On the Road Again

Sunday, November 22, 2015

We are feeling a little like Willie Nielson this week because we were "On the Road Again".  Early Friday morning we left Charleville to do a 5 city, 6 apartment road trip.  The closest city was 4 hours from us.  After that circuit we headed to Lille for a Stake Bishops' meeting.   We virtually went from the east side of France to the west side of France.  

It was a wild and wooly trip altogether.  By that we are referring to the weather.  When we left Charleville it was 6 degrees.  It got up to 14 by the time we got to Épinal, our first stop.  It pretty much rained for the rest of the day, with a huge downpour when we were driving into Colmar, our final destination for Friday.  Colmar is right on the German border.   The rain continued on Saturday and turned to snow through Belgium.  It was snowy or rainy all the way to Lille where we spent the second night.  All the way home today it rained.

Christmas lights in Colmar.

Snow through Belgium and Luxembourg.  Brrrr......

Enough about the weather.  Our apartment checks went great.  The young missionaries are really taking Lynn's suggestions about cleaning to heart.  They were all doing a wonderful job at trying to maintain clean apartments.  We noticed some great improvement. This is truly one of the blessings of our mission.  We get to spend time with these young missionaries.  They continue to be great examples to us as they fulfil their callings as missionaries.  They are always happy and always working extremely hard.  It is sometimes hard to nail them down to get an appointment to come and see them.  When we do, though, we are always lifted up by their gentle spirits and commitment to the missionary effort.

As a Mission we are undertaking 2 initiatives that are aimed at finding more Friends of the Church.  We are undertaking a 5 step program where everyone in the Branch will invite a Friend to church, church activities, Family Home Evening and dinner.  We also are doing a 40 day fast leading up to Christmas where every missionary is giving up something for 40 days.  Ed is giving up pop and Lynn is giving more time to the Saviour.  The hope is that by doing this and through prayer we will be able to find more people interested in the Church and invite them to our meetings.

Today Ed had a meeting in Villeneuve d'Ascq where our Stake is located.  This is a meeting with the Stake Presidency and all of the Bishops or Branch Presidents in the Stake.  It was a great meeting.  We covered a lot of topics that were important for our wards and branches.  It was interesting to see that our average attendance in Charleville went up from 6 to 22 compared to the figures given at the same meeting last year .  The Stake President even made a comment about this.  This is a result of some great team work in Charleville between the missionaries, the members and the Friends of the Church.

After the horrible events in Paris that we saw just over a week ago, we have settled in closer to normal.  However, when we went over the border into Belgium or back into France we saw for the first time since coming to France a police presence.  We did have our District Meeting again and Lynn actually did the training session for it.  She talked about how to be better teachers by teaching lessons that are more open to involvement and that are less of a lecture given by a talking head.  She did a wonderful job and everyone loved it.  She even practiced what she taught because everyone joined in a great discussion.

Our District. We have finished our ninth transfer.

The rest of our week in France was pretty normal.  We taught our French Gospel class which went very well.  We also taught our 2 Institute classes.  We love doing this.  We learn so much and enjoy working with the Young Single adults in our branch.  We also had a great Wednesday night activity that was a Family Home Evening.

You notice that we said the rest of our week was normal in France.  However back home it was not a normal week.  Our grandson, Charlie had his eighth birthday.  For an LDS family this is a big occasion because it usually means a baptism.  Charlie was baptised yesterday in Brooks.  All of Amy's siblings and their family journeyed up there for the occasion and most of Tyler's family as well.  We were able to contact Charlie by phone right after he was baptised.  What a happy kid.  We are proud of him for taking this step in his life.  We were able to buy him a scripture bag thanks to Amy's involvement and phoning.  He followed up the occasion with a birthday party at the pool.

Amy made this cake for Charlie

Charlie with his new tie on that Wilson made for him for his birthday.

Wonderful friends/family are to be treasured.  Thanks to Cheryl and Neil who went to Lise-Anne's rescue this week and helped her switch rooms around in the house and more... It meant a great deal to us as well as her.  It's amazing and inspiring to us to see such kind acts of selfless service.

It is good to get back into a normal routine again this week.  Whatever that means.  We are on the road this coming week a couple of times too with different projects in mind.  We continue to appreciate and love our work, our family and our friends.  We are grateful for your support, prayers and well wishes.  Thank you!

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