Lighter later; Saint- Émilion

- July 01, 2018

Lighter later at night; Saint-Émilion

Lighter later— It’s been a long time since either of us has lived farther north from the equator than San Diego and prior to that when we lived in Puerto Rico. We both grew up with warm, longer summer nights: Meg in Pennsylvania where it was light until about 9:45pm and prize-winning Alaska, where Marc lived and it was light until 2am. It took us years to get used to San Diego and Puerto Rico where summer nights just don’t extend that far into the night. It’s taken us both only an instant to be snatched back to our childhood memories and days with high-in-the-sky sun like we have here in France.

Church today—We’re just amazed at the turn-out of investigators that came today. We had an unprecedented 5 investigators from 4 different families. One returned for the 3^rd time and the others were here for the first time. We couldn’t be happier for them. We credit the fast (24-hour period without food or water) we had with the missionaries in June. So now, we have our “work” (spelled p-l-e-a-s-u-r-e!!) cut out for us as we teach them during the week and help them get integrated into “Mormon” church vernacular.

Several commented. We all just looked around and in one way, shape or form….said, “Is this the same Tarbes Branch?” A Mom and daughter who came today is from St Martin as of 8 months ago….and we have Chevez who is from…..St Martin. Then another young 24-year old man whose Mom came last week are from Romania….and we have Soeur Vasilache….from Romania. The other visitors today are from “plain, old” France. France can claim “old” with its Pre-Roman findings; but it certainly is not “plain” as any mountain vista, shoreline or Medieval town can boast. And in France, that’s the majority of towns.

Saint-Émilion—Case in point. Saint-Émilion is to our north-west and dates back to Pre-Roman times and Pre-Historic findings as well. It is one of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites, meaning it has an already existing cultural, geographic/wilderness, ancient ruin or historically-classified landmark that is unique. The US has many too although many of them are geographic (Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, etc). Europe is absolutely full of UNESCO Sites mainly due to its ancient ruins and historical and cultural contributions.

Saint-Émilion's claim to UNESCO fame is it fertile growing area from Pre-Roman times where vineyards were planted in the 2^nd century. Then building on that fertile area, during the Roman Empire and later in the Middle Ages, Saint-Émilion became known as a pilgrimage site for those en-route to Santiago de Compestela (located in Spain and alleged burial spot of St James from the Bible and consecrated in 1211).

Unfortunately it was over-cast when we were there so our pictures don’t do it justice. FYI—All that complaining we did of rain, rain, RAIN really did have merit and it wasn’t our imaginations. We’ve since learned that 2018 was the wettest spring in Europe on record. Paris states it was the wettest spring in over 100 years.

We’ve borrowed a picture of Saint-Émilion from Google Images to show you a typically laid out Medieval Town. The word “curfew” is French and comes from this time period where the town bell rang out to extinguish all fires—“Couvrir le Feu” (cover the fire). Fires were extinguished making it harder to find smaller villages and giving any marauding clans a more difficult time finding you. And you wanted to be inside the gates at “curfew” as your protection lay inside the city gates; outside, you were on your own. Think: Canterbury Tales. Even though Canterbury Tales was English, it was the French word, “curfew” that stuck.

A la Prochaine!