The best 10% ever given
Our Missionary assignment—With the in-coming new Mission President, a few changes have been made. Generally, the former Mission President and the new Mission President meet at the airport and the out-going Mission President hands off the keys to the in-coming Mission President. To be very specific, the New Mission President presides over the Mission once his foot touches French soil. That’s when his mission responsibilities become his and he is officially the new Mission President. There’s no meeting. The new Mission President starts with an absolutely clean slate with ideas he receives by inspiration and revelation. It’s a very smooth transition and all the Missionaries turn their obedience to the new Mission President now at the helm who sets any new rules or assignments in place. It’s an amazing process to experience.
Our new assignment—We are still in Tarbes, and imagine we will stay in our area due to Marc’s primary assignment as Branch President of the congregation here. To that, we’ve just been asked to add apartment inspections for all of the Toulouse Missionary Zone, 10 missionary companionships. Our branch alone is about 2 hours by 3.5 hours. So our area will almost quadruple, if not more. Yikes, that’s a lot of miles. But….that’s a lot of French miles…so we will get to see even more of beautiful, picturesque France. You’ll get to experience even more of France with usJ!!
As soon as we can plug in the calendar dates, we will begin traveling to different towns and cities were current young missionaries are assigned. It will be nice to get to know the missionaries better as well. The Mission keeps apartments for several decades so it’s important to have some intermittent repairs done and reported to the Mission Office so when the apartments do get turned back over, they don’t have a back-log of repairs to be done. And of course, check the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
Tithing—Out of the blue, two members decided they want to re-instate paying their tithing. Tithing is 10% of our increase given to the Church. The money is used to construct chapels, Temples, pay for hymnbooks and the like. There is no paid ministry so that is never an element. Sometimes it can be a real act of faith to pay tithing when we have a mortgage, children, schooling and the general everyday family expenses. But as the saying goes, we pay tithing with our Faith, not our money.
Anciently, tithing was in place since the days of Adam, Noah, Abraham and all the great Prophets of the Old Testament. At times, it was paid in kind: one-tenth of your livestock or grain. Tithing, both then and now, teaches us to both sacrifice of our means and prepares us to live the even higher law of consecration. Sometimes tithing brings spiritual blessings. Sometimes it brings temporal blessings. At all times, there are blessings.
Malachi 3:10 KJV says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
The “windows of heaven” is a pretty substantial promise and blessing. N’est pas?
Temperature drop—We had our heatwave that lasted about 2 weeks. It was sweltering and just sapped everyone’s energy. Plus in Tarbes and it includes HUMIDITY. Ug! That’s something you never get used to. Hot is hot. Hot with humidity is unbearable. We literally went from 95F one day to high 50s the next. It was chilly with the winds and a very welcomed change. We’ve been seeing signs of fall. Some leaves are beginning to change ever-so slowly. After the heat wave subsided we could see that the night temperatures are well below the daytime temperatures. We had hail again and buckets of rain. The last two days leveled out and it’s been “California” weather with blue skies and balmy winds. Whereas we were VERY grateful the heatwave is over, we aren’t quite ready to have summer over. After all, our spring was just an extension of winter last year and we’re not quite ready to pull out our sweaters yet.
Battle of the Bulge--An impossible battle to fight and win in France. We had 3 dinner dates this week. There's NO hope. These are multi-course meals with desserts galore.
Elder Templeton—We are wishing Elder Templeton luck on Tuesday and many prayers for his Visa. Our Branch is fasting and praying for him to be able to get his extension. For some fluke reason he and another Elder have had no end of problems renewing their Visas (second-year legalities). Normally things go very smoothly and well without incident. This will be his 9th trip to Aix-en-Provence trying to clear it up. It’s aboutt 6 hours from Tarbes by car, which they don’t have. So they will leave Monday night by train to be in place first thing Tuesday morning. They’ll just miss their return train so will come back Wednesday. Three days for a less than 5-minute procedure (and several hundred dollars). That’s bureaucracy spelled France-style. Fortunately, the scenery is nice. And Aix-en-Provence is that quintessential town in South of France. For the Elders, there’s a really good Five-Guys in the main plaza in Aix-en-Provence. Their mouths are already watering, they’ve said so.J
Congan family success—Elder Templeton has been in Facebook contact with a family from Tarbes. We’ve been trying to track them down and clean up our list of members. Slowly but VERY cautiously, they’ve been responding via Facebook. Long and short of it—they are from Congo and living in France. They joined the LDS Church, but just prior were visiting with the Jehovah Witness with whom we are often confused since they also proselyte by two’s. Unbeknownst to them and to any of us, they had a Jehovah Witness Bible, not the King James Version (KJV) used by the LDS Church. Apparently they assumed all Bible translations agree. They got disheartened because they were confused by what was being taught (in the LDS Church) and what they were reading (in the Jehovah Witness’ Bible).
Things did not match up and they were very, very confused. With reason!! So here is Elder Templeton in Tarbes, France (but from the US) and in contact with this family living in Tarbes, France but vacationing in Congo, Africa with their extended family and with whom none of us has met. We couldn’t make any progress with them. In a few short contacts on Facebook, Elder Templeton was able to drill down very quickly on what the matter was. It’s still beyond us how quickly he was able to identify what was amiss and set things a-right. Because of his efforts, this family (with 4 children) went to the LDS Church while in Congo, Africa. They will return to France the beginning of September and fully intend to come to Church in Tarbes when they return. We will definitely have the KJV Bible waiting for them!
A la prochain!
Mod squad? Wo/Men in Black?
We see this neighbor regularly walking our street
making her daily shopping rounds
Farmland near the Tarbes Shopping Center
Our view on the way to L'Elerc ("Walmart")
Crepe Myrtle are in full bloom. Flowers picked by Jean-Claude
Jean-Claude had us out to his place for lunch after his move
Our after-lunch walk across from Jean-Claude's
Colt
Jean-Claude making lunch for us
Jean-Claude was very proud of his decorations
Hybiscus
Church by Jean-Claude's
We took some goodies over to Valerie the night before she is to leave for China
with her youngest son; they'll be there the next 2 weeks with a Chi-Cong Master.
Valerie if VERY disciplined.
This is to carry with them at all times....so they can get back to the hotel if needed.
Valerie gave us a regional Chestnut flour cake from Corsica.
Tarbes country-side
Taken from our window: Elder Wolfgramm carrying an extra mattress over to our apartment.
They live around the corner. Elder Templeton is in front, holding the door.
Mars in the night sky from the Louit's place.
Marc with Marcel coaxing the cat down.
They keep the ladder there permanently.
Amelie lives in an old house they are renovating. Old keys
Marcel and Elder Wolfgramm.
? Interesting....reddish pink stem to beat.
Meg challenged Marcel to stand on one foot while balancing.
He got his leg way up in the air...but the cameraman was slow
Boulangerie and sandwicherie. Yummy!!
Getting sandwiches made for our hike.
The all important dessert for our hike
Morning mist still rising
International signs; we're on the Spanish border
David Braconnier; first counselor
The hike begins. We are headed to a 12-century
Chateau near the French/Spanish border
Moss-covered wall all along the hike up.
Rocks all hand-carried to make the pathway up.
Part of the Castle/Fort remains
Chateau remains; cloud-covered day
Maggie
Medieval town nestled below Chateau remains
Marc and Richard Moulis, Elders Quorum President. We'd love to clone about 100 of him.
Energetic, fun, fun-loving and so involved in people's lives, helping all the way.
Lili
Two bikers from Spain that we met.
They rode up, too steep to ride down.
David, Maël and Adele
Above, remains of moat surrounding castle
The moat goes the entire way around the mountain
Lili above, Naom below
Picnic
Back to Amelie's after the hike..family plaque says:
We love, we have fun, if you make a mistake try again, we are thankful,
we are forgiving, we give ourselves another chance, we try...always,
we dream, we are honest, we are united
we are forgiving, we give ourselves another chance, we try...always,
we dream, we are honest, we are united
Amelie has PERSONALITY!
She loves fun-loving yellow; new art and old art
Maël
Comments
Post a Comment