Second time is a charm; Fall in France

Our Church week—the highlight was that Marcel was baptized on Tuesday at his family home in their above ground pool. Normally we would go to Pau, 30 minutes to our West, but it is 1h 30 minutes for many of our members who live yet farther to our East. Since the family are members of The Church, they can baptize at in a pool as our other 2 families did in this summer. Marcel is 8 and had the memorable occasion to be baptized in frigid waters…. twice…we might add. His toe came out of the water and so the baptism needed to be re-done: Since baptism is a symbol of burial then resurrection, the whole body needs to submerse. But, alas, he was a good sport and will remember his special day doubly so we imagine.

Marcel chose friends and cousins to do the opening and closing prayers and the talks given at a baptism—one about Baptism, the other about the Gift of the Holy Ghost which is received after baptism. His family came in to join him on his special day. And we’ll remind you, THIS IS FRANCE. It is an event lasting the whole day. Family was already in and Marcel and his Father were already in white since morning. We arrived with the young Missionaries just after 1pm, the Baptism was at 3pm and we left around 7pm with others still staying on. Round 2 (dinner) would soon begin. Remember, THIS IS FRANCE and dinner is 2-2 ½ hours. Visiting after dinner might go on well into the night after that. Friends, family, neighbors and even the Pizza Man down the street came. The Elders stayed another few hours to visit with those who might have questions and talk to the pizza man. An eventful and memorable day.

As for Meg, she had her second talk to prepare and practice, practice, practice umpteen times to be able to deliver it in French. The upside is that everyone was so gracious to hear the talk—flaws and all—in their native French….well American-accented, partially correct French. As Marc says, as long as it’s French that comes out, it’s a good day. Meg slips into Spanish on occasion. Somehow the brain is wired to just goes to the “foreign language department” and retrieves the first foreign word that comes out. It can be a hindrance. The downside? Google Translate did a lot of the “work” and now they think she speaks…and understands….the French she was able to deliver. Not true! But they love us for trying and we love them for being SO gracious and understanding as we try not to butcher their beautiful and fully-expressive language. This is France….remember? They are masters at conversation and they see it as an art to converse eloquently—after all they spend hours a day conversing at the dinner table and the local café. With both lunch and dinner lasting 2-2 ½ hours a day, need we say more? If you have company over.....

On a mealtime side note, our landlord came yesterday to repair a few things, 1 thing in the kitchen. He was going to come at 3pm but showed up at 2:30 (the end of the French lunch hour). We thought we’d grab a bite before he arrived and were still eating when he arrived. He asked if that was the “American hour” to eat. We explained that there’s no “set hour,” that we eat when we are hungry and it varies from family to family. He’s an educated man, the friendliest and most conscientious landlord we have ever had; but that was a very foreign concept for him. France has a very regimented, understood lunch and dinner hour. Lunch is 12-2:30; dinner begins at 7pm and onward. You can’t arrive at a restaurant at 2:30 (sometimes 2pm) and expect food; the kitchen is closed. A VERY few restaurants will serve food after those hours; they are the exception, not the rule. You can have a drink at any time, but to “manger” (eat) is at specified hours and throughout France. Some major cities have accommodated but food and conversation are strongly linked here: it is centuries old so it’s not likely going too far too fast. Bottom line is that if you do not eat by 2pm, you are going to wait until 7pm for a meal.

The rest of our church week was preparing food for the baptism for Tuesday and then the “repas” for Sunday. Naturally catching up with things that Marc could not do remotely while we were traveling. He can do so much remotely which is a blessing. Right now, there are a lot of administrative items needing addressing now that we have some new adjustments beginning in January. Our Elders were in transit 36 hours going and coming to Switzerland and when they returned, their shower head had broken. So we took care of that; they definitely wanted (and deserved) a hot and working shower We planned on making some visits but so many are sick and Marc is sick with a bad cold/possibly flu as well. Meg had a milder case about 10 days ago; fortunately Marc’s bug is not the same strength, knock-down drag out flu he had in February. At least so far. Everything pales in comparison to that month he just totally missed out on. We didn’t want to share our germs so we will resume that next week.

Another aside--In France, you go to the Pharmacy to obtain a flu shot. They give you the vaccine then you take it to your Doctor to administer it. Knowing how sick Marc was last winter, even with the flu shot, we knew we did not want a repeat of that. So last week while still in France and before entering Switzerland we were going to buy our shots and take them with us to Switzerland and have the Mission Nurse administer the shot. We emailed her in advance and she said, "Sure thing." But when we got the Pharmacy, they said the shot had to be refrigerated up to an hour before administering it. It would take us 1 ½ hours to drive to our destination and we weren’t sure with all the anticipated leaders arriving if we would be able to find them easily and before the conference. Long and short of it, no shot this go round. We’ll try again in 2 weeks when we go to Toulouse. Our fingers--and toes--are crossed until then.

Summer, fall, summer, fall, Indian summer….WINTER—just like that. No wonder everyone here is sick. Many missed church; cashiers are sick, people on the street and everywhere you turn it seems. We are 0 degrees Celsius this afternoon, after it warmed up a bit. 0 degrees Celsius is 32F and true to form, there was snow in the mountains and at higher elevations. We can’t see “our” mountain at the end of our street. Nor can we see the Pyrenees Mt Range today to see how much has been covered. The mountains are still “making” weather and are hidden under their own cloak of dark clouds.

A friend was in Nice last weekend enjoying the beach and short-sleeves weather along with anyone else on the French Riveria. Somehow we had their same weather pattern and got VERY spoiled, thinking this isn’t soooooo bad. But today it is icy cold, winter temperatures and our blood is still thickening up, literally. We should be all set by this winter’s end. C’est la vie. We’re commenting rather than complaining even though this is the talk of the town. No one was prepared to go directly into winter with less than 2 days of transitional fall temperatures. We hope fall will be back before winter really sets in.

Nevertheless….we had a BEAUTIFUL fall with many side trips through the mountains. We have traversed Southwestern France 5 times back and forth these past few weeks, then went to Central France (Lyon) and back over to Switzerland and back. We’ll go to the Atlantic side again next week, back to Toulouse again the following week, then head back to the Mediterranean side to Carcassonne. Then we should be done traveling extensively for a while, we think. In a few months we’ll start traveling again but not nearly as far and widely.

It was a beautiful time of year to “have” to travel. As for fall leaves, France doesn’t seem to have the sugar maples that the North East in the US or Canada; but we saw many beautiful trees and leaves of other varieties in incredible gorges, mountain passes and quaint villages. We just can't say it enough; this is one beautiful and diverse country. Anytime we could, we took the off-highway roads leading us through deep, deep gorges (next week's blog), way up and down the Alps through high pasture lands and passes that will close very soon. With snow here last night in the Pyrenees Mountains, we imagine it will be very, very soon. Some roads were one lane wide but shared by both directions. The numerous switchbacks had us in a rhythmic "skiing motion" both down and up mountain bases that are enormous in size. The Alps are an entirely different geological formation than the Pyrenees. And think rugged, robust, enduring and times it by 10.

So, fall in France.

A la prochaine.