Summer-Fall-Summer; Biarritz and Bayonne

- September 30, 2018

Our Church Week—We went from our new normal attendance of 40-46 to a plummeted low of 23 this week. We were very saddened as we were gone this week on travel for some meetings and an apartment inspection. But we just learned tonight 2 empty-nesters were on vacation and they bring 2 others to church with them; our family of 6 who lives an hour away was at home as their youngest son just broke his leg and was in a full-leg cast; our investigator was out of town; 1 was sick, 1 is still in Switzerland and we of course were gone. That’s 15! It’s very noticeable when just one person is gone.

The meetings we had with our stake présidency (the next level up from a Bishop or Branch Président) were all helpful and we are already looking at our goals for 2019. That really reminds us that 2019 is not all that far off. We have the semi-annual General Conference (Talks by the leaders of the church) next week; the following week our Stake President visits our Branch; the week after that we travel to Lyon, 8 hours to our East; then the week after that we travel to Geneva, Switzerland for an Area Conference with one of the apostles of the church; suddenly it will be November. For us, November marks our half-way point. Where does the time go? French time goes by just as quickly as State-side timeJ Like our hymn states: Time flies on wings of lightening; we cannot call it back. C’est vrai. (It’s true.)

Summer turned to Fall—At the beginning of the week, it seemed Indian Summer was going to be very short this year. Secretly we wanted it to last several weeks, perhaps low 80s if we had a say in the matter. We went from 2 days in the high 80s, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky weather but woke up Monday morning to that wet sound of cars driving on our street. We said simultaneously before our feet hit the rug, it must have rained last night. By Tuesday and Wednesday, it was rainy, damp weather in the low 50s. That’s quite a drop in temperature, almost 40 degrees. Several have on boots, jackets, scarves and umbrellas are out. We were thinking this was our introduction to fall. But by Thursday, we were back to a warm, balmy and sunny fall day. It’s Sunday and still holding as a warm, fall day.

Elder Wolfgramm—With a missing button from his favorite pants and a sewing kit that hadn’t been opened yet, Elder Wolfgramm asked Meg to teach him how to sew. Meg likes to sew, so that was right up her alley. It’s hard to refine those fine motor skills in one button-sewing session when his hands are more used to throwing a football or bouncing a basketball. But he was a motivated student and his first try at sewing was very impressive. We got plenty of light, learned how to find the biggest eye on the biggest needle available and learned how to thread those teeny, tiny eyes. It was amusing to watch him approach his pants on the table while he was sewing that first stitch through the button as if he was ready to hike a football. But it worked. He was a great student and eager to learn. And he was SO proud of himself afterwards. That was worth every minute!!

Street names in France—We have creative street names in the US—everything from numbered grid systems, directional streets showing N,S,E,W tree-named streets, some historically named streets, Main Street, vicinity-based streets and crazy-named streets. In France, street names are after famous people, historical events, battles, authors and the like. We live on Victor Hugo. We have to be careful when we plug it in the Maps App and be SURE it says Tarbes in our Maps App as there is a Victor Hugo in every surrounding town it seems and if we’re not careful, we’ll be in the wrong town combing the streets trying to find “home.”

Airbus—The other day we saw two airbuses fly across our backyard horizon, in Tarbes! It was either just preparing to land or had just taken off as it was very low in the sky. It looked heavy, more like a blimp. It was immediately identifiable as an airbus, even though we’ve not seen one before, because it looked like a bus trying to stay afloat and plow through the sky. If reminded us of a white Beluga Whale. We google it, only to find out many are painted……just like a Beluga Whale. The Airbus is in Toulouse, 2 hours to our northeast.

Even though we were in Carcassonne this week for our meetings, we’ll have to delay those pictures as with the travel time has gobbled up the time needed to upload our photos this week. So we will show a few pictures from Bayonne and Biarritz which is Basque Country where we were doing inspections of the Elder's apartment. It will just be the seaside pictures with the other regional pictures another week. Basque Country has a very specific region-specific architectural style that we’ll share another week. We’re never short on picturesJ

A la prochaine!