Short and sweet this week

Church this week—One of our members, Anne, is now home from the hospital.  She kept getting delayed a day or two, but she is finally home.  Home sweet home, nothing like it.  We helped her with groceries and get resettled in.  People in France can get rides from ambulances/ambulance cars when then need to go into or return from the hospital for a procedure such as an operation or dialysis, so we did not have to pick her up after all in far-away Toulouse as previously planned. Elder Templeton bought a raclette machine home when he was in Switzerland so we all went to Anne’s Saturday night and made dinner together. The raclette machine uses a special and famous cheese called raclette, of course.  The home machine melts the cheese and you pour it over potatoes, pickles, meat, and other miscellaneous items that you grill on top of the machine.  Restaurant machines are made for the entire half-round of cheese that is brought to your table. It is found more in the Alps region of Eastern France and Switzerland and is a hardy meal for high-altitude hiking or skiing.  Saturday night, thanks to Elder Templeton, we had it right here in Tarbes.  Yummy!

We had several visitors at church today, many children and grandchildren of members.  We had one visiting who is French and served his mission here several decades ago.  We had choir practice after Church and even though we were missing a few, it went quite well.

We put on lots of miles this week and are a bit weary. Zone Conference is 2 hours away in addition, but always fills us up.  We are having a heat wave last week and this and it is beastly with high humidity.  The heat just saps your energy and we try to stay hydrated. The trains were cancelled Thursday because of the lingering strikes that only run a limited number of train and because of the heatwave from the land and friction from too many trains on the rails that can derail a train.  Our normal Zone Conference is two hours.  This one went from 10-3p. 

All is well, we’re just tired from the miles covered and the fatiguing heat.

Haras, Tarbes—Tarbes is famous for the National Horse Breeding Farm.  It was created in 1806 under Napoleon and has produced some European breeds, indigenous to Tarbes.  How neat is that!  There is a several week-long celebration to commemorate and celebrate that era.  In some ways it is like a county fair in the United States. People come in from all over the region, some from other countries.  It’s about 4 blocks from us so we walked over one night to see the performance and pre-performance vendors and re-enactments.  We were very impressed with the dressage riders and stunt riders.  And we got out in the community having several Gospel-related introductions with people.  Marc, in his white shirt and tie with 95 degree weather was easily spotted.  Once again we'd see passersby reading that wonderful name tag.  It's a good thing.

A la prochaine!

 Amazing dressage/horse whisperer.  

With no voice commands she could have 

this horse follow her, turn circles, 

trot, canter and gallop. 

This horse was putty in her hands and

he just loved being beside her.

Incredible relationship with horse and rider

This horse is taking a bow after his performance.

  Another favorite.  This trainer used no voice commands.  

Each horse knew his place in the line up. 

 They did figure eights, formed circles, cross-overs, they danced with their feet. 

All without a crop, whip or voice. 

....though he did have some sugar cubes in his pocket

 A circle dance

 Famous Lipizzaner like in Vienna

Lipizzaner  are a very unique breed.  They are born gray and whiten with age.  

They can dance, prance and go off all 4 legs

while doing a kick out with their hind legs.

They also can walk on their hind legs.

Really hard to get a pic in motion with low lighting

Traveling crepe vendor.  Crepes are very French.  

Its a very paper thin pancake made into savory or sweet crepes 

 Up on hind legs

 Background Lipizzaner horse with rider getting into position
to go off all 4 legs and kick out hind legs while
in the air.  Amazing.

We talked quite a bit about the Church and family.  

He is Catholic and has 4 sons and several grandchildren.  

All are quite accomplished.  We shared our common values.

First ambulance invented by a Frenchman from Tarbes.

Horses would cross over each other as he was riding them.  Again no voice commands.  

All signals given to the horse team were done by pressure on the riders feet and by reins.

Looks classically French, n'est pas?

Paella skillets are huge, about 3 feet in diameter.

Chevez enjoying raclette

 Chevez and Elder Wolfgramm with raclette machine--grill on top, cream-colored 

Raclette cheese slices on pallates below and getting toasted

 Raclette cheese about to get toasted