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.
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.
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.
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| Ed and Elder Bize from Lyon |
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| 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.
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| Look at the slant on this building on Rue des Barres. It was pretty awesome. |
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| These are pretty cool too |
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| Rue de Crémieux. Such a great little street with cool little paintings on some of the houses. |
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| The cat jumping over to catch the birds. |
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| 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.
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