed it.

Ed went for a run each morning.  He ran to one of two villages that were close by.  These runs were interesting.  He saw lots of scenery which was very peaceful and scenic.  The runs were a little hairy though because even the country roads are busy because of the proximity to London.  Sidewalks were there but were not always in the best of shape or were not very big.

As always the temple week proved to be very spiritual.  We stayed in temple housing.  We began each day with a spiritual thought in the Dampt's room.  We said an opening and closing prayer and a person was assigned to share a thought with us.  This was a great start to the day.

We did all of the ordinances available in the temple - initiatory, baptisms, sealing and endowments.  One of our members, Clara, took out her endowment.  This was special and all of the members of our Branch supported her.  We were happy to have been a part of that occasion.

On Wednesday evening there was a fireside in the Visitors Center.   Together we gave a talk on missionary work.  It went well.  On other nights there was a meeting and informal gatherings of the stake members.

Of course, we were able to take in some visiting, as well.  We visited a cool little village right by the temple where Cheryl and Neil were staying.  We saw a church, buildings and houses dating from the Middle Ages.  We also went to East Grinstead, a town 7 minutes away.  We had fish and chips one night and ate out at a Thai restaurant another night.  The other nights we ate in the temple with everyone else in the common kitchen.  We did some shopping.  Lynn bought some clothes and Ed bought a book.

East Grinstead on High Street

The picture right outside our room.

On Thursday we drove Cheryl and Neil to the airport for their return to Canada.  We had a wonderful time with them during their holiday.  Gatwick airport is only about 15 minutes from the London temple.  Later in the day we read a text from them that their plane was delayed by 5 hours.  If we had only known we could have gone and picked them up again.  Oh well!

While we were at the temple we found out that the missionary couple who were slated to replace us were sent elsewhere.  Consequently, the end of our mission is somewhat up in the air.  The Mission President and the Stake President are working through this.  It will all work out well.

We got back Friday near suppertime and had a meeting with the Elders right away to talk about their successes during the week.  It seems that all went well in Charleville without us.  We missed Elder Hein's birthday.  And we missed an emergency evacuation practise.  We're including some photos of each.

Happy Birthday Elder Hein.  Celebrating by having a Kebob.

Elder Asato and Elder Hein with their 72 hour stuff and all ready for an emergency getaway.

We put the Elders to work helping us get dinner ready.  Elder Asato wanted his picture taken making an Asian Stirfry.  It tasted great!

Yesterday we took advantage of some of the summer sales.  Ed bought a new suit,  a belt, some running stuff and a shirt.

Church was great today.  We had 23 people.  We had two good talks on the Temple and the Holy Ghost.  It was a wonderful day.

After church we went to the hospital to visit René.  He is the husband of a member and was scheduled to be baptised next week until he broke his leg.  We had a lovely visit with him and his wife and noticed that he was doing well and has felt the spirit on more than one occasion.

Well, as Porky pig would say, "That's all folks!" for this week.

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