Happy New Year

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Well, this is the first post of 2016.  We have had a great Christmas season with lots of memorable moments and times together with friends and family.  It was great to talk to all of our family over the holidays.  They always uplift us and we feel their love.  We express our love to Peter who celebrated his birthday Dec 30th.

As we look back on 2015 we are pleased with the blessings we have seen as a family and as missionaries.  We always see the hand of God in our work here in France and in things that are happening at home.  All of our kids and grandchildren are doing well.  All are succeeding in their new undertakings.  Families are changing with some getting driver's licences, baptisms and one expected new arrival.  Our grandson, Charlie, was baptised in November and we look forward to Wilson and Sam's baptisms in January and April respectively.

In France our Branch is doing well.  All of our recent converts are progressing at a great rate.  They are all strong and fulfilling their callings faithfully.  We continue to have a great spirit in our meetings.  Collectively we all have a great love of the gospel and of each other.

This week was still a holiday week in France.  We could still feel the Christmas spirit all around us.  We received lots of well wishes for 2016 from our friends and members.  

We celebrated New Years Eve with the Elders.  We began by having our District meeting.  Elder Nagloo taught the formation which included watching a Mormon Message.  He did a great job. We took our 10th transfer picture and shared a meal (we took stew).  It feels a little weird to only have 6 of us as our District now.

Our Elders came over for supper on New Year's Eve.  We had appetisers, veggies, pasta, bread, cheese, and a chocolate fondue.  After supper we played Rummikub and Liar's Dice.  Now, you would think that missionaries would have a hard time lying but that is not the case when playing games.  They seemed adept at it, except Ed, who lost both games miserably.  I guess it's just the Honest Ed in him.  Nonetheless we all had fun.

Our New Year's Day began with a call from Lise-Anne wishing us a Happy New Year and then sharing their families Christmas Gift with us.  It was their families past year in video.  It's amazing how much you can portray in 3 secs per day.  We just love it and have watched it several times already.  

The Elders began a regular day.  They did come over for lunch.  We had a DMB meeting while eating in the car as we wanted to share a couple of spots with the them.  We showed them where one of our sweet Sisters lives.  Five kms from where she lives there is a small ruined castle.  On the way to Kate's house we stopped and saw a monument dedicated to the 4 sons of Aymon.  These were knights who lived in the Ardennes in the XII century and who got into a confrontation with a local duke who chased them all over northern France.  There was a statue of them with their horse, Bayart, not far from Charleville.  It was quite a walk up but well worth it.  We also stopped at a lookout where one can see 7 villages. You really don't have to go far to discover amazing things here.  For dinner we took them for a Vietnamese hot pot.

Hierge, France

If you look carefully you can see 3 villages intros picture.  It's taken from the castle ruins in Hierge. France

Talk about a great meal!  Although a bit tricky for Lynn and Elder Daines to dodge the meat we all loved it. 

On Saturday we found out that Elder Adams will be transferred on Wednesday.  He has served 6 months in Charleville-Mézières.  He has done a great job and will be missed.   As a send off today Sœur Dampt made delicious waffles.  

On Saturday afternoon we went to a funeral in Montcornet, about 20 kilometres from home.  Laurent Biver's mother (Madame Geneviève Michel) had passed away.  We actually sang at the funeral with his family and the Elders.  We thought the Priest did a wonderful job of the service.  The funeral was held in the village's old Catholic church, which happened to have a beautiful old castle ruins right beside it.  We walked slowly down the hill from the church, in a traditional procession to the cemetery after the service for the interment.  It was a very nice experience.  We all went to the local Café for drinks and snacks afterward.  It was a good day for Lauent and his family and will help them get over the loss of their loved one.  We were so glad we had the opportunity to meet her when we sang at her rest home on Christmas Eve.  And we were able to take a picture of their family together.  

Today was a good day at church.  We had a great Sunday school lesson about the Book of Mormon.  We had a great testimony meeting.  People shared powerful testimonies about the truthfulness of the gospel and shared messages of love and conviction with us.  Lots of people shared their appreciation and love for Elder Adams and wished him all the best.  We had waffles afterward to give us time to mingle, to say goodbye to Elder Adams and to visit with each other.  Elder Adams was able to get a picture with everyone who was there.  It was really very nice.

We wish everyone who reads our blog the very best in 2016.  We hope that it is a year filled with blessings and happiness for all of you.

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

Joyeux Noël

Sunday, December 27, 2015

This week was Christmas week.  We had some great things planned and were able to accomplish all of them.  Before we get into that, however, today is our daughter Lise-Anne and Jordan's 12th anniversary.  Happy Anniversary you two.  We love you immensely.  

We also had our 6th and 7th December birthdays and there is still one more this week.

Dustin's birthday was December 21 and Wilson's was December 23.  Lynn has begun making a birthday card and sends it electronically.  On the day of the birthday we Skype, phone or FaceTime.  It was great to talk to both Dustin and Wilson.  They had great birthdays.

Of course, though, we also celebrated the most important birthday this week, that of our Saviour.  We did lots of things to do this.

On Wednesday we had a district activity.  We made meals for people in our Branch who could use a boost.  All the missionaries in our district met at our house.  We made lasagnas, tartiflettes (the French version of funeral potatoes) and loaves of banana bread.  We delivered these and also ate some together for a meal.  

One of the meals we made and delivered.

After eating we all went to an International Nativity display which is being held in our "place" here in Charleville.  This was quite awesome.  There was a blend of the religious aspect of Christmas and the commercial.  We were met at the door by one of Santa's elves and Santa himself was inside.  But we also saw some beautiful Nativity displays that were lovingly made to depict the birth of the Saviour.  We were touched by the care and attention that was put into creating these.  

Elder Daines and Elder Nagloo

Elder McDonald and Elder Adams

Following this we had a formation (training) on why we came on a mission.  Everyone shared their thoughts and we had a good discussion.  It was a great lesson. 

We also taught our classes this week as usual but with emphasis on the Birth of the Saviour.  Ed made some games to go along with the French Gospel class.  It was lots of fun and learning at the same time. 

On Thursday afternoon we met the Biver family at our apartment and we went carolling at the nursing home where Laurent's mother lives.  This was a special activity and really invited the Spirit of Christmas to be with us and with the people we sang for.  They were elated and showed their joy by clapping and expressing their appreciation.

From there we went out to the Biver's house for a typical French Réveillon.  Laurent lit a fire where we roasted chestnuts.  We ate waffles, treats and fruit.  We had a wonderful time and ended up singing Christmas carols together.  We read the Christmas story of the birth of Jesus in French from a big family bible.  Again the Spirit of Christmas was all around us.  

We even had chestnuts roasted on the open fire!

Christmas day was a busy one.  We started off the morning by opening our stockings as usual.  That's always great fun to see that Santa had known just what we'd love.  The day before Christmas we received our parcel from The Wilson's in Okotoks.  We had been anticipating it as they had sent it November 15th.  

Us with our gifts from Okotoks

Ed is always happy to receive anything Astérix - a book and a game.

with my new garlic press and our new Christmas CD

We had to make up this picture but he really was excited to receive his first Astérix book!

Elder Daines was equally thrilled with his gifts!

Our good friends Patty and Dave Redd stopped in on their way to Paris.  We had a great visit with them.  They were serving as Young Adult missionaries in Liège and had been transferred to the Mission Office in Le Vesinet.  They were on their way to their new home.  They did not stay very long but we had a wonderful visit with them, nonetheless.   And they brought us some great little red shopping bags from Ikea to use as gifts for each our guests.  We tied some green ribbon on them and they looked nice beside each plate.

For dinner we invited everyone from our Branch who were on their own.  We ended up feeding ten people altogether, including 3 Friends of the Church.  We had a spiritual message about the protection that the Gospel gives us and everyone got a little gift.  

Our Christmas dinner was amazing (As Christmas dinner always is).  We tried to feed our guests in a typical French way. We started with a salad.  This was followed up by our main dishes - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mushroom and chestnut gravy, brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, corn, green bean casserole, garlic butter shrimp and jellied salad.  For dessert we had a banana-apple cake which was delicious.  We washed all of this down with fake champagne.  We had also purchased bread and cheese but we didn't leave room for this and didn't get to that part of the meal.  Everyone loved our meal and we had a great time.  As a bonus we used our dishwasher which we don't usually do.  

Once everyone had left it was family time.  The young Elders Skyped their families from our home on their I-pads.  We did the same thing with our kids and grandkids.  We had a chance to talk to all of our kids, our parents and our brothers.  What a lovely time it was.  Later in the evening we made some popcorn and watched a movie (The Princess Bride) with the Elder Adams and Elder Daines.  We then ate our bread and cheese and way too many chocolates and other treats.  We had a very enjoyable day altogether full of love and happiness.

Boxing Day was interesting, too.  Ed and the Elders went shopping  for a suit for one of our members who had received some money for Christmas.  This was quite a procedure.  They ended up going to 4 different stores only to end up buying everything at the first store they had gone to.  They bought a suit, a shirt, a pair of shoes and a belt for €73.00.  What a deal!  They had come a cross a half price sale and took advantage of that.

This is their Power Pose!

Today at church we had 27 people.  We had some great lessons and great talks.

We had another meal after Church services today.

We feel very fortunate to have Christ in our lives.  We are especially appreciative of him when we celebrate his birth.  We feel his presence in our life every day but we especially feel it at Christmas.  We are grateful for our blessings, especially our families and we feel love all around us during this wonderful time of the year.

We hope all of you enjoyed this love during your celebrations and that each of you has had a wonderful Christmas and may the Lord bless you to have a marvellous 2016.

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