A tearful week; our replacement; wrapping up; Collioure

Our Church week—Marc was released as Branch President this Sunday. (AKA, official changing of the guard.) This is the beauty of the Church: that all serve as volunteers in the capacity that is needed at the time and via revelation. There are no elections or “campaigning”. We are asked to fill assignments. One can literally be President of the Branch one day and be asked to work in the Nursery with the 18-month-3 year olds the next. Position is not important; we are asked to each cheerfully go about doing good and to the best of our ability serving in whatever capacity is needed. They need us….BUT we need them much more.

It is the simple but pure act of service that changes us and brings true happiness and joy. There’s no monetary recompense, no certificate of “graduation” no promotion, no temporal accolades; the recompense is joy and done out of love. This has been an incredibly fulfilling 18 months to be able to serve others in whatever their needs are. It’s the chance of a lifetime to be without most of our earthly, temporal cares. Yes we still have our home; but we don’t think about it much in terms of missing our material possessions.

We’ve had challenges here; we wouldn’t be honest if we said there were none. Certainly we’ve not mastered the language. But music and love are universal and cross the language barriers going beyond what verbal language can convey. We’ve come upon some cultural differences, different philosophies in government that prove challenging, different attitudes about work, challenging and life-threatening illnesses, the death of a spouse among us, fatigue and the like.

We teach religion in a highly secularized country—how’s that for challenging? It’s the law and every French person will tell you so; they are also not shy about doing so. But amidst that climate, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is growing and now has its own temple in Paris as of 2 years ago. So we keep on however upward the climb seems.

But it all pales in our Sunday worship time together when we take that Holy Sacrament together. We LOVE Sundays, French style—where you commune together spiritually remembering our Savior Jesus Christ, where you study and learn about doctrine together in Sunday School and then when you stay for hours afterwards and visit—ministering to each other; sharing joys, challenges, sorrows and trials together, greeting and departing with the traditional French greeting. Oh, how we will miss that greeting, all of it and what it represents.

Being on a teaching appointment with the teaching Missionaries is another unbeatable, absolute favorite time in all of what we do and we were with the Missionaries twice this week doing just that.

President Toulouse—and his wife Brigitte, who happen to be from Toulouse are now the next couple to serve in the Tarbes Branch. Brigitte was just released as the Stake Relief Society President; she is super organized, soft-spoken and very wise. President Toulouse used to be our High Councilman who cared for our Branch each month, coming to visit, give a talk that Sunday and encourage us along. There couldn’t be a more perfect fit.

They will drive 2 hours, one way each Sunday. They have special permission from our Mission President to use our apartment to stay Saturday nights until another missionary comes or it is closed down. So they came over for another 3 hours after the customary meal we prepared for those returning to Toulouse and for the extended family of the Toulouse couple. We reviewed operations of the chapel, idiosyncrasies in our own apartment and reviewed each member and their family so they could know them better and we reviewed each program within the Branch. We know our little flock is in great hands. They are insightful and ready to roll up their sleeves. After their long day—2 hr drive here…arriving earlier than normal at church, 2hrs of church, 3+ hrs of a meal and church business, 3 hrs visiting with us….they will drive home another 2hrs. Are you convinced they are dedicated? These are their “retirement” years and they choose to spend it helping others. Tears well up as we write.

Relief Society—is the women’s group at Church. After Church, they gave Meg yet another surprise “gouté” a beautiful necklace (2 interlocking ovals showing our connection to each other) and French dark chocolate from an artisan, chocolatier. The French really have us beat there. They love the art and the finesse of the fine art of making breads, pastries and chocolate. They love to celebrate and converse about the smallest of nuances among chocolatiers or bakers. That is really French—conversing about it all, celebrating differences.

The Branch has been so appreciative of both our contributions, no matter how small it has been, it has meant the world to them. Nothing makes us happier than to know they are happy, filled and feeling well-loved.

One of our last trips to the Pyrenees—This was a joyous and a difficult day. Tears welled up and Meg cried her bucket of tears. Bottom line, we just aren’t ready to leave. We have grown to LOVE this region. It is incredibly beautiful, just beyond words to describe it. The pictures convey a lot but we wish you could hear the church bells toll when we take a picture, or the cow/sheep bells echo in the mountains as we get out to view the panoramic scene before us. Or feel the connection we feel to all of history in a medieval town still standing. It speaks volumes to sense your place in all of history and the incredible sense of community in these small villages. Some families have lived in the same region for centuries, not one or two centuries….but eight or nine. We hope to eek in another trip to our beloved Pyrenees.

Weather—106F in the SHADE outside our window! 53 departments in France were placed on alert this week—as in 2003 approximately 15,000 people died (mainly elderly) as the result of a heatwave. Temperatures in Paris with the heat index were 117F. They are just not equipped for these temperatures as they are so out of the ordinary. And the humidity….a hair’s thickness short of unbearable. Then and now, it’s the greenhouse effect making it life-threatening in buildings not equipped with A/C to cool the walls. France is not tropical, nor used to this kind of humidity. Our mountain had a murky, milky haze Thursday morning around 7am. It was the oddest feeling to see it “cottony” looking. We are used to it being fogged (kind of greyish) but never a white cloud hanging right there. Many times we see dark clouds brewing; but this was definitely a rare and much different occurrence. We’re not all the way through it but it should be waning.

We hear stories of people going to the stores and standing in the refrigerated aisles or leaving their freezer and refrigerators open to provide some relief. Our portable A/C collects about 1 gallon of water every 2 hours. We have to make sure we are paying attention or it overflows and we have water all over our floor.

The packing—We’ve started washing all our winter wool items. Yes, we’ve had to wait this long. It snowed last week, just before the heat wave. Crazy weather and hard to know how to dress. The challenge is that we came in winter, meaning we had our heavy long winter wool coats, wool sweater, boots, scarves, hat and gloves on. But now it has to fit back in the suitcase since we will be wearing summer weather clothing. Quite the challenge. We haven’t bought much at all here, but we have a few mementos to bring back. Plus our carry-on is weighed coming out of France, unlike the US that does not weigh your carry-on. So we put in all our books and church materials we brought along in our carry-on.

Next week we will be traveling and likely writing less as we wind down. We’ll still send some pictures of towns we haven’t posted yet. Maybe we should have worked for the Tourism Department of FranceJ

Town of the week—Collioure, a beautiful and strategic Medieval town located on France’s Mediterranean Coast. Collioure has quite the long, back and forth history due to its desirable location. It is Catalan, previously Spanish occupied and presently with the Catalan language posted on all signs alongside French. Interestingly, Catalan language in reality is closer to French than Spanish. It is still widely spoken. There is a separate Book of Mormon in Catalan. One can “get around” knowing French/Spanish but there are also enough differences that can make Catalan challenging.

A la prochaine.

Marc and President Depuydt

We put on a luncheon for all our travellers from Toulouse

The women's organization (The Relief Society) honoring Meg

Our Branch Clerk, Stake President and Stake Clerk working on removing Marc from his position. There was a glitch in the system which would not accept the change, so although released, he is still President of the Branch on the books until that issue is resolved.

Marc, Louise, and Meg on a visit this week. Louise has a new hairdo

Elder Church and Anne's cat

Views from our apartment

It was more than hot this week. 106 degrees in the shade

A sign of the area soccer team. We are south of Perpignan after another apartment inspection - in Catalan country as you can see from the colors. The yellow and red bars represent Crown of Aragon