Happy Thanksgiving; Lastours

Our Church Week—Where did the week go?  Between last Sunday and this, we decided we would have a Thanksgiving meal for the Branch here in France.  We were back and forth on whether or not we could pull this off with all our traveling and before Elder Templeton would leave today.  While we were on travel assignment and a meeting for Marc, we made our list and placed the order for some specialty items.  Then we drove home Saturday night, quickly unpacked and made up a to-do list and help we would need from the Branch.

We weren’t up to all home-made items as in pumpkins vs the canned variety and home-made stuffing vs the boxed stuffing.  We just don’t have enough hours in our week, not to mention our Barbie-sized oven and half-sized refrigerator/freezer. 

Fortunately a previous Senior Missionary couple serving here prior gave us countless and valuable tips before we came.  One of those tips was the American Market.  We were able to order pumpkin, stuffing, and several other goodies from the American Market in Toulouse.  It used to be a store, but they now operate without a storefront.  Shipping was VERY reasonable and quick.  Just to give you an idea, at the American Store a can of pumpkin is $4; from Amazon, it was $68….and that did not include shipping. 

Meg came up with a food assignment list to hand out at Relief Society (women’s group) last Sunday.  We decided to prepare for 40 people.  She printed off some pictures to show what Thanksgiving looked like and how the spread of food appears. Here in France, they do meals in courses; so this was new to have everything on the table at once. But a picture is worth a thousand words and it did the job.  Did they ever come through in a VERY big way!!  And what incredible enthusiasm!  Our numbers are so few.  But talk about pulling their weight and then some, we just don’t have the words to express our gratitude and amazement; we stand in awe at assignments they were willing to take on without really knowing what the dish was in the first place.  They were such good sports and oh, so willing.

We made visits this week to several homes delivering ingredients for Thanksgiving recipes.  One wanted to make the dinner rolls and did a dry run.  But the yeast did not rise.  So she called us over to help.  This is what life is made of and we LOVE what we are doing….helping the one be successful at whatever it is.  Sometimes it’s spiritual in nature; other times it’s temporal.  We are in “baguette” country which is a salt-based bread.  She had cut the sugar in half, thinking what bread has that much sugar in it?  We explained the sugar is needed to make the yeast grow and rise.  Unconvinced, we got out a video and showed her that some breads really do have a bit of sugar.  It’s fun to cross the cultural lines and learn how something (like bread) can be seen so differently.  So off she went, putting sugar….in bread, of all things.  The bread was a hit, not a crumb left.

We took on the sweet potato casseroles (a big hit!), cranberry sauce, apple cider, stuffing and turkey gravy (aka as “sauce” in France).  You can’t buy fresh cranberries in France so we had to get creative and reconstitute some dried cranberries with orange juice.  Meg’s recipe uses cherry Jell-o….no Jell-O in France.  So we used gelatin…..which comes in transparent sheets.  Then we had to make evaporated milk for the pumpkin pies and deliver that to our pumpkin pie maker.  What would we do without YouTube? 

All said and done, we had the most wonderful Thanksgiving meal.  But the prize goes to the people—we just loved hearing all the hustle and bustle of passing the dishes this way or that.  And they liked going around the table sharing what they are grateful for. 

The spirit of gratitude filled the room and as always seems to happen at Thanksgiving we laughed at how much we ate while we laughed and enjoyed each other and all those sweet and savory dishes.  We had 42 people  at the meal which is a good size group for us.   Yummy.

Lastours—Marc’s last meeting took us back to Carcassonne.  Knowing we’d have to spend the night because of distance, we re-arranged our preparation day back to back with his meeting so we could hike up to these castles (chateaux in French).  What always impresses us is how amazing a feat it is to build on such high ridges, not only the mere height of the castles, and how straight up they are; but how all the rock was transported up or carved out of the future foundations.  With the first mention of the castles in 1067, in less than 50 years, these castles will be 1,000 years old.  The town is in the process of applying for UNESCO World-Heritage status for the historic and cultural contributions of these castles. 

Each castled area is unique and is often defined by its surrounding geography.  What makes The Chateaux of Lastours unique is that it comprises 4 castles—3 are on one ridge and the 4^th overlooks the other 3.  The ridge is isolated by rock walls that go down to two rivers below, one on each side.  The ridge is 1300 ft by 165 ft wide and is an absolute engineering marvel and feat.  Even though they are 4 castles, they were one entity.  The wealth of the castles was from iron mines. 

We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!

A la prochaine!

The castles of Lastours

 Decorating for the Thanksgiving meal. Adding fresh leaves from the town park to the table for decoration

The table is decorated and the food is being placed on the table

 The table is decorated and the food is being placed on the table

 Everyone is enjoying an American Thanksgiving feast

 This was Elder Templeton's last day in Tarbes.  He departed from our Train/Bus station today for Lyon and will finish his mission Tuesday.  We will miss him greatly, as we miss all our Tarbes' missionaries

This was a surprise. Former Elder Palmer in the middle was visiting our Branch today from the United States with his wife; he was a missionary here in 1965 when the two twin brothers on each side of him were baptized.  The brother on the right is the former Branch President of Tarbes (for about 30 years). The brother to his left is currently in the Branch Presidency and a Sunday School instructor

This is an aerial view from the internet of the castles of Lastours

The area around Carcassonne had severe flooding.  We passed through some of it en-route.
Its devastating effects went on for miles on end.

Castle on hill above town of Lastours

Persimmons

Caves en-route to the castles

Chilly up there

Olives

Tight stairs, about 1 ft wide

Cyprus trees

Excavated belt buckle, 1238

Flood damage, whole foundation wall gone

EVERY town has a war monument, 2 World Wars fought on French soil

Vineyards changing color

Apparently this is also truffle country; an expensive delicacy (mushroom)

Dogs are used to hunt for truffles

The Cathar town of Minerve

Diorama depicting the time of the Cathars

Minerva

Marc and Elder Templeton